Communitoid Episode 001 - It Begins

[digtastik]

OK. So I dug it because you guys are all my peoples and I love you. There were some great bits. My thoughts:

- the length was longish, but once you guys sort through it, I imagine it will be condensed. I think most of that was the first hour of what did you do this week stuff.
- the break song was too long
- with it being a community podcast, interacting with the community certainly makes it more entertaining
- i know we all love the forums, and most of the 2 hours was forums centric. not that i'm complaining, but we are a single(albeit the best) part of the community. so i'd say more balance across the community, but if the rest of the community can't be as awesome as the forums, then I'm fine with that too
- i think it was an altogether nice intro to you guys and your personalities

[Victor]

I liked it. Still need to get used to your voices.

[ZombiePlatypus]

- i know we all love the forums, and most of the 2 hours was forums centric. not that i'm complaining, but we are a single(albeit the best) part of the community. so i'd say more balance across the community, but if the rest of the community can't be as awesome as the forums, then I'm fine with that too

I noticed that too but wasn't going to say anything because yeah...

Though perhaps the different "themes" or whatever can get pimped on the podcast, like the Artists Wanted and Bloggers Wanted stuff the main page does.

[Mighty Hatman]

I liked it. Still need to get used to your voices.

Racist.

[PappaDukes]

I had no idea Andy wasn't British!

[Aaron Mxy Yost]

OK. So I dug it because you guys are all my peoples and I love you. There were some great bits. My thoughts:

- the length was longish, but once you guys sort through it, I imagine it will be condensed. I think most of that was the first hour of what did you do this week stuff.
- the break song was too long
- with it being a community podcast, interacting with the community certainly makes it more entertaining
- i know we all love the forums, and most of the 2 hours was forums centric. not that i'm complaining, but we are a single(albeit the best) part of the community. so i'd say more balance across the community, but if the rest of the community can't be as awesome as the forums, then I'm fine with that too
- i think it was an altogether nice intro to you guys and your personalities

We're going to tighten up what we did this week, I think it seems longer than it actually is because of how we approached it. Serious question: is that something you guys want to even hear, or should we just dispense of it completely?

What's a good length for the break song? I can always fade out at a certain point. A minute 30 sound about right? More or less?

Part of the reason it's so forum centric is because threads offer us better topics for discussion. With cblogs we can tell you why we liked so and so's blog and sometimes it generates conversation, but open topics work much better for that. Plus, if we haven't all read the cblog ahead of time we get things like Bloodspray bringing up a SotC blog and being too tipsy to remember why exactly he liked it or who wrote it. That said, I definitely want to lean less on the forums and feature more cblogs, pimp stuff like Artist/Bloggers wanted topics, spend more time on community meet-up stuff, shout out other community podcasts, and definitely do more listener questions. I'd also like to feature more about the live streaming stuff, but unfortunately I work usually when that goes down so that slice of Dtoid is a mystery to me.

Please let us know what you want to see covered each week, whether it's specific threads, cblogs, or anything else! If you want to hear us talk about something in particular, send the link our way.

Thanks to everyone giving suggestions, they're a huge help! Keep them coming!

[ZombiePlatypus]

We're going to tighten up what we did this week, I think it seems longer than it actually is because of how we approached it. Serious question: is that something you guys want to even hear, or should we just dispense of it completely?

Personally, I think it can be nixed unless something "noteworthy" happened or if somebody has a story to go with whatever they've done. If it's just "I played X, watched X"... I just don't know what that matters to other listeners, but I know it doesn't matter much to me.

Though shitting on Zodiac's Big Bang indoctrination was very entertaining, so I guess my stance is pretty uneven.

[PappaDukes]

How else are you supposed to know what other cool people are playing and/or watching??

[Revuhlooshun]

I decided to take a listen while sick in bed. This was the first podcast I ever listened to, so this means we all share a very intimate bond that only I acknowledge until I realize I was roofied.

I think a better alternative to the "what media did you consume" topic would be to discuss newer games (or movies and television shows) that people don't know a lot about, that people are still looking for impressions and extra opinions on. Obviously there'll be times where nobody's seen the latest and greatest, but I think it'll be something people are more interested in and will help as a service to the community to help people decide where to spend their money.

[The Young Scot]

I want to be inside all of you.

Except for that Beccy person, whoever that is.

[Zodiac Eclipse]

People actually listened to this? I'm gonna need to drink more for the next one now that there is actual expectations.

[Revuhlooshun]

I heard that this was the most listened to podcast in all of Uzbekistan.

[Zodiac Eclipse]

Shout out to our Uzbekistan listeners.

[Ace Flibble]

