Let's talk about how streaming effects our game.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Time Lord, Sep 3, 2021.

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  1. Time Lord

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    So, "Let's take a look at streaming", how streaming effects our game and maybe how we could stream to impact our game even better :)!'

    ~
    Some streaming background and streaming interaction effects~

    ~The big question of does streaming and what we steam matter?~


    ~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2021
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  2. Time Lord

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    Being based in South East Asia, I can say that not everyone has a computer here and those that do may or may not have a computer do have phones. That being said, I do know many people here that watch more games than play them.
    How that fact impacts the data the ubove videos reference, I'm not truly sure. Data piles are piles of either useful data or complete crap.
    And, some data presented in some things is just a lure to get anyone to buy more data. Data Information business is funny in that way.
    ~Time Lord~
     
  3. oplek

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    I don't feel like SOTA is all that streaming-compatible. There's some potential with PVP, insofar as any can be drummed up. But there's not really an audience for watching someone mine silver for 4 straight hours.

    The main storyline is probably safe, just because it being conveyed through a little text box on screen, is going to create more glassy eyes than anything else. So in general, the game is probably safe from the stream usurping "sales".

    The game doesn't' really offer much direction or guidance on something interesting to do, unless it's aside to some other focus, such as a "just chatting" scenario. For this game, there's a lot more requirement for the individual streamer being creative with giving themselves scenarios and challenges that are interesting, which is especially challenging, given the available toolset.
     
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  4. oplek

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    Also, I find serious RP to be cringe as hell. I'm not sure whether that's a common response.
     
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  5. Time Lord

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    I can say that I stop playing when Laz and Jack's NBNN stream is going on, whenever I'm awake to attend there on their lot, where their live steam takes place. I'm more likely to watch the re-run later when they post it on YouTube.

    I may do some streaming next year, which makes me streaming curious, but I would rather watch pre-recorded videos "only if it's on a subject I need to see or sota entertaining video".
    I have seen some RP done well but I'm not a real fan, or I just haven't seen enough of it, or there's just not that much out there of sota RP videos.

    An example of what I call entertaining RP video:

    That guy makes great videos on seemingly normal subjects, while making very boring subjects entertaining. It's an art I've been interested in, because our game has few comic relief. @Bridge Troll comes close to being a comic relief, but I don't think he does vidoes. Most of sota videos is sort of, "matter of fact" go here get this add it to that information videos. They are very helpful, but entertaining..... good for info yes good for enertainment no.
    ~TL~

     
  6. A'chelata

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    Hmmmmmmm, seems like there used to be a guild around here that did a bunch of streaming of pvp and it was the most popular SotA streams up til then or since. It was a stream that attracted lots of attention from the playerbase and was renowned for also spending lots of time helping new/old players grind XP or with questions or strategies about the game, all while showcasing plenty of heart pounding pvp battles between the multiple pvp guilds/groups that USED to be in the game.

    Hated by many, but breathlessly watched by all . . . . . .

    What ever was the name of that guild or streamer?????? What happened to them and all the groups they fought and and so many more that they helped learn things within the game. Seems like that is the type of edgy, yet instructive, yet helpful, yet attention grabbing kind of streaming SotA could really use to help find new customers???? AMIRITE?

    LOL

    Three cheers to you tho @Time Lord , I give you an A+ for effort. You always have a good attitude and look for pathways to success.
     
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  7. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    I think this more than anything is what actually makes the game so endlessly "streamable" for me. Group PvE fights and personal challenges, designing builds and testing skills, crafting armor and weapons, killing and dying in PvP, checking out new content on QA, even the occasional deco or fishing stream.

    Everything I do in game I do on stream at some point, so I might refine a stack of materials while we're talking about the strategy we're using on the armor they'll go into, or I might harvest some crops while we're talking about the best return on agriculture, and so on. Granted I leave the majority of the mundane stuff for when I'm off stream, mostly since I'd rather tab over to start crafting batches between working on other things, or because it's a lot nicer to harvest 1000's of plants while watching someone else stream.

    Streaming for me is basically another way to hang out with friends from the community. I'm very much a shroud player that streams rather than a streamer that plays shroud, and it's a game the gives us near endless things to do. I don't know what effect streaming might have on the game itself, but I started streaming in January and since then I've averaged over 4 hours of streaming per day. That's time spent hanging out with friends in a world I much enjoy, and if I streamed 24 hours a day I'd still not get around to half the fun stuff I'd like to try.
     
