Would more gameplay videos help?

[Professor Paul1290]

I've been aware of The Dark Mod for quite some time but previously I've been largely ignoring it because I didn't have a sense of what it really was. Sure there's screenshots on the site and there's some trailers on youtube, but I don't think either of those really show off the game very well.

 

It wasn't until I stumbled across a walkthrough almost by accident and saw someone playing The Dark Mod did I really realize its level of quality and how "Thief" it really was. Now I'm hating myself for not giving it a chance sooner.

I already had a copy of Doom 3, but it was going to be another week until I could dig it up. I actually bought Doom 3 off Steam just so I could play this mod sooner and not have to wait a week, I had to have it that badly!

 

Here's what I'm getting at, I don't feel there are enough videos out there showing off the gameplay that are not walkthroughs or short demonstrations of features. Sure there are some trailers and nice looking screenshots, but I don't think they give a good sense of what the game itself is like.

 

 

Perhaps there needs to be a new trailer for the The Dark Mod, maybe after a big update that adds some nice features or gets it polished to where you really feel comfortable with it.

However, this time perhaps it would be better to not go with the flashy editing or concept art of the previous ones. Maybe it should be more about clips from the mod itself actually being played.

This might sound a bit silly, but I think in a way the mod is good enough to "sell" itself if you let it.

 

I mean, I've seen a lot of the comments on TTLG and elsewhere and there seems to be a lot of misconceptions about how the mod itself plays. I suspect a lot of people (previously including myself) are expecting something that's just Doom 3 with some Thief features added to it, but it's obvious that it's a lot more than that. A good gameplay video put up on the front page of the site for everyone to see can dispel this sort of thing very easily.

Edited April 9, 2011 by Professor Paul1290

[Briareos H]

How about an "official gameplay trailer" contest for the community?

[Sotha]

Gotta agree here. This time is all about video media.

 

People do not read anymore, they watch video tutorials.

 

Having some good clips on gameplay would certainly increase mod visibilty and maybe make it more accessible. Heck, anything showing tdm in good light is benefial. Just dont make bug videos..

[Professor Paul1290]

How about an "official gameplay trailer" contest for the community?

 

That would be pretty nice.

 

 

Gotta agree here. This time is all about video media.

 

People do not read anymore, they watch video tutorials.

 

Having some good clips on gameplay would certainly increase mod visibilty and maybe make it more accessible. Heck, anything showing tdm in good light is benefial. Just dont make bug videos..

 

I think in this case it's not so much that people don't read anymore as much as it is that a lot of the people who would like this mod are used to being disappointed.

 

I think it's important to realize that many of this mod's potential players are used to reading all these good things these games and mods will do only to find that they don't deliver. They don't have much reason to fully believe what people say or write about their games or mods anymore.

 

These days, when you're trying to tell someone about your mod or game, their previous bad experiences with other mods and games is often working against you.

In other words, you don't just have to convince them that your mod or game does what you say it does, sometimes on top of that you have to convince them that it is even possible at all for any game or mod to do it.

It's terribly unfair but that's the way things work sometimes.

 

I have to admit that simply reading about this mod did in fact tell me a lot about it, but I was skeptical and I didn't really believe that it was as good as was being said until it was being shown from the mod itself.

Edited April 9, 2011 by Professor Paul1290

[Springheel]

Yes, I think that more publicity would be a good idea, and videos are definitely the way to go. What we really need is some kind of infomercial--something that combines lots of gameplay shots with actual narrative about what TDM is all about and some of the features it has.

[demagogue]

An official walkthrough of the tutorial map with some commentary might be good too, since it's custom made to show off the features as it is.

[lost_soul]

Whenever I check out a game, I always look for gameplay videos and not just fancy trailers too. I think more FM play-throughs would help the mod. Another problem is that even if you look for the dark mod on youtube, you'll only see a few videos, because lots of them are called TDM and won't return with "the dark mod".

[lowenz]

Whenever I check out a game, I always look for gameplay videos and not just fancy trailers too. I think more FM play-throughs would help the mod. Another problem is that even if you look for the dark mod on youtube, you'll only see a few videos, because lots of them are called TDM and won't return with "the dark mod".

 

http://www.youtube.c...D1711305C72AA96

 

Look at right

 

I'll rename all videos, no problem!

 

EDIT: renamed

Edited April 9, 2011 by lowenz

[AluminumHaste]

http://www.youtube.c...D1711305C72AA96

 

Look at right

 

I'll rename all videos, no problem!

 

EDIT: renamed

 

 

Thanks for posting those, very tense. The thing I noticed about that map is that the rats cause pathing issues for the Guards which shouldn't happen. The rats are so small that they should be set to non-solid as they even can impeded the player movement. Maybe have the rats squeak and run away when something walks over top of them?

