unforum

[Lithp]

Vince, I gotta say, I'm kind of skeptical. We've done this song & dance about how updates are just around the corner a few times. I'd love to be wrong, I want to be on pins & needles waiting for the next video again, explaining to people why they should be more open minded about the series, but checking for updates is starting to feel like a pointless ritual.

Regarding the above discussion, I don't have a problem with HABIT, what's kind of dull for me is that everything else has kind of disappeared from the series. What's Slenderman up to? The Rake? Jeff & Alex seemed to be in some kind of pseudo-alive state, what's up with that? And can we please get out of this goddamn room?

Just don't go right back into another crossover, please.

[awakeasaurusrex]

[TheOperator]

I'm all for ARG elements returning, though the way in which they're doing it is risky. Relying on rabbits from years ago to still be available and interested and putting out cryptic puzzles. What I wish is that they hadn't let the ARG element die out for as long as it did (years.) I'd say it wasn't just the slow updates that made people lose interest in EMH but also the over-simplification which does include the ARG element being disposed of, as well as the majority of extra content, leaving just the rarely updated Youtube channel.

[awakeasaurusrex]

Now that you point it out, it does seem like the ARG stuff faded away and came back, and that seemed to coincide with the audience dropping off. Of course, by the nature of ARGs it's really, really hard to say what the real situation of. It's entirely possible that the ARG elements were retained but the general audience never noticed them, because the boys had targeted the next bits of ARG at specific audience members who had already drifted away and then waited a bit too long to come to the conclusion that those seeds had fallen on stony ground and recalibrate accordingly.

It's also hard to say whether the audience drifted away as a reaction to the ARG stuff stopping, or whether the ARG stuff was stopped because of the audience drifting away, or whether some people drifted away, the ARG stuff stopped, and the ARG stuff stopping drove even more people away.

Armchair quarterbacking of this sort of thing is endemic and kind of terrible, but it is at least a way to remain semi-engaged during a slack period like the one we're experiencing so I'm going to indulge in it yet again. If we accept the idea that the EMH crew had to come up with a way to substantially simplify the series for whatever reason (and given that the series does seem to have been stripped down to its bare bones it feels like a reasonably safe bet to make), I still feel it would have made sense to dial back the ARG stuff, but I think any of the following strategies would have made more sense:

1: Keep the ARG stuff going but radically simplify it; no more fan contests, no more minecraft levels, no more anything which is even slightly labour-intensive in terms of either creation or management, and keep the ARG puzzles at a level where solving them is reasonably easy to make sure the progress of the series doesn't get unexpectedly stuck. (You can alleviate that by dropping extra clues, of course, but you need to monitor the forums and so on to see if that's even needed, and the whole point of the streaming exercise is to cut down on the amount of time you need to spend maintaining the ARG stuff.)

Those who particularly like the more fiendish and complex ARG stuff might be put off by this, but I think most audience members would still enjoy the process of picking up the breadcrumbs you produce for them even if they're simpler breadcrumbs.

2: Redistribute labour. If part of the problem with scheduling is that various crew members can no longer get together to produce regular videos, write those characters out of the story and delegate the task of producing ARG content to them, so they can still be involved and make their own creative contributions to the project but don't need to show up in the videos. (Indeed, if their character is killed off mysteriously they can have a great time knocking out ARG materials showing the lead-up to and demise of their character, enriching the series with a fun side-story which doesn't necessarily have to act as a brake on the main plot.) Let those who can still regularly get together in one place do the video stuff and co-ordinate the story.

3: Drop the ARG stuff entirely and bring forward the conclusion. If scheduling problems are mounting up, there's no guarantee that they will ever be resolved, especially if crew members are moving away, getting full time jobs, and generally adulting about like the adults they are. Better to go all-out to produce one unexpected but (hopefully) satisfying conclusion to the saga and let everyone go free to do whatever future projects appeal to them than to keep things ticking over in the vague hope that the logistics will sort themselves out in the future, when there's no guarantee that they ever will.

What they appear to have done - dropping the ARG bits, playing the story out for a while, and then bringing them back but microtargeting them at specific audience members - seems a really bizarre way of handling it. But then again I'm talking with the benefit of hindsight, and with the disadvantage of not knowing their specific plan or decision-making process or what challenges they are facing.

[kira1000]

@Lithp sorry to upset you...but according to yet ANOTHER post on Vinnie's OOG FB, looks like they already have another crossover planned with TT. Look for a post made on December 28 at 10:20AM (my time zone, dunno if FB changes based on where you are).

[awakeasaurusrex]

Oh, for the love of...

I don't like crossovers in general, but I think even major crossover fans would agree that if your own series has stalled, it's a bad idea to do spend time doing crossovers that you could be spending getting your own series back in order and back on track.

Certainly, if I had to reconfigure my plans for a Slendyvlog in order to account for logistical and scheduling difficulties, crossovers would be the first thing to go. If a crossover is an absolutely trivial, zero-effort thing, then it isn't really worth doing and nobody would miss it if you just didn't do it. If it's actually substantial, planning it requires making your own schedule and that of the people you're crossing over with align, and if your own vlog is hung up because of schedule messes you can't really expect synchronising your plans with that of someone else to somehow magically be easier.

It's even worse if you're depending on developments in one series to prompt progress in your own series, which I certainly hope they aren't doing here. Given that these series are made by people with real life responsibilities which have to take priority over hobby projects that you don't actually get paid for, you just can't count on the other person's series being there when you need it to be.

[knifebladepresents]

I don't mind the TT crossovers that much, but I can understand why they can get irritating, especially for people who don't like TT. But to be fair, it would be a breath of fresh air, because it'll probably involve Noah trying to get Vinny out of his apartment or something like that (The Great Escape!). At least that means stuff will change--which I realize is kind of sad that I'm saying that.

And if you think about it, that means they're gonna have to do not only schedule their own lives to fit the shoot, but they also have to call up Adam from Florida again...

[TheOperator]

I wouldn't call it a breath of fresh air at all, more like replacing stale air with even older, staler air. Enouuuugh with the crossovers already. I feel some ending fatigue coming my way. I get it's easier to fall back on another series to find a way to defeat the overpowered villain of their own series but it's the lazy way out. Plus it's not actually that hard, really. HABIT has been and still is prodding Slenderman for god's sake. I can somehow imagine that backfiring for him in a big way without any more elements from other series.

[SilentMedusa]

Yes. I have to admit, I've wondered if the reason all these series have ground to a halt is because they've themselves together so firmly that everyone is waiting for someone else to make a move so they can react to it.

Like I said. If you can't tell your story without using someone else's story, you need to rethink your story.

[ActionFaustus]

You guys do realize that Adam and the EMH crew are friends in real life? I hardly think that a crossover would happen and that it's probably just for Adam's benefit. He hasn't been doing too well down in Florida.

[awakeasaurusrex]

...what are you trying to say here? Each sentence in your post is either disconnected to or contradicts the previous one.

[MaskyPlaysTheDrums]

[Gimme20dollaz]

[Lithp]

[Cougar Draven]

My god. This is still happening.

I have so much to do.

Also, what's this nonsense about Rabbits?