TLS Podcast - Episode 1

[Pixel]

In TLS’ continuing efforts to stay as on top of all Final Fantasy news as possible, I’m pleased to announce the release of the first Lifestream Podcast. Forcestealer, AvecAloes, Ryushikaze, Tennyo and myself get together to talk about recent news and other topics, including:

What direction do you see future FF titles taking, especially in light of Yoichi Wada stepping down?
If SE were to remake FF7, how do you think they should do it? Are there things you feel should be changed or left out completely?

True to our Fans Eye View Commentary series we exhibit our penchant for wandering way off topic only to bring the conversation full circle and make it appear that we knew what we were doing. Additionally, for your enjoyment there are two pieces of music are featured:

Black Wing Metamorphosis from Voices of the Lifestream
Maiden Who Travels The Planet by HypochondriacPiano from her album ‘Pulse of Life’

DOWNLOAD (Right Click - Save As)

 

[Lex]

Listening now, and damn guys I wish I could have joined in, if only just to say a bit about the PC version of FFVIII, in part because:

The fact that the achievements were spotted on Steam doesn't actually mean anything, the VII achievements have been on Steam for years. People can use a steam launcher to hook the .exe of the original VII and VIII causing the games to "appear" on Steam. It's more than likely that a fan created those achievements some time ago. I don't think the PC version of VIII will be getting a release on Steam at all tbh :/

Fantastic so far though, I'm about half way through Good job!

 

[Flintlock]

I've just finished listening to it. I thought it was great for a first episode I do have some ideas on how to make it even better, but please don't interpret this as nit-picking, because I really enjoyed it overall.

I think the whole package could be tighter, though. It could have been about half an hour shorter without losing any of the key points. It's fun for us, as TLS members, to listen to you guys - our friends - rambling for 82 minutes, but I'm not sure how much that will appeal to our other important target audience: listeners who aren't (yet) Lifestream members. I was impressed by your hosting, Pixel, but I kept wanting you to step in and move the conversation along. Many people listen to podcasts in the background while doing something else, so it's important to be able to dip in and out of paying complete attention without feeling lost, and I wasn't able to do that because the episode didn't seem to have much of a structure.

You could ask all the guests what they want to talk about beforehand, or even ask them to prepare to discuss specific stories, and then go to them first when they come up. For example, instead of saying "Yoichi Wada has stepped down, what do you all think about that?" (sorry for paraphrasing; I know that's not exactly what you said), if you knew that Ryu had prepped for the story, you could say "Yoichi Wada has stepped down this week. Ryu, what do you think has caused this turn of events?". Everyone else would be able to chip in with comments and questions, but it would mainly be Ryu's segment of the pod. Then someone else would have a segment, and so on. That would make it feel like every guest has a reason to be there.

I'm looking forward to the next one, and I'm available to make an appearance on the pod if and when you want me to - but, like I said, preferably when I have a reason to be there - if I'm about to start running a community event, for example. Keep up the good work in the meantime!

 

[Fangu]

I agree on all of Flint's post. I'm gonna do this sandwich style:

* I really like the topics, the intro, the enthusiasm, the quality is nice; yeah, kudos to everyone, good job!
* Like Flint say there is a way to direct it even more to make it shorter and sweeter. It probably takes more time and energy from everyone, so maybe not everyone has to prepare something, but maybe 1 or 2 at least? I think the length is too much, and half an hour is an absolute max imo. I sorta lost track a little into it and found myself doing other stuff. It needs to be slightly tighter.
* That being said, I think as time went along, you guys had less interference with each other, which I guess comes from you know each other pretty well by now. Like Flint says there is the danger of becoming a listen in to 5 friends ranting on Skype, but still it lessens the chance of awkwardness, so that is neat.

But yes awesome first Podcast. This is really really promising. Pixel you've got a good host voice!

Oh, and that One Winged Angel remix thingy is awesome!

 

[Geostigma]

I agree with flints points especially regarding subject preparation.
If all parties have an idea of the various subjects beforehand it could make it a bit smoother.

You guys did a good job of not interrupting each other through out once you got into the flow of things. But for future podcasts it may be beneficial to have an order of who speaks for initial thoughts on the subjects, then you can let the conversation flow from there on out. This would help avoid 2 or 3 people speaking over each other for a few seconds when the host finishes laying out the subject.


For post Podcast stuff, when you post it up on the forum what would be interesting would be a subject table of contents thing on the post like.

