Spoiler Warning BS Session

By Shamus Posted Friday Jun 22, 2012

Filed under: Notices 145 comments

The plan for last night was to have 8 by Zombies begin at 11PM GMT and run for an hour-ish. Planning ahead, the cast met half an hour early so that we could subdue all of this wayward technology before the audience showed up. But people showed up and began watching while we were still setting up. And then it took an extra hour to get it all working.

Oops.

On the upside, I guess some of you got to see what an absolute clusterblog it is to get this thing working. We need to stream the low-res stream to the viewers, record the vent chat for later, use FRAPS to record the high-res video. Then there was the added challenge of letting the public hear the two sides of our 4 vs. 4 game, getting the game itself working with alltalk on so the teams could speak to one another… gah. We’ve been doing this for almost three years, and it just doesn’t get any easier.

On the upside, Chris kept his stream running after the game, and we sort of hung out with the audience in an unplanned after party. We talked to the folks in the chat room and everyone got to listen in on our usual post-game bull sessions.

Some of the stuff we discussed:

  1. We should do a podcast – Maybe. A podcast is kind of formal, requires some editing, some organization, and would basically be another Spoiler Warning level commitment for us. We’re willing, but we also discussed…
  2. Hangouts – Do we need to get all formal and do a proper iTunes/MP3 release with a fixed direction, clean audio, and all the boring crap edited out? Or would it be better to just do what we did last night, where one of us has a videogame feed rolling and we all hang out in the Livestream chat? The audience has an open chat feed, which we can read. We do voice chat, which you hear through the stream. It’s easy to set up, and it’s a lot more interactive since we can have a two-way conversation.
  3. A forum – I’ve been vacillating on this for years. I’m flattered that people like this site well enough to want to hang out here. On the other hand, I’m very wary of disturbing the community we’ve got. This place is polite and friendly. This is not an accident. This is a product of my secret moderation techniques. (Secret: Moderation is performed on basis of attitude, disposition, and communication skills. There’s no room for rules-lawyering because there are no posted rules.) This is the only system that makes sense to me and the only way I know how to run things. Would this work in a forum? Would I be able to keep up with the extra load? Would the forum eat into the discussion here on the blog? These are things that worry me.
  4. My archives and the general difficulty of finding things. I’m having this conversation a lot. A friend recently pointed out that a newcomer could arrive here, become a fan, and yet have no idea that I’ve written a book. Several, actually. This is a thing I am thinking about.
  5. Misc – The new Tomb Raider Trailer, Spy Party, Origin, Mass Effect 3, Livestream, Tera, Feminism, Left 4 Dead, Josh & Rutskarn meeting face-to-face, and a bunch of other stuff I’ve forgotten. The hangout lasted for about six hours after the game ended, so I can’t begin to remember it all.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by, participated, and hung out. Feel free to share your thoughts on any of the above, with the exception of Mass Effect 3. We’re about to cover that game, and I’d rather we not get sick of the topic before we even reach the New Game menu.

 


From The Archives:
 

145 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning BS Session

  1. anaphysik says:

    with the exception of Mass Effect 3. We're about to cover that game, and I'd rather we not get sick of the topic before we even reach the New Game menu.

    You mean you’ve not become sick of it already due to our discussions spilling over into any thread present? (Most notably, the ones in the Alan Wake SW eps.) Clearrrrrrly we’re not performing our duties as the rabbling crowd well enough.

    Unfortunately I missed the entire 8bZ run. Tried to tune in, but could never get audio/video to load on Ruts’ channel.

    1. newdarkcloud says:

      I’d say that looking back on all the Mass Effect discussions in the Alan Wake comments, we’re rabbling the crowd juuuuuuusssstttt fiiinnneee.

    2. RTBones says:

      I ended up over on Josh’s channel (which is where I had planned to be anyway.) Rut’s channel would let you in more readily, but had audio issues. Josh’s channel – once it got up and running – was pretty reliable (at least on my connection).

      I can also tell you that if the discussion during the ‘Spoiler Signal’ after party was any indication, the rabbled crowd is more than ready for the upcoming season and the ensuing discussion.

      EDIT: I should add – I found on Rut’s channel that if I had audio issues, a reload of the page would occasionally fix it.

  2. Jjkaybomb says:

    I don’t know if you guys should do a podcast/normal talky livestream. Watching the Rutskarn stream, I kind’ve liked the assurance that there is editing to Spoiler Warning, and you know what to keep and what to cut. Neither the pre-show nor the show itself felt like a lot of fun unedited. The pre-show felt unfocused until people started asking questions. And the show wasn’t a lot of fun, but maybe that was more the game choice. Most the banter was just ‘go here do this’ talk, and since the team was losing a lot… Man, that got painful to hear. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Shamus drop an F-Bomb before o.o;

    I like the direction and focus with Spoiler Warning. Even if you go off the beaten track and just start joking around, there’s always a main topic to return to, make fun of, or analyze. I don’t think a podcast or a livestream chat would be nearly as focused or as entertaining.

    EDIT:
    Thinking about it, there are people who like livestreams and being part of the conversation, and those would be the people who probably were leftover in the livestream chat last night. I actually don’t like that interactivity, so the idea doesn’t appeal to me? Bleh, it’s too early to be writing.

    Short version is, live shows aren’t my thing, and my favorite spoiler warnings have always been the heavily edited Trainz and Amnesia episodes.

    Yep.

    1. Aanok says:

      “I don't think I've ever heard Shamus drop an F-Bomb before o.o”

      I’m talking to you Josh: if you cut that out, or don’t give it its proper place and pace, I’m gonna cut you down :)

  3. KremlinLaptop says:

    Number 2 and 3, please.

    Hangout? Yes. Far less formal than a ‘cast of some sort. A podcast would end up becoming SW-lite and it would definitely lose the off-the-cuss discuss-whatever feel that listening in on you guys last night had. That plus chat participation and such just made it really neat.

    …Out of curiosity are you ever surprised by the sort of fanbase you have? I mean there were fifty of us — and probably more would’ve come if the stream allowed it — just listening to you guys. T’was awesome.

    Forums? Yes, yes, yes please. Moderation might be a problem. I definitely know there are good folks on here who would make good mods and play fair by the “There are no rules but don’t be a dick” doctrine. Wouldn’t even need to be a huge forum with lots of sub-forums. Just some place for the community to shoot the shit. I often feel bad for posting nearly completely off-topic things in the comments on here.

    So yeah. The stream? Fantastic. More please.

    1. swimon1 says:

      Anything but 2 and 3 please ^^. Listening to the fans is easy.

      Actually the hangout thing sounds like it could be a cool idea, ultimately I don’t think it would be my thing and I probably can’t watch them since I’m in gmt+1 but could work, sounds interesting.

      Forum sounds bad tho, with forums comes trolls, assholes and a general coating of unpleasantness. Seeing how this community is rather big policing a forum for the entire community sounds really difficult. This is probably the only semi-large community I know of on the internet where people aren’t douchebags, I guess the rock paper shotgun community is pretty solid unless someone mentions sexism, racism or greek economists (seriously the whole comment section devolved into a flamewar because someone made a joke about valve hiring a greek economist, so weird). It’s a rarity is what I’m getting at and I don’t think adding a forum is a good idea, they never stay civil.

      EDIT: I’m all behind the podcast idea though sounds like a great idea and if it doesn’t work you could just discontinue it. Might take lot of time tho and none of you seem to have an abundance of that.

      1. James Pony says:

        With forums can also come post-count people. You know the type. They reply to everything, EVERYTHING, with stuff like “lol”, “XD” or “omg ehy its’ u i haevt’n sen u posteign sinse 5 secodn’s agoe!!!!11”, and then they act like they’re some kind of authority figures just because they have more posts (entirely numerical, quality is not a factor) than the other guy.

