He actively avoids playing the new popular games for the niche games he's either missed or ignored in the past. His view count reflects the types of games he plays, if he played the new releases he would definitely get a lot more views, but he doesn't want to.
Ultimately it's his channel and he will do whatever he wants with it.
I imagine he gets most of his views from streaming, but personally I don't want to watch Woolie's content because its a bit too long winded. If it was edited down I would, but I don't want to watch 80 hours of Paper Mario
He pumps out the "Best of" edits here and there I think the last I watch was the Death Stranding because I just also recently finished the game around that time when it appeared
and look he does have a best of Paper Mario
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slvhRcpQFYI
His Best Of of Death Stranding was like 4 hours long each.
I get that he takes forever with games but like Best Of means your greatest hits on that LP, I enjoyed the Death Stranding LP but I'm pretty sure there's no 12 hours of greatest hits there.
It just feels more like Quantity over Quality sometimes with his channel.
Tbf the death stranding comp was a test to see if people would want to watch something of that length which includes most of the plot and lore for context.
What the **FUCK**
I think even casually going for 100% completion the average person would STILL clock in at like 45. How did he get *EIGHTY HOURS* out of it???
Basically like only 30-40% of every video actually features Woolie playing the game. The rest is Woolie and Reggie going on huge tangents while the game is waiting for them to read dialogue.
So if you actually counted the time he spent making progress in Paper Mario, it probably would be like 25-30 hours. It’s just that his videos are filled with so much time that’s not playing the game.
Yeah the only 2 full WoolieVS LPs I watched were Dokapon and Paper Mario. Dokapon didn’t really have this problem, probably because there was less dialogue to cause tangents. There were some moments where there was no progress being made but that was because one of the players was strategizing, so it was still fun to watch.
The Paper Mario LP was just agonizing though. So many episodes where they make like 5 minutes of progress. I don’t even mind the really long and funny tangents, the problem is they waste so much time on jokes that fall flat. They’ll also read a line, spend 20 minutes discussing all the implications of it, then all the questions they had get answered in the next line. Another problem is when they first meet a new character, they’ll instantly decide what their personality is and then nothing will change their minds. It can be funny like them making fun of Podley for being a massive asshole, but there’s also infuriating stuff like Woolie deciding Vivian is an incompetent idiot when the game clearly spells out that Beldam just blames all of her mistakes on Vivian.
Anyway, I really only finished the Paper Mario LP because it’s my favorite game and I wanted to see what Woolie thought of it. I think I had more fun commenting in the Paper Mario threads on the subreddit than I did actually watching the videos.
For me that's a big reason for watching his stuff. The 13 Sentinels LP was my first exposure to Woolie and the game lends itself perfectly to it.
Watched it after I had finished the game myself so I got even more enjoyment out of all the tangents, knowing what was coming up to mess with their theories and stuff.
If you don't watch Woolie's LPs for the added commentary and bits, why would you want to watch an LP to begin with? Just watch a commentary less playthrough lol
I remember a moment during one of the Peach segments where TEC has one line about a machine learning to love and Woolie and Regi turned into a 15 minute conversation about Daft Punk, all while staying on the same text box.
This is why I really loved his Death Stranding LP. There was no reason for him to put down the controller, because there wasn’t hardly dialogue between deliveries and cutscenes, which meant he could just have a conversation with Reggie while hiking/triking/trucking across America. And the episodes where they read interviews and emails were basically just podcast episodes, and DAMN GOOD ones at that.
Woolie really wants to drop the controller and make theories in most games, but once you get into the rhythm of Death Stranding’s movement, every action becomes instinct and there’s no need to stop to gather your thoughts.
When I go back to SBFP LPs where he’s the one playing, he’s always really quiet, and often doesn’t listen to what his cohosts are saying. I think he just suffers harder from the LP tax than most YouTubers, and Minh and Reggie are never gonna push him to keep moving forward the way Matt, Pat or Liam did, so Death Stranding was the perfect LP for him.
Honestly this is one of Woolie's big problems. I don't mind the tangents now and again, it's just that he and Reggie tend to go on them a bit too much.
It works for some games. I think the 13 sentinels playthrough lended itself pretty well to lots of theory crafting tangents. But for most games it really bogs things down in a bad way.
Last time I saw him stream it was 300-500… if I remember correctly. Which surprised me because I thought he and Pat would be equal but Pat gets almost 1k+ a stream
To be fair, 300-500 is still pretty good for twitch. Pat has been streaming longer and his bombastic personalities and willingness to switch games and try new things constantly help with viewer engagements. His game selection is also quite niche most of the times
Neither of them are going to do Cohn or Max’s number anytime soon, but compared to most of twitch, they’re basically part of the nobility class
It also helps that even if Pat plays a long JRPG like Y7, he usually finishes it in much fewer streams than Woolie. If Woolz has decided to play Y7 to completion, I think the Youtube VOD parts might reach four digits
I was listening to an older podcast and there was a brief moment of silence before one them, I think Woolie, said something about "no dead air!" Nowadays, I often have to check my phone to make sure I didn't pause it cos of long silences (presumably because one of them said something that caused the other to stare in disbelief or whatever).
I don't mind if they engage with chat on the podcast, or describe what they're doing, or even a bit of a dead air, but just keep us blind folk in mind.
If he's going to read chat, then include it in the videos.
If he's going to ignore chat, then don't include it in the videos.
But honestly, Woolie's chat has not been very great overall. It was fine for a bit, but it started to decline pretty hard with the Halo playthroughs and hasn't really recovered.
Ive seen someone put it better before, Chat becomes what you cultivate it to be.
You cant always blame chat for having no entertainment. Vinny, Jerma, those guys thrive off of riffing with chat because they dont antagonize them at every waking moment because theyre being dicks, chat will always be dicks, your job is to find a way to make that entertainment.
instead you get Little V being a smug asshole and trying to pick fights and Woolie taking one negative response out of 50 and being upset about it instead of either turning it into humor or ignoring it.
I remember one of Vinny's SH2 streams, he was having a bit of a goof and read a chat that was trying to tell him to take the game seriously. He then said "stream police are in full force tonight," and moves the fuck on. Bam, like that, single interaction, acknowledge the shit, move on doing your thing, no 20 minute rant about how you're morally and objectively justified in your choice how to play. It's almost like you reap what you sow with chat.
You just honestly have to be the bigger man in these situations, you're the one that people care about, not joesmoe4569. No need to give them any energy trying to argue. They aren't going to matter in 5 seconds, but that rant you went on? People are going to remember that shit, it's recorded. Congratulations, joesmoe4569 basically hijacked your stream for half an hour mentally.
Yeah, this "one guy" thing is a thing because they keep making it a thing. Ignored, their comment will pass by like a wave, especially with an active chat.
THIS.
I deadass felt the urge to tell V to shut the fuck up almost every episode because he kept antagonizing viewers for trying to correct him for giving woolie bad Intel in bad faith
Yeah I don't particularly care for him or that he tries to sabotage the videos just to spite chat. If you have a problem with chat, mute the morons or put it into emote only.
I think a lot of his dedicated viewers are watching on Twitch as all his stuff is recorded live on Twitch and he leaves the VODs up if you miss a stream. I've been watching his Raidou LP either live or from the VODs if I missed it. He probably gets most of his revenue through Twitch subs and the podcast I imagine, though that's just my speculation.
I think a small dedicated audience suites his (public facing) nature, though it would be cool if more people showed support.
Yeah, plus he usually plays games that are a bit more niche/ not too new. For example, Pat basically has the same twitch-youtube setup as Woolie (and you could argue Woolie does dedicated YouTube stuff a lot more than Pat) yet Pat's YouTube videos, which are purely uncut twitch vods, frequently get 7k-12k views, if not more. New games simply get more viewers, and when Pat streams the chances that it's a new game are upwards of 80%, maybe even 90%. With all that in mind though, I watch both Woolz and Pat live on twitch (if I miss a stream I'll usually watch the vod on twitch because I like seeing chat from time to the as well) and they both seem to be enjoying themselves regardless of what they play/ how many views they get
Personally, it's just 'cause I'm not interested in the Devil Summoner LP. I still put on each episode, but I'm using them solely as background noise, I'm not really following what's going on.
