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. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

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    Well technically that is not one of a kind... you have two of them.
     
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  2. oplek

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    There's a difference between a well-established streamer doing that once. A person who does that (and only that) every day, however, will not be successful.

    "Core" being the operative word... not just in the sense of a specific streaming personality, but of the game those core viewers came from.

    "Charity streams" - something that's a more streamable concept than the game.

    It's almost like these two things are related. There's little to no audience to watch someone mine for hours.

    And circling back to the original point... because the game doesn't offer much more than that to do, without the streamer being creative.

    Thank you for supporting my point.

    Yes, that same core for already-playing people, or people who were already invested.

    As a second reminder, the context of the thread is, at least what I gathered, about promoting the game to new people.

    *looks at the twitch stats*

    OK. Whatever you say.
     
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  3. oplek

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    Also, I'd point out, the closest person in that list that could be considered successful is Markee. He brought an audience from other, more streamable games. And when the interest in SOTA dried up, he left. He's successful because he makes those kinds of business decisions. Triage.
     
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  4. macnlos

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    I'm curious on what you mean by successful? Markee isn't there to stream games for streaming games. Markee is there to make money as a business. Markee is a business person. Now if you believe that being successful means that you stream as a business... well... you're just wrong.

    Would you consider yourself a successful streamer?
     
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  5. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    :D:D:D:D:D Indeed, time is a very strange thing like that...


    I do know and love Markee the same as any other person who's ever done business with or around him, but I must say that I personally would rather stick a toothpick in my <insert location here> than watch his videos or streams. That statement is quite telling when it comes to an insight on my tastes in streams, because I don't think our good friend Markee rises to the level of ley's say.... watching Tom Hanks steaming that very same content :p

    It's been mentioned here "personallity" or online persona influences me the most, followed by content, but both these two must be there or I tend to stop watching as an avid viewer/follower, but I am just one person with those things I can notice about myself. Currently Laz & Jack hold my interests more than any other and I would say my interests in their stream has reisen to viewership level of my attention. Their show has both the qualities I mentioned, "personallity & content".

    @Lazarus Long @Jack SinAssist

    Over Feeding or Under Feeding, Feeding the streaming ego...
    When we talk about onie personallities, I think it would be a certain level of moxy or ego which would be that common thread that sews them all into a basket. Having a viewership becomes a stage which personallities thrive on as if being first in line eating at an all you can eat Golden Corral...

    [​IMG]

    :rolleyes: Yet therein lies the thing which becomes either our trap or the trap of what our developers are trying to accomplish. The ego doesn't see when it's getting fat, which can get so fat, the game designers can't afford to carry them, less they loose their soul. We can say what we will about the horse we ride but when we get too fat for the horse the horse only has two choices, throw us off or die under the weight.

    Case in point...

    However... their future is still in a state of flux, so we will see what the outcome are on these as those changes happen.

    Things change, no matter what's been promised or counted on, or planned for "that's just the nature of our game's development" :) and we need to roll with those changes, no matter of our misunderstanding, misgivings, or our miss information disconnects. It's not intentional at all and there's no malice intended in it, development is just that way and we can't and shouldn't hinder change when our developers do it.

    Tales in Self Example of this...
    I spend much time into planning out quest designs, through quest designs mechanics. Whenever there's a new thing or an old thing getting the axe, I am in constant adjustment due to such things, while also keeping the main theme alive and well through those mechanics. The loss of the time machine's special functions was a loss which has caused many other plans along that questline to become obsolite, "yet the main theme goals remain on target because I did not set my ego on-top of them" (I set allot of COTOs on those unique time machine's plans, but not allot of ego).

    Mack Davis sang about this...



    What is successful???
    There are many YouTuber Streamers here where I am in Thailand and even some professional game review hit-men, who make quite a bit of money steaming and doing game reviews. They are not all Thai-People either. Many are digital nomads who chose Thailand as their base of online operations. Many are just raking in suplemental income through YouTube. So it depends on what your goals are in streaming or posting videos, which can differ from person to person, and change depending on sponsorship.

    Sponsorship...
    When our game's developers decide to promote or engage with any of our streams or videos, that's a sort of sponsorship. When they may offer us prizes to hand out, that's a sort of sponsorship. But things always change... always. That's why I say that the best sposorship you have, must be yourself.

    ~This week's public service anouncement~
    ~The Fellowship~
    [​IMG]
    ~a cult you can believe in~
    That's an example, but the entire idea, speaking for myself, is to enjoy what you are doing and people will apear next to you who enjoy those same things,
    :) or you will still have allot of fun playing with yourself o_O...

    I need to get to some Zzzz right now because I have a fun trip to the hospital tomorrow :D where all my favorite doctors can continue to probe me in all their favorite places o_O...

    Check this video game review streamer guy out...

    This same guy's sponsored content...

