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OS Neutral Would a MacBook Pro focused "Lets Play" YouTube channel work?

Elmzeh said:
Hey guys,

As such are there any games that you guys are keen to see reviewed/played first?

Currently I have access to;

Diablo III
WoW
CS:GO
The Killing Floor
Borderlands 2
Prison Architect
Half Life 2 (+ Episode 1 & 2)
Portal 1 & 2
Team Fortess 2
Left 4 Dead
League of Legends
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I'd like seeing Diablo III, Killing Floor and Left 4 Dead myself of those choices although they are all good ones really. Coverage of both single player and multiplayer in those games would be cool, even though I know the focus is on multiplayer with the latter two titles.
 
makaveli559m said:
Some one should also post up PC to OS X games like with WINE, PlayOnMac, CrossOver, Porting Team.
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While I'm sure some people would enjoy that, I really like what OP is doing and just focusing on the OS X side of games. Not everyone wants to run Windows one way or another on their Mac.
 
Hey Guys!

Thanks for all of your responses and suggestions so far - they're great and please keep them coming!

I'm hoping for the channel to go live late next week and will start thinking about what game to do first however I could use a little more advice on the structure/style of the reviews/commentary...

I'm going to add a poll to the thread but theres too many different styles to pick from and I'm keen to find out if you guys would prefer. The segment/episode durations I will aim to keep to around 10-20 minutes each but in terms of style would you prefer;

1) Gameplay from the start of the game for the first 10-20 minutes to include commentary and an initial review either of the gameplay so far or an overview of the whole game?

2) 2-4 Episodes of 10-20 minutes each showing off gameplay of different points through the game (Start, Middle, and towards the end) talking about the games performance and story as I go?

3) Any other suggestions! :)

Some of the leaders with regards to Windows based gaming channels are people like Total Biscuit/The Cynical Brit, Angry Joe & PewDiePie... I could always try to combine their styles but am keen to find out what most appeals to you guys...

I doubt you'd want to see me playing a game all the way through as it would spoil it for you guys if you was to purchase it yourself so any advice/opinions here would be great! :)
 
NbinHD said:
What specs are you going to be gaming on?
What will the channel be called so i can subscribe to it and....
Most importantly can you please try GTA 4, Battlefield 3 and Black Ops 2.
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The machine will be an Early 2013 15" MacBook Pro Retina, 2.7GHz, 16GB RAM, Nvidia 650M 1GB;

Unfortunately I believe those games have to be run via Bootcamp/Windows at the moment which is slightly going against the aims of the channel as initially Im keen for it to be fully OS X focused with no Bootcamp videos at all...

This is of course subject to change based on demand but so far based on the responses that the thread has generated I get the impression that the majority of Mac users are keen to see games that are run purely on OS X without Bootcamp :)

Please let me know if you come across a Mac version of the game or if there are any other games that you'd like to see! :apple:
 
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tgi said:
While I'm sure some people would enjoy that, I really like what OP is doing and just focusing on the OS X side of games. Not everyone wants to run Windows one way or another on their Mac.
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Run pc games on OS X doesn't count? That is what I meant lol
 
Update

Hey guys,

Thanks agian for all of the responses and suggestions so far, you're feedback is greatly appreciated and is all being considered :)

Please keep them coming and dont forget to let me know if there are any OS X games that you are keen to see! :apple:

Final prep software wise is going to hopefully be completed by Monday and I'm hoping the channel will go live (Fingers crossed) with its first video by the middle/end of next week (New system is due to arrive on Tuesday next week)

I'm excited to test out a few of the games you guys have suggested although I'm currently leaning towards Bioshock 1 as a starting point but we'll see :D

Anymore suggestions/opinions are welcome and if you have any questions please let me know!
 
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Dirtyharry50 said:
The most interesting thing about running the RE6 benchmarks for me was observing the difference in visual quality between 1440p, 1080p and 720p. I expected 1440p to look great and it does. I expected 1080p to still look pretty decent too and to my eyes it did. What surprised me was that 720p looked pretty good too. It wasn't as if turning down the resolution made the game look just awful. To read some people's posts you'd think it is the end of the world and a game becomes just unplayable if you have to crank down the resolution. I'd have to disagree with that. Sure, sharper picture is always nice. Who could argue that? But a modern game at 720p with its eye candy turned up looks pretty damned good just the same. At least, I think so.
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Think about it for a second, people who are playing at 1440p are typically running on 30" monitors. You on the other hand are playing on what, a 15" Macbook screen? Of course you won't notice the decrease in visual fidelity nearly as much because you simply aren't able to resolve it at the distance you sit away from your small screen.
 
Steam Sales!!

Indeed they have started and no doubt I will snap up more deals throughout the sale for the good of the channel!

