Randall00
Propitious Plumber
How to Watch a Combo Video
An attempt to improve the community by Randall
There's already enough negativity and complete lack of respect for creativity on these boards to make me sick and I think I've figured out why.
What I didn't realize when I got into this Smash video-production gig was that the term "combo video" has a surprisingly strict historical definition, dating back to the 2-D fighters. In the earliest combo videos, the definition was strictly literal, showcasing nothing but combos, being defined as sequences of uninterruptible attacks. These videos were marketed to a very particular audience, namely the competitive players of the game who wanted to explore the boundaries of its engine by challenging the strengths of their fingers.
As games themselves became more elaborate, both in gameplay and in graphics, the subsequent recordable footage became more interesting to the viewer's eye. As the internet phenomenon of YouTube can attest to, any time that videos become more interesting to the viewer, the audience inevitably expands and all of a sudden, these tech-heavy combo videos are being watched by people who only play casually and can hardly tell what's going on. Time went on and the interested audience continued to grow which meant that the footage had to stay fresh and appealing to allow the community to flourish. I watched an old Guilty Gear video today that opened with a clip of a very rapid one-hit KO immediately after the "Fight!" announcement. I don't know anything about the game or whether it was technically difficult to pull off or not, but it was five seconds of my life that I do not consider wasted. As simple as it is, footage of a one-hit KO in a game I've never seen before is still kinda cool to watch. That said, long-time players of the game have likely seen it many times and if there was GuiltyGearBoards.com, I'd put twenty bucks on several people questioning why it was in there. "Uh, isn't this supposed to be a combo video? That's not a combo." Great, thanks for the feedback, *******.
And so now we are in the technologically magnificent generation of video gaming and there's this well-established community of 40,000 strong occasionally watching some Smash videos. As I said, with improvements to graphics, gameplay and, indeed, even the latest in video editing software, recording hardware and filesharing, creating your own video and uploading it to the internet for the masses is just too easy. And since practically anyone with an e-mail address can do this, the master library of videos is going to take a pretty sharp decline in overall quality (the same thing happened to fan fiction, I'm sure some of you writers know). However, the advent of technology also allows for a whole lot more creative wiggle room for those people who choose to put effort into the combo videos that get lost in the mix. SSBM, in particular, is a wonderful game to be capturing exciting footage from and I suspect that those who haven't really explored the field probably don't realize how versatile Camera Mode can be. Thus, the concept of an artistic combo video came to be, whether it was meant to exist or not.
Now, the first artistic combo video I saw was Mariotality 2, and at the time, I was still unaware of the difference between an artistic combo video and a technical one. In fact, I'm fairly certain that silversh4dow himself was unaware of the difference as well. Which is fair, because it seems that whether or not your video demonstrates "tech skill" is decided by the audience, not you. It is now clear to me that most people do in fact make their combo videos to try and demonstrate their technical ability in the game. However, whereas most people create videos under this pretense, it seems that ALL videos are watched with the expectation that the gameplay is going to be impressive. I should also mention that these concepts of artistic videos and technical ones are certainly not opposites; Mariotality 2 features technically sound gameplay (despite some disagreement amidst the obligatory "noob DI" comments) but the only reason it truly outshines the other Mario videos is all in presentation. It is viewable at the full 60 frames per second, features tastefully synchronous background music, a flashy high-energy Camera Mode/AR-produced introduction and even a live-action video sample from a feature film.
And then there's this.
Any hack can cut and glue footage together and put it to some music, but it takes time to put together the entire thing as a cinematic (for lack of a better word) production. The real problem is with viewer mentality. As I mentioned in another thread, it's as though everyone in this community is so hung up on technical skill that you're forgetting about the fact that this is the only game where you can capture footage of an ape in a necktie driving his foot into the chest of an elven child whilst riding a giant floating sea lion; that's a helluva story and you can bet that the National Enquirer doesn't care about DI.
That said, I don't want to sound as though I am belittling a technical combo video, but at the state of the game right now, if you're good enough to post a video that will actually impress people, there's just no excuse for it not to be at least decently-produced. There's a whole class of Smash video producers that I haven't mentioned up to this point who don't star in the videos themselves, but instead just compile footage from uploaded matches. If your gameplay is actually exciting and revolutionary enough to rock the socks off the community by simply posting a low-quality montage of black-and-white combos with static for background music, I'm sure there's someone in the community who would be willing to help clean it up a little. My true belief is that the technical combo video is a dead medium for SSBM, but I would not discourage anyone who thinks otherwise and neither should you.
Bottom Line: Stop abusing people for not being better at Smash than they are and never tell someone to stop playing.
Thanks.
P.S. You'll also notice that there's no video in this thread; if you took the time to read everything above, I hope you'll understand why. If you didn't, I will divulge an equally small amount of attention to your reply.
