Y’know, fair enough.
This is probably the most easily watchable FEE3, being the first year where there were more trailers than let’s play showcases. As part of the quality review team that’s definitely appreciated!
I assume that with the success of high quality trailers such as Cerberus this year as well as the amount of people voicing their disinterest in longer videos, it’s pretty likely this trend will continue regardless of if FEE3 pushes down length limits.
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I largely agree with Pandan on this one, they summarized it well in their “by the community for the community” phrase. Gatekeeping the event behind the ability to make 8-10 minute trailers goes against a lot of what I feel this community has been standing for, at least during the time I have been around for.
We have FEbuilder, an easily accessible tool for new romhackers to keep the barrier of entry low
We have a graphics repository as to keep the barrier of making your hack look and sound good low
We have community threads allowing anyone to comment to allow an open table for discussion towards any topic
Looking to just put limits on any of these things would be seen as insane by most of the people here in all likelihood, so why is this such a sticking point for fee3? Should we stop short hacks from being made because some people don’t like them?
This is a community event, let’s keep the barrier as low as possible without sacrificing a bare minimum amount of integrity. I know the current system in place has benefited me, my hardware’s not good enough to even make something better than a windows movie maker trailer, not exactly something that catches eyes. It was much easier to work with an LPer and just have fun with a chapter.
It was a great year for FEE3 folks, I loved a lot of the stuff being shown off!
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For all that 1 hour LPs are too much for me to watch, 1 hour also doesn’t feel like enough show off a game sometimes. Making a trailer for my project was also surprisingly difficult, as Xili said, it’s a skillset orthogonal to a lot of other rom hacking things and it’s the sort of creative muscle I haven’t flexed in a long time. I still personally prefer trailers but I wouldn’t ask the people contributing to be forced into a specific format nor for the maximum time limit to be reduced.
Anyway, good job, FEE3 2023 team, things really did go impressively smoothly from my sort of strange vantage point.
Once again, just like last year, I swear I had some more comments to say but I’ve completely forgotten them by the time the post mortem came around. I really should write this down somewhere next year…
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Honest opinion, but I think that the FEE3 should be limited to trailers and short-form videos, and instead move gameplays and playthroughs to the rest of the year, allowing multiple games to be played in depth in the FEU channel, and both granting feedback to hacks that need it as well as potential players for any hacks that aren’t in the spotlight.
This year’s E3 not only had the lowest amount of entries, but their top-most entries have tanked compared to other years’.
Last year, the trailer for the finished Sacred Echoes, which landed 3rd on views for 2022, has now 14k views, while Project Baldr, the 3rd spot for 2023 is around 5.7k views, and years 2021 and 2020 landed around 8k views.
This years’ E3 didn’t go that well compared to previous years, and the loss of retention might be slightly related to this.
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Remember that those older videos have been available to view for much longer. They don’t just stop accumulating views once the event ends. Someone in FEUcord (Sme I think?) compared numbers from the same relative time after the event and this year’s view counts were up, not down.
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I agree that views do go up in time, so maybe at a later date we can see these videos going up in views.
For Sme’s investigation, for all I know the comparisons were made between 2021 and 2023 due to lacking access to 2022’s data, which concluded with 2023 having a better start than 2021 in relative views 24h after the event.
Whether or not there is a comparison between 2022 and 2023 is something I am not aware of, though, but considering that 2022 was probably the peak of FEE3 in both views and submissions, it makes the prospect of 2023 starting better than 2022 an unlikely thought for me.
Should also point out that your Cerulean Coast showcase, which was sick btw, was over half an hour long. It would still be over 10 minutes long without any of the intro dialogue, and between 8 and 10 minutes only if you skipped preps and unit explanations entirely.
For the record I think timestamps for longer showcases are a sufficient remedy to excessive length (as in this case, I skipped over to the LTC once I felt like I’d heard enough) and mostly just wanted to note that an 8 (or possibly even 10) minute barrier would’ve barred the CC showcase (10th most watched this year, I think, which puts it in the top 25% or so right?), which to me is sufficient evidence that the particular idea of an 8-10 minute cap suggested earlier in the thread is without merit.
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While on the topic of video length it is also worth noting that Sme made an excellent data table for this year’s stuff on FEUcord, an incredibly impressive display of statistics that we could learn a lot from. One of the takeaways from this data table is that video length had little impact on views.
So the argument for shorter video length really kind of is dead in the water on the casual viewer side. The people complaining are either as Xil suggested, not watching the videos to begin with, or are otherwise a vocal minority.
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I honestly feel that you should ask the community about the length, if you really want to know they really want, instead of guessing just because the silent majority doesn’t seem to care.
You guys say that this event is for the community by the community, if that’s true then, the community deserves quality and digestible content.
Let’s throw away the 10 min as a maximum, keep it a minimum and 30 min could be a maximum. Maybe I’m trying to win an unwinnable battle but I’ll stand here until I see that people really doesn’t cares about length. If I was wring in the end, I’ll respectfully will admit defeat and embrace what the community really wants.