        A forum would be good for long-term discussion, but with that also comes thread necromancy and potentially other problems.

        1. Jjkaybomb says:

          You can make a forum that disables post-counting. At least… I think you can… And I do know there are forums that encourage participants to post at least two or three sentences.

          And I’ve been through a lot of forums, and the post-counters only seemed to be a huge problem in huge forums, or forums that already have a poor community. You can see here already that our community is strong and mostly positive.

          1. KremlinLaptop says:

            I imagine that the core community of us who comment on things is rather small. Something along the lines of less than a quarter of the actual readership is involved in commenting on things.

            So I don’t see why the general pleasantness and good manners that prevail in the comments sections here (most of the time) can’t carry over to a forum. Then just disable post counts, member numbers (to see who was here ‘first’), and so forth. Just a place where to leave posts and comment on interesting stuff.

            Forums aren’t perfect and I guess the best ‘compromise’ solution would be that every friday or so Shamus could do an “Open Thread” post where the comments can be as off-topic as anyone wants. No post counts, member numbers, anything like that but people still get to discuss things, ask questions and generally participate.

            1. Thomas says:

              I think if anyone could do forums right, you probably could. It’s so easy for internet communities to go sour and I’ve always been impressed by what you’ve kept going on in the comments and the way you keep everyone from melting down.

              I’m in two minds. There have been plenty of times when I wished this was a forum, there’s been stuff I wanted to chat about but wasn’t relevant to a post, and you quite often get people saying a ‘I didn’t know where to put this so I put it here’ round about here.

              But a lot of the charm is just how informal this place is. You can ‘talk to Shamus’ or talk with everyone else depending on how you feel. I tend to melt and leave forums at some point, but thats not the case here, cos I can just stop commenting and read the posts for a bit. Tricky topics are banned and don’t come up in posts anyway and you work hard to stop me from saying stupid things. But just going to a place and having topic headings already breaks down that informality a lot.

              It’s a tricky one. I agree you should get rid of post counts, maybe join dates and have no rep system. I don’t know if it’s technically possible, but this moderation system would be cool too. It changes things slightly if there’s random chance that posts would take a while to get through and it has a decent chance of stopping forum drama.

              It could be nice, you’d see new people turn up and others unlurk and you might just make a very nice corner of the internet. Is there anyway you could do it subtly somehow?

            2. Jjkaybomb says:

              The Open Thread idea sounds pretty cool, actually. A good testing grounds to see if a forum is needed or not, and what chatting is like without a general topic to discuss. =O

          2. apmike says:

            “…there are forums that encourage participants to post at least two or three sentences.”

            And the most popular second sentence? “Second line”

        2. krellen says:

          No, this is not necessarily true. With open, unmoderated forums come these things.

          For eight years, I have been a member of a forum for an ancient, slowly dying web comic whose forums are a bastion of civility and temperance. I am one of the most argumentative and inflammatory posters on those boards, and I basically post the same sorts of things there that I post here.

          Forums do not have to end up like 4 chan, reddit, or even the Escapist. Like with Shamus’s blog comments, moderation is key (though, admittedly, the gate for entry to those forums is also pretty high, which probably self-selects out the worst posters to begin with.)

          1. McNutcase says:

            Would that happen to be the User Friendly forums?

            Because those spoiled me for almost all web interaction. I have this expectation of civility and reasonableness, and about the only places that come close these days are Shamus’s blog comments and the Fear the Boot forums.

            1. krellen says:

              No, but User Friendly is in the right generation.

      2. 4th Dimension says:

        wrong place sorry.

  4. evileeyore says:

    1.We should do a podcast

    Only if you really want to. Personally I see the Spoiler Warnings as a variant of the podcast formula, you have a central topic around which you guys discuss whatever thoughts come to mind. It’s not as tightly focused as most podcasts tend to be, but the loose format also allows for more things to end up being discussed. Breadth of topics, not depth.

    2.Hangouts ““

    I’m sure some people will love that.

    3.A forum ““

    I suggest skipping it. The blog has a feel of it’s own, forums are a different beast entirely. Not a worse one, just different.

  5. X2Eliah says:

    Podcast – welp, if you guys feel like you can bring and maintain topical discussions for it. There’s few things worse than hour-long podcasts that are just ramblings without direction or structure on the Internet, unfortunately. As you said, it is a tad more formal than Spoiler Warning, and it will have to reflect in the delivery, otherwise people jsut won’t listen (because podcasts are helluva long and don’t even have the visual accompaniment of any sort).

    Hangouts – Hm. The livestreaming choice has the inherent problem of timezone-spread.. Anything that’s “live” will be on someone’s nightttime.. er.. time – either folks from EU, US or Asia/Australia (I bet they exist somewhere). That said, it is, at worst, a null-loss scenario, since people missing out don’t, well, lose anything in terms of dipping into negatives, and the folks who will be there will definitely like it.

    A forum. Eh. Do we need it? The benefit of this post-based commenting is that this remains to be your personal blog, and each post also serves as a very effective topic enforcer. I fear that a forum would attract insane amounts of spam (not to mention potential database breaches, bots and so on). Beyond that, there’s also the usual issue of open-ended forums unequivocally devolving into arguments, from that into heated discussions and thereon getting personal. The nature and structure of a forum simply encourages such behaviour far faster than a blog-comment system (and we already have had a bit of the aforementioned with *this* system as-is…)

    As for finding things – Shamus, the sidebar is there for a reason. If you need to dump more info on readers, put more stuff at the bottom of the sidebar. Most of your posts and comment threads far exceed it’s length already.

    1. Klay F. says:

      Yes, please, please, please, no forums. The type of comment system we have now encourages more personal discourse IMO. There are people here who I’ve gotten to know and respect, even if we occasionally disagree, whom I wouldn’t hesitate to play a game of TF2 (or the like) with. This is the kind of thing you just don’t get in a forum (or at least no forum I’ve ever visited). Also, I suspect that a forum would tax Shamus’s moderation skills to their breaking point, and which point he would have to select people from the community to take up the job. I’ve seen too many times what happens when moderation powers are spread around (i.e. ego/power trips, rules lawyers etc.), and without meaning any disrespect to anyone, I don’t trust anyone here (not even myself) to not fall into the same trap.

      1. Exetera says:

        I’d trust Josh and Chris with moderation, I think. I’m fairly sure they have mod powers already, actually, but they just don’t use ’em.

      2. Pickly says:

        Agreed on all of this.

        While in theory a forum could be handled well, it seems in practice they almost always bring along a ton of crap, and for these blogs, a forum doesn’t actually seem to add all that much.

    2. PSJ says:

      The timezone thing is definitely valid. Since I’m EST and work until 1130 most nights, it’s rare that I can actually be at a stream. I really enjoy the comments as they are and they’re easily interesting enough to just read. I’ve been here since SW’s conception but barely comment myself since someone else will have covered most questions I have.

      The afterparty was fantastic for the hour I could make it, so I certainly wouldn’t mind more things like that.

      As for forums, I’m not sure if that would really engender the polite discourse you find in these comments (because it has to be relevant to the post) or even in the live chat (because it feels personal).

      Any way you choose to move forward, you’ve given me entertainment and insight for years.

    3. Nick Pitino says:

      I would agree that we don’t need a forum…IF there was a check box option when posting a comment to make it so you are alerted to any replies on your comment.

      As it stands I hardly ever comment because the comments are just a giant unsorted ever growing linear list that seems to bury things and that I loose interest in very quickly.

      Maybe it is slightly narcissistic and pandering, but I find that getting a little e-mail ‘Ding! Someone gave a shit!’ actually motivates further interaction on my part if for no other reason than it reminds me I actually said something to begin with.

  6. Lalaland says:

    Couldn’t make the livestream but listening to a bit of the playback I’m reminded of how much I miss Randy from the ME1 playthrough. If I remember correctly it was he who first pushed the the-as-yet-nameless-Cuftbert in the anarchic jackass direction. The cast is too large to take another member now but it would be fun if he could make guest style appearances.

