[tazirai]

Hey folks been awhile Since i've posted a video. I've been working on this one for awhile. FINALLY finished it after several versions.

This Video details the "MAIN" storyline of FFXI from the original to Rise of the Ziraat, to The Chains of Promathia, and concludes with Apocalypse nigh.

In normal fashion I've added some storyline elements to make it more cohesive. Anywho here's the youtube link. Post either here or on youtube and tell me how you like it and what can be changed. I plan to enter this into a video contest soon. thanks.

YouTube - Final Fantsy XI in 4 minutes The Chains of Promathia

YouTube - Final Fantsy XI in 4 minutes The Chains of Promathia

[Malacite]

Kewly.

[Armando]

Sorry, but if you want my honest input...I'm really not feeling it. The video didn't really cover the plot in any way, it just presented the more visually impressive cutscenes in slow motion while labeling every character with unnecessary (and often lame, overdone, or gaudy) titles. The little narration there is tried to sound too poetic/epic/vague and ended up not saying much of anything at all besides "these are the bad guys. Stuff is happening. I must stop them!" The text just ended up giving an otherwise nice video a hint of lame. Must be hard to hear that after working to finish it, but that's how I see it.

Also in the Bahamut part, the word is spelled "lest," not "least."

If you really want to give a brief overview of the plot, drop all that slow-mo nonsense, drop all those silly titles, drop all the vague verbosity and fake prophecy shit and focus on actually explaining what's going on. Slapping slow motion on everything doesn't make it cooler; you'd actually have time to throw in footage featuring Ulmia, Tenzen, Shikaree Z, Louverance, Cid, Diabolos, and Eald'narche, which were all huge players in the CoP saga, yet they were not featured in the video to make room for overused Shadow Lord/Crystal Warrior footage (seriously, at least half the video are cutscenes that are shown in eeeeeeeevery FFXI fan video. If this is for a contest you need more originality than that.)

I'm also not too keen on the idea of naming your character in the video itself. It makes it seem like the video is more about you than it needs to be, considering the video is about the story, not your exploits as a player. The main character in FFXI is meant to be a generic placeholder for whatever identity the player wants to have.

Take that as you will. I didn't write that to discourage you but as honest criticism. The idea of summarizing the Original-RoZ-CoP saga in a video has potential. I'm not sure I've seen a video that's done it before. But this video needs a lot of work.

EDIT: And as prevalent as it is, I really dislike the practice of slapping "Whatever something or another Productions Presents" at the beginning of every video. It kinda tarnishes the presentation. You don't see "Square Enix presents" at the beginning of their expansion trailers.

[Yellow Mage]

Originally Posted by Armando

EDIT: And as prevalent as it is, I really dislike the practice of slapping "Whatever something or another Productions Presents" at the beginning of every video. It kinda tarnishes the presentation. You don't see "Square Enix presents" at the beginning of their expansion trailers.

T H I S .

/caps

[tazirai]

Originally Posted by Armando

Sorry, but if you want my honest input...I'm really not feeling it. The video didn't really cover the plot in any way, it just presented the more visually impressive cutscenes in slow motion while labeling every character with unnecessary (and often lame, overdone, or gaudy) titles. The little narration there is tried to sound too poetic/epic/vague and ended up not saying much of anything at all besides "these are the bad guys. Stuff is happening. I must stop them!" The text just ended up giving an otherwise nice video a hint of lame. Must be hard to hear that after working to finish it, but that's how I see it.

Not hard at all. Thats what I wanted. I wouldnt post anything If I couldnt take criticism.. Who do you think I am Michael Bay?

The cutscenes and dialog are for those who havent played FFXI yet. To give an idea of who the main bad guys are and how they fit into the story. The titles work well I think. The dialogue maybe not so much.

Originally Posted by Armando

Also in the Bahamut part, the word is spelled "lest," not "least."

Yeah I didnt catch that until the end of editing. I was kinda sleepy at the end.

