[Feedback] What Is Truly Wrong With The Media Team

[Coaster 2086]

I guarantee footage of massive pvp battles with 150+ players like the Battle for the Dreadfort get the server much more traffic, applicants, and garner more interest then a 2 minute "LoTC with me" video or a fly by of some town which requires no more effort then pressing f1 and flying over someones build. The Media Teams problem is not that they are human, or flawed or whatever, it's that they try to cater to the already existing playerbase instead of reaching out to new bloods on youtube with **** that will actually catch their damn attention (I.E BIG PVP BATTLES, COOL RP EVENTS [aka not ******* weddings and tavern bullshit]) 

 

idk

[Cyndikate 2303]

Stop with the LOTC-BC news and start promoting and bringing new players in.

[Lago 2572]

MT Member A produces 12 units of work.
MT Member B produces 2 units of work.

MT Member C produces 5 units of work.

MT Member D produces 3 units of work.

MT Member E produces 1 units of work.

MT Member F produces 7 units of work.

 

Together, they produce 30 units of work.

It is decided by MT Leader that to stay on the Media Team, one must produce at least 5 units of work, and purges all slackers. B, D and E are fired.
 

MT Member A produces 12 units of work.

MT Member C produces 5 units of work.

MT Member F produces 7 units of work.

Together, they produce 24 units of work.

[TeaLulu 1783]

Suggestions rather than any critiques, everybody gave enough of those, note i have no idea how you work right now but if you already follow this process you're doing it wrong:

1) Divide the Media Team into smaller teams based on their skills; You do NOT need a team ENTIRELY made up of people with great recording software, or great video editting software. You need a variation. You need people who can generate ideas, write scripts, dialogue, people who can record, people who can edit videos, and people who can record quality audio, and then people who can put it all together.  You do NOT need one person making an entire video by themselves. That guarantees lower quality and longer production times.

 

2) As the idea-generators and script-peeps do stuff, select the best and assign ACTIVE members to work on that. Work should be done in stages. 

So obviously it would go as such:
Stage 1: Script-peeps generate a script for a video based off an Idea.
Stage 2a: People with beast machines get to recording scenes for this or generating posed images, etc. (Its easy to pose characters to a specific backdrop in any 3d rendering program). These people need to be using uniform texture/shader packs so their different scenes can work together fluently and it looks like the same person shot it all (if multiple people work on a project.).

Stage 2b: If its a trailer, action scene, lore-based video or otherwise, you CAN have builders make specialty scenes for that on creative or a private server! Such as if you wanted to do a video about the Elves, or Laurelin, you could create a forest to use for those purposes. 

Stage 3: Editors piece the scenes together, maybe going back to stage three to get more or different shots.
Stage 4: Record dialogue, if any. There does not need to be any. If its a short trailer video it could go off music and fade-in fade-out words alone. 
Stage 5: Final production and release, once again done by editors.

Once someone finishes their work on one stage of a project, they can move on to work on that stage for another different project; Once a script is written obviously those writers can still be available for edits or re-writes, but they should also move onto working on new scripts for a new video. Note: Script doesn't mean writing just dialogue. It means planning out the majority of what should be in the video with descriptions and a theme.

 

3) Videos should fall into three categories in general:
Trailer based (Light dialogue, short videos to garner interest in the server.)
Event based (Videos recorded during in-game events, aka wars, antags, etc. These can be released early, then editted and re-released later with some specialty scenes added in to help elucidate on what lead up to that event. Humans attacking Orcs? Releasing the recording first, then take scenes from that and custom-made scenes of the before and after and edit it together to create a story based on a real event.)
Story or lore based (Videos based on LoTC lore or storylines: Such as videos about specific races, about specific lands like Aegis or Asulon, about specific groups, about specific antags, etc.)

4) Time limits on stages. If a team member doesn't complete the work they signed up for on time (or doesn't volunteer for any work) they should be removed due to inactivity. Team work should be paramount.
 

5) Recruit some people with sexy european accents. Anybody seen Jorgen recently..?

 

[monkeypoacher 8055]

The MT does **** nothing besides a few silly creative projects. If they provided LoTC MEDIA it would be a different story. Players apparently have to make their own battle videos and RP event documentation because the MT just wants to make silly newsletters.

[Birdwhisperer 1174]

It was actually a recording of someone's wedding that first drew my attention to the server, then I joined after watching a few Let's Play videos. I think it would help the MT if they coordinated with the ET and recorded not only major battles, but actual RP events. Maybe get some voice actors to reenact it. Showcase the RP side of the RP server.

[MamaBearJade 2090]

The MT does **** nothing besides a few silly creative projects. If they provided LoTC MEDIA it would be a different story. Players apparently have to make their own battle videos and RP event documentation because the MT just wants to make silly newsletters.

Umm excuse me?