…instead of guessing just because the silent majority doesn’t seem to care.
It’s not a guess, though. Sme gathered data on all the videos made for FEE3 and found that yes, in fact, video length has nothing to do with the video’s view count. It’s hardly a “silent majority” if the majority in question is showing their lack of preference in the analytics. And for a less objective metric, you could read the comment section on any video, trailer or otherwise, and see glowing reviews from a wide variety of commentors.
You guys say that this event is for the community by the community, if that’s true then, the community deserves quality and digestible content.
This is a pretty loaded statement. FEE3 has never been hosted to provide “quality and digestible” content, it’s been hosted to show off the community’s projects in progress. The fact that it’s for the community by the community is true because the participants make their own trailers/showcases and the hosts are volunteers. To say that the videos not conforming to your preferences is doing a disservice to the community is just wrong.
To support this point, and to make it so my reply isn’t just contributing to discourse, I’m going to talk about my own experience with FEE3. I was made aware of FEU during FEE3 2022, and I was absolutely blown away by everything shown off during it. The hour-long showcases never bothered me even as someone without any familiarity with the event, as they were able to show off all the cool gameplay elements that are pushing the GBA to their limit. FEE3 2023 was no different, and it was absolutely spectacular to see the projects this year as well. bpat did a fantastic job hosting the event and I’d be glad to see it continue to run this smoothly in upcoming years.
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Pretty sure it doesn’t actually matter how long the videos are for the end product. Limiting video length was mostly for the review committee; checking an hour of footage to make sure it follows the rules… dozens of times… sounds pretty daunting.
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Ok then, you guys have several good points and have more context than me. Like i said, I admit defeat then. I need to have a better knowledge of all the logistics behind this event first.
Thank you for your point of views, I learned a lot! I always appreciate a good conversation.
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I’ll toss in that the only relevant gripe l have with YouTube Shorts is the player for them arbitrarily having less features than the typical player. I mean, you can’t even seek. What’s the point of them removing that?
Otherwise, they don’t sound like a bad idea. Their short nature makes me think they’d work best as bonus videos, like with the Nintendo Treehouse at the end of older Directs or maybe a sizzle reel kind of playlist. But, it sounds like the issue regardless is with their user interface and exposure on the site.
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Overall, this FEE3 was really great! I started watching in 2021, and this is the one I enjoyed the most.
I submitted a trailer, too. It did pretty alright for an unknown, vanilla hack. I’m glad people enjoyed it from what I’ve heard! My only regret is not making it longer, but what’s done is done.
I viewed a lot of the submissions. Almost every single trailer and a few Let’s plays. The LTCs were a hit, as it made maps shorter and it showcases the tools each game provides. I skipped the showcases with too much story, but it’s just personal preference as I play Fire Emblem mostly for the gameplay.
In regards to the shorts idea: I think it’s good in concept, but there’s a lot of problems with it. The Pokémblem short sticked out, but sadly not in a good way for me. It’s not a proper short, so it’s not pushed by the algorithm like one. Just like one commenter said, “The bad format, but like, without the algorithmic boost. A real flex”
With that said, I’m not against the idea of trying more shorts in the future. If enough people do them, the idea of having one section of FEE3 consisting entirely of shorts could work. Videos like this year’s Emblem Chronicle VII or even teasers or short trailers like mine could work in that format. It all depends on wether there’s someone that wants to organize that, and if enough people submit them. It’s also useful in regards to the minimum length restriction: videos below X seconds should be reworked into the shorts format, for example.
Congrats on organizing such an amazing event! I’m glad there wasn’t any serious issue
I don’t have much to add to the discourse in general, but I will say that blanket vetoing shorts for this year’s showcase was my decision.
In the long run, I would be in favor of allowing creators to submit shorts alongside a standard-format video of any type (trailer, longform, etc) that we could use to draw people to the event itself.
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From the votes it looks like users here really don’t like yt shorts. I agree with Cam that having optional promotional shorts sounds nice, so I’ll rephrase the poll.
Should promotional youtube shorts be accepted when submitted alongside a regular video for fee3?
- Yes
- No
0 voters
I’ll respect the results of the poll and stop bringing this up if most users don’t want yt shorts for fee3 whatsoever.
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Wasn’t able to participate here, but I saw something discussed in Discord regarding rebalances etc.
People were talking about only banning rebalances for GBA.
I’d advocate for also not allowing them in general. As Tellius rebalances for example can be whipped up in 3 hours. FEU is GBA central and other era’s aren’t all that popular, but I don’t think you’ll get much value out of “Hand axe is not Op anymore in RD” as an entry.
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Isn’t FEU focus on any fire emblems?
If you exclude Nuramon’s showcases, the second most viewed video in all of FEE3 history is Radiant Dawn Daybreak. The first one being HoloEmblem which you can guess why that’s the case
Exalted, another Radiant Dawn overhaul, also got crazy amount of views.
People are, at least, really interested in watching trailers for Tellius rebalances/overhauls (because Tellius is the best but I digress)