Yoichi Wada stepping down - 2:00
Mobile Gaming : 5:00
ect.
This could really help for the longer podcasts where you start to use it more like a background "sound" when doing other work, it could help us to back up to a general area and re-listen to the convo lol.

Over all good stuff, I for one dont mind long podcasts alot of the ones I tune into every week are well over an hour long (some even 3 hours long) so its not an issue for me

 

[Ghost X]

^This, and also in agreement with not liking the huge length.

 

[Tennyo]

These are all some valuable points.

 

[AvecAloes]

I really like the idea of one person focusing on prepping a certain topic, and then having everyone else chime in with opinions and whatnot after the main points have been given by that segment's 'host,' so to speak. With a little more planning/communication done in advance by those involved, this could be easily done and would make things flow more smoothly and concisely, I believe.

 

[Pixel]

I actually cut out a whole section, which was the community discussion. Ive been having problems with my speech, so things weren't introduced properly. What you hear is after 7 hours of editting out me stammering and stuttering. I might have to give up presenting duties tbh.

I agree about the preparation thing. Unfortunately the recording fell after a long weekend, so there wasnt much time to prepare stuff.

Thanks for the feedback

 

[AvecAloes]

I'm looking forward to the next one that I get to participate in, especially with all of this feedback coming in and knowing what and how to do things differently next time. Great job editing, Pixel, and I'm glad you decided to get this going in the first place

 

[Geostigma]

I actually cut out a whole section, which was the community discussion. Ive been having problems with my speech, so things weren't introduced properly. What you hear is after 7 hours of editting out me stammering and stuttering. I might have to give up presenting duties tbh.

I agree about the preparation thing. Unfortunately the recording fell after a long weekend, so there wasnt much time to prepare stuff.

Thanks for the feedback

Hey if you (or TLS for that matter) need help with audio and video editing hit me up

 

[laurence]

I've previewed the first 5 mins and will listen to the rest tonight because I'm busy atm. Maybe you guys can play some podcast game at the end like...i don't know..guess that final fantasy theme song/sound or FF phrases or something like that...though it's got to be pulled off with a certain appeal for it to work, as is my experience listening to podcasts. Anyway, I like this project...and it's once a month so you guys can come up with lots of material.

 

[Pixel]

If anyone has any suggestions for future podcast's featured discussion, let us know

 

[Splintered]

I rather enjoyed it. Like others said it was rather long, but other than that you guys were entertaining. Great first job :3

 

[ForceStealer]

I was a little worried about the length, but as someone who doesn't really listen to podcasts, I thought they were usually long? Kinda like radio shows?

 

[laurence]

The length is just fine considering it's not a daily podcast...I've listened in one go. If not it can be paused and easily finished before the next podcast is out.
This is a pretty standard duration for a podcast, btw.

 

[Geostigma]

I was a little worried about the length, but as someone who doesn't really listen to podcasts, I thought they were usually long? Kinda like radio shows?

Yeah theres a ton of podcasts out there that are consistently just as long and alot that are much longer lol.

 

[AvecAloes]

I agree about the length being alright - I think that anything less than an hour for a monthly podcast would actually look rather wimpy. If we have good stuff to talk about, longer is better, in my opinion.

 

[Splintered]

is it a monthly podcast? I know people were throwing around ideas but I never knew if there was a definitive weekly/biweekly/monthly thing going.

 

[AvecAloes]

Pretty sure we'll be trying for monthly. I think that's what we generally agreed on right before recording.

 

[Flintlock]

I think a fortnightly 45 minutes would be a lot easier to digest than a monthly 90 minutes. Of course, that would depend on people being available twice a month. Alternatively, we could record one podcast at a time that suits Americans, as the last one was, and then record the next one at a time that suits Europeans, so nobody would need to commit to doing it more than once a month, but we'd still get the pod out more regularly. I think the host should stay the same for both, but Pixel has said he's not sure if he will continue in that role, so even that could be flexible.

 

[ForceStealer]

I was originally thinking quarterly as I'm not sure there'd be enough to talk about, but I don't care really. The Europe/America tradeoff idea is a neat one though.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

More accents never hurt anything.

 

[AvecAloes]

Mmm, that's certainly true.

 

[Pixel]

I think monthly is fine. There isnt a huge amount of news, but the featured discussions are what the podcast is all about.

Fortnightly or weekly would be overkill

I personally love long podcast like the 1up or IGN podcasts