If everyone is responding to the same basic structure centered around a single topic (a character) over kasts accomodating every character there should be a pretty good conversational snowball.

Most facets of the MK story revolve around a character, so it makes sense to produce all the character podcasts first. Then the information from that informs people on the overarcing discussion of story (which is also something more thoroughly covered in the downloads on the first page).

If everyone is breaking their contribution into short mp3s responding to - the character's story so far; gameplay; design; and finally, story - it's going to make intercutting a little easier, I would imagine.

I also think getting people to contribute their preferences is a good idea, but think it would be much more fun to keep the final selections private and a bit more free and loose. This allows better general or thematic progress through the discussion, and could also be a fun feature of the kast: try to guess what character's up next.

I was skipping through music and liked the idea of a different intro track each week (like a lot of podcasts) that sort of gives one last opportunity to guess who it is. I had way too much fun with that, but I've been sick, and will use that as an excuse. lulz

I agree with Mick's breakdown of how the kasts should be organized...story so far, gameplay, design, story.

I might be able to get a microphone to make my own recording. Would be easier and probably would be able to get thoughts across more clearly myself than forcing someone else to read them.
Can't guarantee that though.


But if I do....I should probably ease up on the cursing, right..?

The standard I tried to hold to was "Be considerate that there might be a really young listener tune in".

Other than that, we're talking to grown people about a M rated game. Long as we're not cursing at them, say whatever you feel man. I curse alot more than I type on these boards in person, but it's all about the art of the spoken word when I "perform".

And I mean now that I think about it, there's an element of entertainment in doing these besides just getting the information to them too. So, I'm not against artful // tasteful punchlines to get a point across in substitution of a bunch of swearing.

I'll still re-listen to the ones that are done because there is something fun and unpredictable about them.

Finally got around to getting internet and giving this a listen to. Very good job man. Most impressive. Really nailed some of those points and issues we've in generally agreed on as a community.

Let's get ready to start sending in input. We're still a little ways off though. So I want to get some of these things set in stone first.

One question: "Who do you wanna talk about first?"

Sareena's a pretty popular character right now, any objection to starting with her?

I figure we're gonna have to elect the character (or make a list) that we're focusing on, so that things below can fall into place.....
__________________


Here's the formula we'll be using that will kind of dictate the flow of the recording. I don't know about everyone here, but I see a formula that XiahouDun84 has been using in his Storyline Analysis thread that will help organize these, and that I'm quite comfortable with since he introduced it.

I see no reason to reinvent the wheel so, here's how I want you guys to cater your content that you send to me:

Character Description: I want you to define the character in your own words. Questions you could anwer for the MkTeam are like:

a.) "Who is (in the case we go with Sareena first) to you? Describe the personality in detail here, maybe a short pros and cons. Give examples, and tell them maybe what parts of the characters personality should lead and what parts should be passive.

b.) "What influences do you think make up the given character?

c.) Why do you like this character?

Ect...short and sweet if you can help it. But I want plenty to chew on in here.
So that takes precedence here, because it could tell them how to deal with the character. Or how NOT to violate what you like about the character..w/e.

Journey:

Largely, this will cover the backstory, and give the listeners a good sense of what we gather about the path that the character has taken up until current. This will probably be one of the biggest sections in any of the recordings.

Now, we know how many holes there are in the story, so if you mention a retcon or something like that, keep that short and sweet. We wanna draw as straight a line as we can for the MkTeam. I feel like it's the best way for them to tell where information may have been lost in translation, or for them to tell how we're interpreting the characters journey.

By the end of this section, they should get a great sense of where either "they fucked up", or "we fucked up". lol

Character Role:

Pretty much short an sweet here.

a.) What role does the character play in the game?
b.) Has that role changed?
c.) Into what?
d.) Do you like that change or not?
e.) What's the personality of a person with this role, as you understand it?

I have a fun idea for this section in case we all end up saying the same thing. We'll see if it works out.

Character Development:

This might depend alot on the character how big a section this ends up being, but what I want you to answer is:

a.) Chronologically, what has happened to this characters personality?
b.) What things changed that?
c.) How has the given character grown? Or have they not?

Relationships:

a.) Who is the characters friends, foes, or otherwise that have some relationship with the character?
b.) How do you perceive that they have affected this character throughout Mk to current.

Final Thoughts:

Big question, and the only one I really recommend with this section is....

What SHOULD they be doing with this character by your estimation?