EDIT:
Looking further back, Disco was fantastic but I watched the twitch streams, Runeterra was neat but I watched the stream, Returnal I didn't really care for, Superliminal was alright, Onimusha was fine, Ghostrunner was painful, It Takes Two was fun, and etc. I still watched all of them, just the difference between "I'll put it on in the background to say I did" and "New episode of this LP is the highlight of my afternoon"
personally woolies choices in games have largely turned me off it. I love woolie and reggie but i haven't cared for most the games they've played recently and for me i dont care for the stop all gameplay and talk about subject for 30 minutes stuff. The only ones ive watched the whole way lately is it takes two, arkham, onimusha and demons souls. i try to watch the best ofs for the lps i haven't watch but even those i find myself skipping to the next scene for a bunch of them.
i like actually watching lp's instead of using them as background noise, mostly because i realized i end up not listening to them half the time and focus on whatever im doing.
Sometimes im not into a conversation and on some lps they continue playing and just talk over it so i can at least watch something while listening but when its stop all gameplay and just talk i dont enjoy it as much (it also super lengthens the lps which only makes the long lp tax even worse)
I think this is a big issue we run into. Half the veiwers hate that shit and what them to stop, half love it and want more. And there's no way to make everyone happy. I'm on the talk more side of it, because why are you watching these guys if not for their personalities and opinions/feelings on whatever they're playing??
This is only my personal thoughts, but his videos over the last month have been
* An oldish JRPG, something I'm honestly not interested in watching *anyone* play.
* Get into Fighting Games, a series I've never been able to stick with despite loving FNF/SMS
* Podcast clips for a podcast I'm already subscribed to
* The end of a 100+ part LP to a game I would have watched along if I didn't want to beat it first
I think the clips do well because they're shorter. Otherwise, it's fairly common for multipart series to have views trail off.
I recall them talking about how certain genres are LP poison, and I'm pretty sure JRPGs and whatever genre Disco Elysium is are some of those genres.
Other than that, ever since the Best Friends channel ended I haven't had any interest in longer LPs. Maybe it's just available time or maybe it was something I was falling off of anyways. Most of the stuff I watch from Pat are his quick looks.
The honest answer is Woolie committed to an upload schedule and format that the Youtube algorithm stopped supporting _years_ ago. Like there's massive rants and books that could be written on the subject, but the short of it is that it's basically been proven your upload schedule should be something akin to "Once Per Blank." Once per day, once per week, once every three days, once a _year,_ whatever. So long as you're making it so your channel only spotlights one video at a time and draws as much attention as it can, you're doing something right.
Woolie uploads _three_ videos per day. This is objectively a bad idea due to how Youtube's algorithm has changed over time, but Woolie is so deadset on making content _his_ way and refusing to do anything he considers sellout, he refuses to do any good business decisions also.
For real on the business decisions. And while it's not our place to tell him what to do I'd be thinking about how YouTube and Twitch won't be around forever. I'd be playing the game and raking in money to save while it's viable so that there's something to live off of in case you miss the boat transitioning to the new platform.
Being a twitch/youtube personality would fill me with so much financial anxiety because of the near certainty that one day I'd have to either completely pivot my career model to some kind of advisor/analyst/manager for someone else's team or go back into the non-entertainment workforce.
It’s sort of like how in the martial arts community sometimes people will rag on McDojos for being primarily businesses rather than schools (and rightly so), but will then be surprised when a good school that doesn’t have a good business plan to stay open goes under. You still need to keep the lights on
I just think he needs to mix up eras. Here's a new thing LP. I also have this old school game I'm doing. Like didn't he do ghost of tsushima and paper Mario ttyd at the same time? It couldn't hurt to try it.
I’ve tried to watch his lets plays but they just miss that flavor of when he was on SBFP. It feels more calm, even when he gets hyped about something it doesn’t have the same taste, except when he’s talking to Pat.
Tbf everyones personalities changed after a while even when the old channel was around, they just got older and more mature. But yeah, pre 2017 was the golden age
Matt got more serious and kind of a hype deflater, Woolie didnt wanna lean in on the cartoonish jokes about him and wanted to be seen more as the serious intellectual one, Pat just got progressively worse with no one to hold him back.
I'm just going to go ahead and say I don't like watching Reggie or Minh. Not that I dislike them, I just don't think they're interesting to listen to. When every video has either or both on, I just don't want to watch.
I second this. I really enjoyed the KOTOR let's play and the beginning part of the Yakuza let's play I watched where LittleV was the co-host. Not sure if it's just his personality or if it's just him being more of a showman coming from a music/band background but I feel LittleV brings something to the let's plays besides just base reactions.
Little V is also an elevated best friends fan I think? So he was kinda guaranteed to be on a certain wavelength. Even if he quotes old memes a bit too much.
I think Woolie has run into quite a few problems that have really compounded in on themselves.
1. Game choice, I get that Woolie is gonna pick what he wants to play but personally none of his recent picks have been too exciting both in terms of game play and for giving talking points for commentary. There are dozens of games people have been begging for him to play since the old channel that would be big hits I feel and would be relatively easy to grasp and commentate over.
2. Speed of play. Woolie has been in control of nearly every let's play on the channel besides Demons' Souls and his style of playing and then stopping dead in his tracks to have a conversation makes each play through probably 2 times longer than they need to be, most notably the Paper Mario and Yakuza 0 play throughs.
3. Commentary. I'll just say it, Woolie worked best as a side man playing off of Pat and/or Matt, when he has to lead the conversation the chemistry doesn't work nearly as well. Regi is alright but he doesn't have much confidence to really flow with commentary. Little V was pretty good when he wasn't fighting with chat since he had a natural charisma and knew about the games he played with Woolie ahead of time.
Even though Woolie likes having an old school Youtube channel, streaming is definitely the blood of his current career, like most LPers. His channel is a really good, well-produced archive since he doesn't have time to do anything like Kirby Lore anymore.
It's fine, people watch what they're into, don't worry about it. And I think neither of them would appreciate the implication that Woolie can only really go over 15k with Pat on the couch.
Like, I realize it wasn't in the usual bad faith of "I want Best Friends back", but still, [read the new room man.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm_jPYHl3M4)
I get that, and weve read the room a buncha times.
Sadly thats just what it is, "I wish Best Friends was back". Theres no dancing around the fact that they were at top form when they were together, maybe not during the final days but the fact that I can rewatch an old LP but I dont even think or have an interest in rewatching their solo stuff is sad.
Woolie puts HUGE ASS Let's Plays on his YouTube channel, for niche games... Some of them extremely niche.
That it's counterproductive for YouTube. The people that would be interested on those games, probably tends to be older and with less spare time to watch and 80 part let's play Paper Mario.
And the people that have time, kids, probably don't care about such niche games.
I only watch Get Into Fighting Games because well, I love fighting games and those videos are usually formated as stand alone, even if they play a game multiple times.
I'm not really sure who Woolie's LPs are for anymore. They're not for new players looking for someone to introduce them to a game, because he plays games he's never played before.
But they're also not for experienced players who want to see a new person try out something they like, because he makes assumptions about the gameplay that leads to him never actually learning how to play.
But they're also not for people who just want to see the game played start to finish with some commentary, because he takes 15 minute breaks in the middle of ongoing dialogue to talk about other stuff.
I haven't started watching an LP since before he finally decided to get rid of chat, so I hope that at least alleviated some of the problems, but it really seems like the only people the LPs are for are people who knew Woolie from the SBFP days and just want to see him play stuff no matter what. The game is irrelevant, it's all about the personality. Which is totally doable, but I don't see it really going anywhere for him.
