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Developer Podcasts

Haereticus

Haereticus

Midshipman
Creative Support
3D Artist
2D Artist
Hello all,

I think we should do a developer podcast. It doesn't have to be regular or very long, but it shows that we're real people and that we're active and committed to the project. That should help us recruit more talent to our community! The way I figured we could do it is with a 'host,' who asks a bunch of questions, and then guests from within the community, and the two kind of have an informal interview/conversation. Later in the series we could focus in on people's work and use it as a way of showcasing our promotional concept art, screenshots from pre-alpha builds, our 3D assets, music, etc., and discussing aspects of gameplay and design. We can upload them as videos to IndieDB and the YouTube channel over an image of the logo and add in images and talk about them. Whoever is the host can choose their guests based on their favourite bit of the game and write a rough outline/script which the guests can prepare responses to. Then they both get on Skype, have a little chat, then record the 'interview' and the host or anyone interested can help edit it together into a nice podcast. The first episode I propose has a long-term member with an organisational role as a guest, to answer questions like the following:

* Can you give us some background on the Pirates Ahoy Community?
* So why did Pirates Ahoy! decide to make their own game?
* Can you describe the Hearts of Oak concept? What makes it unique?
* What're some of the most exciting new features that'll be possible with our game that were impossible in the Build Mod?
* What stage in development are we at right now?
* What's planned for the near future?
* What's your personal role in development?
* What aspect of development is going to take the most time?
* What kind of timescale are we looking at for the first public release?

I'd be happy to kick off with the hosting if nobody else wanted to. Does anyone have any thoughts?
 
I think this would be great. It's never been done before (to my knowledge) for any of our previous work, and I think people would be interested to hear about the project in this way.
After all, YouTube is proving to be a vital marketing tool for many other video games and developers out there, so embracing that might help us quite a bit.

Of course, how well it does partly depends on who is willing and able to participate, but that would probably improve over time.
 
Excellent idea! It would be a good way to give people an accessible general overview of what we are trying to accomplish, and of course specifics later on. I think it could also help us appear more organized.
 
That's great! To my mind, two questions remain - who would be best suited to answering those questions and would they be willing to do it, and would it be best to wait until the development kit/game engine has been finalized? As for the first, Thagarr might be ideal as he seems somehow to have been a member of the forum since before the invention of TCP/IP in 1982, and he posted a neat summary of the history of Pirates Ahoy! at the start of the year. On the other hand, if he didn't want to do it, we could have a newer member to show that you don't need to be a long-term member of the community to be valued. As for the second, do we know when that might be?
 
The people to ask about the final engine choice are Hammie and Hazardooster, who will most likely be leading the programming.

Haereticus said:
As for the first, Thagarr might be ideal as he seems somehow to have been a member of the forum since before the invention of TCP/IP in 1982,
Click to expand...
Apparently there was some kind of glitch with a forum change several years ago, which messed up a few members' join dates.
Unfortunately, it seems we can't fix it, so Thagarr is stuck with a weird paradox. xD
 
I like the idea of a podcast a lot. Not sure about the format but that can always be changed later I guess. And timezones might become an issue too.

Haven't heard from Hazardooster in a long while and he blocked me on skype so he seems to be gone for the moment. The engine chose will be between the UDK or a custom built/modified one, so that choice will be rather easy. But I will write more about that later.
 
I think Thagarr would be a good choice if he is willing, after all he is the one who first suggested that we make a game of our own. Of course other people could do it to if he doesn't want to. That's a shame about Hazardooster! it appears he hasn't even been on the forums since Nov 29. Good to hear that the engine choice is narrowed down! But I think it would be best to hold off on the podcast until that is finalized.
 
Ok, that sounds sensible. To Hammie: the format of the podcast isn't anything I'm set on. If we find one or two people who can just comfortably chat to the listener or each other in a knowledgable and informative way about the game then they can do the whole thing, and we could do community questions, etc. I proposed the questions both as to act as a sort of 'intro to HoO/FAQ' and to give a bit of structure to the first one, but if you'd prefer it another way then no problem. For later ones we'll have assets, ships, music, early gameplay videos, etc. to showcase. Great news about the engine!
 
Timezones are definitely going to be a huge issue. I'm GMT -8, and I'm sure we have plenty of -6's, -5's and -4's as well. That will give us a maximum of around nine hours difference.
 
Well, I'm in the UK and used to be able to Skype with my GF in SoCal with no problem, but I have quite flexible sleeping hours. It's certainly an issue we'll have to deal with. We don't need to record the whole thing in one go though.
 
I think you will find this site quite useful: http://whenisgood.net/

Should help make scheduling recording sessions easier.

Would like to agree strongly with keeping the podcasts short. Part of the reason I don't listen to podcasts, is generally their post-hour lengths. Even when they have some really interesting guests, having it more than 30 minutes seems excessive to me.
 
This is definitely true. I was envisioning at most 15 minutes. Certainly in the earliest ones it's likely we won't have enough content to fill more than that. Much later in development when there's a significant interest in the project and we've got lots of material, we could look at going longer, but YouTube upload limits will (I think) cap us to 15 minutes anyway, so we'd have to do 2-parters. Thanks for the link - it looks ideal for scheduling that kind of thing.
 
One idea for if a recording gets particularly long, is to split it up and then release the parts separately on a daily/weekly/etc.ly basis. If an hour length or greater is listed on a podcast, I think a lot of people will immediately lose enthusiasm and only skip through it vaguely. If you give them that same podcast in 10 to 15 minute instalments, they'll eat it up.

It is also helpful for training people to keep checking back on the project and keep interest alive. One big update is generally less effective than ten smaller ones.

At least, this is what I assume. I hope this is a helpful idea.
 
Am I correct in thinking that the engine has been confirmed as Unreal 3? If so, would this be a good time to start thinking about putting together the first devpodcast?
 
At the moment I'm not entirely sure on the latest developments. From what I gather, things are being really very slow indeed.
Which is too bad, because without something for people to work with/from, we won't be making any substantial progress for a good, long time to come.
That was only to be expected though. Developing a new game of the quality and quantity that we want in such a niche genre can't possibly take off in rocket fashion.
 
All true. I just wondered if starting to put this kind of thing together would keep the rest of us occupied and help bring in some more talent and attention while we're waiting for the core framework to be put in place by the programming team.
 
Perhaps. I personally never felt the urge to listen to a Podcast, but it's of course another method worth trying.
Provided we've got somebody to say things who actually has things worth saying...
 
Well, we're not the target audience of the developer podcast - it's by developers, not for them. I think it's probably a good way to tell people our plans and ambitions for the game, showcase promotional material, and prove that there are *real* people behind it who are dedicated. It should get people interested. I've layed out my plans for the first episode above, if you're interested, but if you're not, there's obviously no obligation to be involved.
 
I'm willing to support any ideas that could work, of course. But I'm not the one who should be doing the actual Podcast, I can assure you of that.
 
Concerning progress: I've spoken to Hammie recently, and he says he is still working on the coding when he has time.
Apparently we might be able to see some more progress within a few weeks, and he hopes to have the foundations completed by the summer.
In other words, it's not happening overnight, but work is being done slowly but surely. :)

As for a podcast, it's a difficult question regarding who should (and is willing/able to) take part. Ideally, it would be one of the project coordinators (at least for the first podcast), and probably content creators and other contributors in later podcasts, to focus on more specific topics. Maybe Post Captain would be interested? His knowledge of the subject area might be useful.
 
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