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Livetext beta test: Q&A with Tom!

Help us test our new Livetext system by joining Eurogamer editor Tom in a Q&A session.

Our live coverage of this event has finished.

Hello! Welcome to the new Livetext beta test page. We'll begin at 3pm.

Craig Munro

Hello everyone! This is going to be a test NOT ONLY of the spangly new live text system Craig has spent the last week or two developing, but also your endurance, and my capacity to talk rubbish continuously for 30 minutes. Who's excited?

Tom Bramwell

Before we begin properly, I should probably introduce myself for anyone who has no idea who I am. I'm the editor of the site, which means I do things like typing reports, reducing headcount, etc.

Tom Bramwell

Tom Bramwell

This is a picture of me yesterday moving a washing machine with Alec Meer from GamesIndustry.biz and friend of Eurogamer Al Bickham. I'm the guy with the beard dressed as a lumberjack.

Tom Bramwell

Anyway let's see what's in these comments. I can pull them in to the live feed to highlight them, you know.

Tom Bramwell

Hi livetext_beta_tester. I assume you're a long-time user. I believe the reason Simon wasn't able to talk about them in the review was because we couldn't test them before launch, but would need to check with our reviews editor Oli Welsh. I'm not sure if we're going to do a separate piece on the online elements either but that might be fun. What do you make of them?

Tom Bramwell

I do like apple pies.

Tom Bramwell

There should be moderation on comments, yes. We've got a few other presentational changes we want to make too - e.g. we want to be able to pull in a question or comment from the comments feed and then reply directly under it. I also think we should make it more obvious that a comment I've pulled in from the right is from a reader - at the moment it looks a bit like you work for us!

Tom Bramwell

Thank you! I find my singing is better at waking up children than putting them to sleep.

Tom Bramwell

Yes and I also make efficiency savings.

Tom Bramwell

I can post videos in here too you know. My example video was always likely to be this one.

Tom Bramwell

I could share some cool links too I suppose. Do you like running? This article about Jure Robic, the Slovenian ultra long-distance cyclist, really inspired me to punch through that mental barrier 15 to 20 minutes into a run. Fatigue is mostly in your head. I was very sad to read that Jure died this past weekend while training. He was a great.

Tom Bramwell

Interesting idea! There's lots of potential uses for them I think. One of the reasons we're reinventing them is that our current system is quite creaky and we want to be more flexible.

Tom Bramwell

Haven't you got some pictures to draw or something?

Tom Bramwell

Here is another entirely unrelated video.

Tom Bramwell

Only if they made the game!

Tom Bramwell

I like this! Craig, take note!

Tom Bramwell

Doubt it, but he does look a lot like Billy Crystal in that photo everyone uses of him looking like Billy Crystal.

Tom Bramwell

Stuff I read daily: football365.com, planetf1.com, news.bbc.co.uk, grauniad, etc. I'm quite boring. I love Rock Paper Shotgun's Sunday Papers posts - that'll happily kill a week of lunch-hours.

Tom Bramwell

I think that's a bug but it strikes me as a feature we should add to the site.

Tom Bramwell

I think I added it to my Amazon wishlist - got a stack of important material to work through first, such as some book Christian Donlan lent me about DARPA and the rest of Entourage season 7.

Tom Bramwell

Good recommendation though. Loved the book - Endurance.

Tom Bramwell

Love it.

Tom Bramwell

1/2) Not sure technically but I guess functionally they are more like livetext Q&A. 3) When the LT finishes it waits a bit then goes chronological so people who weren't following it live can read through the log. We can also add introductions and stuff like that.

Tom Bramwell

Like a boss.

Tom Bramwell

What list?

Tom Bramwell

Paragraphs are last-gen.

Tom Bramwell

Both.

Tom Bramwell

Oh ho, googled the Sky Broadband list thing. Comedy! Anyway don't be ridiculous - were I to acquire gentlemen's material, I would not give Sky money for it.

Tom Bramwell

I do use Sky Player, but it's ridiculously overpriced and I'm thinking of canning it. Paying 30 quid odd a month to watch Liverpool get tonked again and again is a bit stupid.

Tom Bramwell

We looked at Facebook Connect recently. There may be a place for it at some point but not immediately. In the meantime we added the Like button because it gives us promotion on Facebook which is kind of what we were after. We're also going to make it easier for writers to publish relevant updates to our Facebook channel soon, if anyone cares, as at the moment it's basically just me posting links when I remember. (You're really seeing behind the curtain today!)

Tom Bramwell

No not really. Like I said on the forum, I think people assume we split stories out for the wrong reason - we do it because they're individually interesting and we don't want people to miss them, whereas folks assume we do it for pageviews. Pageviews really aren't as big a deal as people imagine.

Tom Bramwell

That kind of sums it up! At one point with FIFA 10 I got us a replacement disc and we broke it in one day. By the way, I'm reviewing PES at the moment (review has an 11am Friday embargo) and enjoying it way more than last year!

Tom Bramwell

This is why we test!

Tom Bramwell

S'how I got where I am yo.

Tom Bramwell

I don't believe in gambling.

Tom Bramwell

Not sure I'm allowed to say, sorry! The developer sessions are going to be awesome though. I've been talking to Tim Willits and some of the others about what they're showing and it should be brilliant fun. If you have time on the Saturday afternoon you should check out the Hello Games (Joe Danger) one too - that's going to be a riot.

Tom Bramwell

I'm being told I have to stop because we're going to break the site :-) Thanks everyone! This has been lots of fun!

Tom Bramwell

Remember the post about abuse of power and remember also that I can delete accounts.

Tom Bramwell