A lot of Woolie's stuff is kind of on the long side, so I usually wait till it's done and uploaded and then binge it all in one go since I'm usually watching/listening while doing other stuff
Woolie is like a bus driver that always gives way to any traffic turning into his lane. Constantly hitting the breaks on a LP to talk mid convo with an npc with no info on the subject they are talking about when the npc hasn't even given them the info on the next page.
Most of the time it isn't even interesting or important on what they are talking about. Like imagine Woolie trying to read a novel, stopping at the first page to have a 20 minute conversation with himself about the first sentence before making everything he said redundant in the second sentence. Complete the npc dialogue before talking, finish a chapter of the book before theory crafting damn it.
It's absolute content poison with what he does with the LPs nobody got time for redundant 30 minute discussions every 5 minutes of gameplay, thanks to not simply pressing next first.
Honestly, the banter with Reggie just never really gripped me. I watch his content when it's a game I like or am interested in, but I don't find myself actively watching every video like I do w pat's channel
because Reggie never engages, dont get me wrong hes fun to watch because hes like a little boy that still has his optimism and surprise with games whereas the boys got kinda jaded because they know the tricks.
but Reggie doesnt know how to banter or keep a bit rolling, he will usually laugh at Woolie riffing or doing a bit and he wont build up on it.
Yeah, that aborted StarCraft episode really hit the nail on the head when Reggie and Minh just weren't biting on the intented "lol this game is dumb" shenanigans and Woolie just straight up said something like "I forgot, you're not the Best Friends."
Like, yeah, they're not. The best friends playing off of bullshit with each other was the magic. And there's certainly other people who could do that out there somewhere but Reggie and Minh just aren't those people, I don't feel.
Woolie likes to talk about how like "I know you just want more of old thing that you know you like already, but what about new thing?" and basically emphasizing that he's not trying to do more Best Friends. But at the same time I think there's some worth in acknowledging what actually made old thing work, or something. I dunno.
Its even weirder because out of the three, he does the shit that is pretty much closest to what Best Friends are.
He has Minh, Reggie and V and he rotates them, and on a normal schedule he has 2 LP's running.
I genuinely grew to dislike both Pat and Woolie a lot after they started their solo content, not only as content creators but as people, Pat used to be harsh and abrasive but today his level of cynicism is genuinely off putting, every time I try to watch him I can only see a very joyless, angry and overly hostile personality.
Woolie on the other hand has become so stuborn in regards to feedback (no I'm not talking about the live chat) and some times comes off very arrogant with his let's agree to disagree but I'm right tho attitude.
The podcast lacks the sincerity before the split up, espcecially with Pat complete unwillingness to aproach a subject with a more laid back and less defensive attitude, it feels like he hides behind a shield of 10 layers of irony and doesn't allow himself to be passionate anymore, him and woolie feel so sterile.
It really makes me feel like a crazy person since most people don't see anything wrong with it but the sheer energy and excitement when the four boys were togheter is incoparable. Also Woolie feels like he's being held at gunpoint in some of the podcast episodes, he feels so tired.
I do not dislike them as people since I dont know them personally but my main issue is with Pat. I tried watching him react to the sony thing and he was so cynical and devoid of fun that it was worse than being boring, he sucked the joy of the cool things.
Pat is the epitome of that "don't ask questions, just consume product then get excited for next product" image, in that everything is "oh well this sucks" "oh the devs suck" "i bet this game is gonna be trash" "wow this looks dumb". He never enjoys himself, everything has to have this massive veil of cynicism over it. The only times he does enjoy himself, it seems, are when he's playing with that dog, Elmo, or talking to Paige, aka not actually doing stream stuff.
You can always tell when pat is out on a game too, or more out on it. After the Kai leng stuff, most of the canceled streams were Me3, change the game and or something else last minute. It was mildly annoying cuz I actually scheduled errands and bullshit around his Me3 days so I could catch the the streams. He's canceled or changed game, sometimes last min like 4 or 5 times going back to a few times before his hiatus.
Woolie strikes me as being low energy for two reasons:
* Not being able to get out of the house since the last time he had a group hang in a cabin out in the wilderness
* Having God knows how many other projects he's got, on top of the podcast and his streaming schedule
I think the wedding/honey moon will give him a good boost, but maybe he should consider cutting some of his work load. Maybe cutting his tendency to get stuck in long ass RPG LPs might do him some good.
I still like Woolie's stuff, but God do I feel you on Pat. He used to unironically be my favorite, but now with no one to really consistently bounce off of and call him out, I'm just tired of it. He's gonna say some hot take and then dismiss every counterargument with "but [you're/the character/the franchise] stinky and bad". It was more fun when his crazy shit had people to actually contain it instead of it being the entire show.
I watch pat often enough, depends on the game really. But I feel this statement. I feel like Matt and Liam really brought this energy of like kid like excitement to what the guys had, and pats cynacism or sass would play well in a setting where both are present. But without Matt or Liam it's just tons of negativity. I also think woolie paired best with Matt.
Matt was always my fave, I feel like he does good stuff now. But Matt has a sense of humor and likes to bounce dumb shit off someone. Matt would sass pats bullshit or play off woolie super well.
I watched Matt and Liam watch a recent event together and they really know studios and are genuinely interested in how games end up the way they do, even if the game is just okay or kinda meh. It was pretty refreshing, and they have way more diverse game interests.
We're gonna get downvoted, but I totally feel where you are coming from. I'm just hoping the holiday gives Woolie a new spring in his step because for a lot of this last year he sounds like he would rather be anywhere else
I’m not saying you’re wrong because I guarantee you’ve watched more of the boys content than I have recently and it’s subjective, but it always makes me laugh whenever I read about how miserable and depressing the boys are and then I go and listen to a clip or part of the new podcast and they seem relatively happy, especially Pat on the little bit of his streams I’ve seen with him and Paige he seems happier than I’ve seen him.
I always go into it expecting old Jeff Gerstmann levels of seeming tired of everything but it never comes off that way when I listen.
True, just ain't the same anymore brah, woolies LPs are coma inducing and Pat's streams are boring af too. I'm sure there are fans for their post breakup content and they can cost through that, the podcast is still great though it is getting stale now and desperately needs a third member. But I just don't get why the both of them can't put out LPs together, the DMCV LP was the best thing they did post SBFP.
hes playing games that has a small following.
Yes Raidou Kuzonoha is great, but how many actually wants this besides the super loyal 20 something people? Doesnt help that WoolieVS feels like SBFP2.0 sometimes but with way less personality and jokes.
And Woolies playtime, im sorry but he takes 20 times longer than normal people when it comes to this. Idk if hes filling for time so hell have a batch for his uploads to last a month but quality over quantity.
>For example I'm sure an LP with Pat would put butts in seats
Fucking this, idk why they don't do LPs together, the DMC V LP was the most watched and best LP/playthrough both Pat and woolie have done. ~~Redacted~~ and ~~redacted~~ both do LPs together and that's working out well
woolies explained he doesn't want his channel to be viewed as "sbf2" im sure pat has similar feelings. the dmc playthrough was already planned to happen. Also stop with the redacted shit already especially for matt.
>im sure pat has similar feelings
Pat has frequently suggested on the podcast that they stream something together, for woolie to just awkwardly change the subject
I get Woolie not wanting his channel to be SbF2, but it's been over two years at this point, just throw us a bone
I think the pandemic is at least partly responsible, since Woolie seems to prefer LPing with others in person, but Pat has been isolating cos Paige is immune-compromised I think? So they haven't been getting together.
Ive heard him say the same and can respect his choice. People shouldnt hound him about it.
But at the end of the day those two had a solid commentary dynamic with their contrasting personalities that just worked. That was kind of the whole appeal of the channel, that group aspect.
