The "Let's Play" and "After Action Report" conceptsFollow

Good morning.

I know that by posting this topic in this forum, I am probably preaching to the choir. Still, some people might not know about this and some might have never tried it out.

I have recently been scouring the internet for "Let's Play" and "AAR" threads.

Let me start with the definition:


In other words, and particularly for this forum, it's about telling people about the game you just played, while giving them info, mechanics, and some fictional writing to entertain and try to entice them to try the game out. Some illustrated walkthroughs and tutorials can be considered AARs.


For example, you can imagine someone starting a "Let's Play WoW" thread, explaining some of the basics, giving a brief overview of the races/classes, and asking people to vote on what character to create, what kind of personality this character should have, what restrictions should apply (no melee weapons, no magic, no buffs, no talking to tauren NPCs, no talking to female undead NPCs with a letter h in their name, whatever you can think of).

They come in 3 varieties:
- Text only : Which some people enjoy but some find rather dull.
- Screenshots : My favorite, screenshots allow me to read about the game, see the graphics, and take my own time in appreciating the game. Sometimes the images are lost because of photobucket or other image hosting sites, which is a shame.
- Video : Many people like them. I don't because they take a lot of time, aren't work accessible (most video sites are blocked), are often deleted from Viddler, GoogleVideo, YouTube, or DailyMotion (and others). And sometimes you get a sequence that's sped-up to avoid boredom, and you end up with missing most of the text unless you are a virtuoso with the pause button.

The objective is to have fun, involve people in the game, and sometimes introduce a game to people who have never played it or who tried it and didn't get the most out of it.

Those are the basic concepts. Now this is a fairly time consuming activity, and some people prefer to read the finished LP or AAR instead of participating and waiting for updates.

I personally love reading about games I've finished, which are often played differently and seeing most of the stuff I missed or didn't try (for example, I usually play a goody two-shoes in most RPGs, and enjoy reading about the evil path taken by other players).

Now for the links:
I have found several sites that have regular AARs and LPs and would like to share them with you. If you know of any I may have missed (or forgotten), please post here and provide a link.

Battlereports
Let's play archive
Talking time, let's play already
The something awful forums, let's play
The realms beyond forums, I usually read the Orion and Civilisation tournament reports.
StarDestroyer.Net BBS, Gaming and Computers forum

I have never seen any bad ads on any of those sites, but then again I have Adblock. So if you find any, please tell me and I'll remove the link.

And how about trying something similar on forum=22?

Great! I'll look forward to the Let's play of your choice, which I have a sneaking suspicion would be one of your favorite Final Fantasy titles.

Since I'm a regular lurker on these forums, I'll even be able to participate, and post more.

The mario videos you linked are a nice example of a video LP. He's playing a game while following the rules that his friends set.

It's a pretty open format.
Imagine yourself talking to your friends and saying: "Come on guys, let's play so and so"
Then let them participate a little. You could let them dictate everything, you could ask for a set of rules to follow, or you could simply let them make one of the yes/no decisions.


You could, but you're not obliged to do that.


This is always a good thing. Pointing out fun stuff, hidden easter eggs, some overpowered attack that no one would normally consider, some books containing a rich history or a jab at the developers, and other interesting stuff like that enriches the LP.

- You can do a simple let's play where you just poll for the starting character and you do all else.
An easy example that comes to mind is a Fallout 2 LP that I read not long ago. People decided to try out the low intelligence road, and the main character was almost illiterate, they also wanted a melee weapons specialized bruiser. The player went through the entire game without asking for more info, and it was a huge success. For example, I had no idea that a low level character talking to other stupid NPCs sounds like an erudite scholar.

- You can stop at certain crossroads and say "which road do I take first?". Of course, you'll have to explain a bit about each road so people can choose the most fun/exciting/dangerous one.
An example of that is the Neverwinter Nights 2 LP, where they asked for not only the starting character , her alignment (lawful evil), and the general idea behind her behavior, but also how she should react to the different party members (influence stuff like in KOTOR 2). In open games, it's fairly common to stop at the end of a playthrough and ask where to go next, especially if there are a lot of options. For example, do we advance the main quest, do this subquest, explore that area, or go gamble in the tavern?


The first time is always a bit challenging, but from what I've seen if the updates are regular (once a week, or twice, according to your free time and internet availability), it's always a ton of fun.

Ok, reading through the links you provided, I'm understanding LP a bit better. Wow, that seems to take a while. I'm not sure WHY people would want to read it, though. I'm reading a Persona 3 one right now... and if the game takes 150 hours (judging by the writer's save files), and he's going almost scene by scene... ouch.

I mean, the commentary is entertaining, but here's my issue:

If you haven't played the game (and want to play):
This LPing spoils it for you. Afterwards you'll know the entire story, leaving very little of interest unless you can drastically change things (which you cannot in most games).

If you have played the game:
You already know what's going to happen for the most part; it's like rereading a book. A book that took you 150 hours to read in the first place. Also, the writer in this case has already played through the game, so now he's redoing it. Not too sure as to why?


So again, not sure what the point is and what I'm missing. It sounds like a cool concept, I'm just not sure to whom it should appeal.

For many games this isn't really an issue. You can't exactly spoil a Super Mario Bros. storyline. I know it isn't an issue in my game. For some people story isn't that important and they don't care about spoilers.

Well I was tired and bored so I already finished half the start of mine. I might as well do the rest. Maybe it'll be tolerable?^^

I get it more after reading your explanation and starting to read an LP on FF:T. It looks like fun! Might not do one myself, but I look forward to seeing what people come up with. Great idea, Daniel!

Something Awful has an entire Forum Dedicated to Let's Play.

Some of em' are pretty funny, too.

Edited, Jul 3rd 2009 6:43am by Omegavegeta

I keep thinking more and more about this, but I think my issue is getting pictures of the game to do a "Let's Play!" It seems near impossible without using an emulator... taking pictures of my TV with a camera doesn't seem like it would look so good. I was thinking of a Dragonquest VIII LP, but I have it on the PS2 and I'm not sure how I would go about taking screenshots. Any ideas?

Edit: I was also really drunk last Wednesday and had a random thought that "I wonder if anyone did an LP for that Japanese rape game?" That would be potentially the most f*cked up, or hilarious, thing ever.

Edited, Jul 15th 2009 9:05am by LockeColeMA

Update, I had some time to do a little research, and this is what I found on the PS2 screenshotting process...