    1) Not too pushed on a podcast as SW frequently digresses in that direction and I like that aspect of the playthroughs, where ideas are unpacked and the conversation moves away from what’s happening directly on screen. Some people seem to find that infuriating but I prefer to hear the conversation evolve than to have potentially interesting avenues cut off because of more tedious NPC exposition. My concern would be that if there was a podcast it would interrupt the flow on SW, eg ‘well we already covered [topic] this on the podcast so lets not go over it again’ or ‘we’ll talk more about this on the podcast’

    2) Can’t hurt to try? If I can I’d probably try and attend

    3) Forums = No. I think the mod overhead and thread lock dramas that forums can engender would hurt the ‘mood’ here. Just my personal opinion but I like reading and responding to Shamus’s posts and to the reactions of others. The blog posts act as a good framing device for constructive discussion and forums simply lack that.

  7. RTBones says:

    For me, I don’t think you should really change much of anything, save perhaps organizing your archives better.

    The Livestream last night *was* entertaining. I think that if you had a few more of those – like maybe as interludes between seasons – you’d do well. I certainly appreciated it. It demonstrated the work that it takes to make Spoiler Warning what it is. (“Chris – I can see a black screen and your mouse.”) It was a chance to interact with your community, and the cast & crew.

    I also don’t think you need to do a podcast, unless it is something that the cast and crew really want to do – particularly given the level of effort it would take to do one. If its a choice between Spoiler Warning or a podcast, I’ll take SW every time.

    The problem with a forum is the moderation issue, and there is no doubt your workload would go up. What makes this place work is the community and your content. If you have to spend more time moderating a forum, the likelihood is that your ability to generate content will go down. For that matter, you WILL to GENERATE more content could potentially go down because you are tired of dealing with the clowns. Besides, because its a blog, it has its own unique feel, and I can come back to it if I am busy and still get the feel of the conversation. Me, I don’t need or particularly want a forum.

    Oh, and ME3….yeah…this should be entertaining. Set nerdrage to sploosh.

  8. Amnestic says:

    Aww, I missed the afterparty ‘cos I was only watching Ruts’ and Josh’s streams since (on my screen?) Chris seemed to have a problem with the video not taking up the full area which meant it was uncomfortably compressed.

    As for the List O’Things:-

    Podcast – I don’t think a rigidly structured podcast would really work. The off-the-cuff banter is part of the charm of the show and I think a podcast may hinder that somewhat.

    Hangouts – Like this idea, just as long as we get accurate timezones ;) Of course, tech wizardry may pose a problem.

    A forum – Prefer just the blog to be honest, but I get my forum fix elsewhere to begin with so I’m coloured against it to begin with.

    Just my opinions on the matter anyway.

  9. Aanok says:

    On the matter of forums – I do think think they shouldn’t be opened, at least for now, but that’s not because of trolls or unpleasantness. Not having a forum because of fear of e-drama is just silly, douches can indeed be put under control with just a few precautions and a sound dose of common sense.

    No, I think the point is that a forum would radically change the way we do things here. For one, discussions here are usually focused and directed towards the topic at hand, as chosen by Shamus. Then you have the matter that forums tend to grow larger and larger, if the community is healty enough. It would quickly grow way outside of its scope and we would find ourselves with a cuisine subforum in a few months.

    I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be done at all, but it must be pondered adequately, because it would deeply change the structure, nature and magnitude of our community.

    1. Jonheimr says:

      Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying you don’t want a cuisine sub-forum?

      1. Aanok says:

        What for? I’m Italian afterall, I don’t need your funny, spicy or bacon encrusted dishes :D

        Jokes aside, you get what I mean. On a more handy subject, the ban on politics would become much more difficult to enforce on a large forum than here.

        1. Sagretti says:

          That was one of my thoughts as well. Any forum would have to have very specific categories with no “general chat” area, or you’re pretty much asking for people to start politics/religion arguments somewhere, even if you try to forbid them in the rules. Heck, I’ve seen forums with no politics/religion discussion that still have people running around with forum signatures that bait the other side of their pet issue.

          I think the only way that the discussion would stay as high quality as it does now is if Shamus pretty much ruled things with an iron fist, and I doubt he’d want to devote all his time to that unforgiving pursuit.

          1. krellen says:

            Folks are making a lot of assumptions about forums that don’t need to be true. Signatures are not required by any forum set up I’ve ever seen – it’s always something administrators can disable, along with post counts, smileys, and other annoying aspects of “traditional” forums.

            1. Aanok says:

              That’s more or less what I mean, even if I personally can’t quite envision a forum without postcounts and signatures: setting up a board would not bring *technical* difficulties. At all.

              You’d just need to know that TwentySided would become something quite different from what it is now, I believe. Possibly for the better, if things were well thought ahead, but that’s the point – it would require thorough commitment and planning.

            2. Peter H. Coffin says:

              You do realize that you’re slowly reinventing USENET…. (;

        2. Thomas says:

          Would it become much larger though? It’s unlikely to reach more people than have heard/read Shamus’ blog anyway. I feel you can have health small forums.

          I used to be a CADite and that forum had a pretty small number of regular posters, despite being attached to a fairly big webcomic, even though it had turned out to be quite pleasant and troll-free after the massive smashing mess that will hear on be known as the ‘incident’ (although there was a hint of forum PTSD, especially in the comic section)

          1. krellen says:

            FYI, hereon is actually a word in and of itself.

            1. Thomas says:

              Cheers, I do know how to spell ‘here’ btw, I also wrote become as ‘be come’ but caught that one. It’s silly but I refuse to think when I write, I guess I spend enough time every day with the slow heavy process part, so I never ever think about or reread what I write

              1. krellen says:

                I’m just championing esoteric words. Heretofore is one of my favourites, but hereon is pretty close.

  10. Deadfast says:

    I really enjoyed the after event. I brought it up on the chat but for the sake of it being such an awesome observation I will repeat it here.

    I think the reason why the unofficial session (also known to some as You’re still streaming?! And people are actually watching this?!) was so enjoyable is that, at least for me, the commentary you guys provide is the main reason I watch Spoiler Warning. That is followed closely by Josh “playing” the game and the game itself actually being the least significant factor. What I’ve witnessed yesterday was the usual interesting commentary with a twist: it was more in-depth.

    Thanks to a change of the narrative where you weren’t hurried along by events happening on-screen and could instead take all the time you needed to properly address whatever it was you were trying to say.

    So whatever you want to call it I’d say go for it. As for the format, I think yesterday’s worked well. I really liked the ability for us readers/listeners to chip in real-time. When it comes to editing, I don’t think much would be needed. Perhaps cut out awkward pauses if any and give us a timeline for the topic discussed, that way you can just fast-forward through stuff that doesn’t interest you.

    Forum? I think it’s worth a shot. If it were implemented in such a way that articles could be automatically discussed as a replacement for the current comments system that would be awesome. Mainly it would allow people to keep track of new posts which is what was brought up yesterday (by Randy?) and something that troubles me too. I don’t think switching to forums would necessitate a new set of rules. Don’t be an unreasonable person can still apply.

  11. Strangeite says:

    As you know, I am an old timer on TwentySided that now rarely comments but has been arguing that a forum is needed for several years (5 years is a LONG time in internet time).

    I now understand that you may have a very different view of the community and its “role” than what I had previously imagined. I hope you don’t take offense, but for years, the TwentySided community has become much bigger than Shamus. I don’t think most regulars on this site are “fans” in the traditional sense, as much as individuals that discovered a cool hangout populated by like minded others. It is for this reason that I have felt a forum is necessary. It would provide the soil for the community to be able to grow to a new level. As others have noted, well mannered intelligent communities on the internet are rare (not as rare as some seem to think, but rare). My personal psychological makeup leads me to always want to foster, grow and support “good” communities (Putnam’s Bowling Alone still haunts me).

