itmeJP Community


itmeJP Community

Consistency & Disapointment

RollPlay: General & Archives
#1

I’m really disapointed.

JP if you want us to block out time to watch live, then there has to be more than reasonable expectation that the shows will happen. If not why bother, I can watch the vods when ever.

I wonder sometimes if the commitment is there; which is probably unfair of me. I don’t know, but maybe you are trying to do to much at once. I know you didn’t plan or want this weekend to happen as it playedout, but it did. I want to support the shows as much as possible but there has to be shows to support.

I’m not sure if this is helpful or wanted, but maybe this little bit of ventting will clear the air on what a few of us as supporters of the shows are thinking.

Take Care

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RollPlay Patreon: Year Two
#3

Going to write this stream-of-consciousness and with next to no editing. I apologize up front.

Threads / complaints such as this usually happen once a year. It is always during a time (much like this one) where there is a show thats having a hard time scheduling (Court of Swords) and then I schedule a show or two and some unforeseen tech issues happen and I have to cancel them, and then the thread / tweets start coming – although this time there were less angry tweets so thanks for that!

I said yesterday when we ended the stream (pretty much because I knew something like this would happen) that while you might be frustrated, know that I’m fucking furious ten fold because this is what I do for a living, and I’ll see a reflection on the lack of shows via the sub count for the month.

If you wonder if the “commitment” is there: just keep in mind I have zero social life and when I do, I feel guilty for having one. Taking a trip to visit my long distance girlfriend literally stresses me the fuck out and I have a hard time enjoying it to begin with because I’m unable to work. Part of this trip up here was to build a setup so that I can do shows while visiting and not throw stuff like this off. The PC just wasn’t built yet and her current setup wasn’t able to stream at steady 30 and constant Skype crashes. That shouldn’t happen moving forward.

If you’re disappointed in the show and its frequency then just unsub and come back when you feel that the sub is worth it. That is all I can say, really. After four plus years I’ve kept this going with consistent week-to-week shows and I don’t really plan to stop. I’ve just started to have a social life again and figuring that out plus working a job that demands insane hours is still being figured out.

Anyways, see you on next show. Feel free to have a discussion, though, as I read everything and love feedback like this!

Thanks!

28 Likes
No new blades for 3 weeks?
The RollPlay News Thread
[updated] CoS Week 29 will be on April 7th 2017
#4

To be clear I’m nowhere close to dropping my subscription or patreon support as the quality of the shows produced is always top notch and well worth it. It’s just I personal have no motivation or incentive to watch live, well other than the fear that my current favorite Roleplay show Blades might get canceled do to low live viewership. I’m making the commitment to watch Blades live, I want that commitment reciprocated. Life happens I get it, but have we become to comfortable in shows not happenning on time.

Nebula Jaz how many weeks between shows?

What’s going on with CoS?

Blades didn’t even make it one week after it’s reboot.

I’ll watch the VOD’s of the shows when ever I have time that’s not a problem for me. I just don’t want shows canceled for live viewership problems when their is no consistsncy to establish a live viewership base with.

I don’t mean to pore salt in the wound of JP’s stress over this, but this has to be adressed in a meaningful way. And asking for us to have patience is not a solution it’s just asking is to accept the status quo. Not that JP has done that it’s mostly been people making excuses on his behalf.

If consistancy is just not something I can realistically expect then I’m just going to stop worrying about if the shows are canceled or not and just watch what is produced when it becomes avaliable and at my leisure.

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#5

Thanks for the responce as you were writing your stream-of-consciousness I was writing mine.

Venting is healthy as it helps relieve the stress and frustration.

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#6

Regarding the history of consistency with Rollplay:

A 4 hour block of a day with multiple cast members is a demanding production commitment to make every week. A single Rollplay show alone already provides more hours of content than any TV show week-to-week, month-to-month, with no “production breaks” between seasons. A lot of the missing weeks come down to A) cast member scheduling conflicts and B) unforeseen difficulties, like with health and technical problems. It’s hard to reschedule a last-minute cancellation within the same week, too (coordinating 5 people into taking out a different 4-hour block of their time on a surprise day).

It’s rough, but it happens. The only way that Rollplay could ensure the scheduling rigidity of something like a TV show would be if Rollplay was actually paying everyone’s bills like actors, but in reality it’s a side-project for most of the cast involved (whatever money they may or may not make is supplemental to their core career). JP would need an annual intake of like… I dunno, half a million dollars or something to pay all those people to definitely schedule their life around Rollplay. But with technical issues and otherwise, you can’t really work around that with a live show.

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#7

I am never happy when a show isent on, but hey thats just because I love all the current shows so much. As a fairly new supporter of what you do and in general the hole “rollplay” its been about ½ year or so sins I found it. Nothing has given me more fun than all the live shows and the old shows… if anything I dont get why there isent more ppl who see what you do.

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#8

hey @itmejp i was hoping you could clear something up…for someone like me who just watches streams I get confused when shows get cancelled bc you are having pc issues bc in my mind all those on the show are streamers and one of them could “run” the show. I feel like this would reduce stress on you too. I guess my question is what is preventing that from happening so you could fully relax on your trips?

#10

Not to speak for JP but that would be a nightmare to keep track of which vods epidodes are on which chanel, and it would more inportantly dilute the intelect property rights of the Roleplay Trademark and brand.

There might be other considerations that I’m unaware of but those are the two I can think of.

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#11

They covered this a bit somewhere on the PAX Panel, basically being a control freak over your product means that giving up that ownership isn’t really conducive to relaxing.