  8. Time Lord

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    That is a popular thing that Thai-Gamers watch and they also like the spooky or scary stuff. As for the spooky and scary stuff (anything that's large is shocking or spectacular) some of that has to do with the differences between Thai-Humor and Western-Humor and Asian Cinima Style.

    For my own purposes, I'm looking into the planning of hosting some Thai-Streamers here in the game I'm hoping sometime next year when the world "situation" subsides and the internet cafe' around here open back up. Some of these Thai-Streamers have 10s of thousands of subscribers.

    Streaming of sota PvP is a great idea. I know that community sure could use a boost.

    I'm studying through YouTube allot of different Asian cinima stuff and western sifi to try and get some ideas. Looking into the abstract vs the static, the RPer vs the Tech player and trying to figure out if there's a way to fit comic relief in, that's the plan.

    This is one of the streamers I have on my target list:

    I had contact with them more than a year ago befor the world "situation" and they tuned me on to quite a few other streamers as well as them wanting to follow what progress I've made towards this goal of getting them noticed through noticing us.
    (Notice thier numbers, and now that we are free to play, sota fits a Thai budget)
    That YouTube stream 79,344 views - and created on Aug 29, 2021 o_O and that's just normal for them.

    They have over 3.4 million subscribers
    ~TL~
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2021
  9. Time Lord

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    Yes, I like that aspect in your work as a streamer. Many are not comfortable being on stage, and you seem to have done it often enough to feel at home, which causes others to feel that same way while watching.
    ~TL~
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2021
  10. oplek

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    I can appreciate you wanting to just do your own thing. I think the context for the discussion is trying to improve the state of the game by promoting the game through steam. That may require some pandering.

    The twitch stats indicate it's not going well. MarkeeDragon has long since moved on, being one of the major promoters, maybe playing the game a few times a year. Chris went from streaming a few times a week, to once a week, to once a month. That descent wouldn't happen if it was working as intended. Chris has the charmisma to be on stream, but doesn't really have the correct itinerary. He largely refuses to play his own game... which would be something better than standing in a room for hours. They are game devs, not marketers, and it shows... which is probably why they're trying to delegate the role with the streaming program (which seems to focus more on rewards than establishing something interesting to stream).

    "it's a game the gives us near endless things to do"

    I may or may not have slipped into a parallel dimension.
     
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  11. Time Lord

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    I see streaming as an extention of how the game is developed, which is like no other game because we were and still are crowd funded, yet also it's within sota's game design that enables the player to take a part through enabling the player to make their own dungeons, make their own properties player interactive and creating content within their own towns.

    If there are those things which could enhance our streaming through making our game's mechanics more customizable friendly to streaming, then that's something that would be invited by not only our development team, but also alure others to engage in the same fun that players like @Coswald_Dirthmire enjoys.

    @Lord British had something to say about social gaming that went something like this...


    For me that set off a thought or obsurvation that, even when we are not playing the game, but just thinking about the game, "we are still playing the game". When we are dream up ideas for the game, we are playing the game, when we are talking to friends about the game we are playing the game and even in those times when we are thinking of some part of our game we hate or enjoy, "we are still playing the game".

    Further though, this video encouraged me to think of the many ways as Richard Garriott is talking about in the video, how the game can become further interactive outside in the real world to which I thiought for myself of becoming interactive with a few of my local internet cafe' and began interacting with them about furthing a sota relationship between us, to which they were very receptive. That quest or adventure in expanding my own sota gaming has brought me to things like what I offer here, which is just "exploring" along with a team of explorers, what possibilities there are, what could be and possibly even into invention because our sota game and it's developers are very much on board with us to further game develop along these same lines, because SOTA is all about enabling the player.

    I'll cut this rant off with this thought...
    One day it's very possible that we will pay a company for the fun of operating a small remote control robot on the surface of the actual Moon, with the quest of that robot to gather hydrogen 3 and return that back to the collection station just as we do now inside our game with many things with prizes for the most things gathered, just as our online games do in our pixel worlds now.
    It's how we are getting from here to there, that we are now actually doing, while we think it's a game.

    I don't care if our developers are on some mountian top, or out on the town having a beer, or exploring the deepest oceans, or the vastness of space, because I know thet while they are doing all those things,

    "they are still playing and developing the game"!
    [​IMG]
    and BTW Lord British was last spotted playing just a short while past,
    which sort of helps prove the point of this :D "still playing the game"!
    :)~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2021
  12. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    I'm not sure what you mean by "just do your own thing" in this sense. Naturally when I stream it's built around the things I personally enjoy, but we (myself and those in chat) often stop mid-activity to help new players, give impromptu tutorials, and so on. This is something that is very much "my own thing", since I really enjoy talking about these systems, passing on what I've learned, learning more from others, but I also think they serve as a promotion of the game and its systems.