    BTW:
    He pays WAY too much for his place...
    It's easy to get the same thing for less than $200 a month here.
    But he's only been here a year so far and he is still living the high life here.

    :rolleyes:~Timey Lordy~

     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2021
  6. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    well once I get my starlink delivered expect to see me streaming on a schedule every weekend. my challenges has been internet as I dont have access to very good internet a most times. so I stopped streaming regular because of it. I do not want to go back to the days of 480p stream it was terrible. 1080p min for me or I wont stream as I want people to see the details with everything on so they can see the game can look amazing. like all games if you play on low graphics it may not look at modern as some of the newer, but with max graphics it can compete with a few :)
     
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  7. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    (sorry I've been very distracted from things due to things beyond my control in "other people's destracting drama"... and on that point, drama doesn't exist when all conserned are openly friendly)

    These are some really important points...
    That's really great to hear! The personality power of Xee I think is a great thing to be watching :)
    I'm sort of surprized by this because I live in a sort of remote part of Thailand but the internet here is super.
    With continuing media/gov pressure to limit the impact of online information over-taking standard media and goverments striving to influence, restrict and control propaganda or truth, our connectivity may not be as high in one area of the world or the other based on each country's standard media & government relationship.
    YouTube I have heard is cutting back on it's resolution, or that's what I've heard is coming.
    I think all of the above are fighting and I think the people who use and view the internet will win.

    This is a slightly interesting echange of information and views coming from our Lord British...

    (He begins speaking about the future at 6:30, but there's a tid bit of that information at 16:20 where he's speaking about human nature and gaming that has a bit of streaming value information)
    I say "slightly interesting" only because we here in sota have heard many of these same things he says in this video, we've heard them quite a few times throughout our development.

    The elements Lord British touches on I find of interest:

    • Borrowed Tech
    • Plug-in features
    • by nature we humans are story tellers
    • by nature we want to hear and see other's stories
    • the child wanted to see people playing with toys
    I would say that streaming is a sort of "borrowed tech", but it itself doesn't "plug into" games, it has games plug into it, and some games more than others accomidate it more easily or more invitingly.

    By nature we are story tellers and story watchers. I thought that was a really good comment that has impact on how we could better our streamer personallity. Our own charisma does help or not what people are watching for. There's many ways of becoming better in that way or at least there was for me when in my life I when I met Flip Willson, a comedy showman one night in a bar. This was many years ago ,truth be told decades ago before any internet, so I asked him basicly how to get funny and he suggested I begin by first placing my left hand little finger in my ear while placing my right index finger up my nose (aka humility). But then he even got even more serious in the subject and told me to begin carrying around a tape recorder, record the times and things you say you think are funny, while the rest of the time use it to play tapes of other people that are funny, then he pulled out his own from his coat pocket. So, as this aplies to streamers as well as stand-up comics, listen to those personalities you enjoy and find those same traits within yourself "that like" what they hear. That leads to searching for those who you think stream better than you do, and learn from them.


    There's a forceful culture in the fashion of personalities which is the personality of conflict and domination. This is the streaming world of the critic, not the inventor. Conflict and domination personalities all have only one result, which is a conflict with no humility only the seek of other's humility.

    Game critics tend to want to drive the car instead of riding in the car of developer's games.

    Personally, I think the best way to start is by sticking your little finger in your ear and the other hand's index finger up your nose.
    I don't want to be a game basher when I do stream, I just want to have fun and I think there's still mor things we haven't though of yet that would make all our streams more interesting to either watch or stream for ourselves, and maybe there's ways our game could help us better plug into for better streaming.
    I can't wait to tune into the show Xee! :)~TL~
     
  8. Superbitsandbob

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    Niche games don't keep a streaming audience outside of an initial, this is a new game, let's take a look, unless you have a personality continuing to stream it. Someone like Asmongold I guess, who can sit and just talk for hours while sitting in a city in WOW (not WOW level obvs but the equivalent for a smaller game) and still keep viewers.

    The reality is that SOTA's time has come and gone in a streaming sense, you can't just turn the game on and expect to find an audience even if you do it every day. What Pantheon has done is quite smart by getting an ex EQ player who already comes with a huge audience. Maybe if SOTA could do this to some extent it might help. You would imagine at one point getting Garriott to stream it (and play it properly) may have had some pull but probably not now.

    You also have to ask if the current players are not turning out why not? Some years ago it was interesting to see the official stream or the other bloke doing streams that seemed ok, couple hundred viewers, and then when they would finish and raid someone the audience would switch off, almost as though they were just tuning in for rare prizes.
     
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  9. Time Lord

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    All good points and yes, the question of how many actual players and viewers are we actually playing to hasn't made an impression on me at all.

