Live Callers on The WAN Show

[MdX MaxX]

I like having live callers on the show.  I don't want it to go away.  The way it's executed and the pool of callers to pull from need to change dramatically.

 

Not to sound elitist, but I personally believe calling should be restricted to those active in the forum community.  Maybe the mods can invite only to those with over 200 posts or something like that to do Comms chat.  I can't imagine how Windspeed manages to sort through hundreds of random viewers to find someone who might have something remotely interesting to say.  That must suck.  If all the people in the waiting room are known to promote good discussion on the forum, then at least we can be sure that the discussion won't be completely dull and Linus and Slick won't have to scramble to revive the conversation.

 

EDIT: Just checked the members list; 360 members have 200+ posts.  That's a healthy number, and would be much more manageable than the 1000+ Windspeed probably has to deal with now.  Twitter is still there for everyone else, so it's not like their user interaction is completely severed.

 

And Comms calls should have their own dedicated time slot.  The calls do break the flow of the stream quite a bit.  To jump abruptly from a healthy news discussion to hey let's troll around for five minutes while we try to get someone on the air who may or may not have anything useful to say, it's jarring and happens far too often.  At least if there's a dedicated half-hour block for Comms call-ins, there's much greater consistency in the pacing of the show.

 

What about instead of random Joes giving feedback on something or asking basic questions about what GPU they should purchase with $XXX we do live interviews? We could possibly pick a few people from the forum or people you know maybe with a poll on here that people could vote on to have said person come onto the stream and talk. Interview them on something like what they run in there personal rig, what kind of games do they play, or what they do for a job. There are a lot more possibilities for a fun and more interactive stream and you'll get a conversation that has a bit of meaning behind it rather than what random person X thinks about topic A. You could even interview the people that are picked for build log of the week!

 

Yes.  Freaking brilliant.  DO IT NAO.

 

:lol:

[SamuelSanchez]

            I would prefer more twitter blitz and less callers (except for Paul that was Awesome!!!) I know that you wanted to do it to get more close and personal with your fans and to get some sponsoring but a majority of the time the callers either have bad microphone quality or don't contribute much to the conversation. However if you must just keep experimenting with how to implement it. I liked the idea where you would save all the callers for the end of the Stream (or WAN now). Also I feel the callers can tend to slow the show down and if it is the last section of the show its not like they will be wasting any time that could've been used for something else that was planned.

 

 

[Dave :)]

I like having live callers on the show. I don't want it to go away. The way it's executed and the pool of callers to pull from need to change dramatically.

Not to sound elitist, but I personally believe calling should be restricted to those active in the forum community. Maybe the mods can invite only to those with over 200 posts or something like that to do Comms chat. I can't imagine how Windspeed manages to sort through hundreds of random viewers to find someone who might have something remotely interesting to say. That must suck. If all the people in the waiting room are known to promote good discussion on the forum, then at least we can be sure that the discussion won't be completely dull and Linus and Slick won't have to scramble to revive the conversation.

EDIT: Just checked the members list; 360 members have 200+ posts. That's a healthy number, and would be much more manageable than the 1000+ Windspeed probably has to deal with now. Twitter is still there for everyone else, so it's not like their user interaction is completely severed.

Whilst it's a good idea on paper; how would we, realistically, perform that? There are a number of issues i see with having just 360 members able to call in.

A ) How do we verify that the person on comms is the same person as on the forums?

B ) Is it really fair to expect the 360 members to be watching and wanting to call in?

C ) Is it fair, at all, that we are completely disregarding many of thousand of members simply because they haven't posted 'enough'?

D ) Quantity doesn't equate to quality. Just because someone has a certain number of posts, it shouldn't automatically enable them to be given a privilege others can't get.

There are a large number of users that do want to call in, trust me, and that can be hard to handle; however, with them all joining the Open and public comms channel, it allows us to be able to sort through them periodically: "What's your question / point?" > Mic check > If good enough, enters waiting room and queue > Live channel.

I don't think segregating the community is a good idea, if someone has a good point to make, they should be able to make it in whatever form they want, beit through Comms, Twitter, or the Forums - it shouldn't be based upon something as arbitrary as post count.

[CarlosRex]

I agree with the guys, do call ins in the after party, it's a great way to interact with your community + you tend to be more frank in the after party because you don't have to worry about any sponsors which makes answering the questions a whole lot easier & satisfies your fans even more.

[nothingspecial]

Maybe you could record a few of the live caller Q&A questions beforehand, and then the mod team could just play them back into the stream. That way they could check the levels, and the technical issues won't slow the stream down.