Now iTunes has bothered to update and I've listened to it, 'constructive' criticism:
- Drop the break music and cut the intro way down. I can't remember the last time I heard a decent and/or successful podcast that had an intro run longer than 7 seconds and a break clip that lasted longer than 3. It interrupts the rhythm of conversation and it's wasted time; podcasts aren't radio, if you're listening to a podcast then you've got access to some sort of music-playing device at the same time anyway. You don't need to have music within, starting or ending the podcast. This is probably the only bit which particularly bugs me.
- Ideally, drop the break entirely. By all means have a rest from recording, but there's no particular reason to acknowledge it within the finished cast. You could simply, for example, wrap up the "what has everyone been playing/watching/reading/whatevs" segment, cut the recording there, then when you start again simply pick up from the start of the next bit and edit together so there's no actual gap. "Well if nobody's been playing anything else this week, [cut] let's move on to...". That sort of thing.
- A little more pace, direction and editing overall. Keeping it casual is cool - it's preferred to a stiff and stilted podcast - but there were several instances of dead air. Especially when you throw something open to everyone and nobody knows who should speak first. You could just pick one of any names and get right into it, or edit out the silence.
- Be more aware of mic positioning. There's a lot of "room noise" in the first half; echo, people fiddling with cords, etc. Keep mics close to your mouth, keep them steady (masking tape is invaluable) and mute if you've got to move something around. There's nothing worse in podcasts than someone talking and half their sentence being drowned out by someone else playing with their mic stand.
- While not vital to the quality of the cast, I would suggest that for the first two or three casts (including this first one, so up to the next one or one after that) you don't bring on guests, additional cast members, etc. It's just nice when a new podcasts starts with some stability (see: no Dtoid podcast ever). Get the core cast in place, then bring on the randoms.

That may look like a fair bit but that's mostly because I, funnily enough, lack the ability to be remotely concise; editing and direction is what it all boils down to.

Overall, really liked it. A much stronger start than most of the god-knows-how-many podcasts I've listened to and certainly a better start than any other Dtoid podcast.

7.5/10, totally worth a rental or purchasing after a price drop. Potential for the developers to knock it out of the park with the inevitable sequel or DLC.

[Jon Bloodspray]

Ace, some of the things you mentioned were already on top of, so know that your suggestions will be taken into consideration.

7.5/10, totally worth a rental or purchasing after a price drop. Potential for the developers to knock it out of the park with the inevitable sequel or DLC.

Along, with Panza saying "Pretty decent", I think that would look amazing on the season 1 box.

[Changston]

I'm listening to it now!

I like what I'm listening to so far as background music. I'm a little worried that if you get all the hosts on at once, you'll have 7 people on at once. I think it's doable, but that you shouldn't have any guests when everyone is attendance or it'll sound too busy.

Still listening, dumdeedoodoo.

[Changston]

Listened to the rest of it, and it's pretty good all around. My nitpicky thoughts:

- I like the idea of Masterspam Theatre, but given how long they can be, I think one is plenty per show. If you have two quick ones, that works too.

- There were some times when someone was introducing a new topic, other people jumped in before they fully explained what it was they were talking about. It took a minute or two for that person to actually say what it was and clue the listener in. I can't think of any concrete examples right now (since I was drunk baking cookies last night while listening), but it's always something to watch out for when you have lots of people engaged in conversation.

- I like having a song for the break, but I'd pick a clip of a song that's only about 30 seconds or so. I think it's a breath of fresh air.

- There's nice rapport among everyone, but I didn't like when Conor busted a nut on his Skype name being changed. I'm okay with reacting to the chatif it's relevant to the topic you're on or if there's some downtime, but I think it interrupted someone talking though and I got jumbled.

- Not related to recording the podcast, but I think it's really helpful to include a direct link to the podcast in the blog posts, rather than the Feeds or iTunes links. I listened through Mom's facebook link at first, and when I tried to find it later on Dtoid proper and Forums proper, I couldn't find it. Personal point of preference though.

- I thought Mxy's voice would be a lot more grizzled.

- Also, he should fuck his car fixing payments and hotwire a car to come to MAGfest.

Good job everyone, and looking forward to more!

[Aaron Mxy Yost]

The direct link was on the front page post, right? I'll go back and edit the cblog to include the direct link later on. In the future I'll make sure that gets included with everything.

Thanks Ace & Changston & everyone else for the feedback! We're tweaking a lot of things for episode two, and most of the stuff you guys mentioned are being considered.

Song breaks will definitely be shorted. I was thinking fading out at a minute but would people prefer 30-45 seconds? I like the song breaks because it's a good place for listeners to stop if they want to listen to the second half later, plus it gives people a chance hear something other than us talking and lets us showcase some of our favorite tunes.

Adam will be doing a condensed version of the opening (about half as long) so I can do a test edit to see if that works better.

Definitely focusing on keeping things tighter and moving more quickly next time, and trying to feature more on community stuff (less forums, more cblogs and other things). For the "what have we been doing" segment, we're considering trimming that down to only new stuff (things that came out in the last few months) or even cutting it completely and using Listener Questions to serve the "get to know us" purpose. What do you guys think about that?

I really liked using two spams for MasterSpam Theatre myself, thought it was a great length. Then again, Jo's voice has this Sauruman-like hypnotic effect when you hear it live. How did everyone else feel about it?

Right now we're looking at a bi-weekly release to make sure we have plenty of content to cover. That may change in the future depending on how things work on. Also we'll probably be a few shows in before we start doing community guests, want to make sure we've got the kinks ironed out first.

If anyone has ideas/suggestions for features you'd like to see and community stuff we should be promoting (plus more advice on how we can do better), hit us up!

[BadStar]

I enjoyed the "What are you up to?" section. Even if the answer is something that isn't timely (I'm playing Braid for the first time! etc.), some solid discussion could come out of it. Since you guys aren't trying to be a "videogame news" show, you shouldn't be limited to just talking about new releases and such. I'm sure most of us aren't playing the newest games anyway.

One other thing: I really dug Zodiac reading the spam email. Limiting it to one good one or two quick ones would be best, though.

[Changston]

I think 30-45 seconds is pretty good. A minute's stretching it. Whatever the chorus is in your song, that sort of length.