[mmat 7460]

The core issue is that they make boring shit instead of exciting shit. End of, really.

[Heff 2460]

Sometimes many of these videos can just portray awkwardness and embarrassment. Take for example tie interview with the Scourge. One tip : Don't do voiceovers or voice acting. 

Otherwise start cranking out race trailers, a 4.0/Fringe trailer, a new trailer like the old one that brought goosebumps! TRAILERS TRAILERS NO VOICEOVERS

[Elindor 666]

Suggestions rather than any critiques, everybody gave enough of those, note i have no idea how you work right now but if you already follow this process you're doing it wrong:

1) Divide the Media Team into smaller teams based on their skills; 

Yes. I agree and some of this has already been done.

 

2) As the idea-generators and script-peeps do stuff, select the best and assign ACTIVE members to work on that. Work should be done in stages. 

That does tend to be how we do things yes. But  the sweatshop system is also a very de-motivating way to work with volunteers. It is functional but not sustainable, especially as most MT are young people who have their own creative ideas and their youthful enthusiasm makes them want to pursue those ideas rather than keep sewing buttons onto pockets.

 

 

3) Videos should fall into three categories in general:

Trailer based (Light dialogue, short videos to garner interest in the server.)

Event based (Videos recorded during in-game events, aka wars, antags, etc. 

Story or lore based (Videos based on LoTC lore or storylines:

 

I disagree that trailers are neither event nor story based. I also think that much of the community don't understand what the terminology "trailer" actually means, because when we make videos of upcoming things that is beraded for catering to the existing players, meanwhile videos about current events or places are just "boring". But if you are talking about setting down goals for delivery times then yes, there does need to be more top-down thought put into the intention of videos from a management point of view.

My personal view is that way too much content is too long and self indulgent.

4) Time limits on stages. If a team member doesn't complete the work they signed up for on time (or doesn't volunteer for any work) they should be removed due to inactivity. Team work should be paramount.

 

Once you have divided the team like you said in the first stage, this sort of thing could be micro-managed. Because other departments would be working to different schedules. 

 

5) Recruit some people with sexy european accents. Anybody seen Jorgen recently..?

I am Australian and I find many European accents un-appealing. Where all them Brits at?

 

[LaCabra (Soda) 1519]

I asked earlier but got no response, are any Media Team members talented at animating with Blender/other rendering programs?

[TeaLulu 1783]

By "trailer" Elindor I mean videos made specifically for the purpose of attracting new players. Usually short, one to two minute long. I don't mean to say they can't be event or story based(as a matter of fact i believe they would work best with elements of both) , but they should be primarily for the purpose of attracting outside attention. The other two categories, while they may also attract attention from outside, should be primarily for enjoyment by current LoTCers, aka something related to current events or stories or popular prior events.

[Emp 209]

I think I might give a lil’ hint at something that I’m working on, in the endeavour to ease your troubled minds somewhat. Thanks for your feedback and critiques, where they have been constructive, guys. I can tell you that I joined the MT with such in mind. Still, please know that there is a great deal more going on under the hood than you think. And sometimes projects have precedence over others, or must wait for certain resources to be ready.

 

Anyway, the project that I’m currently working on, with the assistance of others, is by no means the most important, but it is something that I’m steadily working at, at the moment, it’s completing and perfecting a screenplay, sourcing VAs, and assigning preemptive roles for all stages of the production. It’s not news; it’s not a trailer; it's not a battle; it’s something that I hope will cater to new players, and entertain existing ones.

 

However, even after pre-production, the IG setting needs to be ready, voice-actors need to be ready, practised and confident, and the whole product needs to be video/audio recorded and put together.

 

It’s simply something that requires a bit of time and effort.

Know that your feedback is being taken on-board.

 

- Good Quality

- Satisfying Length

- Timely Production

 

Pick two.

I find that there's an MT product for each combination.

[TeaLulu 1783]

I don't mean to piss on your work or anything, but if the feedback is being listened to why are you using medis team resources to make a screenplay with voiceover when its been said repeatedly that's not what people want? Thats like when the majority were saying they didn't want the news work anymore and it was announced that despite that feedback the newscast wasn't going anywhere. Its starting to feel like any feedback given is being ignored despite the many requests by the MT for feedback.

I am going to have to agree with Elindor that a lot of these projects seem fairly self indulgent. Yes we're young, creative people here on LoTC but that doesn't mean staff members can use their time on their own preferences as opposed to doing the duty they signed up for.

[Ventusyr 233]

I think what we need is trailers. We don't need individual experiences of events or news podcasts. Clips of battles and beautiful scenery and epic music are what attract people to LOTC, or any server, which are really the only audience that matters because the people who are on the server already experience what "LOTC With Me" or other videos show. Perhaps a film made on Minecraft with full voice-over and no text chat would be really really cool, but that would require you guys to work as a team and would take a lot of effort.