So far I've purchased/added to the list;

Left for Dead 2
The Walking Dead
Faster Than Light

Once again, please keep the requests coming! XCOM will more than likely also be added to the list in the next few days!:)
 
jadam said:
Think about it for a second, people who are playing at 1440p are typically running on 30" monitors. You on the other hand are playing on what, a 15" Macbook screen? Of course you won't notice the decrease in visual fidelity nearly as much because you simply aren't able to resolve it at the distance you sit away from your small screen.
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I own a 27' iMac and that was what I was looking at and ran the benchmarks on. I won't say there was no noticeable difference, of course there was but I'd still maintain it was not so dramatic as to ruin the game experience by any stretch which is the kind of sentiment I have often seen expressed in various places.

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Elmzeh said:
Steam Sales!!

Indeed they have started and no doubt I will snap up more deals throughout the sale for the good of the channel!

So far I've purchased/added to the list;

Left for Dead 2
The Walking Dead
Faster Than Light

Once again, please keep the requests coming! XCOM will more than likely also be added to the list in the next few days!:)
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XCOM would be goodness. It's been incredibly cheap on sale and may show up as a flash deal or daily again if you keep an eye open for it. Even if not, I think it's half off for the duration of the sale which itself is a great deal.
 
New Games?

Dirtyharry50 said:
I own a 27' iMac and that was what I was looking at and ran the benchmarks on. I won't say there was no noticeable difference, of course there was but I'd still maintain it was not so dramatic as to ruin the game experience by any stretch which is the kind of sentiment I have often seen expressed in various places.

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XCOM would be goodness. It's been incredibly cheap on sale and may show up as a flash deal or daily again if you keep an eye open for it. Even if not, I think it's half off for the duration of the sale which itself is a great deal.
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Great stuff!

How about Max Payne, BioShock Infinite and Max Payne 3? Also, if you're all keen to see BioShock Infinite are you still going to want to see BioShock 1 and 2?
 
Dirtyharry50 said:
I'd like seeing Diablo III, Killing Floor and Left 4 Dead myself of those choices although they are all good ones really. Coverage of both single player and multiplayer in those games would be cool, even though I know the focus is on multiplayer with the latter two titles.
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It's weird. I love L4D2, but Killing Floor left me cold. I'm so glad I tried it during Steam's last free trial week period. The only thing I liked about it is that it incorporates the look of Portal 2 in one of its maps.
 
Bioshock series would be great. I'd also be interested in L4D2 and The Walking Dead (although it's not visually compelling, really. The art style is great, but it looks the same on an iPad 2 as it does maxed out on my iMac).

I'd really like to see Arkham City. Its the only game that can make my iMac stutter a bit (other than Bioshock Infinite in Bootcamp with maxed settings), so it would be interesting to see how it runs on the retina.

Good luck with Max Payne 3. The OS X port is plagued with bugs. My PS3 died on me when I first bought that game. Then I bought it on Steam in Bootcamp, and it wouldn't run. Now in OS X it runs but has no controller support and is buggy as all hell. I guess I'm just not meant to play that game, so a Let's Play would be great if you can make it work.

Hope this feedback is helpful. Look forward to seeing the videos!
 
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blasto2236 said:
Bioshock series would be great. I'd also be interested in L4D2 and The Walking Dead (although it's not visually compelling, really. The art style is great, but it looks the same on an iPad 2 as it does maxed out on my iMac).

I'd really like to see Arkham City. Its the only game that can make my iMac stutter a bit (other than Bioshock Infinite in Bootcamp with maxed settings), so it would be interesting to see how it runs on the retina.

Good luck with Max Payne 3. The OS X port is plagued with bugs. My PS3 died on me when I first bought that game. Then I bought it on Steam in Bootcamp, and it wouldn't run. Now in OS X it runs but has no controller support and is buggy as all hell. I guess I'm just not meant to play that game, so a Let's Play would be great if you can make it work.

Hope this feedback is helpful. Look forward to seeing the videos!
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Great stuff and all the feedback has been awesome so far, thanks for all of your ideas/suggestions and advice!

Unfortunately Max Payne 3 on OS X still has a serious bug in that you cannot even launch the game since the latest Steam patch so the video for that will be slightly delayed unfortunately...

BioShock Series and the Batman Series are ones I'm very keen to do as well as some indie/rpg games like DLC Quest/EvoLand - would those kinds of games be of interest to you guys too?

***Update***

Unfortunately theres been a slight delay in me securing an external HDD for the video captures which I will be trying to purchase tomorrow however it may be early next week worst case scenario so realistically I'm hoping the first video for the channel will go up by Thurs/Fri next week the latest;

Will keep you guys posted and please keep the suggestions and requests coming! ;) :apple:
 
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cant you just wait for the new macbook retina to come out? it probably will around xmax time ;)
 
Dota 2

Just a quick update guys!