    Something like Part One and Part Two of my Masterworking and Enchanting tutorial was brought about because a new player said in chat they were interested in the system. I love crafting and so that's about all the excuse I needed to spend several hours going over some of the basics of this aspect of the game, impromptu and on the spot. That player, in the course of a couple weeks of dedicated playing, became a great adventurer and very good crafter, and I like to think the stream was some help in that. But it wasn't from pandering, it was because I find this aspect of the game naturally compelling and I genuinely enjoy talking about it and showing it off.

    Which is part of why I wonder what parallel dimension you usually occupy, if you say this one is new to you. I've yet to get all of the new mastery potions, I've only been party to frost giant killing the one time (as far as I know still the only time he's been killed on Live), heck, I've still not acquired and tested many of the new imbued gems and jewels, and they're not even done being added. A lot of this stuff is rather exciting, and people do seem to enjoy it.

    I really do feel spoiled for content lately, and I've not respec'd into more than a fraction of the builds I'd like to try-- one of my channel points rewards even lets folks pick a build for me. It does help that I am somewhat interested in every aspect of the game. If I'm a little burned out killing barbarians I can hunt big game, or if I'm not feeling adventuring I can do crafting, or deco or PvP or fish or program an NPC and on and on. I think showing these many facets of the game is a good promotion of its content, but I don't much think about it that way, and I certainly don't consider it pandering, since it's exactly the things I enjoy doing.
     
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  13. Time Lord

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    I think it's most important to please yourself and make that your primary aim in everything you do, because by that magic alone, others that enjoy some of the same things you do will apear there beside you enjoying it too!

    Just like your story of how some activity of interest, like helping out a newby, exploring outside what would be normal content in a stream, offers a fun time seeing our game through the new eyes of the newby.


    :)~Time Lord~
     
  14. oplek

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    I mean as opposed to following established best practices and patterns that demonstrably work.
     
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  15. Time Lord

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    Planning for the best shots...
    Taking a look at what may bridge consepts in such a topic, one of the things I've been looking for and into, are utilizing our screen shot thread to locate places where the best views of a scene can be made from. Much in the same way as camera angles and drop spots of a movie camera are marked out in shooting a scene, each hunting area any streamer plans to go into does offer such places to be better planned out prior to the live performance. Then during the live steam, even if that exact planned out view and angle are not precisely hit for the shot, it's still close enough to the planned positions so as to have taken "the best shot possible", more so than having not planned ahead our scounted the area with the quality of scenery in mind.
    ~TL~
     
  16. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    Care to elaborate?
     
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  17. Lazlo

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    I don't think there's really any question that streaming is a net positive for a game like SotA. It's obscure enough that a decent amount of people that come across it on a streaming site will not have even heard of it before. It's also a free to play, so there isn't much loss of game sales due to people substituting watching for playing given that playing doesn't cost anything anyway. Whether or not it's worth it for a company to invest it's own time and resources into building a streaming community for it's game is another question. I doubt it usually makes much difference one way or the other, but it has a lot more potential upside than downside.
     
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  18. shad0wgun

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    Important to note that Lord British abandoned this game about 2 years back. Just because his character logged in does not mean he himself is back.

    What really doesnt help is that this game use to have quite a few streamers. Unfortunately some of them were banned for criticizing the game by the developer and the others chose to leave over time. This is not a good look for the game. Are they going to ban future streamers that criticize the game?
     
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  19. Time Lord

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    Trust...

    I think the meaning in my statement I did not well convey and possibly due to a misunderstanding of what is meant when I say that I also play the game.

    Richard Garriott never abandoned our game
    ...
    We’re immensely grateful to the community who has built this game with us. The community’s support and participation remains strong and growing, and Starr and I plan to continue being involved in the community and within the game.

    Abandoned does not fit...
    The above is the direct quote from him. Anyone can slice, dice and interpret what is said through any lens of their own, but I think it cynical to think anything other than what he has stated. He's a person who truly means what he says, which is reflected in everything he's ever done. He is a person who expresses himself extremely specificly, because that is the way he was raised to become and there is no instance of he ever having engaged in real world natharius actions through deed or through statement. His creative talents are still with us, but his button mashing programing skills, was never the major benifit in his service to our game. Yes, he can do that stuff, but it's what Ultima that is in his brain which continues to be his major talent, which includes all his exploration adventures, "as well as his Ultima gaming".

