I've seen Pony Life. I'll talk about it in a few days.
This is a subject I keep meaning to do a full musing/essay post on, but I never seem to have the time and the motivation simultaneously. I'll get there eventually, I'm sure! But for now, I'll just post the subject as an open question. When it's possible to have conventions in person again, whenever that may be, what will they be like? What might have to remain different in the longer term, and how might the online con experience feed through to physical events?
I haven't been to any of the Discord/Twitch cons for more than a few minutes, I could never seem to get into what was meant to be happening besides a Discord server with lots of channels pinging off at once. I *have* been to the ongoing month long Second Life PonyCon a few nights, which has been great fun.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure any of the things that have stood out for people from any of the online events (free entry, celebrities willing to participate in events they wouldn't normally sign up for, fans being happy with that participation being via video) will carry over. The print-out badge from your previous post was a really lovely touch, albeit probably the thing that will have the least practical impact on real life cons when they resume!
What might make a difference is that some fans (alright, me) who might have been wary of going to a real life event have had a kind of risk-free taster to dip a toe in the convention water, and so might be better disposed towards attending an event IRL now.
I've found the secret is to have a good look at the event's Discord server several days before the con itself and work out which channels actually interest you. For example, for UK PonycOnline that meant the actual stage stream chat, one or two of the general chat channels and not much else. I completely ignored meme/GIF channels, for example. Vendor channels were mostly just ads, so I could interact with them via PMs or through DA etc as usual.
DeleteAlso, if you ever do come to a physical con and feel like doing so (emphasis important), please feel free to say hello! Same goes for our Worcester meets.
Interesting point about the barrier to entry being lower for online cons than for physical ones. I'm quite used to, and enjoy, physical meets/ conventions but have found the Discord servers for online cons slightly overwhelming. When I have gone to them I've generally given up on the chat and just watched the panels, but that feels much less involved than being there in person.
ReplyDeleteAs I said to The Cloptimist, the only way I've found of dealing with online con Discord servers is simply to ignore many/most of their channels and concentrate on the few that actually interest me. Otherwise, it feels like going to a physical con and trying to attend every panel and buy from every stall!
DeleteHaving the Worcester meet chat available during cons has also helped, though. A smaller forum where I know everyone is somewhere I can relax more.