[MdX MaxX]

Whilst it's a good idea on paper; how would we, realistically, perform that? There are a number of issues i see with having just 360 members able to call in.

A ) How do we verify that the person on comms is the same person as on the forums?

B ) Is it really fair to expect the 360 members to be watching and wanting to call in?

C ) Is it fair, at all, that we are completely disregarding many of thousand of members simply because they haven't posted 'enough'?

D ) Quantity doesn't equate to quality. Just because someone has a certain number of posts, it shouldn't automatically enable them to be given a privilege others can't get.

There are a large number of users that do want to call in, trust me, and that can be hard to handle; however, with them all joining the Open and public comms channel, it allows us to be able to sort through them periodically: "What's your question / point?" > Mic check > If good enough, enters waiting room and queue > Live channel.

I don't think segregating the community is a good idea, if someone has a good point to make, they should be able to make it in whatever form they want, beit through Comms, Twitter, or the Forums - it shouldn't be based upon something as arbitrary as post count.

A) Maybe PM the user a passphrase and have them read it to you in Comms?

B) No. But if only 3-4 discussion calls are made per show, only that many have to be online.

C) It is an exclusive strategy by nature, yes. But I feel like some degree of weeding out has to be done. I don't think the free for all strategy is very practical or sustainable.

D) True. Very true. But it's about the only measure we have of discussion ability. Post quality is certainly something that should be looked at as well, but realistically no one has the time to go through people's posts and see whether they're up to par.

As ideal as it is to let every viewer have a fair shot at calling in to the show, finding those with the more thought-provoking and discussion-encouraging points is near impossible with such a strategy. Many viewers are not enjoying the call-ins simply because a lot of the callers have little to add to the discussion.

Of course, this is all based on two livestreams. The current system should definitely go on for a few more weeks, just to get a better picture of how it's going to work in the long run. If callers get better and more entertaining, then sure, we can keep the free for all method going. But if things keep going the way they are, they probably need to change.

And 200 posts is just a number. It could be 100, it could be 10, just something to make the caller pool more manageable. Yes, 360 people is certainly on the small side when you consider half those people may never desire to participate in Comms call-ins.

(I don't mean to insult or offend anyone who has called in to the show. Everyone deserves to have a voice, for sure. I'm simply looking at what the main complaints about call-ins have been, and a lot of people aren't fans of what the everyday bro gamer guy has to contribute to the show.)

[paulshardware]

Hello all!

I need to watch the full live stream to get a better idea of the interaction with people calling in (besides me), but I did have a great time chatting with y'all and I would definitely be happy to call back in in the future.

 

I highly recommend that callers use the built-in test bot to record themselves and then listen to the playback, it was a great way for me to verify that my mic was working. I only had about 15 mins to set up Razer Comms and a headset (on one of our test beds) since I called in from work, and that made me a lot more confident that my audio was coming through OK.

 

Also, since somebody mentioned inviting someone from Hardware Canucks, I would recommend Dimitry -- he does their awesome case review videos (and other stuff too), he's intelligent and down to earth and I think he'd make a great guest. (@Dimitry49 on Twitter)

 

Cheers,

Paul

[JordanMac]

Keep people calling in during the live stream to give their opinions on the topics and have special guests in the main part of the stream as well. it will get better as more people get used to comms and there will be less delay. in the after party have people call in with questions for Q&A and that way you dont have to take your eyes off the games to look at twitter.

[Donut the Vikingchap]

I like having live callers on the show.  I don't want it to go away.  The way it's executed and the pool of callers to pull from need to change dramatically.

 

Not to sound elitist, but I personally believe calling should be restricted to those active in the forum community.  Maybe the mods can invite only to those with over 200 posts or something like that to do Comms chat.  I can't imagine how Windspeed manages to sort through hundreds of random viewers to find someone who might have something remotely interesting to say.  That must suck.  If all the people in the waiting room are known to promote good discussion on the forum, then at least we can be sure that the discussion won't be completely dull and Linus and Slick won't have to scramble to revive the conversation.

 

EDIT: Just checked the members list; 360 members have 200+ posts.  That's a healthy number, and would be much more manageable than the 1000+ Windspeed probably has to deal with now.  Twitter is still there for everyone else, so it's not like their user interaction is completely severed.

 

And Comms calls should have their own dedicated time slot.  The calls do break the flow of the stream quite a bit.  To jump abruptly from a healthy news discussion to hey let's troll around for five minutes while we try to get someone on the air who may or may not have anything useful to say, it's jarring and happens far too often.  At least if there's a dedicated half-hour block for Comms call-ins, there's much greater consistency in the pacing of the show.