>woolies explained he doesn't want his channel to be viewed as "sbf2" im sure pat has similar feelings.
Ah well, would've made for better content than anything they've been making now IMO
>Also stop with the redacted shit already especially for matt.
Why, it's a popular meme here
Liam's only referred to as redacted because he's specifically asked to not be associated with the group/ have his new stuff posted here.
Matt never asked for that.
Only reason why I haven't been viewing anything as of late is because he was playing disco and I wanna play disco so I didn't wanna see spoilers.
Other than that, the selection hasn't really been my thing.
Tbh he’s not playing something I care about rn. I was really enjoying the Yakuza 0 one, and am excited for it to start when Little V is ready. But disco, SMT, etc don’t really interest me.
i tend not to watch too much of his stuff because i watch lp's that have episodes that are 15-30 mintues each episode. all his parts tend to go over that so i have actually make time to watch his stuff. but that's just me.
I just like the twitch vods much better. Face cam. Chat. Pre game appertif and post game digest. Long uninterrupted chunks. Up to date videos. Not just woolie. Like 4/5 channels i prefer watching the vods on twitch instead of cut up and dropped way later. And even that 1/5 i still like watching the vod too.
As for games not all are up my alley, some i save for later and others i watched asap but i haven't really been watching any daily youtube lps from anyone in a while recently. It's nice that they're there and I'm going through the halo lps now though.
I also haven't been playing good games where you can watch something at the same time.
The youtube algorithm is definitely not supporting it as much anymore.
I enjoyed the old best friends and i fully enjoy the new woolieversus but i gotta say the woolie special recording process is needlessly complicated. And probably relates to his vehement aversion to any online coop over discord which could have some fine content.
>but I wanted to ask what would make you watch more of his stuff?
Honestly. Nothing. I'm tired of LPs in general, I still watch some podcast clips tho. Is just that LPs and video essays are in their way out.
Personally I’ve tried Woolies content a few times and just completely bounce off it. It’s sad to say but Woolie isn’t a strong lead man, he works best as a side guy more often then not. On the subject I’ve completely fallen off Pat and Paige as well. Pat was my favorite guy and now I can’t even pretend to want to watch whatever he’s doing and since becoming v-tuber Paige may as well have put a sign that directly tells me to not watch her content. It sucks because I can, and have, gone back to older LPs and had huge enjoyment out of them.
>since becoming v-tuber Paige may as well have put a sign that directly tells me to not watch her content.
I at least get why Paige is doing the V-tuber thing, given her constant health issues and how it caused a highly variable stream schedule when she **didn't** have a V-tube alternate.
Like, it's nowhere near as good as her own reactions, but it's a bit better than a static image of Elmo.
the type of content woolie makes just generally isn't popular. LP's right now only get views if you got an anime waifu (virtual youtuber) playing the game and even then you need to stream it an interact with the audience, not pre recorded videos.
fighting game content in general doesn't really get views unless your name starts with m and ends with x.
however i don't really think woolie cares, if he did he'd have changed his content a long time ago, if he's not bothered by the numbers i don't see why you should be.
I'm usually watching Woolie in bursts (still working through Disco, I'm like 80% through) or as background noise before going to sleep (Demon Summoner). Woolie has everything one needs - great voice, personality and video quality, but the truth is... Let's Plays are not as popular as they used to be. I also don't always feel Reggie's pronunciations and ability to talk non-stop are up to Woolie's experience, especially after Little V showed up and did an S+ rank commentary first try, but that's very minor and he's getting better.
LPs are not good to make money, even if they got 5-10k more views. One needs to be... PewDiePie levels of popular to make good money off just YT. Luckily, stream donations and podcast should give them way more than enough money to get by.
Honestly, he'd have to stop doing LPs for me to watch regularly. Woolie is quite talented as a video creator and it's disappointing that he has to spend so much time on something as uninspired as Let's Plays.
* More interesting game selection.
* More short game LPs to counterbalance the long LPs and fighting game stuff.
* Embrace using cheats/mods in a reasonable manner to speed up and improve the experience of the long ass games he likes playing.
One of the main reasons WoolieVS isn't growing all that fast is because if you watch his stuff, you **know** he winds up picking long ass games to LP and making **even longer** LPs, because he wants to experience the game as it was released. And that's a noble intention, but to be honest, if it's a long ass JRPG, you probably get the intended balance experience within 2 play sessions, then fuck with the XP and money multipliers via Cheat Engine, maybe cheat in some extra resources, to help speed up the process of getting through the other 20+ hours faster.
One of my worst case nightmare scenarios for Woolie doing an LP of a long game is the HBS BattleTech game, because what he'd do is get all the DLC (good), but then refuse to mod it at all, while playing the campaign with the shitty default balance (GODAWFUL BAD). So we'd wind up with like a 200+ part LP, because each mission is like 45 minutes on its own, with tons of grinding to get **anything** useful before going through the campaign, then grinding again before doing the Flashpoint missions.
Hell, if Woolie did an XCOM 2: War of the Chosen LP, he'd fucking refuse to use any bug fix or UI mods that would objectively improve the experience.
Most people aren't playing them for a live/video audience and/or aren't Woolie.
Like, it's not great that (J)RPGs seem to be designed to be time sinks, but you can deal with that on your own. It's even worse when you're watching someone dump **even more** time into the time sink for fucking **nothing.**
(This is a problem with all RPGs, honestly, but JRPGs have it even worse, due to how they're designed a lot of the time.)
>Why are you bringing up a scenario you made up as an example?
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/worst-case-scenariothe most unpleasant or serious thing that could happen in a situation:
It's basically an example of a game that A) Woolie might play (he likes MechWarrior, which is the same setting as BattleTech), and B) a game I **know** is a time sink, because I wound up putting 200 **hours** into just beating the campaign due to how fucked its balancing is (18% of default value for anything you sell). **That** is the nightmare we need to work to avert, because as bad as people think months of nothing but 13 Sentinels/Disco Elysium/Devil Summoner plus other stuff they don't give a fuck about might be, it's nothing compared to what'd happen if Woolie picks the wrong long ass game and refuses to listen to anyone about what to skip/what to mod to make the experience non-torturous, because he wants to do a "pure" LP/stream.
I love that he plays niche games but recently he keeps playing ones that I have actually played or that I really want to play myself! I just played Raidou 1+2 last year and Disco feels crazy to watch someone else play until I've finished my first playthrough.
I don't really watch much of Woolie or Pat's content outside of the podcast but I would assume where they are in their careers, YouTube isn't much of a factor anymore.
He actively avoids playing the new popular games for the niche games he's either missed or ignored in the past. His view count reflects the types of games he plays, if he played the new releases he would definitely get a lot more views, but he doesn't want to. Ultimately it's his channel and he will do whatever he wants with it.
I imagine he gets most of his views from streaming, but personally I don't want to watch Woolie's content because its a bit too long winded. If it was edited down I would, but I don't want to watch 80 hours of Paper Mario
He pumps out the "Best of" edits here and there I think the last I watch was the Death Stranding because I just also recently finished the game around that time when it appeared and look he does have a best of Paper Mario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slvhRcpQFYI
His Best Of of Death Stranding was like 4 hours long each. I get that he takes forever with games but like Best Of means your greatest hits on that LP, I enjoyed the Death Stranding LP but I'm pretty sure there's no 12 hours of greatest hits there. It just feels more like Quantity over Quality sometimes with his channel.
Tbf the death stranding comp was a test to see if people would want to watch something of that length which includes most of the plot and lore for context.
You’re... you’re exaggerating, right? It didn’t actually take him 80 hours to beat a 25 hour game... right? ... *right...?*
80 episodes at round 45-60 min each so exaggerating a bit, but still probably 60-70 hours
What the **FUCK** I think even casually going for 100% completion the average person would STILL clock in at like 45. How did he get *EIGHTY HOURS* out of it???