    Critisizing the game...
    There are controling natures in the world of social behavior and a growing culture in many places that spawn such behavior which can do harm if allowed to flurish or even be ignored. It's healthy to want things, but not healthy to insist when we are a member of a community or patron to a business. The business chooses what to serve, not the patron. Gas Lighting has become a culture and as a culture now produces people who Gas Light within their first nature. When we are elevated to a place of trust, we must not allow our inflated heads to drift into oblivion through gas lighting what saught to inflate our standings. Long Live Catnip!

    Example...
    SOTA Agriculture has many avenue to which it can be developed into, we can jest, suggest and even demand things, but unless we accept that our developers have reasoning beyond our desires and demands to do whatever they will do, then we run counter productive to insist they are wrong. It's a feudal system we have especially in our game, which is unique as it is owed to the many to continue our feudal ways, yet not to any outside our feudal ways. The King or the Boss is never the servant here! Catnip Rules, controling it's owned Portalaium assets! Long Live Catnip!

    "Long Live Catnip"...
    When that allegiance is abandon, when those words "Long Live Catnip" are not at the heart of what is streaming or seeking to influencing in our game, then that is no longer jest and is a seek of bouleversement. In history, there have been many a Broadway critic who's review columns suddenly disapeared the same as jestors from in front of the King. When Broadway suffers due to a critic, then it's no longer helpful to those that rely on the Broadway's continued health, which then becomes more important than the critic. In that way, there is always a King to serve, in never becoming a servant. Long Live Catnip!

    Any streamer can only be trusted so far and never completely by the gaming company they patron. Catnip cannot be disected, each developer is a part of the hierarchy which seperates them from we players, even if we may play with them as players. Thus the streamer will fall before any developer would become "fallen", which points back to our feudal system.

    The moral of this story in my humble views is...
    A wink, a nudge, a shove and a hammering club, at some point within that escalation (in that case, the middle), helpful becomes hurtful and hurtful can get anyone banned.

    Feudalism is a trust...
    And dam right we play favorites ;) because favorites are a part of feudalism's trust system.

    *I am a player and am in no way a spokes person or representitive of Catnip Games or any persons other than myself...

    "But I do have 2, one of a kind, Kobold Time Machines, which I will be sharing their powers with you all very soon" :D!'
    (Special side note on them, I am hoping for the ones purchased through the store soon will also have these special abilities these do. I don't know if tht will happen, but we will see).


    ~Time Lord~

     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2021
  20. macnlos

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    As a person who made 300+ videos for this game... and someone that streamed 2 to 4 times a week I can tell you with great certainty that the game is streamable. Hell, making a PB&J sandwich if you have someone that knows how to stream. I started off streaming and there was me, myself and I. Eventually I had a core set of followers. I then started getting involved with Charity streams and it was all successful. It can be done.

    It's funny how you say people won't watch you mine. YES they will. In fact I remember explicitly doing a Wine & Mine event. I mined for 2hrs, I drank wine while mining and chatting with stream... At the end of 2hrs I gave away my mined loot (all the ore) to a viewer.

    The problem with streaming this game is NOT that it isn't streamable. The problem with this game is a) there is little to no audience, b) those that are streaming are pretty (robotic and not interesting), c) Portnip, specifically Chris, ruined it by streaming (drawing viewers away from streamers) and then Chris quitting streaming too (aka, leeched viewers from the streamers and then just stopped).

    In the end people don't watch streams to watch the game... People watch streams because they wanted to watch/talk to the person streaming. Arieus, Kor, Jobe, Eclipse Maiden, me (Elaina), Yordic, Markee, etc... Like them or not, they had personalities and they had viewers and followers. When we as a whole said we were done streaming this... Portnip suffered more. Hell, I remember streaming on Wednesday and just going over the Release Notes and people watched.

    I also had a bit of a hook at the end. I would stream live on Twitch me making the videos I published for YouTube. I never had a script, I never edited my videos either. There was something I wanted to record so I recorded it in one take. And people used to watch me on Twitch as I created content for the game and YouTube.

    So no @oplek ... it isn't true that this game is not streamable. It is very streamable, it's just not worth streaming anymore. It is what happens when a game company loses the faith of their community and loses their player base.
     
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