 

 

Yes.  Freaking brilliant.  DO IT NAO.

 

:lol:

I actually don't agree with this at all.

 

There are a lot of people (like me) who really want to be able to do this and ask Linus questions (questions that would be hard to ask and to get answered on Twitter) , and it would be really shit if we got excluded just because we're not as active on the forums as other people.

[Cobalt]

I like the concept and think it is a brilliant way to bring more closure between LMG and the community. However there are some points I would like to add to the conversation.

1)Mic levels should be checked, someone suggested this before, having Linus and Slick take a preshow talk with Windspeed to check mic levels and therefore callers would be easier to equalize.

2)I really don't think there should be an arbitrary way to filter callers, actually I don't believe we should filter them at all, everyone with desires to contribute to the live stream has something to add to it, and I think callers should start to the the calls that way, as contributions to the quality of the WAN show and not only "look mom I'm on the internet!" (I know no one has gone to that extent but I had to make the point), to really start thinking if what I know can really help making the show better. Rules shouldn't filter people, people should filter themselves.

3)This is more of a suggestion, before the end of the show you could have some people come in to talk about a topic (of the week) that Linus and Slick forgot or didn't talk about and they think is important.

4)From past streams I think Twitter adapts better to the regular show than to the after party, and callers work particularly well here, a tweak or two and Linus and Slick could handle calls without even looking away from the game

Just some thoughts and I hope the best to the WAN show

[Kerplex]

Well everything still needs  time to work it's kinks out, but it has potential. 

 

As for the community callers, i would much rather see them at the end of the show (say the last 10 mins). That way it doesn't feel like the whole stream is centered around them as it does right now. 

[OneBigBug]

Honestly, I think random live callers who aren't used to speaking to an audience, or to the hosts and don't overwhelming amounts of social confidence make the whole thing sound awkward. I found myself tuning out on the live stream last week, and had to watch through the archive because I would find myself pausing to relax during a call-in. It makes me anxious to listen to people talk when they're very clearly uncomfortable in the situation, just anticipating them saying something that would make me embarassed in their position. This week I skipped through most of them in the archive to avoid that. Paul was great though, but I thought he could have been around longer.

 

If set on continued use of Razer Comms and on community vocal interaction, I might suggest using it more in the fashion for which it is designed. It's not 'call-in' software, it's software for gamers to communicate in groups in games. It's not exactly representing Comms very well with all the bugs and lacking features, and it's not even Razer's fault; you're not playing to its strengths.  If you had multiple participants in a call where they weren't being moved around and thrown into a conversation, and where the pressure wasn't on them to say interesting things on demand, I think it would go more smoothly and less awkwardly from both a 'social' and technological standpoint.  Move the pressure of change to the hosts, over whom there is some expectation of control and improvement, rather than the guests, who are a more or less uncontrollable entity.

 

I can imagine it would be pretty interesting to have ~4-8 people in a call who are hanging out, have Linus and Slick join it, start talking about a discussion topic, then have those people respond as they have things to say. Sort of like a live focus group that the hosts can bounce ideas off of that could last for maybe ~10-15 minutes. That way no one is on the spot for any given question or topic, and you only get people who feel they have something really interesting to say saying something. A mod could be responsible for making sure that all their mic levels were at least of the same relative value and that there wasn't any background noise, and that everyone's mics were working beforehand, and since it would be as a group, it would reduce mod time per person.

 

I don't really have any suggestions as to how you would choose people for such a call, maybe it could even be prepared before the stream and just have them ready to go when the time comes, but I'm sure there's a way.

 

I think that would both better represent Razer Comms and be less of a bear to work kinks out of, since speed and efficiency of bringing people in and out wouldn't be as important.

[Mariofazenda]

Giving my complete honest opinion the caller thing is a complete fiasco.

 

Putting a lot more planning into it would make it better. Windspeed should have his mic balanced to the stream and then a 3rd person/mod should help the callers mic get balanced to Windspeed mic before the call.

 

Also, anyone with a poor mic should get turned down. Turning the volume down to almost zero every time these callers call in is not ideal.

 

These people should also list 3-5 things they want to talk about.

 

Then, they should all be put into a waiting room and picked depending on what they know at a moments notice to join the live stream (even carried on to the next week if you run out of time), as these people will have been screen you should let them talk between each other to get some of the nervousness away, because that's another thing that makes the call-ins really awkward.

 

This would probably take an hour or two before the stream but I don't see this working any other way. Like a suggestion above said; moderators should be made/assigned for the livestream call-ins specifically.

 

In fact the only other way I can think of would be to "pre-record" the callers and then air them later. Although this wouldn't really be live.