    This may or may not be something desirable to you. And in the end, this is your site.

    Here is a link to an interesting article on many of the themes I am referring to in this comment. The web IS a customer service medium and geeks in particular love to be consulted.

    Just my two cents.

    1. Jjkaybomb says:

      You know, I second this. I was a little bit hesitant about the idea of a forum, but what you’re saying seems pretty true, for me at least. This place just feels like a nice community, even if you’re not totally into all the topics Shamus talks about. A forum could be a good next step.

      EDIT: And you know, looking at a lot of the reasons against the forum… it’s not like we don’t already get the occasional mean-spirited comment or rage war, we’re not immune to it, even in the comments. A forum wouldn’t suddenly bring out more of it, and we won’t stop being a good community because of a change of space.

  12. Irridium says:

    A hangout would be great. It’d be alike a podcast, but we could talk to you while you talk! And Play! I think it’d be great.

    I’d recommend against a forum. That’s a big reason I come here, I don’t want or need to create another account for something and I much prefer the comments in the articles. Things are more on-point and things are much more friendly and nice.

    Though I will say that a system to track comments made since a last visit would be amazing.

    1. krellen says:

      Such a system would almost certainly require a login. Or some really complex fiddling with cookies and sessionids.

  13. kmc says:

    Here are my thoughts on a forum–a forum is relevant when it revolves around a subject or set of subjects. It’s true that your forum could have threads dedicated to videogames, DRM, education, and any of the other topics you discuss on a regular basis. However, the reason people read about these on your blog regardless of the fact that they’re discussed on many other blogs is because of your voice. With a forum, I think it would be like any other forum on the internet (with a possibly nicer community) because there’s no way you’d be able to be active on even a small piece of it. Ultimately, you’re what draws us to your site and that can’t be addressed with a forum. However, some people may see it differently, since they came here for your posts but have since gotten to know other people who came for the same reason, and I’m not against there being an outlet for that kind of interaction. But I would hate to see it start to take up any significant chunk of your Twenty Sided time.

  14. Amnestic says:

    I know this is totally offtopic but Steam has the entire Deus Ex collection (Deus Ex, Invisible War, Human Revolution+all DLC) for a tenner this weekend.

    If nothing else, original Deus Ex for £1.50. There is no excuse not to buy a game that good for that cheap :P

  15. ENC says:

    Ever considered having the SW sessions livestreamed so there could be audience interactivity in the show like Day9; whether people would rather X route or Y route and then regretting it later?

    If you ever went that route it’d be nice if you had 2 separate times something like 12 hours apart (for the recording session each week; say Thursday at 7 then Sunday at 7 for you guys) so those of us not in the US can still watch the show.

    Although it would be nice to meet the cast in person (outside of twenty sided comments) as you’re all intelligent individuals and it’d be nice to discuss things outside the show (Chris’s somewhat large Steam collection of games, how you feel the music is used in this game as I’ve never seen any of you talk about the music within a game and its role) or talk to them about career prospects.

    There would be no easy way to do this however without it getting severely crowded (in any format) or having a ‘roulette’ of sorts for it with the large fanbase SW have.

  16. Even says:

    2. I like the idea of a hangout in last night’s style. I was tired out of my mind but still stuck around for a good hour before going to sleep, since the discussion was interesting. Watched the last hour of recording even today and felt a little bummed for missing out.

    3. That’s definitely a tricky one. It would be a sensible transition if you got more traffic than you could handle by yourself, but then again, I’d assume it so far hasn’t been a problem. I think having to let go of some of those things you mentioned would be somewhat inevitable, but in turn you may always yet reap some other, sometimes unforeseen, benefits. I do believe it could work with some planning, but I’m not sure if it’s really needed.. yet. You could always just share the responsibility should it come to that. With the rest you’d just have to put your faith in the community.

  17. Earlindor says:

    Man, now I really wish I could’ve been there….

  18. Alan says:

    A forum – Aren’t there any people who are regular commenters who you could enlist as mods?

    I doubt that it would reduce the amount of conversation on the blog posts, but it would increase the amount on tangenital conversations which happen which would enrich things.

    Podcast – as it is voice only, you wouldn’t have quite the same problem with the technical setup, and I don’t think it would be as long to record as a spoiler warning.

    It would mean that you can talk about all kinds of things, rather than getting stuck on one particular game / topic for weeks, which means that it would be kept a lot fresher.

    Hangouts – agreed with the idea, but a lot of people are on different time zones, so it might be difficult to get that organised for all.

    My archives and the general difficulty of finding things. – Agreed. I was looking for the one episode of spoiler warning that you guys did on Team Fortress 2, I have done all kinds of searches, on the video channels, Google, your site search, it seems to have been eaten by a grue.

    1. Aanok says:

      Dude, up right, that “Spoiler Warning” page. Special episode n° 2.

      1. Alan says:

        Thank you; I spent literally half an hour one day searching for that.

        I saw that video when I was searching, but it had the opening sequence of Mass Effect, and Shamus’s intro or the post tags don’t mention TF2.

        Cheers.

  19. SomeUnregPunk says:

    you wrote several books?! I thought you only wrote one!

    1. Stratigo says:

      he’s written a few. Witch Watch is his first published fiction book I think

      1. Alan says:

        Depends on how you mean published. Free Radical is free in PDF form, but it is also available on print on demand, which is kind of published.

    2. John says:

      You have a donate button on the right hand menu and on the blue bar menu. Perhaps you could advertise your books on your own site?

  20. newdarkcloud says:

    If I’m being honest, I liked the pre/post episode hangout and would like to see more of that. Just a little informal, off the cuff discussion is nice. While I already stalk you guys on twitter, just having a stream and talking ’bout stuff seems like a good idea to me. I’m a little sad I missed most of the post-show because I go to bed at a reasonable time, but I’ll live.
    You guys always said that you wanted Spoiler Warning to be a conversation about game between you and the audience and I think a little hangout is the best way to make that more of a reality than it already is.

    I don’t think a podcast is necessary. Spoiler Warning already covers that to a degree when Josh goes through long and tedious combat sections. I also agree with the poster who said that a forum wouldn’t work because it would be a radical shift in how discussions come about on this site.

    Though I will agree that the archives are a pain in the ass to navigate. I went looking for some of your previous works when I became more active in the site and it can get tedious. The Spoiler Warning stuff is helped by that web page, but even it is missing a few episodes and not updated enough. There’s still Deus Ex episodes missing from it.

    1. Thomas says:

      These Deus Ex episodes are going to become the Half-Life 3 of TwentySided :D

      1. Mathias says:

        I second the hangout thing, though a forum would also be nice.

  21. Andrew says:

    Personally – I agree with most of the anti forum comments.
    What I really like here is that when you comment on somebody else’s post – the comment is in place in that persons post. In a forum you have typically such a disjointed array of posts, cause somebody posted in thread#10 – I come along and quote on it – and it ends up in #45 and somebody else comments and it ends up on page 17. completely disjointed and extremely hard to follow.

    And then of course all the bollox and BS (aka trollers and post whores).

    Stick as you are now Shamus. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

    1. Thomas says:

      I was wondering if it’d be possible to have a forum system that retained these style comments. It would do a lot to lessen the attitude, because the thing about comments like this, is it’s we’re talking about a subject and can pick and choose which parts of the conversation we can get involved in.

      1. Deadfast says:

        vBulletin has the option of both linear and threaded mode. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other forum software had it too.

  22. Eric says:

    Just a consideration – have you guys tried Xfire? It lets you broadcast live and I’m fairly certain there are ways to save that video for later use. Then again, I’ve never done it myself, could be wrong.

