Opportunities to chat with the developers?

from Sins Forums

To whom it may concern;

I, along with several friends, run an independant video game podcast. (www.therumblepack.com) We have over 30 episodes under our belt and we have a pretty consistent (if a little tiny) fanbase.

We were interested in discussing with anyone from Ironclad the motivation behind publishing with Stardock and thoughts on DRM and copyright protection. While I'm the biggest fan of sins on the podcast everyone was interested in talking to a group of developers who are willing to come down from the ivory tower and cavort with the masses.

Obviously, we would love to talk about Sins as well, but seeing as we don't have a mass audience it would serve a poor form of advertisement to plug the game. We are interested in this conversation more for getting a glimpse of the unique developer-publisher relationship going on here.

After playing Sins, and becoming hopelessly addicted for a week, I found myself lurking on these forums and enjoying the amazing contact the developers were keeping with the fanbase. I figured this forum would be as a good as any to contact people concerning a potential "interview"/chat.

Best Regards (TEC rules...),

Nick "Kaz" Kosareo ([email protected])

22,141 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
You have a rather nice site and a great concept and good radio voices.
Now for the rough stuff.

You guys really need to develop more structure for your programs. When I began listening to them there was no opening that told me anything.

Who are each of you? An intro announcement of name and a simple hello would allow me to know who each of you are and to tie in the voice with the conversation.

No intro as to the topic. When a podcast begins there is no way for me to know what you are going to discuss.. are you just going to ramble on about nothing or are you going to discuss the new game that came out for the {insert name of game system here}.? BTW: your descriptions on the site do not count, put it in the podcast..

Also remember to give us some background on the subjects don’t assume we know everything you do.

You almost did it right on your December 21st, 2007 cast, but you dumped it in less then ten sec. Your Nov 28th 2007 show did it correctly. {people intro that is}. {for the games please give us info on where to go to get additional information in case you actually interested us in what you were discussing.}. This could be a section on your site providing links and also provide your url information in your broadcast into so that should someone want to put your podcast on their site people listening would know where to go..

Stop taking to each other and start talking to your audience. I feel like I am ease dropping in on a private conversation rather then feeling like a part of it. {You do have several occasions that you do it right, perhaps you just need additional experience.

I could make a joke that your more like The Ramble Pack” rather then “The Rumble Pack”
Your shows are too long. Your doing a podcast not The Mercury Theater. {War of The Worlds for those who don’t know what Mercury Theater was}

Break it down into segments wrapped around topics. Post the segments as well as the entire uninterrupted full length show; Do you really think anyone is going to listen to you talk about disjointed items for over an hour and a half? Cut down to 20-40 min segments.

At that point you might begin to get guest of substance on board for a show.

My back ground in this you ask?
1987-88 WVSJ Vineland, New Jersey.
Format: Sixty minute monthly call in talk radio. {First Tuesday of each month}.

Partial guest list:
New Jersey State Senator Lee Laskin, 1st Congressional District.
New Jersey Congressman James Florio, 1st Congressional District
Sally Starr, Local and much beloved children’s television celebrity best known for her 1960’s Saturday morning “Popeye’s Theater” broadcast on local ABC affiliate channel six.
The Mayor of Vineland, New Jersey. {For the life of me his name escapes me}

Good luck, you can make a great thing of what you are doing there.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Wow, thanks for the volume of feedback. Generally we don't get thoughtful feedback whenever the podcast name gets posted somewhere. While I wasn't looking for feedback in posting this, I'm pleasantly surprised to find some helpful comments for once.

First of all; thank you for the effort you put into giving us a listen.

Would it be helpful if we came back and recorded an opener after we record? Generally we start recording an episode with a set schedule or list of things we want to talk about. While we record, however, things change, tangents happen and the like. Maybe we could try and reduce the tangents and asides but that's part of what we like about our podcast.

Now we have to be very cautious to avoid the nickname "The Ramble Pack", we are very aware of the length of the show sometimes. And we are working actively to keep the show within the 60-90 minute range. Maybe some more defined structure will help us attain that.

That's kind of why we wanted to do developer interviews, it would help maintain a constant flow to the show if we had a very defined well edited interview in the middle of the show to force a break.

We think of our show in several sections: The Intro, The Trays, The Mind, The News, The Horizon. We wanted to maintain these sections without talking about the show format because we thought that would sound more professional. I'm definately going to bring up rethinking this strategem.

Thanks again for the advice, I hope we can put it to good use to get more people onboard,

Kaz
Sins of a Solar Empire II