 

 

**********************

 

I think that's the reason why the call with Paul worked so well;

 

1. He had a good mic.
2. He knew what he was talking about and it was therefore interesting.

*********************

 

So if all the other callers get set-up like Paul then it would probably work well.

 

I was a caller in the WAN show, and i've got to agree with every word from "Ghost".

[PCBudgetSolutions]

We were talking earlier. About 10-15 of us use comms regularly. Some of us have used voice chat in larger groups and are comfortable being on the WAN show. I know myself I've lead a hand full of raids, done a few streams, made a hand full of youtube videos etc. A lot of people unfortunately either suffer from being on live, talking to celebs, or just give that awkward moment due to w/e reason. Me I am used to it, Slick needed me to check a few bugs they were encountering and I did it fine. Where as some people would be very fanboylike and like freeze. Which can cause awkward moments lol. I think Linus's new idea may work well because about HALF the people tune into the after party if that which means less callers. However, windspeed36 and a few other mods and I bet a few of us regulars on razor comms would be more than happy to help out, gather data and help get info to the mods and set everything up a few hours prior would work best as well.

EDIT: This was written at 4am so it may not be coherent.

[Dragontail]

Great Ide with the callers and all and a roundup with some of the youtube personalities out there. Really like how the avarage Joe can call in and tell their side of the story and not just the same old people you see with the same old arguments on youtube, I mean if you want a "tech personalitys"  opinion then go to their channel and get it?

 

Keep it up and a few more of these I think you have nailed the concept!

 

Too bad I live in sweden and cant watch the live-stream because its to damn late at night :( want to call in sometime!

[DDR3RAMpager]

I have idea. How about for the build log of the week you could get the created of the build to call in and talk about it and take q&a on it.

[sonarctica]

I have idea. How about for the build log of the week you could get the created of the build to call in and talk about it and take q&a on it.

So like my idea on the first page?

[DDR3RAMpager]

So like my idea on the first page?

Oh, sorry bro. Everyone, go like his comment :)

[CapnCrunch]

Anyone asking build questions or what should I buy for x amount of money should not be call ins for the livestream. I'm interested if we could get some back and forth for certain topics and maybe a caller has a certain perspective that is unique. I don't like the call-ins much, but I'm hoping the whole process gets a little more streamlined and eventually the quality of this segment will be much better. Linus definitely seems to enjoy it.

 

I honestly thought it was really inane to ask someone who plays console games solely to give their perspective when this forum, LTT videos, and the show itself primarily concern themselves with PC matters. Why would a person who solely plays console games be watching the livestream? I would suggest Linus keep this in mind when asking for a certain perspective/opinion to call in.

 

It should absolutely be a rule that callers run a mic check with the comm system and test it before even considering to call in. If your mic is trash, it's going to sound insanely terrible on air and you will only annoy everyone else.

 

Aside from that, this week's show was so much more professional than anything we've seen so far (aside from the call in stuff). Please keep up the awesome work and look. The background looked great and pass on my thanks to Dezel and Broll for passing on advice or to help to light the scene. I have no idea why you guys didn't keep an exclusive room or area for the livestream instead of having the tiniest nook in the smallest room.

 

---

 

Unrelated:

 

Honestly, for the after party could we please get some multiplayer PC games going on? The SNES games are getting absurdly old. It would be really cool if we could get some kind of game server going and people rotated every now and then. You guys should have the equipment so it's a simple matter of getting organized to get it going. Slick never seems enthused about the current games. Mario was fine, but these off titles are not enjoyable to watch imo.

 

Are we going to get a tour of the entire house?

 

Was the 900D winner announced or is it going to be a separate video? I don't even know what the situation is anymore. You guys should update the first post in the locked thread with current info.

[Donut the Vikingchap]

Anyone asking build questions or what should I buy for x amount of money should not be call ins for the livestream. I'm interested if we could get some back and forth for certain topics and maybe a caller has a certain perspective that is unique. I don't like the call-ins much, but I'm hoping the whole process gets a little more streamlined and eventually the quality of this segment will be much better. Linus definitely seems to enjoy it.

 

I honestly thought it was really inane to ask someone who plays console games solely to give their perspective when this forum, LTT videos, and the show itself primarily concern themselves with PC matters. Why would a person who solely plays console games be watching the livestream? I would suggest Linus keep this in mind when asking for a certain perspective/opinion to call in.

 

It should absolutely be a rule that callers run a mic check with the comm system and test it before even considering to call in. If your mic is trash, it's going to sound insanely terrible on air and you will only annoy everyone else.

