Turmoil 220

[Quartz]

 

-It'd be great if we stopped replying to shows with the “first”... “second”... or really any other replies that aren't directly related to the show. It just feels beneath the product and makes it harder to get to the real substantive feedback.

 

 

In OCW, we don't post spoilers on the first page in the forum. This allows people to be able to open the show later on without seeing what happened. These replies you're referring to are literally to get us to the 2nd page so we can talk about the show faster.

 

 

-The shows are too long. I don't think there's any way around it. It just takes entirely TOO LONG to get through an OCW show. If most people were really required to give feedback on every show the board would be a whole lot of “TLDR”. I know this isn't an easy challenge to address. There are issues with deadlines, making sure there's enough content, making sure everyone has a chance to have segments, etc... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better. I think a lot of the issue feels like having everyone trying to submit content for the show. So if both people submit segments and you have the match you end up with 3 segments per matchup, plus all of the stuff unrelated to the current card. I just think it'd be great if maybe we booked promos like we book matches. Maybe invite one side of each contest (from the main matches, and one or two total from the undercard) to submit a promo and maybe the other side can submit some commentary suggestions that can be used to bring the audience up to speed on a particular storyline before the match or before a segment. Maybe we can package a bunch of segments together and put them on a pre-show or post-show for additional content. But again, something like that isn't really reducing the amount of content, it's just shifting it elsewhere. The bottom line for me is this, we want more people to follow OCW so the product can grow. We have to start making tough choices to make the product more consumable. I have talked some other OCW talent about this. I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. If we made the product easier to watch, we'd also get more engagement and the real feeling that more of the core of the audience was really trying to stay up on everything. Right now, that's a tough ask for all except the most dedicated. Part of my perspective comes from trying to broadcast these shows in one sitting. It's really tough to do. An OCW show shouldn't be an endurance test. Also, by the time I've seen two or three segments on the same show about one storyline it feels watered down. And that sucks, because some of the really creative stuff people do just doesn't have the same impact it would otherwise and I believe it also takes some the energy out of the viewer when watching matches. There's just so much to get through. It's tough to be invested in all of it. I'm sure this will come up again.

 

 

I simply do not agree. The shows are all about freedom and allowing people to do things they want to do. "assigned" promos would be terrible. I have no problem getting through shows and watching them/analyzing them is a highlight of my week, twice a week. I guess I understand that people don't/can't follow them like that, it does take some time, but you can watch in pieces. I'd also recommend to watch matches in 2x speed. (entrances/cutscenes aside obviously). Try that.

 

You do have a point about over-saturation. It's been talked about a lot that people don't need promos that are basically there for no reason. That would help lower it a bit.

 

Also, thank you for the review. As a handler, I know all too well that the best way to inspire is to read other people react to your hard work.

 

Your previous reviews were short and forced with just "i like this" but this actually provided insight. I know it's hard to be expected to review them each time and you dont have to. A comment here or there about stuff that stuck out to you does wonders for people. Even if you can't touch on everything, it will let the handlers know that "hey, your shit isn't impactful enough to talk about"

 

Good work

[Cort Marshall]

I definitely think the shows are long enough to be tough to get through but I just don't see an all-pleasing solution to that. We book promos, people don't get to be as creative. We start pruning the less necessary promos, half the roster feels buried. We make another show, it's just shifting the content. I think it's just kinda how it is. Sure it fucks with us trying to get an audience, but for this specifically I think what would be better for hypothetical audience members would be worse for the people who make the content. I don't quite "enjoy" shows but if all the people who aren't 10/10 on the mic were forced into guided promos or booted off show, I'd enjoy them less. One of the appeals of OCW is that you don't get forced into a role by a booker or anyone, you do what you want to do on your terms and get over that way.

