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How do you write your AAR?

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Interesting - looks like I do my stuff differently to everyone else.

I write gameplay stuff so I have a Works doc open and type in that as I go. I guess I pause to write probably every two months of game time unless nothing is happening. I only take screenshots to illustrate what I'm writing about - I expect to use every screenshot I take. I've also moved on from noting everything that happens to just the stuff that I find interesting at the time.
 
TekcoR said:
I forgot to mention...I have attempted to train a group of monkeys to write AARs, but it hasn't worked out too well.
Click to expand...

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?
 
Ive had a lot of mistakes whilst writing an AAR where I had taken a screenshot without notes for it and completely forgotten what the screenshot showed. Because of this, when I wrote my later AARs I kept my pen and paper in arms reach and added to them for every, even the most insignificant, event that happened.
 
I write strangely. Whenever I feel the creative juices flow, or have an idea, then I begin writing, in the browser. My lack of notes means that my AARs aren't massively accurate, and are mostly based on my memory of events. Once I've finished, I check it over, make a few edits here and there, then press the "post" button.

I do occasionally write long/important updates in word; for example, there is an extremely important scene in The Red Mexican set in about 1900 which I have already written. But generally no notes, in browser, based off of memory.

That works (sort of) for no-screenshot narrative AARs, anyway. Possibly not the best method :p.
 
I just take lots of pictures of everything and recreate the game from those. No notes (except for the guide where I note which part of the picture I'm going to be talking about... usually? On occasion, at least.)
 
There's a program called Screengrab you can use if you have a high resolution monitor and are running in Windowed mode. It saves the active window to a specified file with a hotkey you specify, (mine is alt + ]) and it allows you to save as jpegs with size and quality adjustments .

Also, and this is very, very, very important, when you label your screenshots use a year - month - day format as the first part of the name, so that it will show up chronologically when you have 5000 pictures in a folder. And if you do this, make sure to put zeros in the dates. So "1936 1 7 invade Japan" should be "1936 01 07 invade Japan" otherwise it would be sorted after "1936 01 23 attack Russia" because 7 is later than the 2 in "23."

My thing is to take screenshots, start with the date and then label afterwards. So "1936 02 24 Tianshui attacked" and their might later be a "1936 02 26 Tianshui victory."

But this is just HOI2 which is suited to this sort of gameplay based AAR. It also helps to use something like Imageready and photoshop to condense several similar events (like researching techs or diplomatic actions) into one screenshot.

For pictures, Time has an amazing archive you can search by keyword and year. You can't directly download them, but if your already writing an AAR, you should know how to make screen grabs.

Also, word to the wise, you will always spend more time writing than playing.
 
I'm just now starting to get into AARs, but...

I just record my gameplay directly via Fraps and use live commentary, pausing at specific points I find interesting. I can screengrab anything I want from the mediaplayer, even some events that I didn't *think* would be interesting but turn out to have some pretty nasty effects down the road.

It also allows me to seamlessly supply notes (via direct commentary), so I can pretty much just play the entire time without having to pause.

The work comes afterward, where you simply watch yourself playing and use that as a basis for what you're writing. You can keep word open on one side and the media player on the other, pausing the video when necessary.
 
I recently started an AAR and I find writing a rough draft while the game is running and pausing to get screenshots works well. Then again maybe its just because my computer's a big laggy so the writing actually makes it more fun.
 
Like most of the writAARs, I use screenshots for everything. I tried writing on a pad, then using Notepad and alt-tabbing, but it was insane. Partly because I was insane (e.g. writing down the political %s every year in Vicky2 Ed - Who cared Me - I dunno, everyone? It's important! Ed - BZZZT WRONG! But thanks for playing). Now I have >3000 Screenshots in my HoI3 AAR, and they're already sorted, and if it matters, the date of creation tells me what session it was.

Keep in mind that the way you document your play depends a great deal on what the final product will be. My AARs have been almost 100% gameplay, just screenshots of what I am doing and short descriptions. So screenshots tell the whole story and I bring it together with text. Most players could skip the jokes and still get the story (Ed - but what about the dream sequence? Me - Ixnay on the Dream Sequence-ay).

If, however, you were going to do a story-based AAR, then you might want to go a different way. A notepad of some kind would be critical because the screenshot is no longer the story, it's just the inspiration for the story. I'm planning a CK2 AAR with more of a story to it, and my first abortive attempt showed me that I was going to have to go about things in a different way. The screenshots are part of the story, but they no longer tell you what the story is, they're just a place to hang your hat. Check out Philo32b's Abyssinia AAR. Yeah, it's gameplay, but the story branches off the gameplay more like the one I have planned, and far more than my previous "I did this, then I did that" AARs.