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#12

I mirror this somewhat, although for different reasons. I basically can’t commit to watching the shows live ever. I just don’t generally have 4 hours of time in a row that I can commit(with the possible rare exception of blades new timeslot) but I sub and I back on patreon because the quality of content is so good. I ended up subbing in the first place because I was so hooked on the content that I don’t want to wait for youtube vods. I suppose I’m more curious than anything what the impact of the people who don’t watch live is on the life of shows, because I imagine there’s a noticeable amount of us who just have to watch vods later.

Either way, while its rough on us not to have the content, I can’t imagine what JP is going through. Try not to let it get to you man! You do good work, and we’ll be here to support it!

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#13

i was more thinking about why couldnt on of the others host it on jp’s channel. I 'm assuming the intellectual property rights and all that stuff are covered in contracts he has with the others.

@disusedgenius I think it might be mentally healthy for jp to find that everything goes fine when he gives up some control :slight_smile: Like he could be present for a couple times while another runs the show and he could gradually grow comfortable with it

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#15

To me that would be turning over access to my bank account level of trust, because I’m not sure if you can be granted the access needed to brodecast without gaoning access to everything. But not have looked onto it I’m talking out of my ass.

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#16

I get that it’s frustrating, but I don’t really see what could possibly have prevented a PC crash Saturday. Shit happens. Same with Dan being sick, these things suck, but not a lot of control over it, and when the people involved are only doing this as a ‘side’ project, its tough for scheduling

I guess this would potentially be a reason to split ‘itmejp’ and ‘rollplay’ on twitch officially, then give say Adam or another trusted cast/community member joint control over the rollplay channel for when jp isnt available for things like tech crises (so when the stream goes down, Adam or whoever can simply log in and restart it?) - but I know JP has expressed concerns in the past about both splitting the channels (e.g. viewer retention during the move) and ceding control of his baby :itmejplol:

also I’ve no idea how twitch backend works having never even visited my own “channel” page let alone considered streaming, so there might be stuff from a business perspective that the parties wouldn’t want visible to each other? idk how it works at all!

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#18

Just playing devil’s advocate, I’m not saying he should have but yes there are ways to avoid this. The PC could have been built at his house weeks prior and tested repeatedly to verify proper setup and stability. He also could have just brought one if his PCs with him, I understand that could be a scary thought with all that’s invested in it but saying there aren’t ways to prevent it is not true.

Some things can’t be prevented and when issues happen I would come up with other things to reassure people. For example I would say the next couple Court of Swords episodes would be 6 hours instead of four. I would say we’re going to put up some other Patreon videos like the Volo one, I would like to see Adam and JP discuss the new D&D book. There are other interesting Patreon content they could up with. Here’s an even crazier idea, maybe you create some Patreon content and keep it queued up and drop it when there are issues. Maybe drop the news on the One Shot? Hearing tantalizing future info I think would cause some people to cool down a bit. Just me two cents.

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#20

I’ve been sitting here for 30 mins, trying to think of something useful to say that pertains to this thread, and have been unable to do so. Basically, the conclusion is “Shit happens”, and having in mind how many factors can cancel/ruin a show, Rollplay has been pretty consistent in both the quality and quantity of shows. So Klappa to JP and everyone involved, and don’t forget to enjoy the times when things do go right.

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#22

I get the impression you’re reading too much into this compared to what I was thinking. I just mean that most people involved, current guests and regular cast members, don’t have this as their main job - their primary income is not rollplay. They have schedules to maintain for that main job, and sure, someone like Dodger might have more flexibility than Wheat or Morgan with their non-streamer jobs - but she still has fixed commitments (eg if NJ get cancelled one Saturday, you can’t reschedule to a Tuesday because of Cooptional/mangapod) because her other content is important for her too.

Stack that up over 5 people (+JP when he doesn’t play) and even if everyone can do 6 days in a given week, it’s entirely possible that the original time slot was the only place that worked, so an illness scuppers the whole week.

@boostgeek Sure, there are literally things he could have done, but obviously it was assumed that Aurey’s PC could handle it - I assume she isn’t streaming from a potato so I doubt that was the worst assumption in the world. Hell, he could have shipped his PC with him and there is still no guarantee he doesn’t blue screen anyway. I like the idea of replacement patreon stuff tbf.

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#24

It would take a bit more than a $200 laptop. He also local records. He would also need atleast an extra screen (you could do it with a single screen but would be more of a pain in the ass). Even when JP isn’t on a show he does voice overs and that would need a decent mic.

Didn’t he also say that part of his trip was to also set up a rig while he was there?

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#25

Again devil’s advocate but you should never assume, I’m sure you know the phrase. Also have you heard of the seven Ps? I’m a huge RollPlay supporter but I don’t think we shouldn’t be able to voice things. This is how JP improves his process. It’s so hard when shows didn’t happen because no other shows have the same product ion value that they’re hard to watch, think of how strong of a complement that is. I’m more interested in a method on how to make things up, I’m sure we can’t get three make up shows but anything extra soothes the burn. Having some preloaded Patreon vids for these instances would be great. Even just listening to him to him talk about CoS, his character or past characters. Just a thought.

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#27

Yep. Last he tweeted, he thought the rig was having motherboard issues.

At least, that was the last tweet I read on the subject.

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#28

Yeah sorry I was replying to a (rather rude) now deleted post about all it would take is a $200 laptop to get up and running :upside_down:

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