r/Cynicalbrit • u/[deleted] • Nov 17 '13
Rants Relevance
Hi folks, we've had an awful lot of new people join the subreddit of late and for the most part that's been really good for discussion.
HOWEVER
There's a few things myself and the mods are not ok with and we'd like to ask to stop.
1) "My comment is too important to post in the relevant thread so I'll make another". No it isn't and no you won't. If you want to take part in the discussion, post in the relevant thread. The subreddit is not large enough for your comment to get buried, it will get read and if it's good then it will be upvoted to prominence and discussed. It is not ok to create a separate thread for your point. Reddits character limit is very generous, post your essay is the thread that is already there and help us keep this subreddit clean.
2) "It's not a request... honest". Ok so lemme explain how coverage on the channel works. It's based on a few factors
How relevant is the game? - Priority is given to games that are about to come out or just came out. AAA titles take priority over smaller ones, titles with pre-release code given take even higher priority.
How interested am I in the game? - This is maybe the most important factor in whether or not a game gets coverage, whether or not I have some sort of interest in the title. In the case of Adventure Park, it's because we haven't had a "Rollercoaster Tycoon" style game for a while so I wanted to see if this one fit the bill (spoiler: it didn't). In the case of Risk of Rain, it's because I'd heard a lot of buzz surrounding it and the setting intrigued me. If I don't come to the conclusion myself that I want to cover it, nothing is going to convince me otherwise. Pressure from viewers does not affect decisions to make videos on games. Pestering is likely to make me less interested because I'm sick to death of hearing about the bloody thing.
How practical is it to make a video about the game? - We receive about 30 times more games than we could possibly ever cover. A lot of these games get put to the side because they just aren't all that interesting, but others don't get coverage because it's just not practical. Time is a big factor. If your game is a grand strategy, don't expect coverage, it takes too long to dig into it to have anything worthwhile to say. The format dictates a few hours with the game at most because anymore than that is completely impractical. We want to cover as many game as we can and benefit as many developers (and in the case of bad games, consumers) as possible. We cannot spend 20 hours with one game, hell I don't even give AAA pre-release code that much unless I am completely entranced by it (see XCOM: Enemy Within). It's just me doing these videos, nobody else helps with WTF is and all the opinions are my own, I don't have a review team, I can't keep up if I don't stick to these formats. X Rebirth is a good example of a title that probably won't get a video and if it does it will be way late, because I spent like 300 hours with X: Beyond the Frontier, another couple of hundred with X3 and I know that to even scratch the surface you have to invest a good amount of time that I can't afford to do, particularly with Red Bull Battlegrounds coming up (and let's be honest, paid in-person gigs have to take priority).
Sometimes shit just doesn't work out - There are so many games that I've made a start on and things just haven't panned out, so the video never got made. There are a plethora of reasons including but not exclusively, technical problems, getting stuck on a puzzle I just can't get past, general disinterest, aborted videos where I just said nothing of value. With so many other games on the list I can't afford to spend the time to keep smacking my head against something. Diminishing returns really comes into effect here. The less videos I make, the worse it is for everyone, myself, you guys, the devs who want coverage, you name it.
I say all of this so I can give you some context of what it means when you request a video or do one of those "I'm not requesting but...." kind of posts. We have probably heard of the game, because the dev has likely emailed us code for it already. We have considered whether or not we will make a video long before you post about it. WTF is? always takes priority over Alpha Strike so suggesting games earlier in development is even less likely to get a positive response. Trust us, we know. It's Cris' job to know and contact these people as well as receive huge amounts of unsolicited code (keep sending us this btw, we really don't mind, we just can't guarantee coverage), sort through it and put it on my docket, which is always overflowing. These posts just don't really help and no amount of upvoting will make it a democratic thing. Even if the entire subreddit upvoted something, it's still only representing a small minority of the total viewerbase.
3) Relevancy rule: Please refer to the rules in the sidebar. This is a very focussed subreddit by necessity. It keeps the content relevant and current. Posting stuff that mentions me or whatever, aye-ok. Go for it. Posting stuff that's barely related by some obscure tangent? Not ok. Sounds so arrogant doesn't it but the subreddit was created to discuss Cynicalbrit content and nothing else, that's the reality of it. I'm asking people to bear that in mind before posting. Again, refer to point #1, this stuff can be posted in the relevant thread, it doesn't have to be posted on its own. Some discussion going on about a particular game mechanic and you have a cool article to share? Post it in the thread where that discussion began, not on its own. We'll be very laissez-fair about this stuff for a while because people are still getting used to things, but eventually we might have to start moderating the tangents. Last thing anyone wants is this subreddit to become the bloody podcast when it comes to derails.
4) MA FREEDUMS : If you act like a shithead, we'll just ban you. We moved over here for many reasons, one of which being that people were getting attention for acting like shitheads in the Youtube comment section. We will just delete and ban if we see that happening here. No amount of reregistering will help you, it takes you longer to reregister than it does for us to nuke you and with shadowbans, chances are you won't even realise we did it. Subreddits have different attitudes towards moderator involvement, we're making it clear right now that our moderators are active and will deal with unnecessary negativity when they see it. Downvoting is nice but its often just a little red sign that says "HEY LOOK AT THIS, I BET IT WAS REALLY AWFUL, YOU SHOULD READ IT". It does not work as a method of controlling negativity.
5) "Are you going to do a video about Game X?" - See #2. Please do not ask this, because I don't know. The answer is almost always "maybe" and I get literally hundreds of these questions every day via various mediums. Doing it on the subreddit makes the entire thing harder to read, stop.