My suggestion for anyone wanting to try an AAR for the first time, or try a new kind of AAR, is to to on purpose what I did accidentally. Start one, play a few AAR chapters worth, then write them up, expecting to trash the whole thing. If it flies, great, keep going. If it sucks, figure out how to do it better and start over (I'd also consider writing 6-10 chapters right at the beginning, AAR writing is more time consuming that it looks). My first attempt at CK2 was going to be 100% in character. I even debated not commenting as me or responding to comments so as not to break the spell (Ed - you're cute when you're full of yourself). Now, writing is risk, you can't always stay comfortable and sure of yourself, but the best way is just to test something and see what happens, like with the mushrooms you see in the woods or the cleaners under the sink.*

KiwiAssassin's way sounds perfect, you could spew out an entire story while the same is paused.


* - if you go out and poison yourself, don't come running to me.
 
What I do is I'll sit down, start VicII, then begin to write the start of my next chapter. Once that is done, I will play VicII until an interesting event pops up, or something enters my mind to write about. I just write as I play, and by the time I reached by 5-year mark, I have a full update ready to push out.
 
Its been almost a month and I've been waiting for it but not one of you went for the obvious "In Soviet Russia, AAR writes you" joke. I'm very disappointed in everyone who has viewed this thread.

TekcoR said:
I forgot to mention...I have attempted to train a group of monkeys to write AARs, but it hasn't worked out too well.
Click to expand...

But it can be done. Paradox seems to have it down to an art. :cool:
 
I play for about 5-6 Years, go back to the Site and Write it Immediately, if not, I'll forget what happened. I use Historical Pictures Instead of In Game Shots because I bought my copy on Amazon and not Steam, so I have no Flying Fladoodle on how to get In Game Shots without Steam. I also add a few things that never happened but have to do with the AAR to Spice things up and keep the Reader Interested.
 
Kiwi Assassin said:
I'm just now starting to get into AARs, but...

I just record my gameplay directly via Fraps and use live commentary, pausing at specific points I find interesting. I can screengrab anything I want from the mediaplayer, even some events that I didn't *think* would be interesting but turn out to have some pretty nasty effects down the road.

It also allows me to seamlessly supply notes (via direct commentary), so I can pretty much just play the entire time without having to pause.

The work comes afterward, where you simply watch yourself playing and use that as a basis for what you're writing. You can keep word open on one side and the media player on the other, pausing the video when necessary.
Click to expand...

If you have fraps singing all the time don't you have like terabyte large videoclips if you record whole long session?
 
In my current Victoria 2 AAR I'm using a year of gameplay as the basis for each chapter. Everything that goes into the final update is inspired by the screenshots I've taken from that year's worth of play, but that's not to say that everything I screenshot gets used.

My standard process is as follows:
  • Play a year's worth of game, taking screenshots liberally
  • Save the game at the end of the session at 1 January (and here popup and pause on the UH elections is a real help
  • Copy all the screenshots from the V2\Screenshots folder into V2\Screenshots\AAR\[YEAR]
  • Open up all the screenshots in Paint.net - at this point there are around 40-60
  • Work through the screenshots to work out what to cut and what to keep. I've got into the habit of always showing the budget as of 1st January and always showing the new UH composition at the end of the year, so those are the first things to get out of the way.
  • For other events, I first determine if I can produce a single image that captures data from multiple screenshots - the example below is a composite of perhaps four separate screenshots
  • Once I've been through all the pictures I'll have around 15 images in PNG format. These are then saved in My Documents\AAR\[YEAR] and then uploaded to Imageshack
  • This gives me a set of links which I can rearrange into the order they'll be used in the update. At this point, I'll create a text document with all the sorted links and a few headings (see example below)
  • Next, I copy the sorted document on the forum, using the Preview Post button to see how it will look in the final version.
  • At this point I'll start writing text to accompany the images.
  • Once the first draft is written, I take a deep breath and though go back through it to iron out any mistakes. This is my least favourite part of the whole process, but it has to be done.
  • When I'm satisfied, I post the finished update. Then it's back to the first step and repeat.

Example - A composite picture
angsco1857.png


Example - Pre-production text with image links
Code: 
[ Size="4"][ B][ I]1857: [/I][/b][/Size]

[ Quote]Some text[/Quote]


[ Size="3"][ I][ b]State opening and Emperor's speech[/b][/i][/Size]

[ IMG]http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/140/budget1857.png[/IMG]


[ Size="3"][ I][ b]Domestic affairs[/b][/i][/Size]

[ IMG]http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6589/firstrail1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/7751/genetics1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/5232/railway21857.png[/IMG]


[ Size="3"][ I][ b]Foreign affairs[/b][/i][/Size]

[ IMG]http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3519/ruskhorwar1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/4240/modenawar1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/3434/angsco1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/3169/casmanchu1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9743/colombia1857.png[/IMG]

[ IMG]http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/4140/egypt1857.png[/IMG]


[ Size="3"][ I][ b]End of year[/b][/i][/Size]

[ IMG]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3880/endofyear1857.png[/IMG]
 
SgtPepper92 said:
I don't mean the text itself, but during your game session. Do you take notes on paper?
For example '1100: marriage x to y.'. Or do you write or do something else?
What are your suggestions for someone who wants to write an AAR?
Click to expand...