An attempt to improve the community by Randall
There's already enough negativity and complete lack of respect for creativity on these boards to make me sick and I think I've figured out why.
What I didn't realize when I got into this Smash video-production gig was that the term "combo video" has a surprisingly strict historical definition, dating back to the 2-D fighters. In the earliest combo videos, the definition was strictly literal, showcasing nothing but combos, being defined as sequences of uninterruptible attacks. These videos were marketed to a very particular audience, namely the competitive players of the game who wanted to explore the boundaries of its engine by challenging the strengths of their fingers.
As games themselves became more elaborate, both in gameplay and in graphics, the subsequent recordable footage became more interesting to the viewer's eye. As the internet phenomenon of YouTube can attest to, any time that videos become more interesting to the viewer, the audience inevitably expands and all of a sudden, these tech-heavy combo videos are being watched by people who only play casually and can hardly tell what's going on. Time went on and the interested audience continued to grow which meant that the footage had to stay fresh and appealing to allow the community to flourish. I watched an old Guilty Gear video today that opened with a clip of a very rapid one-hit KO immediately after the "Fight!" announcement. I don't know anything about the game or whether it was technically difficult to pull off or not, but it was five seconds of my life that I do not consider wasted. As simple as it is, footage of a one-hit KO in a game I've never seen before is still kinda cool to watch. That said, long-time players of the game have likely seen it many times and if there was GuiltyGearBoards.com, I'd put twenty bucks on several people questioning why it was in there. "Uh, isn't this supposed to be a combo video? That's not a combo." Great, thanks for the feedback, *******.
And so now we are in the technologically magnificent generation of video gaming and there's this well-established community of 40,000 strong occasionally watching some Smash videos. As I said, with improvements to graphics, gameplay and, indeed, even the latest in video editing software, recording hardware and filesharing, creating your own video and uploading it to the internet for the masses is just too easy. And since practically anyone with an e-mail address can do this, the master library of videos is going to take a pretty sharp decline in overall quality (the same thing happened to fan fiction, I'm sure some of you writers know). However, the advent of technology also allows for a whole lot more creative wiggle room for those people who choose to put effort into the combo videos that get lost in the mix. SSBM, in particular, is a wonderful game to be capturing exciting footage from and I suspect that those who haven't really explored the field probably don't realize how versatile Camera Mode can be. Thus, the concept of an artistic combo video came to be, whether it was meant to exist or not.
Now, the first artistic combo video I saw was Mariotality 2, and at the time, I was still unaware of the difference between an artistic combo video and a technical one. In fact, I'm fairly certain that silversh4dow himself was unaware of the difference as well. Which is fair, because it seems that whether or not your video demonstrates "tech skill" is decided by the audience, not you. It is now clear to me that most people do in fact make their combo videos to try and demonstrate their technical ability in the game. However, whereas most people create videos under this pretense, it seems that ALL videos are watched with the expectation that the gameplay is going to be impressive. I should also mention that these concepts of artistic videos and technical ones are certainly not opposites; Mariotality 2 features technically sound gameplay (despite some disagreement amidst the obligatory "noob DI" comments) but the only reason it truly outshines the other Mario videos is all in presentation. It is viewable at the full 60 frames per second, features tastefully synchronous background music, a flashy high-energy Camera Mode/AR-produced introduction and even a live-action video sample from a feature film.
And then there's this.
Any hack can cut and glue footage together and put it to some music, but it takes time to put together the entire thing as a cinematic (for lack of a better word) production. The real problem is with viewer mentality. As I mentioned in another thread, it's as though everyone in this community is so hung up on technical skill that you're forgetting about the fact that this is the only game where you can capture footage of an ape in a necktie driving his foot into the chest of an elven child whilst riding a giant floating sea lion; that's a helluva story and you can bet that the National Enquirer doesn't care about DI.
That said, I don't want to sound as though I am belittling a technical combo video, but at the state of the game right now, if you're good enough to post a video that will actually impress people, there's just no excuse for it not to be at least decently-produced. There's a whole class of Smash video producers that I haven't mentioned up to this point who don't star in the videos themselves, but instead just compile footage from uploaded matches. If your gameplay is actually exciting and revolutionary enough to rock the socks off the community by simply posting a low-quality montage of black-and-white combos with static for background music, I'm sure there's someone in the community who would be willing to help clean it up a little. My true belief is that the technical combo video is a dead medium for SSBM, but I would not discourage anyone who thinks otherwise and neither should you.
Bottom Line: Stop abusing people for not being better at Smash than they are and never tell someone to stop playing.
Thanks.
P.S. You'll also notice that there's no video in this thread; if you took the time to read everything above, I hope you'll understand why. If you didn't, I will divulge an equally small amount of attention to your reply.
True true. Myself as an artist and a smasher, I can really appreciate and notice the work put into these videos, and others should stop and take some time to as well.