"Don't Cry for me Argentina!"

[Ailedhoo]

Understood.

 

[SamSniped]

I apologize most profusely for ever starting the Wars.

 

[Omega124]

SA LPs tend to be good. I meant that LPs, especially video LPs, are awful for Civilization V. The game does not lend itself very well to the format, and the only bearable LP I've found was Steam Train's epic failure at playing Brave New World.

I agree with Son, but want to expand on this post because he left the why out:

Steam Train only worked because A. they were horrendous at the game and B. They went out of their way to make jokes and be generally funny while filming. Game Grumps/Steam Train could do a LP of anything any make it entertaining, since that's literally their job. Hardly a fair comparison.

Video LPs of Civ tend to be boring because few try to be entertaining and no one at all edits them. Watching a guy play a game for four hours without cutting anything is bad, watching a guy play a game for four hours without cutting anything and not trying to entertain the viewers while doing so is even worse.

Text based LPs are much more passable since they take far less time to digest for the reader. Still, no one seems to try as hard on Civ 5 S&T to make interesting narratives or generally differentiate their games, and the few that try to be comedic tend to fall flat on their face. The main problem of pure gameplay stories is that there's literally nothing that makes them different from a game I can play myself. A game I can play myself will always be more interesting to me, and thus there is no reason to invest in most Civ 5 S&T. This is not helped because most players have the same goal: win. There's few self imposed challenges, few attempts of screwing around just for the sake of screwing around, and no soul. I can compare this to CKII, whose gameplay only stories tend to be more interesting, since there is no "winning" in that game. It's much easier to tell a story through the mechanics of the game alone. Although it was a narrative story, one of my favorite AARs (same thing as a LP) on the Pdox forums was a Zoroastrian patrician family in one of the merchant republics. Since that is not easily reproducible in a game without modding or severely breaking how the game is intended to play, that would be interesting to read in itself (the fact it was a well-written story in itself was just a bonus).

Now, compare all of that to narrative stories such as Princes of the Universe. When I read that, I'm not reading for the game, I'm reading primarily for the story based on the game. That's something I can't easily reproduce on my own, and therefore can capture my interest. In the same way, as I alluded to above, I don't watch Game Grumps/Steam Train for them playing the game, I watch it for the insane conversations they have while playing the game.

TL;DR: LPs for Civs don't work because there's nothing to them I can't get just by playing the game myself.

 

[SamSniped]

I agree with Son, but want to expand on this post because he left the why out:

Steam Train only worked because A. they were horrendous at the game and B. They went out of their way to make jokes and be generally funny while filming. Game Grumps/Steam Train could do a LP of anything any make it entertaining, since that's literally their job. Hardly a fair comparison.

Video LPs of Civ tend to be boring because few try to be entertaining and no one at all edits them. Watching a guy play a game for four hours without cutting anything is bad, watching a guy play a game for four hours without cutting anything and not trying to entertain the viewers while doing so is even worse.

Text based LPs are much more passable since they take far less time to digest for the reader. Still, no one seems to try as hard on Civ 5 S&T to make interesting narratives or generally differentiate their games, and the few that try to be comedic tend to fall flat on their face. The main problem of pure gameplay stories is that there's literally nothing that makes them different from a game I can play myself. A game I can play myself will always be more interesting to me, and thus there is no reason to invest in most Civ 5 S&T. This is not helped because most players have the same goal: win. There's few self imposed challenges, few attempts of screwing around just for the sake of screwing around, and no soul. I can compare this to CKII, whose gameplay only stories tend to be more interesting, since there is no "winning" in that game. It's much easier to tell a story through the mechanics of the game alone. Although it was a narrative story, one of my favorite AARs (same thing as a LP) on the Pdox forums was a Zoroastrian patrician family in one of the merchant republics. Since that is not easily reproducible in a game without modding or severely breaking how the game is intended to play, that would be interesting to read in itself (the fact it was a well-written story in itself was just a bonus).

Now, compare all of that to narrative stories such as Princes of the Universe. When I read that, I'm not reading for the game, I'm reading primarily for the story based on the game. That's something I can't easily reproduce on my own, and therefore can capture my interest. In the same way, as I alluded to above, I don't watch Game Grumps/Steam Train for them playing the game, I watch it for the insane conversations they have while playing the game.