Um...I'm inclined to let the "biggest fan" have a chunk of this section. But I'll wait to see what you guys think.

Other than that, this is the section where anything that we missed pertaining to the characters story, personality, maybe your recommendations for the future, ect...tell the MkTeam "what you want" in this section.

Character Design:

a.) What should they look like? (what do you think the best type of look for your character is?) What's appropriate, or what would just "make your day if they would give them ____". Got me?
b.) Any little tidbits about how the design contributes or hurts the make up of the character. Garments, symbols, elemental attributes like Smokes ether-realism that we mentioned...that stuff should probably go in here.

Gameplay:

Our gameplay section is going to be aesthetically charged. So here, I want

a.) what moves they should probably have, how they should probably be moving around in a fight...ect."Should they fly"...lol whatever.

b.) Second thing here is, "How should story affect the characters gameplay?" Anything signifying growth in the story, that reflects in the gameplay? "Give them a clue" about the specific character, so to speak.

c.) If fate compels you, fatalities? lol

====================

Alright, that's all I could think of right now. Seriously now, I know I missed something, or misconstrued some of Xia's format, so let's manipulate the structure before we start sending in content. I almost wanna let Mick or XD84 reconstruct this for us since it's their ideas that we're running with for this thing.

Edit my post and repost or something idk.

Umm...I'm gonna start recording my vocals pretty soon here, but we still got an overabundance of time. So DO NOT RUSH. I don't wanna be sending a screwed up message through crap-tacular assessments.

I want this thing to "allow them to see the way we're thinking" about this stuff. So I think strong points, and constructive criticisms are the best way to create that environment for them.

*opens the flood gates*....

So do we do the assessments based on the characters we want to focus on and you basically take the ones we all agreed on that should be featured, or do we decide who we want to have an assessment on first then make the write-ups/recordings?

"Or"

Limits getting random content sent in, which limits wasting time sorting through all of it... and well, ect..

Should allow us to do more characters too if we know who we're gonna talk about, and know what to talk about before we construct the content. Should end up like Xai's story thread posts, except with multiple people providing the content that is within the post. And, that allows me to plug stuff in, slap some music in there, and upload faster.

Depending on the character in a particular podcast, this should limit the amount of people who want to talk about a certain character too. And with less folks chiming in on a certain character (like, I obviously have no business talking about Kitana, or Smokes story elements or personalities to any great extent lol!) , the main person who wants to talk about them, could get more time. Which again, allows us to cover more characters.

I suspect that largely, I'll fall back and let you story guys carry us on these (you Jerrod, Xai...ect). I'll probably jump in and out, and I'm pretty sure I'll be the heavier force on the aesthetic stuff again. I'm happy not to talk so much this time. Especially if what I think will happen this time, and I get more audio bytes to just edit, and plug in.


EDIT

More links in the first post on the first page.

I've ordered a microphone and it should arrive some time next week...so I should be able to make my own recording.

Have we decided on which character is going first?

Raiden Teaser

This is only the music, and only a about 5 minutes long. What I'm trying to do here, is set a good tone for the particular character. Now, from listening to this, you can probably tell that we will not have much of an intro. Rather, more of a theme that introduces the characters so they know right off who we're focusing on.

I figured this is a better way to go right into the content instead of wasting a minute and a half introducing myself everytime. So yea, we'll be going right in.

Note, I started out working on a Sareena one, but I don't really know her theme that well. I'm thinking, a culmination of demons and women voices? Maybe some sounds of knives being thrown around? Some suggestions on her would help... (I got it)

Other characters I don't see myself having such a time with their theme.

Remember don't send me your voice audio with music. I will do all the leveling and all that. I only want your voice, or your transcipts.

I'm pretty much done with Raidens background music, and so when I get all the content together, all I have to do is plug it in, edit a little, maybe add some sound effects, and upload. Just to show you guys how I plan to churn these out. I'll be preparing a few of these like this to save time.


Easy ones that I'm looking at are:

Raiden
Sub-Zero
Kitana
Fujin
Smoke (will probably be easy with ghost sounds)
Scorpion

Others on the list, but that might not warrant an intro theme are:

Kai
Nitara
Havik

Others that look like they'll be talked about in one way or another?:

Kung Lao
Liu Kang
Johnny Cage
Baraka
Shinnok
Shang Tsung
=================

This isn't a "list" per se, as characters like Sareena and Quan Chi will get their own session. But, the way this is going to work is if I either

a.) put the characters that we spend less time on, together in their own session. Or

b.) squeeze one or two in a session of one of the main other characters that we're talking about that ends up being short. For instance

If Raidens session ends up short, plug in Liu Kang towards the end short and sweet.