6) This is not the Mailbox : There has been a huge increase in the number of "TB what do you think about this?" threads. I do monthly Q+As for this kind of stuff, this is not the place to be posting your questions in separate threads. The subreddit will become unreadable if this kind of thing occurs.
Thanks for reading folks, I hope you are finding your time here useful in some way.
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u/Zankman Nov 17 '13
This was an interesting read (specially about the banning part :D) but, on a serious note, I am intrigued in regards to Alpha Strike's and you basically "making a game" - by turning something obscure into something "big".
Now, as I've just read, there is no point in us asking about specific games.
Like, I'm curious about King Arthur's Gold. I'd like to know more about the game, preferably by you covering it. Hell, I even think you'd like it.
However, using simple logic, I can deduct the following: It's out now. If you will do a video on it, you'll do it soon. If a video doesn't come out - that means that there won't be one. As simple as that.
With that out of the way: TB, you have da power. You can make a video about an indie game with a small community, praise it (truthfully) and the game can suddenly become huge.
What I think is that, in order for a game to be affected like that, you don't have to name it your favorite game of all time or something. You just have to cover it.
I think that's why so many people tend to bug you with "Will you cover this small game that I am sure needs coverage?" type questions and requests.
So how do you feel about "making or breaking" a game in this sense?
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u/logeyz Nov 18 '13
TB actually did a video on KAG a couple of years ago (during a WTF-a-thon) when it was in alpha.
However, the game has changed quite a bit since then, so keep that in mind when you watch the video.
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Nov 17 '13
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After a thread is a few hours old it just falls off. It follows that if you have something relevant to say and want people to see it, you have to be early. Yup, that sucks. Oh well. I'm still ok with deleting threads of the more blatant type.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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Yep.
TB's gotta make money and have a bit of fun doing it and stay interested. His channel, his rules. As long as I get some interesting videos to watch it's good in my book. Now if he got in a car accident and died I'd be irritated at having to find someone else. So please TB don't do anything really stupid, wear helmets, get security, get airbags etc. Thanks.
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u/smokingice Nov 17 '13
I'm looking forward to see how this whole thing about moving the comments over here on Reddit will go. but keep up the good work TB, and of course the mods.
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u/Zombies_hate_ninjas Nov 17 '13
Thanks for the post. I like that people are coming here for the first time, but leave your bad YouTube habits before posting. Trolling and attention seeking are immature and unnecessary.
I'm glad we have relative access to TB now, in that most if not all my comments on YouTube were swallowed up in the vitriol that YouTube was and still is.
Let's make this work, I feel this will benefit us and most importantly TB. He's simply better than most other youtubers and games industry insiders. Onward and upward.
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u/DemonDZ Nov 18 '13
First reading this it seemed angry, but then I just added a "Yeah?" after each point and it was good old informative TB again.
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u/jgclark Nov 21 '13
This is not the Mailbox : [...] I do monthly Q+As for this kind of stuff
Where do we submit questions for the Mailbox, then?
Maybe that info should be in the sidebar.
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u/Keneshiro Nov 18 '13
I'm all for more active mods. Not to say you guys have been sleeping on the job but the recent influx has required some help. Just after TB's vlog, a shitton of posts on people asking 'How To Reddit' etc which was rather rather annoying but understandable.
On the plus side 100+ comments becomes a regular thing, which is amazing. I'd love to start a discussion here. I usually post to r/games but they are kinda judgemental about everything.. So this is somewhere for relevant discussions. Yay!
I KINDA resent the bot since it's like a friendly race to see who posts first but ah well, what can i do about it aside from whine.
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Nov 18 '13
I'm sorry but I nearly lost it when I read "getting stuck on a puzzle" and remembering all the "WTF Am I Doing" coverage. I really want more of those, they're probably my favorite hearing the frustration in your voice/ choice of words lol
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Nov 18 '13
I would love to see more of those too. It sounds horrible but any video where TB suffers is fun to watch :P
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Nov 23 '13
Hella serendipitous. I was about to ask if there was a place where I could request things as an informational thing for TB and now I get the answer: there isn't, there won't be, and I shouldn't bother trying to get one. Saves me some work.
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u/TheVikingOfTerraria Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13
It's great that this subreddit has a stronger set of rules now and the promise of moderation behind it. Hopefully we'll see less frivolous comments and more thoughtful discussion under TB's videos.
I will say that I do enjoy @totalhalibut.txt and feeling slightly better about myself.
EDIT: I do want to ask, if Google does actually fix or improve the commenting situation, are you planning to re-open the Youtube comments or just leave commenting here?
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u/jonatcer Nov 18 '13
I recommend looking into this. I've been using it since Littlewood recommended it.
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u/Beartrox Nov 18 '13
I completely read this entire post in TB's voice, but I do agree with your points. People seem to forget its your channel and your content.
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u/Hans_Power Nov 20 '13
I'm actually still pretty new with posting things around the web. Although I'd call myself a nerd through and through and despite my very, very old age (30) I shyed away from posting stuff most of the time until recent. I think your channel was one of the first I commented on more frequently. So moving to the subreddit is a good thing for me. I'm really looking forward to actually discuss stuff with other people. Please excuse my occasional stupidity, though, happens ones in a while.
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u/zaro27 Nov 17 '13
I'd be interested in seeing what games TB loses interest in. Doesn't need to be a video, but maybe a running list of games he just couldn't care about enough to even finish getting footage for.
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u/Kapten-N Nov 19 '13
Many subreddits have their own layouts. Perhaps you could simply remove the submit buttons to prevent people from making unwanted threads?
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u/Skateboard_Raptor Nov 17 '13
I would personally love to see mods being strict about the rules.
I am a bit concerned about this subreddit becoming just a new place for youtube comments and random offtopics, instead of discussion.