If you really want to give a brief overview of the plot, drop all that slow-mo nonsense, drop all those silly titles, drop all the vague verbosity and fake prophecy shit and focus on actually explaining what's going on. Slapping slow motion on everything doesn't make it cooler; you'd actually have time to throw in footage featuring Ulmia, Tenzen, Shikaree Z, Louverance, Cid, Diabolos, and Eald'narche, which were all huge players in the CoP saga, yet they were not featured in the video to make room for overused Shadow Lord/Crystal Warrior footage (seriously, at least half the video are cutscenes that are shown in eeeeeeeevery FFXI fan video. If this is for a contest you need more originality than that.)

The slow mo stuff is due to dropping frame rate . So that couldnt be helped. not from editing. so on that i'll disagree with you.

The titles stay I think they fit. the Verbosity in parts work. Not all of it. but some does work. I'll do another without and see how that turns out.
The goal I tried to convey, i think was lost to you. The story IS about ME. Instead of the intro of the log I might add Ulmia, Tenzen and the others if time permits. They were in the video. Did you not see the end?

Those cutscenes, I could care less in every fan video. they are built to show the progression from the first boss to the last. How'd you miss that?
It does need more work though. not finished yet. But I needed to see what worked and what didnt.

Take that as you will. I didn't write that to discourage you but as honest criticism. The idea of summarizing the Original-RoZ-CoP saga in a video has potential. I'm not sure I've seen a video that's done it before. But this video needs a lot of work.

EDIT: And as prevalent as it is, I really dislike the practice of slapping "Whatever something or another Productions Presents" at the beginning of every video. It kinda tarnishes the presentation. You don't see "Square Enix presents" at the beginning of their expansion trailers.

Good idea on removing the "whatever made this" I can use that time for something else. Also SE does use it on alot of their videos. ^^

As far as discouraging me. I've been making these videos FAAAAAR to long to let anyone person discourage me. BUT I do like honest opinions. The reason most fans make/post videos is from love of whatever they are making it from. I'm just more open to critique than others are.

---------- Post added at 08:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:31 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Yellow Mage

T H I S .

/caps

I agree with you both on that. Removal of the title I can add other things.
Like a Hero montage.

BUT the video is still about my characters journey though it. I can't be some random joe blow.

[Susurrus]

You spelled "rights" wrong (as "rites").

[tazirai]

Originally Posted by Susurrus

You spelled "rights" wrong (as "rites").

rites is spelled correctly.. ^^


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite

I think the meanings are lost on folks hahahahaha.

My olde English skills dont work on the mmo crowd it seems.

[DakAttack]

So, are you targeting a crowd that hasn't a lot of experience with FFXI? I really like Recollection's, or whatever it's called, 'we are the future' thing it had going on, that's more relevant to people in general than a plot few are familiar with. It seems like you deviated from it a lot as well.

[Armando]

The slow mo stuff is due to dropping frame rate . So that couldnt be helped

Ah, I see. I thought the footage was being slowed down for the video.

The titles stay I think they fit

The problem with the titles is that you're applying them to every character. That means A) you really have to dig hard to find a fitting one for some of them, B) some of them turn out corny or misleading ("The Last Hope" is very, very debatable; "The Lord of Shadows" is just Shadow Lord backwards, and Raogrimm already HAS an actual title; "The Forever Child" doesn't even tell me anything about the character's role in the plot.), C) it kind of loses significance if everyone has one, and D) it wastes a lot of screen time without saying anything that's actually useful.

the Verbosity in parts work. Not all of it. but some does work.

The problem with it is similar to the titles - it's not so much that it's bad form or style, but it fails at a practical level. You want to sum up the game's story into 4 minutes that consist of a sparce number of cutscenes, but you waste time saying things that aren't useful to the viewer at all e.g. An ancient prophecy beckons (why should the average viewer care?) and "..as the ancients release the Key to Paradise." What key? What is paradise? Why should I care if the bad guys get into paradise or not? You haven't explained any of this. It may not have been your intention after all, but in the end, with the lack of explanations given, it just looks like you're trying to put in epic or ominous-sounding statements into the video, like an action movie trailer.