Alright, that's the update right now to let you all know where I'm at. Be sure to give me feedback because there's still alot of time to manipulate just about anything as far as the way we're doing these.

(*new*)


Sareena Teaser

opinions so far?

I like it of course. I think that the use of any of her Armageddon sound bytes, from repeated knife throws to her distinct yell during her victory pose would be mighty cool as well. If relevant, feel free to include anything I've written about Sareena on the second page to the assessment. Its pretty much my two cents on the character along with many open ended questions about her story, and why I think she has potential.

Currenty I'm thinking about how I could talk about her gameplay style, costumes, etc and will update soon.

Sounds good. I like the little touch of Sareena's dialogue at the beginning. And, all things considered, that line does suit her.

Anyway, my microphone arrived and I've started preparing my spiel on Sareena and Kitana. Hopefully it'll be done sooner rather than later.

Amusingly, I've already started to notice a contrast in tone between them. My thing on Sareena looks like it's going to sound very optimistic and hopeful...and my Kitana one is looking much more negative and angry.

One thing about Sareena though, is I can't find a clean byte of that scream. I can get knife throws all day though.

About your content on the earlier page, I gotcha covered.



Cool fact: Sareenas music and sound bytes are direct rips from MK Mythologies Sub-Zero....

- Uuumm...if I don't figure something else out soon, it looks like Kitana's gonna be getting something similar (totally different application, similar idea). I'm a bit short on her game sound effects just like I was for Sareena. And the only real time I can remember Kitana actually speaking, is in this MKvsDC game....hm.....or either in the 1st movie? But anyway, just a heads up, Kitana's on the cutting board as I type this.

Be back with another snippet or two in a bit.

=================

EDIT

My computer shit on itself. Went to turn it on yesterday morning and nothing happened. I.T. guys say it may either be my motherboard, or just a power source.

This project is still on until further notice. Update again in a bit.

Are more people going to choose who will be the focus for this project? Because it doesn't seem like everyone who'll be contributing has made their picks, and if so, then that's a pretty small list of characters to focus on (only 6 got more than one vote, and the highest is a vote of three).

We're gonna try and do them all to some extent or another. Right now, the votes, along with our favorites allow us to know where we might be focusing our attention.

I'm trying to work out the audio stuff on this computer (I'm on a borrowed PC til my "situation" gets resolved. vista sux so far for me.) so I can get some progress on this thing. I got audacity on it now, but there's something of a challenge with the input/output stuff.

Soon as I get it under control I'll update again. Stay tuned...

I was expecting a little bit more organization.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to start talking about Sareena, without having informed anyone with an easy feedline, ie; Sub-Zero. I thought it would make more sense to tackle some of the BIG obvious characters first, before weaving through the tiers.

UPDATE!

We're back on. Got a new computer yesterday and set up Audacity on this computer.

Also, can someone that still has it, re-upload Sareenas sample? The link says there's an error on that download. The Raiden one works fine though. I need to hear it in order not to re-use it in some other characters background stuff.

I'm gonna have to re-make Raiden and Sareena since I don't have those old files, and as such......

One last thing, I need to know who we want to focus on first. I need like, a "preferred format", or just a simple list of some sort so that like Mick just mentioned, there is some "flow" to the way we do them. Of course, I can make one up, but that ain't the point. lol

So far,

Sub-Zero
Scorpion
Sareena
Kitana
Mileena
Raiden
Fujin
Kai

..seem to be the ones out front that we can count on doing. Since this is still a pretty open discussion, I'm counting on you guys' feedback, and to make adjustments so that it makes the most sense. One good list, and logic as to "why we should do it that way", is all it takes.

Add or take away whoever, switch around the order of the characters or whatever....but post it up so I can know.

I'll update again later when I have more info.

I say we go with the well-known ones first before moving to the ore obscure characters, and focus on the ones we felt didn't get enough love in the last Pred Cast; also, go with heroes first to link them together, then the same for villains.
Kitana
Kung Lao
Fujin
Nightwolf
Kai
Stryker
Khameleon
Nitara
Havik
Smoke
Jade
Mileena
Shang Tsung
Baraka
Sareena
Shinnok
Reiko
Kintaro
New Character.
I only took into account the list on page 2, since those seem to be the characters we want to focus on, as this story assessment is meant to look at the popular and unpopular characters, and I think we got a good mix of that on this list.