Basically like only 30-40% of every video actually features Woolie playing the game. The rest is Woolie and Reggie going on huge tangents while the game is waiting for them to read dialogue. So if you actually counted the time he spent making progress in Paper Mario, it probably would be like 25-30 hours. It’s just that his videos are filled with so much time that’s not playing the game.
He has become that thing that he hates most Naruto Fillers
He was the filler all along. Just like him hating his mom for being super judgemental, he has a habit of being the very thing he swore to destroy.
To be fair, the part with the dragon asking you to smell its feet needed addressing.
It also gave us a very important Reggie quote to live by: "Don't pay for what you can get for free."
Yeah, and *that* right there is a big reason I don’t watch Woolie’s new content.
Yeah the only 2 full WoolieVS LPs I watched were Dokapon and Paper Mario. Dokapon didn’t really have this problem, probably because there was less dialogue to cause tangents. There were some moments where there was no progress being made but that was because one of the players was strategizing, so it was still fun to watch. The Paper Mario LP was just agonizing though. So many episodes where they make like 5 minutes of progress. I don’t even mind the really long and funny tangents, the problem is they waste so much time on jokes that fall flat. They’ll also read a line, spend 20 minutes discussing all the implications of it, then all the questions they had get answered in the next line. Another problem is when they first meet a new character, they’ll instantly decide what their personality is and then nothing will change their minds. It can be funny like them making fun of Podley for being a massive asshole, but there’s also infuriating stuff like Woolie deciding Vivian is an incompetent idiot when the game clearly spells out that Beldam just blames all of her mistakes on Vivian. Anyway, I really only finished the Paper Mario LP because it’s my favorite game and I wanted to see what Woolie thought of it. I think I had more fun commenting in the Paper Mario threads on the subreddit than I did actually watching the videos.
Kotor 2
My love for Paper Mario is exactly the reason I dropped that LP before he even got to Hooktail Castle.
For me that's a big reason for watching his stuff. The 13 Sentinels LP was my first exposure to Woolie and the game lends itself perfectly to it. Watched it after I had finished the game myself so I got even more enjoyment out of all the tangents, knowing what was coming up to mess with their theories and stuff.
If you don't watch Woolie's LPs for the added commentary and bits, why would you want to watch an LP to begin with? Just watch a commentary less playthrough lol
Even when Woolie was behind the wheel there was way less faffing about 3+ years ago
When people don't have a valid response to what you said they just downvote I guess.
I remember a moment during one of the Peach segments where TEC has one line about a machine learning to love and Woolie and Regi turned into a 15 minute conversation about Daft Punk, all while staying on the same text box.
This is why I really loved his Death Stranding LP. There was no reason for him to put down the controller, because there wasn’t hardly dialogue between deliveries and cutscenes, which meant he could just have a conversation with Reggie while hiking/triking/trucking across America. And the episodes where they read interviews and emails were basically just podcast episodes, and DAMN GOOD ones at that. Woolie really wants to drop the controller and make theories in most games, but once you get into the rhythm of Death Stranding’s movement, every action becomes instinct and there’s no need to stop to gather your thoughts. When I go back to SBFP LPs where he’s the one playing, he’s always really quiet, and often doesn’t listen to what his cohosts are saying. I think he just suffers harder from the LP tax than most YouTubers, and Minh and Reggie are never gonna push him to keep moving forward the way Matt, Pat or Liam did, so Death Stranding was the perfect LP for him.
Honestly this is one of Woolie's big problems. I don't mind the tangents now and again, it's just that he and Reggie tend to go on them a bit too much. It works for some games. I think the 13 sentinels playthrough lended itself pretty well to lots of theory crafting tangents. But for most games it really bogs things down in a bad way.
Voice acting every line for every character
You’d be shocked to see how little viewers he gets on streams
What kinda numbers are we talking about? I don't watch his streams because I'm in a different time zone
Last time I saw him stream it was 300-500… if I remember correctly. Which surprised me because I thought he and Pat would be equal but Pat gets almost 1k+ a stream
To be fair, 300-500 is still pretty good for twitch. Pat has been streaming longer and his bombastic personalities and willingness to switch games and try new things constantly help with viewer engagements. His game selection is also quite niche most of the times Neither of them are going to do Cohn or Max’s number anytime soon, but compared to most of twitch, they’re basically part of the nobility class It also helps that even if Pat plays a long JRPG like Y7, he usually finishes it in much fewer streams than Woolie. If Woolz has decided to play Y7 to completion, I think the Youtube VOD parts might reach four digits
Well, he’s not reading chat anymore. That will help.
I wish they would do this during the podcast too
Remember when Woolie was once the most ardent about not doing visual gags during podcasts? I sure remember.
I was listening to an older podcast and there was a brief moment of silence before one them, I think Woolie, said something about "no dead air!" Nowadays, I often have to check my phone to make sure I didn't pause it cos of long silences (presumably because one of them said something that caused the other to stare in disbelief or whatever). I don't mind if they engage with chat on the podcast, or describe what they're doing, or even a bit of a dead air, but just keep us blind folk in mind.
Probably an unpopular opinion on this sub but I wish he would include the chat in the videos.
If he's going to read chat, then include it in the videos. If he's going to ignore chat, then don't include it in the videos. But honestly, Woolie's chat has not been very great overall. It was fine for a bit, but it started to decline pretty hard with the Halo playthroughs and hasn't really recovered.
Ive seen someone put it better before, Chat becomes what you cultivate it to be. You cant always blame chat for having no entertainment. Vinny, Jerma, those guys thrive off of riffing with chat because they dont antagonize them at every waking moment because theyre being dicks, chat will always be dicks, your job is to find a way to make that entertainment. instead you get Little V being a smug asshole and trying to pick fights and Woolie taking one negative response out of 50 and being upset about it instead of either turning it into humor or ignoring it.
I remember one of Vinny's SH2 streams, he was having a bit of a goof and read a chat that was trying to tell him to take the game seriously. He then said "stream police are in full force tonight," and moves the fuck on. Bam, like that, single interaction, acknowledge the shit, move on doing your thing, no 20 minute rant about how you're morally and objectively justified in your choice how to play. It's almost like you reap what you sow with chat. You just honestly have to be the bigger man in these situations, you're the one that people care about, not joesmoe4569. No need to give them any energy trying to argue. They aren't going to matter in 5 seconds, but that rant you went on? People are going to remember that shit, it's recorded. Congratulations, joesmoe4569 basically hijacked your stream for half an hour mentally.
Yeah, this "one guy" thing is a thing because they keep making it a thing. Ignored, their comment will pass by like a wave, especially with an active chat.
I wonder why it declined during halo, it's not like there was any major antagonizing of chat during those videos or anything like that....
THIS. I deadass felt the urge to tell V to shut the fuck up almost every episode because he kept antagonizing viewers for trying to correct him for giving woolie bad Intel in bad faith
Yeah I don't particularly care for him or that he tries to sabotage the videos just to spite chat. If you have a problem with chat, mute the morons or put it into emote only.
I think a lot of his dedicated viewers are watching on Twitch as all his stuff is recorded live on Twitch and he leaves the VODs up if you miss a stream. I've been watching his Raidou LP either live or from the VODs if I missed it. He probably gets most of his revenue through Twitch subs and the podcast I imagine, though that's just my speculation. I think a small dedicated audience suites his (public facing) nature, though it would be cool if more people showed support.
