Bgee let's play with character interaction focus

Vidargavia

Hello!
I've long wanted to do this and now I am well excited I am! I'm starting a let's play of bgee focusing on character interaction.

I play as a chaotic neutral warrior who is plauged by her inner desire for power, and thorn by her upbringing giving her thirst for knowledge. Around her, it seems, people are fighting. It almost seems like conflicts deepen wherever she goes...

So, I would be thrilled if you check it out, here's the first episode: https://youtu.be/T_5mDYoIFDE

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Gallowglass

Well, okay, I've listened to the whole thing. Sorry to rain on your parade, but what a waste of my time! I now feel as if you owe me 27 minutes and 21 seconds of my life.

You speak English fairly well, but it's clearly not your native language (Swedish, maybe?), so if you're going to read the in-game text aloud, then it'd be better first to learn the obscurer words, some of which you mangled into quite different words with other meanings.

I don't recommend over-riding the supplied voice-overs by talking over them with your own voice-over, in a quite different accent and tone which conveys a different characterisation, especially not if your objective is to display "character interaction". Also, making viewers wait while you read the in-game narration text is pointlessly time-consuming, i.e. boring. So all in all, just shut up and let the game speak for itself when something in-game needs to be spoken. Confine your own voice-over to explaining your own decisions as a player.

It's not clear what your purpose in this "let's play" really is. You said it was "character interaction", but then you ignored and skipped over most of the character interaction available in the prologue, and inappropriate voice-overs ruined some of what little character interaction you did leave in, so this isn't actually a showcase of character interactions at all.

Furthermore, you're playing badly. Many differences in decisions can be attributed to personal preference, but such decisions as not even bothering to collect the loot available so as to afford more equipment and then not even bothering to equip your character with a helmet and shield (when she can wear both) are just plain bad play, not stylistic preference. (Or if you're actually role-playing a character who is deliberately badly-equipped for some reason, then that's the sort of thing which does call for you to explain the reason in your voice-over ... but no, you offer no explanation, so we can't assume that there's any other reason than simply bad play.)

All in all ... please don't bother uploading any more of this video series. Just go play the game however you enjoy playing, but there's no need to inflict pointless, lengthy, uninformative, badly-played, boring videos on other people.

Vidargavia

Wow mate! Well, I thank you for your feedback for sure, though I feels it's rather harsh in some cases.

It's true I don't focus on optimising, I feel it's not needed in the early game. So if this will irritate you, you should probably not watch.

I do voice when there is none in the game and when it's relevant, and yes, I do do accent or ways of speaking, I find it amusing that way. I'm no actor, to be sure, but I guess it's a matter of personal preference!

The focus is interraction between party members, and interesting non player characters, I don't feel the characters in Candlekeep are such, so I tried to move on.

I hope people continue to watch of course, though I suspect I lost one viewer right here

JoenSo

Yeah, I think you're really being too harsh here @Gallowglass . There are many Let's plays of Baldur's gate out there. Usually you can tell rather quickly if a certain playthrough is to your liking or not, and perhaps move on to another. Much better than telling people to stop posting their stuff which others may very well enjoy.

In this kind of game it is really hard to find a balance in how much of the dialogue you should "broadcast" to the viewers. Time consuming yes, but if your target audience is people who are unfamiliar with the game (which seems to be the case here) it might be necessary. At least to a degree. I think you'll find a better balance here as you keep playing @Vidargavia . Personally, I also liked the touch with you making the accents. It's the kind of thing that makes a let's play more unique.

I'm not that into Let's plays at all, so I won't be watching your playthrough very much unfortunately. But I really think you should continue!

Papa_Lou

Gallowglass said:

All in all ... please don't bother uploading any more of this video series. Just go play the game however you enjoy playing, but there's no need to inflict pointless, lengthy, uninformative, badly-played, boring videos on other people.

While I, like most people, can appreciate someone's opinion/criticism, I have to say that this last bit was a little too far. The guy clearly enjoys making these videos, and clearly also enjoys the game. No matter how bad you thought the final product was, I don't think there's ever a need to tell someone to just completely stop doing a hobby as harmless as this. There's a difference between criticism and just being plain rude.



Now, as for the video itself, I honestly think it's got potential. I work with video editing software on a daily basis at my job, so something as simple as a few jump cuts here would make a world of difference. Cut through the more boring parts, but keep in the important parts. Make sure that the final product flows nicely, while also removing any useless and/or boring parts of the gameplay.

Like, for example, and this is completely off the top of my head, when you grab Phlydia's book from the haystack, why not cut out the short walk from Dreppin to Phlydia? It may seem pointless to remove a few simple seconds from the video, but in the long run, it makes a ton of difference- especially to the audience. They would see the initial action of you grabbing the book, and then the interaction between you and Phlydia. The audience would understand that you've done the quest, and completed it, without having to watch the boring part of you walking past a few tutorial monks and a couple cows. Keeping the viewer's attention is important, and the more interesting things you can get done in a single video, the better.

As for the rest of the video, I think you did fine. Your english and pronunciation skills will definitely improve over time, especially since you're playing such a text-heavy game.

Like I said, shooting and editing video is how I make a living, so if you have any questions or need any help in that area, feel free to shoot me a message! I've also got a Youtube channel (though it has nothing to do with the BG games, so I won't post it here), so I subscribed to you.

Good luck with future videos my dude.

TheArtisan

I guess I should stop writing mods because I don't want to inflict pointless, lengthy, uninformative, badly-written, boring characters on other people.

Seriously, let the man do what pleases him.

Vidargavia

Thank you guys, especially @Papa_Lou for the suggestions of a few more cuts.

I certainly cut a lot in my other series, and yeah, I agree. My vision is less cuts and more "natural" gameplay, but I don't want to be boring!!! I'll experiment with it as the series goes.

You don't have to worry, I'm not about to stop the series btw in fact, I think there's a new episode up now.