I'm good with that. Thanks Jerrod

Regardless of what happens after this, it seems like we're pretty set on Kitana, so she's going first. I'm starting on her background stuff right now anyway.

I'm going to expect Xai to lead off on her since that's his fav. So personally, I'm only going to write up complimentary stuff...aesthetics, special moves, fatality ideas, references, realm and maybe some fantasy stuff. I will not go into depth with her because frankly, that ain't my place.

Whoever is writing stuff in, and not recording anything, start sending me all your content on Kitana now. I need it so I can edit if necessary, but most importantly, I need to memorize it so it sounds like "you're talking" instead of "me reading something". K?

Let's go!

EDIT: Considering the last Mkast on this game is out, and the content of this thread is mutating, I think it's appropriate to move this thread to the Future Forum. I'll give it a day or so and move it there myself.

Incoming!:

Kitana theme background//theme music.

Um, this download might take a while to complete because it's the whole hour. I didn't "sample" this one because of what happened with my last computer, and the Raiden and Sareena samples. I don't wanna have to remake anything further so, I eliminate the risk from here on out.

Let me know if you think it's good, terrible or w/e now so I can make changes to it before the final edition of the thing (if need be). Sorry it took so long to come up with this. The concept started out over complicated.

Anyway, happy writing! I'm starting my Kitana content now.

====
For the sake of not loosing things, all the associated links:

http://rapidshare.com/files/174473100/Kitana_Assessment_bg_only_MP3.mp3.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/174473100/Kitana_Assessment_bg_only_MP3.mp3

http://rs516.rapidshare.com/files/174473100/Kitana_Assessment_bg_only_MP3.mp3

I won't be contributing to the Kitana aspect, as there are a lot of other users who are more passionate about her than I am, and I'm sure several users who kept track of her story in MK vs DC have more than enough to say about her portrayal (I haven't seen anything regarding story mode).

That's fine. I think we're now secure on Kitana for participants. And just a sidenote Jerrod, I'm pretty sure I got Smoke's theme worked out. Took a bit of a fight but, finishing up on his theme currently.

Notice for all participants on Kitana, I wanna really get cracking on putting her hour together in about a week. Give or take. Got some little stuff to move out of the way but, looks like a suggested deadline of about 3 weeks away to finish her up, and move to the next character.

Update again in a bit.

Incoming!:

Smoke theme background//theme music.

Again, this download might take a while to complete because it's the whole hour. Actually, this one is a little shorter (about 45min) because I anticipate Smoke sharing a session down the road with some other character. The "other character" he'll be sharing his hour with, is still undecided though.

====

For the sake of not loosing things, all the associated links:

http://rapidshare.com/files/181215863/Smoke_Assessment_bg_only_MP3.mp3.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/181215863/Smoke_Assessment_bg_only_MP3.mp3

http://rs301.rapidshare.com/files/181215863/Smoke_Assessment_bg_only_MP3.mp3

==

Just want to note that just because I'm posting these themes up, does not indicate the order in which we will be doing the recordings. I'm simply getting them done as I get the inspiration for them, so that they are ready when we get to the character. Jerrods list looks pretty good though, so I may just follow that format to put things in order better. That'd make Kung Lao's theme come up next....followed by Fujin.

Kitana's on the chopping block to get finished up within this next few weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised if I get some of the other characters on that list theme's, out of the way in the mean-time.
__________________________________________________

That said, here's the fan roster representing Kitana in her recording, along with fan potency, and talking time allotted:

1. XiahouDun84 - hard core - (20 - 30min allotted)

2. Garlador - hard - (10 - 15min allotted)

3. Mick-Lucifer - medium - (10 - 15 min allotted)

4. ThePredator151 - soft - (0 - 15min allotted)

Or in other words, I anticipate a format that look something like this in the recording....

a.) Xia~20min, Gar~20min, Mick~20min = 60min

b.) Xia~15min, Gar~15min, Mick~15min, TPred~15min = 60min

c.) Xia~30min, Gar~15min, Mick~10min, TPred~5min = 60min

I like plan C the most, but we could very well run over, or under shoot. For instance, noone is obligated to stay within these times, but someone could speak more, or less than expected. Which is fine by me because the ultimate goal here, is to get everything from everyone...in the recording.

Just depends on what actually ends up happening as far as content submitted.