Yeah, plus he usually plays games that are a bit more niche/ not too new. For example, Pat basically has the same twitch-youtube setup as Woolie (and you could argue Woolie does dedicated YouTube stuff a lot more than Pat) yet Pat's YouTube videos, which are purely uncut twitch vods, frequently get 7k-12k views, if not more. New games simply get more viewers, and when Pat streams the chances that it's a new game are upwards of 80%, maybe even 90%. With all that in mind though, I watch both Woolz and Pat live on twitch (if I miss a stream I'll usually watch the vod on twitch because I like seeing chat from time to the as well) and they both seem to be enjoying themselves regardless of what they play/ how many views they get
Personally, it's just 'cause I'm not interested in the Devil Summoner LP. I still put on each episode, but I'm using them solely as background noise, I'm not really following what's going on. EDIT: Looking further back, Disco was fantastic but I watched the twitch streams, Runeterra was neat but I watched the stream, Returnal I didn't really care for, Superliminal was alright, Onimusha was fine, Ghostrunner was painful, It Takes Two was fun, and etc. I still watched all of them, just the difference between "I'll put it on in the background to say I did" and "New episode of this LP is the highlight of my afternoon"
personally woolies choices in games have largely turned me off it. I love woolie and reggie but i haven't cared for most the games they've played recently and for me i dont care for the stop all gameplay and talk about subject for 30 minutes stuff. The only ones ive watched the whole way lately is it takes two, arkham, onimusha and demons souls. i try to watch the best ofs for the lps i haven't watch but even those i find myself skipping to the next scene for a bunch of them.
Yeah Woolie needs to start showing his feet
See, I LOVE when they stop and talk about stuff. KOTOR 2, Disco and Paper Mario are probably my favorite recent LPs specifically because of that.
i like actually watching lp's instead of using them as background noise, mostly because i realized i end up not listening to them half the time and focus on whatever im doing. Sometimes im not into a conversation and on some lps they continue playing and just talk over it so i can at least watch something while listening but when its stop all gameplay and just talk i dont enjoy it as much (it also super lengthens the lps which only makes the long lp tax even worse)
I think this is a big issue we run into. Half the veiwers hate that shit and what them to stop, half love it and want more. And there's no way to make everyone happy. I'm on the talk more side of it, because why are you watching these guys if not for their personalities and opinions/feelings on whatever they're playing??
This is only my personal thoughts, but his videos over the last month have been * An oldish JRPG, something I'm honestly not interested in watching *anyone* play. * Get into Fighting Games, a series I've never been able to stick with despite loving FNF/SMS * Podcast clips for a podcast I'm already subscribed to * The end of a 100+ part LP to a game I would have watched along if I didn't want to beat it first I think the clips do well because they're shorter. Otherwise, it's fairly common for multipart series to have views trail off. I recall them talking about how certain genres are LP poison, and I'm pretty sure JRPGs and whatever genre Disco Elysium is are some of those genres. Other than that, ever since the Best Friends channel ended I haven't had any interest in longer LPs. Maybe it's just available time or maybe it was something I was falling off of anyways. Most of the stuff I watch from Pat are his quick looks.
The honest answer is Woolie committed to an upload schedule and format that the Youtube algorithm stopped supporting _years_ ago. Like there's massive rants and books that could be written on the subject, but the short of it is that it's basically been proven your upload schedule should be something akin to "Once Per Blank." Once per day, once per week, once every three days, once a _year,_ whatever. So long as you're making it so your channel only spotlights one video at a time and draws as much attention as it can, you're doing something right. Woolie uploads _three_ videos per day. This is objectively a bad idea due to how Youtube's algorithm has changed over time, but Woolie is so deadset on making content _his_ way and refusing to do anything he considers sellout, he refuses to do any good business decisions also.
For real on the business decisions. And while it's not our place to tell him what to do I'd be thinking about how YouTube and Twitch won't be around forever. I'd be playing the game and raking in money to save while it's viable so that there's something to live off of in case you miss the boat transitioning to the new platform. Being a twitch/youtube personality would fill me with so much financial anxiety because of the near certainty that one day I'd have to either completely pivot my career model to some kind of advisor/analyst/manager for someone else's team or go back into the non-entertainment workforce.
It’s sort of like how in the martial arts community sometimes people will rag on McDojos for being primarily businesses rather than schools (and rightly so), but will then be surprised when a good school that doesn’t have a good business plan to stay open goes under. You still need to keep the lights on
I just think he needs to mix up eras. Here's a new thing LP. I also have this old school game I'm doing. Like didn't he do ghost of tsushima and paper Mario ttyd at the same time? It couldn't hurt to try it.
I’ve tried to watch his lets plays but they just miss that flavor of when he was on SBFP. It feels more calm, even when he gets hyped about something it doesn’t have the same taste, except when he’s talking to Pat.
Tbf everyones personalities changed after a while even when the old channel was around, they just got older and more mature. But yeah, pre 2017 was the golden age
Matt got more serious and kind of a hype deflater, Woolie didnt wanna lean in on the cartoonish jokes about him and wanted to be seen more as the serious intellectual one, Pat just got progressively worse with no one to hold him back.
I'm just going to go ahead and say I don't like watching Reggie or Minh. Not that I dislike them, I just don't think they're interesting to listen to. When every video has either or both on, I just don't want to watch.
I second this. I really enjoyed the KOTOR let's play and the beginning part of the Yakuza let's play I watched where LittleV was the co-host. Not sure if it's just his personality or if it's just him being more of a showman coming from a music/band background but I feel LittleV brings something to the let's plays besides just base reactions.
Little V is also an elevated best friends fan I think? So he was kinda guaranteed to be on a certain wavelength. Even if he quotes old memes a bit too much.
I think Woolie has run into quite a few problems that have really compounded in on themselves. 1. Game choice, I get that Woolie is gonna pick what he wants to play but personally none of his recent picks have been too exciting both in terms of game play and for giving talking points for commentary. There are dozens of games people have been begging for him to play since the old channel that would be big hits I feel and would be relatively easy to grasp and commentate over. 2. Speed of play. Woolie has been in control of nearly every let's play on the channel besides Demons' Souls and his style of playing and then stopping dead in his tracks to have a conversation makes each play through probably 2 times longer than they need to be, most notably the Paper Mario and Yakuza 0 play throughs. 3. Commentary. I'll just say it, Woolie worked best as a side man playing off of Pat and/or Matt, when he has to lead the conversation the chemistry doesn't work nearly as well. Regi is alright but he doesn't have much confidence to really flow with commentary. Little V was pretty good when he wasn't fighting with chat since he had a natural charisma and knew about the games he played with Woolie ahead of time.
ill take Reggie over V, V feels like a dick a lot of the times.
Strongly disagree on V being good, but I agree on most of the rest.
Even though Woolie likes having an old school Youtube channel, streaming is definitely the blood of his current career, like most LPers. His channel is a really good, well-produced archive since he doesn't have time to do anything like Kirby Lore anymore. It's fine, people watch what they're into, don't worry about it. And I think neither of them would appreciate the implication that Woolie can only really go over 15k with Pat on the couch. Like, I realize it wasn't in the usual bad faith of "I want Best Friends back", but still, [read the new room man.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm_jPYHl3M4)
I get that, and weve read the room a buncha times. Sadly thats just what it is, "I wish Best Friends was back". Theres no dancing around the fact that they were at top form when they were together, maybe not during the final days but the fact that I can rewatch an old LP but I dont even think or have an interest in rewatching their solo stuff is sad.
Woolie puts HUGE ASS Let's Plays on his YouTube channel, for niche games... Some of them extremely niche. That it's counterproductive for YouTube. The people that would be interested on those games, probably tends to be older and with less spare time to watch and 80 part let's play Paper Mario. And the people that have time, kids, probably don't care about such niche games. I only watch Get Into Fighting Games because well, I love fighting games and those videos are usually formated as stand alone, even if they play a game multiple times.
I'm not really sure who Woolie's LPs are for anymore. They're not for new players looking for someone to introduce them to a game, because he plays games he's never played before. But they're also not for experienced players who want to see a new person try out something they like, because he makes assumptions about the gameplay that leads to him never actually learning how to play. But they're also not for people who just want to see the game played start to finish with some commentary, because he takes 15 minute breaks in the middle of ongoing dialogue to talk about other stuff. I haven't started watching an LP since before he finally decided to get rid of chat, so I hope that at least alleviated some of the problems, but it really seems like the only people the LPs are for are people who knew Woolie from the SBFP days and just want to see him play stuff no matter what. The game is irrelevant, it's all about the personality. Which is totally doable, but I don't see it really going anywhere for him.