  23. Hal says:

    When I first saw “Hangouts,” I was thinking actual, in-person meetups. Small audience, but I know blog communities that do such events to great fanfare.

    I mean, I know for a fact that at least half of your audience is not on a government watch list. How can you not like those odds?

  24. Stratigo says:

    I guess it depends on how big you intend twenty sided to get. I’ve only been really following for a year now (I stumbled upon you before, but the archiving problem made me twitchy enough that I gave up trying to sift through it. I have a compulsion to start at the beginning and go through everything)

    As far as I can tell, twenty sided has been fairly consistently large content wise. you make several posts a week, have a season of SW, and that is that. How much do you want to add onto that? And more specifically are you intending to turn this site into your primary job? because adding more and more content will, as I am sure you know, inflate the amount of time you spend on the site.

    Now you have, as far as I can tell, the basis for a profitable site already here. A fair sized community that will grow the more content you have, and genuinely funny or interesting content which I have faith you can keep up. But that’s up to you. I mean, I’d love to see it, but ultimately it is your guys’ decision on how you want the site to develop.

    1. Um, this site IS his primary job.

      1. Stratigo says:

        XD. Well then my mistake. If he wants to grow it then, yes podcadsts and live streams are the way to go.

  25. Littlefinger says:

    okay, where’s the link to chris’ stream? I wanna see this archive.

  26. Mr Charles says:

    Does anybody have a link to Chris’s stream? I can’t seem to find it.
    OT: With respect to a hangout/podcast, I caught some of the pre-episode stuff, and found it really enjoyable, so I’d definitely watch more of it if it was made.
    A forum I don’t really see the necessity for, pretty much for the same reasons as others have stated.

      1. Mr Charles says:

        Thanks.

        1. Chris says:

          It’s missing several hours of after-footage – mostly because I don’t know how to save things and click buttons.

          1. McNutcase says:

            It has the bit where I totally called your spy for you and was right. That’s the important part.

            And Shamus thought I was trolling…

            1. Josh says:

              But does it have the part where he picked out the patron he wanted to shoot but then forgot what the fire button was and ran out of time?

              1. ENC says:

                Ehh he still had the wrong patron entirely :P.

                From what I remember on Chris’s Stream it goes:

                Tribes
                Personal stuff about Mumbles and the like
                Spy Party unfairness that he’s in the beta
                Random browsing and discussion
                My gratuitous envy over Chris’s years of Steam games collecting (wait was that in the stream or was it just me?)

                Stretched out over an hour, but still interesting to watch nonetheless.

              2. McNutcase says:

                It does have that bit, since that was the round before I called it.

          2. RTBones says:

            You, sir, are … well, I dont know just what yet – you and your damnable Quantum Conundrum! Thank you EVER so much for introducing me to that time-waster. Its physics, its funny, and its Q. Grrr…! :)

    1. RTBones says:

      Errant Signal

      EDIT: Apparently, I am slow.

  27. CalDazar says:

    I have gained a new respect for how hard you guys work to make the show, and enjoyed the stream a lot.
    I think the hangout idea is ideal. Because the best part about the stream was that we were a part of it via the chat.
    It was like a community game night, only it was possible to have over 2 hundred people there. You know it’s possible that you guys have had a community game night and I didn’t notice, it can be hard to keep track of all the goings on and I’ve been reading this blog since before Spoiler Warning season 1. Somehow things slip through.

    I don’t think a forum is a good idea. Right now the discussion is on your terms since you make every “thread” and things still spiral into random topics.
    But now I need to go watch the post game stuff which I assume is now saved to and available to watch on chris’s livestream. Really sad I missed it. But I had a lunch meeting with friends, a hour or so after the game ended so maybe that’s for the best.

  28. acery88 says:

    Moderately-long time lurker / fan here to say that I’ve never been into Spoiler Warning / podcasts because of the lack of interaction. I appreciate that others appreciate such things, but they’re not for me.

    So, item #2 – Hangouts intrigues me greatly. I can’t promise or pledge my participation, because it would depend on how it was implemented, but I’m going to throw my official vote of support behind it anyway.

  29. Lame Duck says:

    Here’s the archive of part of the after-party stream on Chris’ channel.

    My vote’s definetly for hangouts; I stuck around for the entire 6 billion hours of Chris’ after-stream and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The informal, natural conversation style is certainly my preferred form.

    I would be interested in a forum, although I suspect it would probably spool off into a seperate but connected community rather than being an extension of the commenting community that already exists.

  30. Scerro says:

    Forums are interesting creatures.

    They can be amazing for general chat, but once the main subject begins to just get older, the forum seems to die. It requires members that always want to start threads, and have ideas for those threads.

    So, I just don’t know if it works well in the scope of this site and how it keeps people around. It won’t be bad, per se, but I feel like it should be there for mostly people that have the same interest and just want to be able to communicate more easily.

    As well as I feel like on forums you get threads promoting activity, but no one cares about the 100+ posts ahead of you.

  31. My vote is on the hangout, at first just to test things out.
    It would be perfect for Spoiler Warning season break, or the odd break now and again during a season. Or the times when not all are available to record a Spoiler Warning, but enough to do a hangout etc. And a great opportunity for the odd guest voice(s) as well, like last night.

    As to forums. nah. just tweak the comments system.
    Ideally when a comment to a comment is made, then that entire thread should be moved to the very top (or bottom?)

    Alternatively a small feedlist with the most recent comments that you just click and quickjump down to the comment. (like a html anchor jump)

    1. Thomas says:

      I’d dislike the comments to move like that. I think it’d feel like certain comments become more significant than others, tho from a navigation perspective I can see what you mean

    2. Jexter says:

      If comments are tweaked, the biggest change I’d like to see is the ability to collapse comment threads, reddit style. Scrolling through comments can be a real chore sometimes.

      Edit: That or the ability to know when someone replied to your comment. I’m not sure how you’d implement that in a comment system, though.

  32. randomscribble says:

    Hangouts sound like an awesome idea, I think you should definitely do those (assuming you want to, of course.) As for the forums, I think that if you do make them you should make them private and by invitation only, but I’m only saying that because I want to feel like I’m a member of a secret society.

  33. Steve C says:

    Sounds like it was a success. Did you guys run ads during it? I hear that a streamer can get paid 5 dollars for 1000 viewers, every 20 minutes due to ads.

  34. krellen says:

    I think a lot of people commenting about forums are looking at them the wrong way. Being one of those that really pushed the ideas of forums last night, I was not envisioning something that would replace, or even really supplement, the comment systems as they currently exist. Discussion on Shamus’s blog posts would be a minor part of the forum in my view.

    Instead, the forum would be a place that the community of twenty-sided could hang out to talk about all sorts of things separate from the blog posts, or spin off into complex, in-depth discussions spurred from the blog posts. I would actually imagine that most of the work wouldn’t even have to be done by Shamus or the Spoiler Warning crew, but instead by community volunteer moderators.

    Right now, we’re sort of a community, but the need to keep comments mostly topical and the ever-forward nature of the blogroll keeps any really steady interactions from forming (aside from a handful of exceptions, most of the biggest connections I have from this community have evolved largely in Twitter, Steam, Livestream, or other non-Twentysided venues). Forums would be a sort of “town square” at twentysided to allow those connections to form here rather than elsewhere.

    Plus, selfishly, I would really like a venue to do some play-by-post with this community, since I don’t have a real tabletop group anymore.

    1. Strangeite says:

      Exactly.

      #artificialcommentextender

      1. Jjkaybomb says:

        I third this. So third this.

        I’m kind’ve wondering though, if there’s enough people really passionate about starting a forum, why don’t we just start an unofficial one? I don’t know if it would work or not, but I think it’s kind’ve strange how the main discussion here are about the forums, but no one has brought up this idea yet.