TL;DR: LPs for Civs don't work because there's nothing to them I can't get just by playing the game myself.

Continuing where Megs left off with PotU, another great Civ4 S&T story, although it was left incomplete due to tech issues, was Hammer & Steel by Tycho. IMO it was one of the best stories I've ever read online, and it was barely even focused on the game itself. Worth a read, although we never do see the end.

 

[Mosher]

I apologize most profusely for ever starting the Wars.

Yoshiegg started it

Lets Plays are the worst thing to happen to Civilization storytelling since the Parrot Wars.

never ever bring the unspeakable up again

 

[W|M]

I loved the parrot wars.

 

[Sonereal]

On the flip side, CivV S&T actually does have a small, but vibrant community of IAAR players. If not for the fact I don't frequent that forum enough, I would probably play those a lot more.

So maybe I am a tad hard on VidLPers. I'm sure there are other LPs that are fun to watch and informative, but after trying and failing to get into too many of the droll ones, I tend to paint the genre with a single brush.

There are also amazing stories in CivV, such as Helming's Civilization, for those who always will prefer classical text to tell a story. Still, not every story can be POTU or Philosopher Kings or Hammeer and Steel. Those stories were written by very exceptional writers that you simply don't see on the web often. CFC, being a large website, is the reason why we have a larger selection of incredible writers.

With that being said, I can personally say as a GM that many of you have gotten better at writing RP, and that I've seen that progress over time. Most of you, of course, aren't planning on being professional writers, but the care and effort you put into what you do is what makes me enjoy reading this community and NES.

 

[Civ'ed]

Yoshiegg started it

I'm pretty sure I was part of the reason why it grew out of hand though.
Then again i'm probably just overestimating my importance.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I got 18 votes for my IAAR idea, and since it's almost New Years' Day and I'm impatient, I'm calling the poll.

Italy - 8
Germany - 6
Scandinavia - 4

After preference votes:

Italy - 10
Germany - 8

Tight race but we have a winner. All glory to Italia. I'll get the initial stats up and running and get a formal signup thread operational soon.

 

[dragonprobably]

Help a noob out, what were the Parrot Wars?

 

[hoplitejoe]

It isn't worth knowing.

 

[W|M]

We kept posting pictures of parrots and ended up with disembowelled parrots everywhere here, mostly

 

[filli_noctus]

I pretty much bailed from CivV S&T once the mods decided to dump LPs in there without consulting the community at the time (they were previously in the Civ V strategy forum and after the change I discovered they had been consulted on the move). It was never an active forum but there were stories regularly posted and several IAARs, once the LPs came they drowned out everything else so now there seems to be one new story every three months and maybe two IAARs a year. Maybe I should start a petition to get rid of the bloody things....

 

[Tani Coyote]

D'oh. I forgot to link the signup thread. Here it is!

Don't be afraid if someone else has claimed a city already; you can still be based out of it, you'll just be competing for the dominant share in it. Cagliari is the last city without any claimants.

The more the merrier!

 

[dragonprobably]

So guys, I'm making a Civ III mod based off of one of SonicTH's IOTs.

Here's a link.

Here's a link to the thread.

 

[hoplitejoe]

Looks cool, shame it isn't for the best civ

 

[NedimNapoleon]

Civ Revolution?

 

[Ailedhoo]

There had been jokes of a Civ 4 or 5 mod, base off IOT.

We even talked about what music to have if it were the former especially.

If you do consider a IOT mod the idea was for civs (and leaders) based on the posters. Hence Tails getting creative/industrious, Thor philosopher/creative, Sonereal charismatic/expansionist, and so on...

I would recommend philosopher/industrious for myself.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

I, like, really need to take another stab at the Freeciv mod I started when I suspended The Aftermath.

Spoiler :

I mean, if I can actually code three separate terrain sets for contamination levels...

Spoiler :

 

[hoplitejoe]

There had been jokes of a Civ 4 or 5 mod, base off IOT.

There was one for S&T, I even have a version of it somewhere.