 

In kayfabe, you put all this on video and OCW is a pretty tight show--about an hour of matches, maybe hour and a half, and probably 30 mins of promo stuff? It's just that it being in writing makes it long by nature--a 1 minute fight becomes 3 paragraphs. So in conclusion, besides Yukes not being incompetent tardwranglers and bringing back story creator for easy fun and quick segments... I don't think the length problem can be solved to please hypothetical viewers without sacrificing some satisfaction on the creative end. Ambition is basically our test run for a less wordy, tighter show like you want--and it's cool, but if someone told me I couldn't do my 6 paragraph America rant I wouldn't be here at all.

 

I think the most likely path for future fans is with the Twitch streamed PPVs, commentary filling in casual viewers on the story, and video-focused formats like Ambition, while Riot and Turmoil and supplementary web content stay as-is to please us text wall types.

 

Oh, and to grab casuals, our streams should be on intervals. Dates n times. X pm X day of the week, every time. That's how you gain viewers through attrition. Dunno if it's feasible to make weekly shows full commentary and streaming but... that's how you get views. Unless we wanna pay for advertisement or shill on the net? I dunno. I don't do marketing, I just try and hit passing children with soggy paper towels.

[Keith Hendrix]

In OCW, we don't post spoilers on the first page in the forum. This allows people to be able to open the show later on without seeing what happened. These replies you're referring to are literally to get us to the 2nd page so we can talk about the show faster.

 

I simply do not agree. The shows are all about freedom and allowing people to do things they want to do. "assigned" promos would be terrible. I have no problem getting through shows and watching them/analyzing them is a highlight of my week, twice a week. I guess I understand that people don't/can't follow them like that, it does take some time, but you can watch in pieces. I'd also recommend to watch matches in 2x speed. (entrances/cutscenes aside obviously). Try that.

 

 

You do have a point about over-saturation. It's been talked about a lot that people don't need promos that are basically there for no reason. That would help lower it a bit.

 

Also, thank you for the review. As a handler, I know all too well that the best way to inspire is to read other people react to your hard work.

 

Your previous reviews were short and forced with just "i like this" but this actually provided insight. I know it's hard to be expected to review them each time and you dont have to. A comment here or there about stuff that stuck out to you does wonders for people. Even if you can't touch on everything, it will let the handlers know that "hey, your shit isn't impactful enough to talk about"

 

Good work

 

I still think the comments thing is not ideal. There are a lot of little quirks about the way OCW works or the information flow is designed that are just not optimal in the current culture of the way people consume information. When we go to watch something, If we see that there are comments below, we look to those comments to establish the tone of the conversation about the content. Most people (ie. not the locker room) would not "guess" that oh...they must just do this to avoid spoilers, I'll skip ahead to page 3. A lot of people will just look at it, assume that that's the tone of the comments about the show...and move on to something else. Which is actually what I almost did when first trying to check out an OCW show. I was horrified when I realized I would have missed the really substantive reviews had I done that. But again, it really comes down to who are audience is and what our goals are. I see a product that can grow a lot and have a lot of fans outside of the locker room. To me, we need to be serious about removing barriers to that kind of participation. Part of it, is making the design a little more contemporary. I get that OCW is a glorified ghetto universe (jay's words...kinda) but I honestly believe the quality of the product has outgrown that. I know I'm new here. But I think that's valuable. I still have that outsider's fresh perspective and I haven't yet lost the memory of how perplexing this place was to me when I first showed up and how much asking around and digging was necessary to find basic things. Simple solutions to this type of problem is putting the reviews for the shows in a different part of the forum than the show itself and then posting a reminder of such that includes a warning like "reviews for this show should be posted in the show review forum- please do not post spoilers on the show page".

 

-One of the overall things I hear a lot around OCW is basically I'll have some feedback about something I think can be improved a little bit and the response I often get is some version of "well, you don't understand why it works that way." While I really do appreciate the real interaction and I certainly on personal level really appreciate people showing me the ropes, I'd encourage us to think a little beyond that. Of course there's a history as to why things are the way they are and of course there's a reason they work the way they do. That doesn't diminish the nature of the problems with the design if those concerns are relevant. We want to present our product in the best light. We're the only people who can ensure that we're doing so. If potential talent, fans, or anyone else who would like to be involved in OCW is discouraged from doing so because of these type of design challenges, we're just missing out on opportunity. The public doesn't owe us to be understanding of why certain things are a mess. They can just show up, be like "it looks like this website was designed 20 years ago"...and move on to something else. Why not tweak things a bit to just avoid that type of thing altogether?