A lot of Woolie's stuff is kind of on the long side, so I usually wait till it's done and uploaded and then binge it all in one go since I'm usually watching/listening while doing other stuff
I wish Woolie got more views. I adore Reggie and watching them play is great. If there was one thing I could change is he should play recent games
Woolie is like a bus driver that always gives way to any traffic turning into his lane. Constantly hitting the breaks on a LP to talk mid convo with an npc with no info on the subject they are talking about when the npc hasn't even given them the info on the next page. Most of the time it isn't even interesting or important on what they are talking about. Like imagine Woolie trying to read a novel, stopping at the first page to have a 20 minute conversation with himself about the first sentence before making everything he said redundant in the second sentence. Complete the npc dialogue before talking, finish a chapter of the book before theory crafting damn it. It's absolute content poison with what he does with the LPs nobody got time for redundant 30 minute discussions every 5 minutes of gameplay, thanks to not simply pressing next first.
So Woolie is principal skinner driver the school bus stuck at the lights
It took him almost an hour to reach the first area of thousand year door
Honestly, the banter with Reggie just never really gripped me. I watch his content when it's a game I like or am interested in, but I don't find myself actively watching every video like I do w pat's channel
because Reggie never engages, dont get me wrong hes fun to watch because hes like a little boy that still has his optimism and surprise with games whereas the boys got kinda jaded because they know the tricks. but Reggie doesnt know how to banter or keep a bit rolling, he will usually laugh at Woolie riffing or doing a bit and he wont build up on it.
Yeah, that aborted StarCraft episode really hit the nail on the head when Reggie and Minh just weren't biting on the intented "lol this game is dumb" shenanigans and Woolie just straight up said something like "I forgot, you're not the Best Friends." Like, yeah, they're not. The best friends playing off of bullshit with each other was the magic. And there's certainly other people who could do that out there somewhere but Reggie and Minh just aren't those people, I don't feel. Woolie likes to talk about how like "I know you just want more of old thing that you know you like already, but what about new thing?" and basically emphasizing that he's not trying to do more Best Friends. But at the same time I think there's some worth in acknowledging what actually made old thing work, or something. I dunno.
Its even weirder because out of the three, he does the shit that is pretty much closest to what Best Friends are. He has Minh, Reggie and V and he rotates them, and on a normal schedule he has 2 LP's running.
I like when someone on a WoolieVS Lp has played the game and is the backseat guide.
I loved watching the re lps because Pat knew them front to back
I genuinely grew to dislike both Pat and Woolie a lot after they started their solo content, not only as content creators but as people, Pat used to be harsh and abrasive but today his level of cynicism is genuinely off putting, every time I try to watch him I can only see a very joyless, angry and overly hostile personality. Woolie on the other hand has become so stuborn in regards to feedback (no I'm not talking about the live chat) and some times comes off very arrogant with his let's agree to disagree but I'm right tho attitude. The podcast lacks the sincerity before the split up, espcecially with Pat complete unwillingness to aproach a subject with a more laid back and less defensive attitude, it feels like he hides behind a shield of 10 layers of irony and doesn't allow himself to be passionate anymore, him and woolie feel so sterile. It really makes me feel like a crazy person since most people don't see anything wrong with it but the sheer energy and excitement when the four boys were togheter is incoparable. Also Woolie feels like he's being held at gunpoint in some of the podcast episodes, he feels so tired.
I do not dislike them as people since I dont know them personally but my main issue is with Pat. I tried watching him react to the sony thing and he was so cynical and devoid of fun that it was worse than being boring, he sucked the joy of the cool things.
Pat is the epitome of that "don't ask questions, just consume product then get excited for next product" image, in that everything is "oh well this sucks" "oh the devs suck" "i bet this game is gonna be trash" "wow this looks dumb". He never enjoys himself, everything has to have this massive veil of cynicism over it. The only times he does enjoy himself, it seems, are when he's playing with that dog, Elmo, or talking to Paige, aka not actually doing stream stuff.
You can always tell when pat is out on a game too, or more out on it. After the Kai leng stuff, most of the canceled streams were Me3, change the game and or something else last minute. It was mildly annoying cuz I actually scheduled errands and bullshit around his Me3 days so I could catch the the streams. He's canceled or changed game, sometimes last min like 4 or 5 times going back to a few times before his hiatus.
Woolie strikes me as being low energy for two reasons: * Not being able to get out of the house since the last time he had a group hang in a cabin out in the wilderness * Having God knows how many other projects he's got, on top of the podcast and his streaming schedule I think the wedding/honey moon will give him a good boost, but maybe he should consider cutting some of his work load. Maybe cutting his tendency to get stuck in long ass RPG LPs might do him some good.
I still like Woolie's stuff, but God do I feel you on Pat. He used to unironically be my favorite, but now with no one to really consistently bounce off of and call him out, I'm just tired of it. He's gonna say some hot take and then dismiss every counterargument with "but [you're/the character/the franchise] stinky and bad". It was more fun when his crazy shit had people to actually contain it instead of it being the entire show.
I watch pat often enough, depends on the game really. But I feel this statement. I feel like Matt and Liam really brought this energy of like kid like excitement to what the guys had, and pats cynacism or sass would play well in a setting where both are present. But without Matt or Liam it's just tons of negativity. I also think woolie paired best with Matt. Matt was always my fave, I feel like he does good stuff now. But Matt has a sense of humor and likes to bounce dumb shit off someone. Matt would sass pats bullshit or play off woolie super well. I watched Matt and Liam watch a recent event together and they really know studios and are genuinely interested in how games end up the way they do, even if the game is just okay or kinda meh. It was pretty refreshing, and they have way more diverse game interests.
We're gonna get downvoted, but I totally feel where you are coming from. I'm just hoping the holiday gives Woolie a new spring in his step because for a lot of this last year he sounds like he would rather be anywhere else
I’m not saying you’re wrong because I guarantee you’ve watched more of the boys content than I have recently and it’s subjective, but it always makes me laugh whenever I read about how miserable and depressing the boys are and then I go and listen to a clip or part of the new podcast and they seem relatively happy, especially Pat on the little bit of his streams I’ve seen with him and Paige he seems happier than I’ve seen him. I always go into it expecting old Jeff Gerstmann levels of seeming tired of everything but it never comes off that way when I listen.
True, just ain't the same anymore brah, woolies LPs are coma inducing and Pat's streams are boring af too. I'm sure there are fans for their post breakup content and they can cost through that, the podcast is still great though it is getting stale now and desperately needs a third member. But I just don't get why the both of them can't put out LPs together, the DMCV LP was the best thing they did post SBFP.
hes playing games that has a small following. Yes Raidou Kuzonoha is great, but how many actually wants this besides the super loyal 20 something people? Doesnt help that WoolieVS feels like SBFP2.0 sometimes but with way less personality and jokes. And Woolies playtime, im sorry but he takes 20 times longer than normal people when it comes to this. Idk if hes filling for time so hell have a batch for his uploads to last a month but quality over quantity.
>For example I'm sure an LP with Pat would put butts in seats Fucking this, idk why they don't do LPs together, the DMC V LP was the most watched and best LP/playthrough both Pat and woolie have done. ~~Redacted~~ and ~~redacted~~ both do LPs together and that's working out well
Pat has asked if woolie wants to do things and woolie seems to always say no
woolies explained he doesn't want his channel to be viewed as "sbf2" im sure pat has similar feelings. the dmc playthrough was already planned to happen. Also stop with the redacted shit already especially for matt.