        1. MaxFF says:

          I agree with this. The important thing is the community not who runs it. It takes all of 5 seconds usually to create forum and maybe a little longer to work out some of the finer details, but it really isn’t too difficult. If some people want forum than they can make one. Possibly convince Shamus to mention it in a post, with a disclaimer that he’s not officially associated with the forum, and in the end you get what you wanted, a forum for this community of people.

          Apparently an old forum I made still exists, which was going to serve another purpose and never got used so there’s no posts in it. I could probably repurpose it if people didn’t mind the name, or alternatively someone can just make a completely new forum. Doesn’t matter either way.

        2. Zukhramm says:

          I was about to point out the same thing. It worked for a Minecraft server, so why not?

          Either way, I’m all for it.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Plus, selfishly, I would really like a venue to do some play-by-post with this community, since I don't have a real tabletop group anymore.”

      Hmmm…A twenty sided rpg forum.And we could all play shadowrun.Yes,that would work swell.

    3. KremlinLaptop says:

      This is exactly what I wanted to get across. Exactly this.

      A forum wouldn’t replace anything, it’d just be a place other than the comments section to have mindless (and mindful) discussions on this, that and other things.

      And I guess instead of rules there could be some general guidelines. I.e “If you must discuss politics/religion/controversial subject then be extra civil” since there are topics Shamus smartly avoids 99% of the time and I think it’s beneficial (though sometimes I’m deathly curious about his opinions on current events).

    4. JPH says:

      Plus, if we get a forum, we can gamify it! We can gain levels for posting, and maybe use those levels in like a forum game where we-

      Okay, okay, I’ll shut up.

    5. Shamus says:

      “Plus, selfishly, I would really like a venue to do some play-by-post with this community, since I don't have a real tabletop group anymore.”

      Hm. Now THAT is tempting. That is something that doesn’t overlap or interfere with these threads.

      1. krellen says:

        Fair warning: I probably would, at some point, try to start up a game in the style of Friendship is Dungeons (though it would not be one of my first projects.)

        1. Jjkaybomb says:

          Make the forums now. This game demands to be played immediately!!! XD

      2. Cuthalion says:

        I kind of want to join/run a twentysided community forum RPG.

    6. Blake says:

      This is how I would feel.
      Quite often we have people discussing things briefly but it all kind of gets lost again.
      This is particularly true of Shamus’ programming projects where a lot of people are eager and interested in things but have no real way to build upon that excitement.

      I’m quite sure there are enough regular posters to have some people upgraded to moderator status, and as long as the moderation was strong (particularly in thread topics), I don’t think there would be much of an issue.

      Also: play-by-post could be quite fun.

  35. hborrgg says:

    2. I’d be fine if you just did an hour long youtube video with no images

    3&4. I don’t think you need a forum set up, but if you want to I think you could improve the discussions a bit. For instance, when I see that a topic has some new cooments then it becomes extremely difficult to find them once the total gets over 100. Also, when a long reply stack occurs then it can get sort of difficult to see which comments secondary replies were posted on.

    Also, if you added a sidebar ticker to the main page that listed the “last commented on topics” then it might allow some disscussions to last longer or occasionally reopen.

  36. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Another all cast brawl could work.Heck,you dont even have to edit it,just leave the streams recorded.Not as fun as edited stuff,sure,but plenty of us would still watch it.Maybe magicka like Even suggested.

    Hence hangouts can work as well,so no need to strain about a podcast.Although,you could do a podcast and pass the editing of that to someone other than Josh.Someone who deals in voice and music and audio related stuff.Someone like Rutskarn.

    Forums could work,but only if you delegate your moderation duties.You can use the spoiler warning cast for this,or you can use the members youve noticed on your blog(just not me).

    As for archiving…Thats always going to be a problem.Reminding people of old stuff you did mitigates this from time to time,but I dont see any good permanent solutions.

    As for the misc stuff,I still say we need to watch Chris playing half life 2,or Rutskarn playing duke nukem forever.And maybe you could twist Chris’s arm a bit until he uses his secret connections to give you all access to spy party beta.

  37. Kacky Snorgle says:

    Okay, internet curmudgeon time.

    Forum software these days tends to have all the wrong features. Post counts and fancy “titles” for people with lots of posts: they encourage junk posting. Full WYSIWYG editors with large menus of smileys: they encourage clutter rather than thoughtful conversation. Signatures: they add more clutter and occasionally sidetrack discussions. Sorting of threads by time of most recent post: it ensures that flamewars never die while slower discussions get lost in the shuffle. User options to suppress signatures and change the default sort order: they mean that different users are seeing very different forums and thus they tend to reduce community. Private messaging: it encourages people to say things they wouldn’t say in the public forum itself and thus can promote the formation of adversarial cliques. Gameification: we just had that discussion.

    Basically, IMHO, forum software was at its best back in the days of wwwboard. Coincidentally, the features available in these comment threads are pretty close to the features available on those old forums. All that’s missing is (a) the ability to start threads, and (b) marking of new/unread vs. old/read posts. Since this site is primarily Shamus’s blog, the lack of (a) has never struck me as a serious problem, but I can see how it would be a nice addition. It would be incredibly awesome if Shamus could work some code-wizardry to provide (b) in these comment threads, but I realize that that may not be technically feasible. In any case, while I’d like to gain (a) and (b), I’d hate to gain them at the cost of adopting a forum with most/all of the misfeatures enumerated above. So, if we’re voting on the forum issue (which we’re not), then I’m against it.

    On the other hand…wait, do they still make wwwboard? ;)

    1. X2Eliah says:

      I can’t agree enough with all that’s written here. As far as I’m concerned, the comments on here are and look as good as they are precisely becuase they aren’t on a forum.

    2. Jexter says:

      The ratio of clutter to content in the design of most forums is pretty abysmal. One of the goals of Stack Overflow’s design was to combat this problem, incidentally.

  38. Cody211282 says:

    You guys should do it again it, it was fun.

  39. RTBones says:

    Shamus,

    I know you dont want to necessarily discuss Mass Effect 3 at this point, given that you are about to do a Spoiler Warning season on it – but on Bioware’s site, I came across an EC DLC podcast that discusses the upcoming cinematics. Its release here in the US is Tuesday, 4 JUL in Europe.

    Food/fodder for the fire for the upcoming season.

    1. Cody211282 says:

      Sad thing is that in only 1 minute I’m able to tell that the extended cut wont fix anything. Bioware is so disconnected to why people hate the ending that it’s not going to be fixed.

      1. Hmm! Well if it’s about Shepard surviving or not… of course he did. But it’s left darn vague (just that teaser ruble, breath shot, and the old guy grand grand something and kid talking).
        That’s fine. The god child is just stupid, but that could just be in shepards head.

        I got no issue with any of that.

        Wat I had issues with though was, what happen to the Rachni at the ed, the Geth, the. well all the races. all the companions. earth, the fleets scattered etc. Did any of the crew hook up?
        How did the two squadmates magically end up on the normandy, and what the hell was normandy doing. (it felt like a huge chunk of a movie was missing there, a time gap)

        If they are able to clarify a lot of that stuff, then I’m perfectly fine with ME3. I may not have wanted to end shepards story this way. But that’s fine. It is BioWare’s narrative. It’s just all those darn loose ends that are infuriating.

        Hopefully the Trilogy pack or whatever will have the ME3 extended version in it so new peeps won’t have to facepalm like I did…

      2. Mr Charles says:

        I don’t know about that, from the sound of things it could go either way. Sure, they’re not going to change or remove the star-child, but I enjoyed ME2’s ending and that was riddled with plot holes. If they really do manage to create an ending which can vary depending on your choices throughout the series, then I think it could be satisfying in spite of its flaws.

  40. TMTVL says:

    I actually haven’t seen the trailer for the newest Tomb Raider yet. Could anyone recap it? (I haven’t cared for TR since playing the demos for 1, 3 and Rev, but I wouldn’t mind knowing why they decided do discuss it.)