 

-About the length, I can try watching some stuff at 2x speed, but that wouldn't really work very well for broadcasting the shows. I know a lot of people will disagree with my feelings about the length of the show. But I feel pretty strongly about it, so I think it's worth discussing. I think again it comes back to who is the audience? I think a lot of people will kind of disagree with me about the answer to that question. When I first joined OCW I was really excited about being in an e-fed that seemed big enough that it had real fans. As in people who are not wrestlers, alumni, or staff, but just enjoy what OCW puts out as some really good ass wrestling product, that just happens to be based in a video game. Great matches, great storytelling, and the talent actually mostly controls the creative. Now I don't really know what the size of OCW's audience is and how much of it is people who aren't in some way a part of it. But I still see it as a viable product that a lot of wrestling fans would be into. A lot of my feedback is based on that belief and trying to grow that audience. The truth may be much closer to the locker room, alumni, and staff are most of the audience and that may or may not always be the case. Some people will even disagree about whether or not having a wider audience is even feasible or desirable. Anyway, it's relevant. Because if you think of "us" (wrestlers, staff, etc.) as the audience then we have a much different threshold for how much OCW content we can consume then the average consumer would. I would add that I think a lot of the talent has a hard time keeping up with the amount of content put out and that's kind of alarming. But I really feel if a lot of you are like me and you think that OCW has at least the POTENTIAL to have a large audience outside of its locker room we should be asking questions about what's a reasonable expectation of the average fan as opposed to the locker room. But I love the show. I love the content. I'm not trying to stifle anyone's creativity. I just think it'd be nice to shave it down to more consumable units. I'm really inspired a lot by esports and the broadcast industry built around competitive gaming and roleplaying. I came into this fed asking myself a simple question, "Why not us?". A lot of that growth really depended on packaging the content in ways that make it easier to follow and broadcast. We all know RAW is too long and WWE is criticized for putting out too much content. We also all know the outcome, the audience that watches "all of it" or even "most of it" is very small relative to the audience that watches the really big shit and a great deal of content just goes largely unwatched altogether. I believe A LOT of people would dedicate a few hours a week to following OCWfed in addition to whatever gaming or wrestling content is important to them...but not 10 or more hours of it. When we start SUGGESTING that you fast forward through large portions of the show...that speaks volumes. Also, digesting the show in parts or wharever works, but again, what else do you watch in parts??? Probably very little, compared to what you enjoy watching in one sitting. Again, we're THE MOST DEDICATED segment of the audience, we'd do well to keep that in mind.

 

-Anyway, seriously thank you so much for engaging me and providing real dialogue based on my review. I decided to post my additional thoughts here, as opposed to hitting you in a PM so that anyone else in the community can see our exchange. I love getting into these real discussions about the product. Whether we agree about everything or not, this is fun.

[Keith Hendrix]

Just to clarify by booked promos I don't mean guided or scripted in any way. I just mean booked as in scheduled. My thinking was this. Right now everyone is invited to submit content. So if everyone does, we know what happens. By booking promos like we book matches I just mean that for instance this week in my match C.Q.C. vs. The Heartbreakers when I go to read the card it would also say Promo: The Heartbreakers. We would know we have to do the match and submit some content....C.Q.C. only has to worry about the match (they can submit additional content if they want, knowing it will fill if someone flakes, or end up in the promo room). But basically you would end up promoing for half of your matches instead of all of them. You could be just as creative, heck, even more because you wouldn't be doing them as frequently. This is also where smart booking comes in. We know we get good shit from our top guys. So who get asked to do a promo could be a mix of featuring the main events, making sure the mid card is represented and favoring giving newer or less experienced talent some of the promo time on the lower card. We might get an average closer to 1:1 matches to promos (especially if a couple matches that have been building we just let them have their match). Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't suggesting scripted or restricted promos. Maybe scheduled would have been the better word. My main point was that with a little planning, we could reduce the amount of excess content, still make sure everyone gets plenty of opportunities to present segments, and actually bring our product more in line with the real thing anyway. When do you really see two interviews and a 20 min match devoted to lower card stuff...almost never. But again, lovin' the discussion. Thanks a lot, Cort.