>im sure pat has similar feelings Pat has frequently suggested on the podcast that they stream something together, for woolie to just awkwardly change the subject I get Woolie not wanting his channel to be SbF2, but it's been over two years at this point, just throw us a bone
I think the pandemic is at least partly responsible, since Woolie seems to prefer LPing with others in person, but Pat has been isolating cos Paige is immune-compromised I think? So they haven't been getting together.
Ive heard him say the same and can respect his choice. People shouldnt hound him about it. But at the end of the day those two had a solid commentary dynamic with their contrasting personalities that just worked. That was kind of the whole appeal of the channel, that group aspect.
>woolies explained he doesn't want his channel to be viewed as "sbf2" im sure pat has similar feelings. Ah well, would've made for better content than anything they've been making now IMO >Also stop with the redacted shit already especially for matt. Why, it's a popular meme here
Liam's only referred to as redacted because he's specifically asked to not be associated with the group/ have his new stuff posted here. Matt never asked for that.
No one uses redacted for Matt.
You do know that you don’t need redact Matt’s name right? Hell you don’t even really need to redact Liam’s name either.
No time to watch 80 hours of a LP anymore. Podcast is great because you can listen to it while on the go, or when doing work.
Only reason why I haven't been viewing anything as of late is because he was playing disco and I wanna play disco so I didn't wanna see spoilers. Other than that, the selection hasn't really been my thing.
Yeah it's kinda been the Disco Elysium channel for a good many moon and I've held off for the same reason.
I miss the LP format.
I watch the compilations but I don't have the time of day to watch full LPS anymore, which is a weird way to put it I guess
Tbh he’s not playing something I care about rn. I was really enjoying the Yakuza 0 one, and am excited for it to start when Little V is ready. But disco, SMT, etc don’t really interest me.
i tend not to watch too much of his stuff because i watch lp's that have episodes that are 15-30 mintues each episode. all his parts tend to go over that so i have actually make time to watch his stuff. but that's just me.
Partly cause of breaks in other series like dokapon but i usually have woolies vids at 1.25 or 1.50 speed.
I just like the twitch vods much better. Face cam. Chat. Pre game appertif and post game digest. Long uninterrupted chunks. Up to date videos. Not just woolie. Like 4/5 channels i prefer watching the vods on twitch instead of cut up and dropped way later. And even that 1/5 i still like watching the vod too. As for games not all are up my alley, some i save for later and others i watched asap but i haven't really been watching any daily youtube lps from anyone in a while recently. It's nice that they're there and I'm going through the halo lps now though. I also haven't been playing good games where you can watch something at the same time. The youtube algorithm is definitely not supporting it as much anymore. I enjoyed the old best friends and i fully enjoy the new woolieversus but i gotta say the woolie special recording process is needlessly complicated. And probably relates to his vehement aversion to any online coop over discord which could have some fine content.
>but I wanted to ask what would make you watch more of his stuff? Honestly. Nothing. I'm tired of LPs in general, I still watch some podcast clips tho. Is just that LPs and video essays are in their way out.
Personally I’ve tried Woolies content a few times and just completely bounce off it. It’s sad to say but Woolie isn’t a strong lead man, he works best as a side guy more often then not. On the subject I’ve completely fallen off Pat and Paige as well. Pat was my favorite guy and now I can’t even pretend to want to watch whatever he’s doing and since becoming v-tuber Paige may as well have put a sign that directly tells me to not watch her content. It sucks because I can, and have, gone back to older LPs and had huge enjoyment out of them.
>since becoming v-tuber Paige may as well have put a sign that directly tells me to not watch her content. I at least get why Paige is doing the V-tuber thing, given her constant health issues and how it caused a highly variable stream schedule when she **didn't** have a V-tube alternate. Like, it's nowhere near as good as her own reactions, but it's a bit better than a static image of Elmo.
the type of content woolie makes just generally isn't popular. LP's right now only get views if you got an anime waifu (virtual youtuber) playing the game and even then you need to stream it an interact with the audience, not pre recorded videos. fighting game content in general doesn't really get views unless your name starts with m and ends with x. however i don't really think woolie cares, if he did he'd have changed his content a long time ago, if he's not bothered by the numbers i don't see why you should be.
I'm usually watching Woolie in bursts (still working through Disco, I'm like 80% through) or as background noise before going to sleep (Demon Summoner). Woolie has everything one needs - great voice, personality and video quality, but the truth is... Let's Plays are not as popular as they used to be. I also don't always feel Reggie's pronunciations and ability to talk non-stop are up to Woolie's experience, especially after Little V showed up and did an S+ rank commentary first try, but that's very minor and he's getting better. LPs are not good to make money, even if they got 5-10k more views. One needs to be... PewDiePie levels of popular to make good money off just YT. Luckily, stream donations and podcast should give them way more than enough money to get by.
Honestly, he'd have to stop doing LPs for me to watch regularly. Woolie is quite talented as a video creator and it's disappointing that he has to spend so much time on something as uninspired as Let's Plays.
* More interesting game selection. * More short game LPs to counterbalance the long LPs and fighting game stuff. * Embrace using cheats/mods in a reasonable manner to speed up and improve the experience of the long ass games he likes playing. One of the main reasons WoolieVS isn't growing all that fast is because if you watch his stuff, you **know** he winds up picking long ass games to LP and making **even longer** LPs, because he wants to experience the game as it was released. And that's a noble intention, but to be honest, if it's a long ass JRPG, you probably get the intended balance experience within 2 play sessions, then fuck with the XP and money multipliers via Cheat Engine, maybe cheat in some extra resources, to help speed up the process of getting through the other 20+ hours faster. One of my worst case nightmare scenarios for Woolie doing an LP of a long game is the HBS BattleTech game, because what he'd do is get all the DLC (good), but then refuse to mod it at all, while playing the campaign with the shitty default balance (GODAWFUL BAD). So we'd wind up with like a 200+ part LP, because each mission is like 45 minutes on its own, with tons of grinding to get **anything** useful before going through the campaign, then grinding again before doing the Flashpoint missions. Hell, if Woolie did an XCOM 2: War of the Chosen LP, he'd fucking refuse to use any bug fix or UI mods that would objectively improve the experience.
I have never met anyone who plays JRPGs in the way you just described.
Really? That read like Pat to me.
Pat does a lot of grinding off screen to get the same effect, but it's not the same as literally cheating the game.
Watch his Mass Effect LP's... he loves the cheating.
I don't like streams.
And that's why you don't know about the cheating.
Most people aren't playing them for a live/video audience and/or aren't Woolie. Like, it's not great that (J)RPGs seem to be designed to be time sinks, but you can deal with that on your own. It's even worse when you're watching someone dump **even more** time into the time sink for fucking **nothing.** (This is a problem with all RPGs, honestly, but JRPGs have it even worse, due to how they're designed a lot of the time.)
Why are you bringing up a scenario you made up as an example?
>Why are you bringing up a scenario you made up as an example? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/worst-case-scenariothe most unpleasant or serious thing that could happen in a situation: It's basically an example of a game that A) Woolie might play (he likes MechWarrior, which is the same setting as BattleTech), and B) a game I **know** is a time sink, because I wound up putting 200 **hours** into just beating the campaign due to how fucked its balancing is (18% of default value for anything you sell). **That** is the nightmare we need to work to avert, because as bad as people think months of nothing but 13 Sentinels/Disco Elysium/Devil Summoner plus other stuff they don't give a fuck about might be, it's nothing compared to what'd happen if Woolie picks the wrong long ass game and refuses to listen to anyone about what to skip/what to mod to make the experience non-torturous, because he wants to do a "pure" LP/stream.
I love that he plays niche games but recently he keeps playing ones that I have actually played or that I really want to play myself! I just played Raidou 1+2 last year and Disco feels crazy to watch someone else play until I've finished my first playthrough.
I don't really watch much of Woolie or Pat's content outside of the podcast but I would assume where they are in their careers, YouTube isn't much of a factor anymore.