    1. Thomas says:

      It shows a young unconfident Lara Croft, whose design is a lot more like a normal young 20something, without a large chest area, trapped on a jungle island after a ship sank and then lots of scenes of Lara in horrible situations with horrible things happening to her and she’s clearly scared and frightened, unsure of what to do. Antagonists appear to be modern day pirates, one scene they seem to be trying to put Lara into a compromising position. Only ray of hope in trailer is that she does seem to have some determination about her, that horrible things will happen, but she’ll pull through and toughen up.

      Some people like it for creating a more genuine non-heroic protagonist, some people feel its more on the torture porn side. If we have only the trailer to judge by, both have valid points

  41. Khizan says:

    Forums, yes, please.

    There’s a lot of interesting discussions that go on here, and there’s a lot more that could go on here, and I’d like to be able to participate in them for more than the day or so it takes you to post a few more times and drop them into the abyss.

    Also, this is a good crowd here, and I think an area to discuss other books and games would go over well.

  42. 4th Dimension says:

    If you want an excellent example of huge community of civilized people, that is not chaotic look no further than Paradox Interactive forums. They feature a HUGE fan base, and toppics range from history, alt-history, modding,and a HUGE AAR section (although it’s unfair to call a substantial minority of them AARs, since they are more like quality Alt-history novels).
    Their secret?
    Civilized adult community, because the type of people that play Paradox games are rarely trolly. And of course stiff moderation. First rule is that you don’t talk back to the moderators. So there is no lawyering.
    Moderation needs to be stiff because their servers are in Germany, so they don’t even allow swastikas on screenshots in WW2 games.

    So having a civilized community is possible, but you need serious moderators. Veritable paladins.
    Also we could start by giving membership first only to people that post here. Since Shamus does posses database with our Usernames and mail addresses, it shouldn’t be too difficult to issue every poster here who posted more than a dozen times an account.
    Than we could continue to expand membership through invites to our friends or to people that show they are civilized in comments to Shamus’s blog.
    Also I’m quite sure there is an option in forum software to put new users on probation. Meaning first 10 or so of their posts need to be approved by moderators before commiting.

    TLDR
    A adult civilized community is possible, but it requires rule of law. And that requires good lawmen (moderators). And their word is final. Consider them Judges from Judge Dredd universe, bringing law to chaos.

    PS.
    Also we might limit the ability of simple users to create threads. The only threads that we might have might be ones connected to Shamus’s blog posts, because frankly the biggest problem that I have with this blog that forum could solve, is that I can’t see if there were new replies to certain blog post. And that causes interesting topics, and topics that I come into late die off too quickly.

  43. Jexter says:

    I think a forum is a very interesting idea. Not as a replacement for the comments, of course, but as a supplement. Twentysided has a very vibrant and civil community, but I often get the impression of a thousand voices all talking at once. A forum could give a place for the community to have more focused discussions and events that aren’t really appropriate for comment threads.

    It would probably come down to whether the extra workload required to set one up would be worth the effort. More longtime commenters could probably act as mods, so moderation shouldn’t be much of an issue. And if it doesn’t work out, you can always commit internet genocide on it, right?

  44. Milos says:

    The hangouts sound like a great idea to me, but the time of day might be a big problem for a large chunk of your audience. Last night’s stream, though admittedly 7 hours long which of course shouldn’t be happening again, was going from 1AM to 8AM in my time zone. I stuck around for the whole of it (no not simply because of SW, I planned to do it anyway so the stream was a very welcome surprise I could keep running in the background) but I can see most of people not having the option of staying late simply because they have to make it to work/school the following morning. Especially if it becomes commonplace because last night was something of a special occasion so people from Europe made an extra effort to show up. That all said I would personally show up for most of those as I’m bit of a nocturnal creature.

    As for the podcast idea – in general sense I think it would be a good thing but I don’t like the idea of a strict schedule and adherence to preset topics. Besides creating more work for whoever is editing and preparing the topic for for each episode, a big part of your charm, for me and for a lot of other people I suspect, is going on off topic rants.

    My favourite podcast Rum Doings has the core principle of setting a topic and then steering clear of it for the entire episode. It came to be because John Walker (RPS) and Nick Mailer felt frustrated with podcast crews going on fascinating tangents and then curb stomping them because “Ooh, ooh, we must get back on the subject!” Sure it’s a very specific case and I don’t precisely suggest you do the same, but it’s a very successful podcast and I’m just saying it can be made to work.

    As for the forums, I’m a bit ambivalent towards the whole idea. There were times in the past when I wished for a twentysided forum, not for a small part because of the ability to track posts and conversations in a less tedious manner. But on the other side I grew used to this place as it is and I think it’s working out pretty well.

    There is also the matter of splitting the community. Not that people on the forums won’t participate in the comment sections here, quite the contrary, but a lot of discussion will be taken backstage so that people who only read your posts here and the peruse the comments below won’t be aware that they are happening. Unless they specifically have the habit of going through forums on a regular basis which, let’s be frank, a large chunk of audience won’t be doing.

    Take for instance Rock Paper Shotgun: they do have a forum setup yet I still mostly stick to the comments below the posts, as I suspect a great many other people also do. If you take into consideration that they are a huge blog with millions of people visiting monthly, comments are still a surprisingly civil place and offer an opportunity for some good discussions. Which means there is no pressing need for people to seek out forums, and I suspect your blog might be a similar case.

  45. Chris says:

    My arbitrary two cents: Hangouts are awesome fun. We get to have an active dialog with people, and that’s simply not something that happens with Spoiler Warning, podcasts, or even forums. They’re really enjoyable to make and at least somewhat entertaining to watch. It also lets us have a more free-form approach to discourse we can’t get elsewhere – Spoiler Warning is focused on the game at hand, blog post comments need to be germane to the topic in the original post, etc. Last night we talked about Anita Sarkeesian, hilarious Mass Effect fan art, personal junk, and a whole host of other topics we could never bring up in Spoiler Warning all while playing Tribes, Quantum Conundrum, and Spy Party. That degree of breadth is exciting and new!

    But! I’d suspect if we were to do them they should be a more casual, spontaneous thing. As official Spoiler Warning/Twenty Sided events they cause a number of problems. They’re often unfair for people in timezones outside of the continental US. Even inside of the States it can be hard to time them – we were live at 4 PM on the west coast when lots of people were still at work. It’s also hard to get everyone together – it’s often a struggle to get the gang together for Spoiler Warning once a week.

    So do I want to do them? Heck yes, they’re great. Do I think we could reliably and fairly make it A Thing that becomes a part of Twenty Sided’s regular/official content? Probably not. So maybe they should become informal things (“Guys, Josh and I are thinking of kicking up the stream and making fun a game in 20 minutes!”) or stay as these once-in-a-blue moon specials.

    1. Hey. A post here just informing peeps to keep an eye out later tonight. and then a post saying we’re live at.. that’s all that is needed. Just some “loose” planning. A lot of regulars here check the site almost daily. And myself I got a RSS feed in my email program so…If I miss something it’s my own fault.

      Also, if it’s “loose” planning, the day and hours will vary so everyone regardless of were/when should get a chance to catch one of these hangouts now and again.

    2. Cody211282 says:

      I really like this idea but maybe a days warning or so would be best, but that’s just my 2 cents.

      I would like to thank you for keeping your stream going for as long as you did, it lead to probably one of the funniest moments of the night.

      1. No kidding! Especially hearing Shamus exclaim “Your still broadcasting?” and you can almost hear his brain try to go over EVERYTHING he’s said for the last x hours and how stupid those things where or not. hehe.