[Keith Hendrix]

Also, I love the ideas about the more consistent stream and broadcast. I'm a serious broadcaster with a family background in cable tv. I'd love to help, especially making scheduled streams of shows that Jay will not be streaming. Also, we have a lot of people who would help with commentary. I think even adding it to two or three of the featured matches on a show (if we can't do the whole card) would go a long way. We could keep our feature team on the ME and let some of us other folks take a shot at undercard matches. Yes, change is rarely easy, but man we could pull off a lot of this stuff.

[Austin Lee]

#tldr

[Austin Lee]

All i am saying is if things were more like how i like them OCW would be a much better place.!!!

 

 

 

2 lines no giant wall text.....

 

nice and simple don't over complicate your thoughts with that snowflake phd studying mind

[Cort Marshall]

1. I definitely think the forums could be better. I don't give a fuck how they look, I just mean fewer sections, NO kayfabe titles for them. Match cards, shows, extra content, promo room, off topic, info. All the topics you need. None of this banana sundae/xpac fanfiction ONLY (last posted in 2003) subsection stuff.

 

2. Again I think my problem with your ideas for growth is that they'd just make it less fun for me (and maybe other people) in sacrifice to a better format. Ambition is so nice and digestible... but Cort, Bobby Minio, Quartz, etc could not exist on it in the way they do here. The scheduled promo idea is interesting, I won't DISMISS it--but I think again the end result would be that in favour of smoother format we sacrifice people's ability to make their own choices. It would also make more work for bookers, as now instead of creating matches and letting people react naturally, they must decide who will react as well.

 

3. Say we go, like, 2 weeks per show. Much more time, all show can be commentary. Trim it down, scheduled promos, ambition production etc. Now, that's a best case scenario--how many more people really would watch? Wrestling is a niche. Efeds are a niche of that niche. We ain't esports--even at the BEST content presented in the MOST digestible way, we will never be that big. Best we can aim for are the popular non meme universe modes. VGCW is probably the star icon of success in WWE roleplaying and that had the core meme concept of "videogame characters fighting in WWE" to gather an audience, along with a stream-only format that was possible because of Story Creator.

 

And that's basically the core of it. The site could easily be presented better, for sure. That's a completely possible change. Now, changing how we book and so on... I'm not so sure. Even if we only had the BEST segments on each show, that's still more reading than your average Fortnite Zoomer wants to do... I don't feel we could achieve "mainstream" success without sacrificing some of what makes it engaging to be here.

 

BUT... if there was some sort of universally-accepted manner of shortening shows... I think it would increase internal engagement. There are, as Valk said, maybe 6-10 of us who read every show and try and remember everything. Probably half of those people enjoy doing that, haha. The rest skim to the people and matches they like. Shorter shows would give more exposure to whoever's on them... but with a large and everchanging roster, it would also put people out in the shade.

[Keith Hendrix]

All i am saying is if things were more like how i like them OCW would be a much better place.!!!

 

 

 

2 lines no giant wall text.....

 

nice and simple don't over complicate your thoughts with that snowflake phd studying mind

 

Tldr is a fair, personal choice. I chose to elaborate on my ideas because that was my personal choice and I wanted to explain the thinking behind my comments. If that's not your cup of tea...don't read it. But calling me names and hurling personal insults at me is childish and very inappropriate. This is the type of shit that discourages genuine participation. I shouldn't be subject to this because you think my post was too long.

[Damian Bourne]

All i am saying is if things were more like how i like them OCW would be a much better place.!!!

 

 

 

2 lines no giant wall text.....

 

nice and simple don't over complicate your thoughts with that snowflake phd studying mind

 

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