DOTA 2 landed in the Steam library for Mac users a few days ago (on the 19th July I believe) and from what I've seen so far, at pretty much high/max settings on my 15" MacBook Pro Retina its running perfectly...

I have noticed some users with similar machines complain of huge fps drops/poor performance even at low settings and believe this could be due to having the Developer Console enabled via the game Launch Options...

When I enabled the console, even without having anything like the net graph showing my system encounctered some serious fps issues which made the game unplayable. So for any of you experiencing any fps issues, make sure you check if your dev console is on and if so try it with it switched off :cool: :apple:
 
Elmzeh said:
Just a quick update guys!

DOTA 2 landed in the Steam library for Mac users a few days ago (on the 19th July I believe) and from what I've seen so far, at pretty much high/max settings on my 15" MacBook Pro Retina its running perfectly...

I have noticed some users with similar machines complain of huge fps drops/poor performance even at low settings and believe this could be due to having the Developer Console enabled via the game Launch Options...

When I enabled the console, even without having anything like the net graph showing my system encounctered some serious fps issues which made the game unplayable. So for any of you experiencing any fps issues, make sure you check if your dev console is on and if so try it with it switched off :cool: :apple:
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Awesome addition! This is great for those of us (like me) who have never played DOTA 2, AND who would benefit from knowing some performance shortcuts.

Thanks to you, Adam, my Axton in Borderlands 2 is up to level 8 after only a couple days!
 
Solomani said:
I'm not against the OP's idea. And certainly not against creating a YouTube channel for the sake of presentation.

But wouldn't it make more sense to have a small editorial spot in a Mac-centric gaming forum/website like IMG or even MacGamerHQ, and then use your blog/editorial section there to directly link to your YouTube videos?

YouTube is Youtube. Most people use it to kill time and browse annoying "funny cat videos" and other stupidly viral videos (e.g. Gangnam). When the idea of YouTube comes to mind, the last thing the average YT user thinks about is "helpful Mac gaming advice". Therefore, you are unlikely to help very many people (in terms of Mac gaming advice) if your comments/editorial/blog is solely inside YouTube.
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YouTube could be a very important piece of the puzzle imo. Forum/communications support would be good too.
 
Irishman said:
Awesome addition! This is great for those of us (like me) who have never played DOTA 2, AND who would benefit from knowing some performance shortcuts.

Thanks to you, Adam, my Axton in Borderlands 2 is up to level 8 after only a couple days!
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Hey Irishman! :D

Thanks for the response and support - I'm glad you're enjoying Borderlands 2! Really great game and the fun has only just begun! Keep me posted on what you think of it and feel free to give me a shout when you're nearing level 20 :apple:

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Huntn said:
YouTube could be a very important piece of the puzzle imo. Forum/communications support would be good too.
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Couldnt agree more! I've got a few emails out to some Mac gaming sites at the moment in regards to submitting content/reviews but as yet have not heard back;

So far I've received 1 suggestion from a friend which is that to attract a larger/wider audience the videos need to be a lot more... energetic/crazy - obviously I can ramp things up a bit but I don't want to be too intense and equally make things too silly that it wont be of interest to certain users :(

If you've got any advice, suggestions or requests then feel free to let me know - keen to develop the content that you all want and will enjoy seeing so whatever advice, suggestions or requests you have please keep them coming :) :apple:
 
Morning mate, have you decided on recording software yet?

I'm actually testing two pieces for OSX, ScreenFlow which you mentioned, and Camtasia for Mac.

Comparing them for quality, and overall performance. These are just very short clips though, but they do highlight some differences between the packages.
I'm also waiting to hear back from Telestream about their Mavericks support, and OpenGL improvements.

http://www.youtube.com/user/N19h7m4r3

Something I've noticed, do try and play in the res you're recording and publishing. So if you want the best performance and quality for youtube play, record and publish in 720p/1080p.

Also if you're interested, I might have two Steam key's for you ;) Pm me and we can have a chat.
 
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N19h7m4r3 said:
Morning mate, have you decided on recording software yet?

I'm actually testing two pieces for OSX, ScreenFlow which you mentioned, and Camtasia for Mac.

Comparing them for quality, and overall performance. These are just very short clips though, but they do highlight some differences between the packages.
I'm also waiting to hear back from Telestream about their Mavericks support, and OpenGL improvements.

http://www.youtube.com/user/N19h7m4r3

Something I've noticed, do try and play in the res you're recording and publishing. So if you want the best performance and quality for youtube play, record and publish in 720p/1080p.

Also if you're interested, I might have two Steam key's for you ;) Pm me and we can have a chat.
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Hey N19h7m4r3! :)

Yeah, I've gone with and purchased ScreenFlow - great interface, minimal impact on performance.. was a bit pricey but worth it :)

So far I've been able to upload all videos in 1080p which look great! :apple:

Thanks for the info =)
 
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