  46. Friend of Dragons says:

    So Spoiler Warning is doing ME3 next? hm. It’ll be one of the first times you guys have covered a game I’ve not played yet but intend to soon… I have already had it’s awful ending spoiled, but I understand the rest of the game was reasonably good and I was looking forward to playing the resolution of some plot threads, so I admit I’m a little torn on whether I should watch this season.

    I probably will just out of habit, though.

    1. Not much ending to spoil really. Shepard does something forced and stupid. Tadaaa. :P
      Wat is interesting is the Extended stuff, most will probably enjoy finding out more what happens to everyone else (rather than shepard’s fate)

      1. newdarkcloud says:

        Which reminds me, I wonder if Josh has Javik or if they’ll do the Extended Cut. I would be fine if he didn’t, but I’m curious. I personally couldn’t justify spending $10 on a single character no matter how lore/plot relevant he is, so I just looked up the stuff with him on YouTube.

        1. I guess the extended cut would make sense. THat way the Spoiler Warning gang could give their view on whether it improved the ending or not. i.e. if BioWare redeemed themselves or not.

          1. CalDazar says:

            They did say they wouldn’t wait for it, since the current ending is the one we paid for, the one everybody played and the one that stirred up the hornets nest. But since it is coming out in a few days I expect that stance could change depending on just what the EC is like.
            Or maybe it will change nothing as it seems half the cast hasn’t even played the game yet.

  47. Jarenth says:

    I suppose the only entity I can blame for this being a dual-meeting-absolutely-can’t-skip Friday is the universe.

    So, I’ll be blaming that. I would so have hung out longer if I could.

  48. MatthewH says:

    I like the idea of hangouts -I have just one question: would it be possible to do it without having to link into the feed with facebook? That looked to be the procedure at Rutskarn’s feed. I’m probably not alone in that my facebook presence spans both personal and professional so I try to keep extraneous stuff off it.

    Also, and more relevant to you, my day job involves some of the banned topics and I’d just as soon not drag that over here.

    Generally related to the topic of forums, Orin Kerr (lawblogger at Volokh Conspiracy) argues that good and civil comment threads/forums require some combination of registration, moderation, or lack of anonymity/psuedonymity. Registration is a keep-out-the-trolls tactic, removing psuedonyms eliminates one part of the GIFT. We get by here on moderation, but the forums would multiply the amount of moderation needed.

    That said, I too live far away from my old game groups -so I like Krellen’s above suggestion.

    1. krellen says:

      Facebook is not at all a requirement to get Livestream streams or chat.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      You can just enter your name right there and then,with no fuss,no registration.

      1. MatthewH says:

        Good to know. I’ll try it next time. Thanks.

  49. Shamus I hope you get a change to test out Googles Doodle “today”, it’s a Turing test heh.. Gotta love that. http://www.google.com/

  50. Zagzag says:

    I would personally be behind a forum, as I think the community is strong enough to build it into something great.

    I really enjoyed the stream, and would have stayed around for all of the after stream stuff as well, if I had actually known it was still going on (I was only watching Rutskarn and Josh’s streams which cut off as soon as the game finished, with Josh even stating that the event was over,) and if it hadn’t been some undeityly hour of the morning by that point. So, thanks all of you! (If you even get this far down the comments)

  51. slipshod says:

    Best moment of the after-party: when the rest of the crew realized that Chris was still streaming, and had been for the past hour.

  52. Bryan says:

    Please, no forum. I haven’t yet been a member of a forum that I haven’t eventually had to leave due to not having enough time to keep up.

    Reading a post or two a day, along with some (sometimes even “all that are posted at the time I show up”) of the comments doesn’t take all that much time. But going to some forum site, clicking through all the sub-areas or whatever they end up being called, finding the threads that have had updates posted, and reading all the updates, takes *significantly* longer.

    It also loses the entire dynamic of this site, where the blog posters (Shamus and Josh so far if I remember right, though it’s possible that Rutskarn, Mumbles, and Chris can do this too and just haven’t yet) make a post, and we all comment on it. That would turn into “random person starts a thread, random other people comment on it”, which is an *entirely* different dynamic.

    1. Moridin says:

      You do know that in forums there’s no obligation to keep up with all the threads, right? If you’re not particularly interested in sports, you don’t even have to go to that subforum, for example.

  53. Deadpool says:

    I am TRULY pissed that events beyond my control took over my time that night… Would’ve been nice.

    Although, to be fair, prior engagements would likely have cancelled the hang out time… Still, more of that sounds damned good.

    1. ENC says:

      You still could’ve made it.

      Some of us can’t make it at 3-5AM no matter what day you do it on, which is why something like a Saturday morning session (say 10AM) at GMT-2 where you guys are would be a godsend for those of us 12 hours away.

  54. Chris says:

    Random thought: Instead of the streamed hangouts, maybe an IRC channel? Gives the real-time community elements of a forum, gives Spoiler Warning people a chance to interact with viewers, and requires basically zero prep/effort to setup and maintain.

    1. Amnestic says:

      No reason we can’t have both :p IRC for more general interaction on a more regular basis but still have the occasional livestreamed “hangout” sessions as well since having a game in the background is probably a good way to prompt focused discussion…some of the time.

      As another complete offtopic, I’ve now finished Mass Effect 3 with the ‘best’ ending. Looking forward to this coming season. It’s gonna be…well I’m looking forward to it ;)

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        “I've now finished Mass Effect 3 with the “˜best' ending.”

        Your game crashed right before going into citadel and you deleted it?

        1. ENC says:

          I didn’t like the rest of the game though so my best ending was quitting it with minimal time lost.

          *ME3 Spoilers*
          About the time I was very frustrated was the GTA-style rubber band chase with EDI’s body as a vanguard, as sometimes I coudl charge to her and sometimes I couldn’t as I realised that I was just meant to be led along as if I actually had to stop her in time instead of being an actual timed mission.

          One part I even slingshotteed ahead on some goons and she zoomed past me at 100km/h; why couldn’t she run like that all the time?

          It’d be interesting to see Josh pull it off to say the least.

          Then you get all the ways they had to detour because of having decisions try and account across 3 games (I knew they wouldn’t be able to pull it off at all as it would reach oversimulation territory in terms of story) but then the story itself just reads like fanfic; ‘Oh you’re badass and you feel sorry for this kid who just ran off and let himself die? I’m gonna reference that a dozen more times. The Salarians are totally against all your badassness and are thinking about after the easily-defeated Reaper invasion will end when they want to kill the krogan! Udina was evil all along! Joker is going to hook up with a lovebot! The council mysteriously likes you now!’
          All your favourite heroes are going to show up in the story as cameos but it’s too much effort to have them on your team as we’d like to brag about how adaptive our story is instead of creating a linear experience with characters you actually like’

          Oh you hated the elevator loading screens? Time for one after every mission with the metal detector, although now it adjusts in speed thankfully, but it makes no sense.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Dont forget that cerberus still has the reaper baby.Also the biggest army ever.And quarians are closer to humans than asari.And reapers can be killed by wild animals and heavy weapons.And the whole galaxy exploded and everyboys dead,dave.

        2. Amnestic says:

          Hah! Laughed.

          My reaction to the ending wasn’t one of outrage like seemingly the rest of the internet but more disappointment. I then went and watched a video on the plotholes and then the Indoctrination Theory and I have stuff to say about those when we come to it.

          To sum up though, I had fun with the game for the most part. Had some great moments. And then some really dumb ones. Just like ME1 and ME2 ;p

  55. megabyte says:

    If you guys plan to play Mass Effect 3 in the future, would you consider playing ‘The Arival’ DLC to bridge the gap? I’ve heard people say that DLC is the best one in ME2 next to the shadow broker, even though it raised all kinds of odd questions in Mass Effect 3’s ending concerning the relays. what do you think?

    I’d be willing to donate to see it and I think others would follow suit.

  56. Reyes says:

    I have read so many articles on the topic of the blogger lovers except this article is really a nice article, keep
    it up.

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