 

Aside from that, this week's show was so much more professional than anything we've seen so far (aside from the call in stuff). Please keep up the awesome work and look. The background looked great and pass on my thanks to Dezel and Broll for passing on advice or to help to light the scene. I have no idea why you guys didn't keep an exclusive room or area for the livestream instead of having the tiniest nook in the smallest room.

 

---

 

Unrelated:

 

Honestly, for the after party could we please get some multiplayer PC games going on? The SNES games are getting absurdly old. It would be really cool if we could get some kind of game server going and people rotated every now and then. You guys should have the equipment so it's a simple matter of getting organized to get it going. Slick never seems enthused about the current games. Mario was fine, but these off titles are not enjoyable to watch imo.

 

Are we going to get a tour of the entire house?

 

Was the 900D winner announced or is it going to be a separate video? I don't even know what the situation is anymore. You guys should update the first post in the locked thread with current info.

 

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the multiplayer game part! I'd love to absolutely destroy Linus and Slick in TF2 ;)

[CapnCrunch]

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially the multiplayer game part! I'd love to absolutely destroy Linus and Slick in TF2 ;)

 

Haha, I don't think it would take much to beat Linus or Slick in a lot of games today (though not all), but that is probably due to them being very limited on time on being able to game.

 

If the multiplayer thing doesn't work out due to the overhead needed or organization or something, that's fine. But I do not want to watch the after party where it's just two guys playing titles as old as some of the audience members and especially when there is nothing special to watch. In the nicest way possible to Linus and Slick, I don't want to watch you guys play games that are outdated or unheard of especially when you're either average or bad at them or you're trying to recall what to actually do in the game. It's enjoyable for some to see a celebrity play a round of golf or a casual game of basketball or something, but I can't imagine anyone who would want to watch the same person do it regularly. The novelty wears off quickly.

 

If Linus is absolutely not going to deviate from what is currently going on for the afterparty, then I would kindly ask that the two of them go back to playing more casual games like Mario so we can get some decent conversation going. It could be about anything--I don't care. But I tolerated watching the Mario afterparty because they would still talk about semi-interesting material post-show. I can't compare exactly because the afterparty doesn't seem like it's being uploaded anymore, but

 was still good in my eyes solely because of the conversation. Maybe it's because only one person is playing at the time so the other can effectively think about stuff and not the game. Maybe not, I'm not sure.

 

---

 

Man, we must either have some really shy people calling in or some guys with zero public speaking experiences. I don't know how the radio shows do it, but most people I hear on the radio sound much more confident and opinionated than the livestream callers. Maybe we should get windspeed in on some of the topics too if he wants to?

[EricX2]

I like the idea of having callers be people who are the build logs of the week. Adding on to that, callers could be the people who added news items or popular threads on the forum to talk about their take on whatever it was or to talk about whatever they want regarding that thing. Like when they were doing the game giveaways it would be cool to have had heineygoat to talk about it.

 

Most importantly, you need to add cats back to the stream. I know you aren't doing it at your house anymore, but you need to have at least one cat walking around to meow in the background and climb on the couch.

[firest0rm]

Drop Razer comm all together the program sucks no annonimity and you have to register to razer to use it

 

use teamspeak way more tools and aimed towards big gaming community's

 

Teamspeak is just a server u could host and admins could easilly manage trouble makers and ban/mute them

 

you even have things like priority speach this tool would allow any one with priority that talks to stay the same voice lvl and those who dont get shunned into the background

you also have channels and u can grant people voice and moderated voice this way people cant just automaticly start talking when they join the channel they would first need to the premission to talk

 

all you need to share is a simple teamspeak link so they can join your server this way your moderators dont need to do a hard job trying to accept stupid friend requests etc

 

 

imho drop razer comm its not friendly to big community's

 

 

 

and please dont EVER use SKYPE or VENT those audio quallitys suck

[Timstertim]

Razer Comms is a good idea to be in the show but I don't think it should be used as it being used right now. It should be used as a filler when there is a slow news week or at the end of the show, unless there is a special guest which should be on in the middle of the
WAN . During the after party it is good as it is.

[justs0uls]

I feel that you dont give callers enought time to talk. I feel like your just rushing. Maybe if you made each person feel more special .Rather then just jumping from one to another people would appreciate what your doing more. You need to slow yourself down, not everyone works at your speed. Make each caller feel ike there really apart of what your doing. Give more people/callers more time on the phone with you. Maybe even As there real name if they want to offer that. You need to consider more then just it being your comapany and think of it more as a family.With out people your wouldnt have much of a comapany. This is my opinion. Thanks