That sadly was painfully obvious. Personally I would love to see a video with a team that is well prepared. And I want to see it very soon. While I value the fact they used questions from the player base (like 10 Tina Small questions
) I am not sure this was too much fun for anyone. Petra and the others had to read out questions that they didn't really want to read out and that the team didn't really want to answer. No offense meant.
I would love to see a prepared show instead.
Ten minutes, right to the point. Perfect audio quality! With proper introductions of the people involved. Like "Hello everyone, My name is Bonnie a.k.a. Mesanna and I am the CEO of Broadsword and currently functioning as your producer of UO (if that is not true I hope you still get the point). Whenever she is on screen I want to see that summary "CEO / producer" as text on screen.
"Here comes our bi-monthly UO wrap-up review!"
About up to 5 or 10 pressing questions that have been distilled both by player participation and by current work of the team.
- Questions that really can be answered. If it's too difficult to talk about a tamer revamp - ok, then don't talk about it.
I fully understand UO is too complex to talk about just anything and fully unprepared.
There is no need to be unprepared imho.
In another thread you were being accused of answering like politicians. Well, I think this Q & A style video triggers this misconception. You are unprepared and have to face the weirdest questions ( I can say that because in a previous installment Petra had to read out one of my questions and I felt a lot of sympathy for them... they struggled to answer and it was really difficult to give a good answer. Let's say at least my question may be considered weird.).
- Prepare yourself.
- Be sure to have a good microphone and set up properly.
- I repeat - be sure to have a good microphone ready and set up properly.
- Also take heed to talk in a way non-native speakers from all over Europe will understand you. I don't say they were talking improperly, I can't say that really because audio was just too bad. In any case, once everyone got a good microphone please make sure to talk slowly and clearly.
- The bottom 10-20% of the screen could be reserved to show text - who is talking, where does the person belong to (Broadsword / Stratics / community editor / producer / ...) - and also show the topic you are talking about on screen as text.
I really don't want to talk you down. No, quite the opposite. I want to hear you properly, I want to see you properly (if possible). I want to hear you talk about facts and I want you to talk
with passion.
This Q & A style is too difficult to manage! The team is put under extreme stress! I think any team of developers would be put under stress with this format. My point is - that kind of stress is unnecessary. Noone is having fun! :-(
Relieve from this kind of stress is what our dev team needs.
I do like the idea of a video, but it all boils down to the misconception of this Q & A style. Let them prepare themselves, get good microphones, have the questions way in advance. Let them talk about questions they are passionate about and they can answer right now. I wouldn't want to be in their position - answering questions that can address just anything in UO.
To @Petra Fyde and the dev team - thanks for struggling so hard but you really don't need to put yourself under this kind of stress. Use prepared questions instead. Prepared statements. Record the video and make it a show instead. Five or ten minutes, right to the point. You will have more fun doing that, we will have more fun watching it. A lot of questions will be left unanswered, but that's ok. You can't answer them all.
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Please bear with me: I am not a native speaker. My text could be considered rude, but it wasn't meant to be. Instead I hope this will help you understand how to have more fun doing what you're doing.