The goal I tried to convey, i think was lost to you. The story IS about ME.

I was just going by what you had written - that it details the game's story. It's not that I'm against your character being featured - it's just that, while seeing who the person behind the video is is nice, besides that the average viewer doesn't really have a reason to care what the "heroine" is called. Plus, it's kind of jarring to see the other characters get labeled with some title while yours is the only one properly named.

That's just how I see it and not really a technical problem with the video as much as it is a stylistic preference. If you disagree and choose to keep that in, that's fine.

They were in the video. Did you not see the end?

They appear once, and they're just bystanders. Their presence is inconsequential. In fact, this very fact is troubling - they appear in the video, but someone unfamiliar with the plot will say "Who are they and why should I care?" when in fact each of those characters is important.

Those cutscenes, I could care less in every fan video. they are built to show the progression from the first boss to the last. How'd you miss that?

But you dwell on them too long. An entire minute - 1/4 of the video's total length, more so when you factor that time is wasted with the intro - is spent on the RoZ intro. Likewise too much time is spent on the end, with only vague explanations given. Everything in between - the explanations - is completely skipped and glossed over, even though Apocalypse Nigh is more on the side of the aftermath than actually relevant to the plot.

You need a lot more brevity than that if the video is going to be this short. For example, we don't need to see the whole Shadow Lord transformation sequence. In the grand scheme of things who the Shadow Lord really was is pretty inconsequential to the CoP plot. We don't need to see the whole theatrics behind the summoning of the Crystal Warriors. It's a great cutscene but time's a wastin'. And, like the Shadow Lord, the Crystal Warriors were relatively small players in the plot - they're cool, they're powerful, but they're still just pawns. Yet they get 20 times the screen time as your NPC companions. Hell, Kam'lolnaut and Eald'narche themselves had little to do with the actual events in CoP. RoZ and CoP are closely related but the happenings in both are relatively separate.

You say it's to show progression from first boss to last yet Diabolos, Tenzen, the Shikarees, and Bahamut (the fight) aren't shown, despite them having far greater plot relevance than the Crystal Warriors and being major bosses too.

[tazirai]

Originally Posted by Armando

You need a lot more brevity than that if the video is going to be this short. For example, we don't need to see the whole Shadow Lord transformation sequence. In the grand scheme of things who the Shadow Lord really was is pretty inconsequential to the CoP plot. We don't need to see the whole theatrics behind the summoning of the Crystal Warriors. It's a great cutscene but time's a wastin'. And, like the Shadow Lord, the Crystal Warriors were relatively small players in the plot - they're cool, they're powerful, but they're still just pawns. Yet they get 20 times the screen time as your NPC companions. Hell, Kam'lolnaut and Eald'narche themselves had little to do with the actual events in CoP. RoZ and CoP are closely related but the happenings in both are relatively separate.

You say it's to show progression from first boss to last yet Diabolos, Tenzen, the Shikarees, and Bahamut (the fight) aren't shown, despite them having far greater plot relevance than the Crystal Warriors and being major bosses too.

Good points.. I'll work on alot of those when i have some time off this week.

I'm thinking the way I set up the "bad guys" is a bit much. I mean they all appear twice at least. but I appear with the heroes as a group. I think I have a way to work that out. AND get rid of the redundancy in the titles.


See it's folks like you that can give GOOD feed back. that makes it worthwhile.

[Feba]

Advice:
* Drop Papyrus. It's hard to read, especially as subtitles on a youtube video.
* Go look at the way that Super Smash Bros. and Legend of Zelda introduce new characters. A freeze frame of a good shot of the character with the name in large type and a short explanation or title can go a long way.
* Go look at the way that the Neon Genesis Evangelion recap episodes/movie worked. Basically, a short shot of action, followed by a very-large-print title card explaining it, at a high speed. Using higher speed for shorter phrases, as well as breaking them up to keep things flowing. Good example:

YouTube - Evangelion episode 14 sub. 1/3

YouTube - Evangelion episode 14 sub. 1/3

This could be very cool if it were tightened up, as it is it just seems sorta cheesy.