[jaxa]

What software do you guys use to record (Windows)?

[demagogue]

I use Fraps, then VirtualDub is a nice free program for cutting videos & conversion, though since then I got Sony Vegas.

 

Fraps is great, the only catch is that the free version only lets you record in 30 second snips IIRC.

[AluminumHaste]

EDIT: My hand is a DOLPHIN

[Springheel]

Can I have a PM too?

[demagogue]

Thanks but I already got the full version. I was just saying...

[lowenz]

Virtualdub is tooooo old

 

Avidemux is the (free) future! http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

 

My coding formats: MPEG-4 AVC + AAC

Edited April 10, 2011 by lowenz

[Professor Paul1290]

Virtualdub is tooooo old

 

Avidemux is the (free) future! http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

 

My coding formats: MPEG-4 AVC + AAC

 

Now that sounds interesting, I might just give this a try.

 

By the way, does anyone have anything for video capture you'd recommend trying out besides Fraps?

Edited April 11, 2011 by Professor Paul1290

[Midnight]

Request for alternative suggestions to Fraps seconded!

 

The only way I've managed to record TDM apart from a 30 sec Fraps video was to use the built in video + audio recording feature in Doom 3 (using recordDemo and aviDemo), but I had to use at least three shareware programs to convert, compress and stitch it into an avi... and after all that I had audio sync problems. I did manage to get pretty good quality for the file size using this method though, so I might try this again and see if I can sort the audio out.

 

Also, I found that using recorddemo doesn't support the HDR-lite post processing graphics options, so a separate recording program might be better if the intention is to show TDM at its best.

Edited April 12, 2011 by Midnight

[AluminumHaste]

FRAPS is still the #1 video recording software. Just buy it Free lifetime upgrades.

[Komag]

Yeah, I bought FRAPS probably seven years ago, I've gotten my money's worth probably 15 times over by now. They keep improving it too, STILL, and it records high-res stuff with not too much performance hit while playing, very nice. I don't know of anything else that even comes close. I know people can sometimes manage to get their hands on some illicit unlocked version, but this is one of those programs that is worth paying for to support them.

[lost_soul]

I used to use a program called Taksi Desktop Recorder (http://taksi.sourceforge.net/)

 

I only used it for screenshots, but apparently it can do video too.

[Professor Paul1290]

The only way I've managed to record TDM apart from a 30 sec Fraps video was to use the built in video + audio recording feature in Doom 3 (using recordDemo and aviDemo), but I had to use at least three shareware programs to convert, compress and stitch it into an avi... and after all that I had audio sync problems. I did manage to get pretty good quality for the file size using this method though, so I might try this again and see if I can sort the audio out.

 

Also, I found that using recorddemo doesn't support the HDR-lite post processing graphics options, so a separate recording program might be better if the intention is to show TDM at its best.

 

Does recording a demo and getting a video out of that result in a smoother framerate? I haven't tried it with Doom 3, but I used to use a similar method for recording video in Source games.

 

My framerate often doesn't stay consistent while recording with FRAPS which makes getting good video a bit difficult for me.

[Midnight]

Does recording a demo and getting a video out of that result in a smoother framerate? I haven't tried it with Doom 3, but I used to use a similar method for recording video in Source games.

 

Good question, I don't know but aviDemo replays a recorded gameplay, and I'd imagine the framerate of the output image files would be affected by a very stuttery in game FPS. You can try it out yourself (cached tutorial page here) but I would suggest you skip the Quake Video Maker program mentioned on that page as I didn't have much success with it.

 

I'm probably going to go ahead and purchase Fraps instead I think, once my finances are less stretched.

[AluminumHaste]

Using aviDemo renders out each frame completely to a bmp file. Slow downs during the recording process will not be present in the final output, works great. Just recording audio doesn't work unfortunately, for Quake 4 demos I had to re-record the video with fraps to get a sound channel and try and match it up with the video stream.

[Midnight]

Maybe Quake4 is different, but using aviDemo does record audio in D3 at least, it outputs to a .wav file in the demo folder IIRC. As mentioned I had sync issues with audio, but this was most likely caused by the convoluted process that I put the .tga files through to create an avi, not the audio recording itself.

[ungoliant]

having problems using fraps with darkradiant. fraps seems to think that DR is 4 different video outputs (one for each of my views in DR), and will only record one at a time. Is there a way to just force fraps to record whats going on from my desktop instead of the stupid thing recording only the XY view, or camera?

 

edit: using winXP sp3, no Aero desktop option here.

Edited June 10, 2011 by ungoliant