Community Event / Creation Role play series to learn the lore?

[Taurinid]

Hey Commanders,
so I've been playing Elite for the year now, (Plus my entire childhood on the originals) but i never really go into the lore and the universe, so i thought it was about time to change that. I've decided to do this via the means of a Role play series on Youtube, I've done a "pilot episode" to set the tone which went up Yesterday, and can be found here for those interested.

I'm looking for a little help though, if there's anything interesting or cool that people could suggest that i start with, I be hugely appreciative.
thanks, Tau

 

[CMD Malandark]

+Rep

Hi Tau. Since no one has commented on your RP Video yet, I thought I would make a start with some of my first impressions to your RP Episode.

An Introduction to the background of your character would be great, this would give people a better idea of the 'person' shown in the video and would help to set the stage for their introduction into the pilot episode. I cant speak for anyone else, but it felt like I was dumped into watching a RP video not having a clue to what it was all about. I could not associate with the charater or understand where the video was taking me. Definitley need an introduction to the background of your character and to the story.

Are the screen black-outs between segments designed that way or from editing different peices together? If they are the former, you could turn them into a kind of play-back 'recordings', as though played from the ship's computer, thereby preceding each segment with a visual or audio message 'Playback started/resumed' and when finished with 'Playback Stopped' or something simular?.

It's difficult to suggest what you could add to the story as I know so little about it, however, initially I thought your character might have this onboard A.I with them that using Voice Attack could be made to talk to your character almost like a real person sitting right next to them, that would feed your 'character' with news and events outside of their ship, thereby giving those watching your video extra background information to future events as the story unfolds.

Looking forward to reading your intro to this story so I can rewatch the episode again!

-Malandark-

 

[Taurinid]

Huge thanks for the feedback, I'm currently in the process of writing a bit of a backstory to fill in some of the gaps mentioned in the pilot (the federal ranking and all that) and yes the black screens were supposed to have a VHS pause style effect to show the playback, but they didn't render and since i wasn't sure how well it would do i decided against spending 3 hours re-rending but i'll definitely look into it for the future. and finally in regards to an on board A.I, shh spoilers *cough in talks with Kate Russel to use her pack and trying to get hold of Mr. Paul from HCS*

 

[CMD Malandark]

I hope you dont use a 'standard' voice pack! Imagine the unique and varied conversations you could create yourself throughout your RP series that doesnt fit any standard voice pack! Ivona Voices for example are pretty good at reading text out which you can then save as mp3. Yep, requires more work on your part, but this will give you total freedom with how your onboard A.I behaves towards your character and the situations it finds itself in..

You may have already considered this and discarded the idea already, but will toss it out there anyway.. You probably have a good story outline already planned for your series, could that series be converted into a radio play?, one that pilots could listen to using their inbuilt media player while they are flying around, as opposed to watching it seperatly on YouTube? It would mean adding a narrative for different scenes though and jiggling audio samples with an app like Audacity. The reason I mention this is because a while back and before RL got in the way I was creating a RP Radio Station that would play music and radio plays that pilots could listen to as they traveled around the galaxy. I made a small demo here https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=143661 of a couple of plays I had made.

Either way, please let us know when the next episode is ready for viewing

-CMD Malandark-

 

[Taurinid]

in terms of the voice pack, i'll probably use the base packs recordings (Not just commands) to have running jokes and conversations, i want to avoid altering the files of the pack if i can because of the whole legal stuff, and potential detriment to the artist so i have considered creating my own "Voice pack to run and have this AI that i can have conversations with, but thats another thing that i'm going to look into when i see how the series goes. and in terms of a narrative, i have some vague ideas of a long term, over arching story but im stuck at fleshing it out. so thats taken a back burner while i work on constructing a backstory and an actual character, and with my work rate, that might take a while. XD

 

[Taurinid]

i think i've just finished writing up a short, backstory episode to build a character. i just need to call for people to be some extras, anywhere i can call some commanders to arms?