A video review of the site changes, the poll questions, articles published, feature highlights and, of course, the maps and mods posted on the site in March 2009.
Well, I have completed the 3 month beta period and have decide to continue with the video reviews. They are a huge amount of work but I enjoy it, so,as I have said, I’ll continue.
I will be trying new things and new formats over the coming months to find what works the best. Especially in light of the fact I still want to do a mini PPCast as well.
Lastly, this video was a little rushed and I am sure it shows. For that I apologize. I don’t have enough time to do things properly these days.
One important aspects is the videos and comment sync. Currently, Matthew sends me the videos and I then talk for as long as the video lasts. This is the wrong way to do it, so I will be spending a lot of time deciding how best to do that aspect.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and, as ever, please tell me how I can improve, what you like and what you don’t like.
PlanetPhillip.com March 2009 Video Review from PlanetPhillip on Vimeo.
- Poll Question 113 – Has a mod ever made you a better player
- Poll Question 114 – Have you ever dreamed about Half-Life?
- Poll Question 115 – Would you continue a bad, long mod in the hope that it improves?
- Poll Question 116 – Would you like to fight against Gordon Freeman in a mod?
- Poll Question 117 – Are Mods Getting Better?
- Escape By Dragon18 – Half-Life 2: Ep2
- Kill Gman City 7 – Half-Life 2
- Face off – Half-Life 2
- Headcrab Panic – Half-Life 2
- Effect Map – Half-Life 2
- Stormfront – Half-Life 2: Ep2
- Haunted House – Half-Life 2
- Combine Combat – Half-Life 2
- Horror Test – Half-Life 2
- Factory Defense – Half-Life 2: Ep2
- Sity – Half-Life 2: Ep2
- The Real 1 and 2 – Half-Life 1
Looks like I’ve missed Combine Combat. Should have a look.
Not the greatest of months for new releases with Combine Combat being easily the best of the bunch. I could not bring myself to play most of this month’s batch, just seemed very limited in content with repetitive gameplay.
The video play through in the main confirmed my original impressions but I will replay the video, Phillip did make a couple releases look and sound a bit better then I imagined.
What’s happening to your idea of a weekly podcast Phillip? Guess you have had your hands full with problems of late.
This is a really good feature, especially getting a look into the current mods.
What about a teaser section on upcoming mods on PP?
The March 2009 Video Review was awesome! Nice work Phillip! Loved it.
It would be nice if every mod had a video Walkthrough. It would answer a lot of questions from P.P. Readers. Kinda like “youtube” lol
I also like modsite better than filefront, at least you don’t have to leave PlanetPhillip.
Keep up the good work! 🙂
Mel Said: “What’s happening to your idea of a weekly padcast Phillip? Guess you have had your hands full with problems of late.”
Exactly, Mel, it just got pushed to one side with the host move etc. Also I have been thinking how best to use the podcast and video formats. I’ll probably just try a simple podcast and see how they develop.
paddyL said: “What about a teaser section on upcoming mods on PP?”
In theory that sounds great but in reality there are no upcoming mods on PP. When I find a mod or map I normally post it immediately. I don’t have a schedule of posts or anything.
BlackDog said: “The March 2009 Video Review was awesome! Nice work Phillip! Loved it.”
Great, I am glad you liked it.
“It would be nice if every mod had a video Walkthrough. It would answer a lot of questions from P.P. Readers.”
That’s a LOT of work, files and bandwidth! Also, since players have different playing styles I am not sure it would be interesting to everybody. I will be, time permitting, adding the individual videos Matthew made to each mod, so that there is a gameplay teaser available.
“I also like modsite better than filefront, at least you don’t have to leave PlanetPhillip.”
Yes, it’s nice not have to click twice, but in some places FileFront might be faster, I’m not sure. Anyway, the more mirrors, the better.
In fact for smaller files I will be adding a PP Direct Download as well, to see how that works out. Ideally, I would just like to have that option but it’s not realistic for the larger files.
I like all of the changes/additions to the site, and it looks like you really scored with Modsite, the fact that it’s a one click download is a major plus.
I like that you sum up the comments on the poll questions now, as well as the results, since the discussion that results from the polls often takes interesting turns.
On videos for every mod: Maybe we could just add videos to the hall of famers? If you want to do that in the future, I’m willing to help out.
Phillip. love your videos…..but have a hard time hearing them.
Am not hard of hearing, and have volume maxxed!
Possibly you need to speak more clearly to your microphone.
That’s strange, his voice is very clear to me.
Voice was fine for me also.Good show Phillip!
To: Phillip
“It would be nice if every mod had a video Walkthrough. It would answer a lot of questions from P.P. Readers.”
That’s a LOT of work, files and bandwidth! Also, since players have different playing styles I am not sure it would be interesting to everybody. I will be, time permitting, adding the individual videos Matthew made to each mod, so that there is a gameplay teaser available.
I didn’t mean for PlanetPhillip to host the walkthroughs,I was thinking along the lines of “youtube” or something like it. As far as “different playing styles” sometimes a written walkthrough is either not clearly defined or just to difficult to comprehend. Here’s where a visual input helps. Just tossing a few ideals at you cause you know, you da man!
Even if somebody else hosted the videos, it’s still bandwidth. But more importantly the time to make them is the obstacle. Somebody would need to narrate otherwise it make be hard to follow.
I don’t disagree with you BlackDog, I just feel that it’s too much work. In fact it’s probably only needed for 10 percent of the mods listed on the site but it’s still too much work, since this is a hobby.
Once again, a very enjoyable watch.
Some parts of it seemed unprofessional, like you hadn’t really prepared what to say, or when you had to wait for the page to load. That should of course be cut out, to make the video a little more ‘smooth’?
If the Video Review is a lot of work, you could cut out the caller, badder mods that people don’t really care about (esspecially these with no videos), although it’s nice to see videos of them. I don’t play mods that often, more busy making them, or doing other useless stuff, so I don’t get to play them as much as I’d like, so I like seeing videos of those mods I decided not to play.
I’m glad you keep making these video reviews, while they easily take 20 minutes out of my day, or how long it was, it’s well used. I look forward to the April one. 😉
(I’m also having some problems with my RSS feed, so it suddenly just picked up 20 new entries on PlanetPhillip for the past few weeks. Weird. I hope it’s over now, probably my fault.)
Sortie,
I agree about the unprofessional parts. BAsically it’s all ad lib, so there is no preparation anyway. I don’t want the review to be selective in what mods it presents. Unless I call it “The best of the month” or something simialr, but then there probably won’t be enough mods to talk about.
In fact this is possibly the last video review because it’s a ton of work and it only watched 250 times whcih I don’t think is enough return for the effort involved.
The RSS Feed was a strange one. Nothing to do with you but I am 100% it was my host’s fault.