I usually make a lot of notes about important events, then decide which to use and which not and then make a narrative and maybe spice it up with some trivia.
 
I take notes in Open Office whilst playing and try to play at least a few years ahead (but no more than the life of the current monarch, until his end is nearing in my narrative). The notes range from just a few words to narrative ideas and detailed descriptions of events so I'll remember it later. I don't generally take screenshots though, except at rather large intervals where I want to do a 'this is the world at year X'-updates - or if something really major happens like the HRE totally breaking apart, France conquering Italy; simply world-changing events.

After I've played for a few years I go back and read through my notes and elaborates where necessary, insert the involved characters (and characters I want to be involved) and then I make up things to link the events to eachother in an attempt to create a more obvious red line in the story as well as filling out those months where nothing at all happens.

Other than this I also take character-notes, sometimes based on traits and sometimes not (especially when I invent a character that wasn't in the game at all), that I read through and add to with every new chapter I write - hoping that it will serve to keep the characters distinct.
 
I mostly do historical AARs (not that I'm plugging my MEIOU AAR, widely credited by everyone ever as the best thing since sliced Jesus), which I tend to write by screenshot and memory, playing up until the death of a ruler, writing the various chapters about that ruler, and then moving on.

One of the handy things about histories is that historians do not have our omniscience, and so anything we forget as authors can simply be chalked down to loss of records, and anything important we remember as being especially significant, very well documented. I find notes interrupt the flow of play or writing. The trick is that with playing until the death of a ruler, you have all of his work to review as the 'historian', which can help lend flow and excitement to what can be a very dry format.
 
Dewirix said:
In my current Victoria 2 AAR I'm using a year of gameplay as the basis for each chapter. Everything that goes into the final update is inspired by the screenshots I've taken from that year's worth of play, but that's not to say that everything I screenshot gets used.

My standard process is as follows:
  • Play a year's worth of game, taking screenshots liberally
  • Save the game at the end of the session at 1 January (and here popup and pause on the UH elections is a real help
  • Copy all the screenshots from the V2\Screenshots folder into V2\Screenshots\AAR\[YEAR]
  • Open up all the screenshots in Paint.net - at this point there are around 40-60
  • Work through the screenshots to work out what to cut and what to keep. I've got into the habit of always showing the budget as of 1st January and always showing the new UH composition at the end of the year, so those are the first things to get out of the way.
  • For other events, I first determine if I can produce a single image that captures data from multiple screenshots - the example below is a composite of perhaps four separate screenshots
  • Once I've been through all the pictures I'll have around 15 images in PNG format. These are then saved in My Documents\AAR\[YEAR] and then uploaded to Imageshack
  • This gives me a set of links which I can rearrange into the order they'll be used in the update. At this point, I'll create a text document with all the sorted links and a few headings (see example below)
  • Next, I copy the sorted document on the forum, using the Preview Post button to see how it will look in the final version.
  • At this point I'll start writing text to accompany the images.
  • Once the first draft is written, I take a deep breath and though go back through it to iron out any mistakes. This is my least favourite part of the whole process, but it has to be done.
  • When I'm satisfied, I post the finished update. Then it's back to the first step and repeat.

Example - A composite picture
angsco1857.png


Example - Pre-production text with image links
Code: 
[ Size="4"][ B][ I]1857: [/I][/b][/Size]

[ Quote]Some text[/Quote]


You said you create text document? Like with MS office? And but the links there for pics and it will show the pics in the forum?
Click to expand...
 
Sarys said:
You said you create text document? Like with MS office? And but the links there for pics and it will show the pics in the forum?
Click to expand...

no, you need to host the images elsewhere - photobucket/imageshack et al, here's an idea how I lay it out (its from the last update to my EU3 AAR:

21 August 1712

1

Oh that man is impossible, he storms in, grabs a peacock and pulls out a feather and storms off again

[H – I told you why ... she's ticklish]

And I don't believe you

[H – well she's not going to put it on her CV is she ... "Empress of Hell, Queen of the Witches ... and prone to fits of the giggles" ... I mean]

[A – how did you find out ... I mean its not true of course]

27 September 1712

2

[A – Harry stop it, people are watching]
[H – not any more they aren't ... they are all dead]

Oh great, more mess to clean up
Click to expand...

In effect the numbers 1/2 etc relate to an image, I then upload that image and embed it at the spot I've indicated. If I work on an update offline (say a long train journey), I may embed more code into the text (eg ..[/b}, and also the colours I use to indicate different speakers) and so on so its near ready for posting when I get back on line though.

You can embed the links into the document if they reference an image already uploaded, I've never done this as I can't see the gain - I use imageshack's 'uploader' to put the images onto the web and its as easy to copy and paste from that direct into the on-forum post as to the core document.
 
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