    The following is what I think most harms our game and have harmed our game ever since our game went to twitch more so than YouTube...
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Those are all the same "old" hit pieces of gaming jouranalism from the time our game went from primary YouTube to Twitch. We left a vacume behind us which had no complementary videos to compete against these. These now have many hundreds of thousands of views which resulted in them becoming what is now presented as standard review of our game. Look at the dates they were made, that first one listed says it was first posted in September 2020, yet when anyone looks at the content, it's clearly from an earlier release, and if you follow such hit job videoes as I do, then you would know how it had even been taken down once, re-edited and placed right back up as if it were brand new.

    Look at that, it even has the sections of where to look for his insults of all our different features. Our game ran away from that fight and you know that was a sponsored video.
    "Most games don't allow you to stick your head up a cow's ass but most game's aren't Shroud of the Avatar"
    Josh Strife Hayes = POS Profesional Gaming Industry Hit Man

    It's easy to find who he works for as it's very telling when you look through his catalog of videos he's made in order to earn his living.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRWyPm7MrfotIYF8A8MGV3g


    There are no ethics in the world of video gaming journalism, and this simple Google Search is all that matters when players are surfing for MMORPG gaming.

    That video review of our game is never coming down from being the top Google Video on our game due to how many times it's been clicked on, no matter if it was paid for content or not.

    All thanks to Josh Strife Hayes = POS Profesional Gaming Industry Hit Man
    :eek: FU Josh Strife Hayes you POS !
    [​IMG]
    ~TL~:(

     
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  10. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    Yeah, that is one thing I am disappointed to see is when searching all that comes up is old bad stuff from long ago when things were not as great and or super buggy. No current stuff on it at all not even sure how one would clean up the search results to boost newer reviews etc..

    Yeah, at the lake I have a 25Mbps down with 1.5Mbps up, but being that they only have one main tower to support the lake and since covid the lake has become rather busy with new people its over saturated with connections making it more like 5Mbs down, and .5 Mbps up lol. In the city I get free internet which is much better but the connection in the city is always dropping its cable and same things during evenings seems to slow down a lot to the point I loose enough packets in streams that the red warnings come up. Last time I tried streaming there was so many internet issues I gave up. Soon. Once we get starlink up and running there will be myself and Asylum pretty much doing a regular schedule or as close to one we can.

    I am also working on getting a few streamer friends of mine that have follower to give the game a try to help out. That is where any existing streamer could help pull more audience to get better exposure is to get some heavy streamers to just come see and or play abit.
     
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  11. Superbitsandbob

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    Honestly I think the "it's changed so much since then" is not as valid as you make out. Some for sure, but that player coming back will still find the same new content going in which then requires numerous patches to fix, those same new scenes and mechanics left unfinished for months and some unfinished still to this day.

    Take Jot. I loved the new scene for a bit, the atmosphere is great, but it is just swathes of white with little to do in it and a ton of pathing bugs. Whereas you might say it's a small team and it will get done eventually which is not unreasonable, others will say it just more unfinished content.

    I guess the question is who is trying to change the perception? Not the current team. They are very quiet publicly. Some streamers have come and gone but it is not really their job. To the majority of people it is a game where they want to have fun and not feel like an unpaid employee. An easy win would have been to do what Pantheon did and find a popular streamer who liked UO to play and publicise but SOTA turned out to be not very much like UO at least in many players eyes.
     
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  12. macnlos

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    Them starting out by saying this is the Spiritual Successor to UO was a torpedo to this ship from the get go. This is not UO nor is it UO like other than someone saying it which doesn't make it true. You don't fight the same, you don't craft the same, you don't build houses the same, there is one instance only, and so on. Lots of UO people came... lots of UO people left... UO Outlands is the Spiritual Successor to UO. And within the same construct, they have made an incredibly robust new world with some really awesome new systems.
     
  13. Time Lord

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    These are both very critical points that hit very true to the subject when it comes to "the reviews".

    Our game will always be viewed as bad due to the way it's funded vs the way all other games are funded. Crowd Funding takes allot of black eyes from reviewers because when the funding runs out, so do it's developers, but not before cashing a final inflated paycheck.

    Our development team did not do that, it was only assumed that way in the reviews due to many other crowd funded games having nothing to show for their backers and customers.

    But deeper than even that, being crowd funded and being one of the only left standing successes in that, has left us being judged through the eyes of "industry standard games", who some even claiming they are crowd funded, yet their initial funds did not come from crowds. Our game is unique in that way, we all having invested in it and in some ways own the game, but those were pledges, not ownership papers :D I do own some stocks but any profits from those will likely never equal the gold armor, gold housing or any other the golden gifts that also came as a result of buying those stocks. I and others may not even own any of sota after it's sale to Catnip, and now only own a piece of Portalaium. But that sure didn't make any of my gold stuff in-game go poof. I can still sell that stuff for as much as I paid for the stocks, but I'm still having fun with all those golden things.

    We built a skeleton, gave it some cloths, cut our liabilities, got some horses, and now all funds that develop the game come from the coto store or monthly memberships. It's all this that causes our development to move more slow than other games and come in packets which like the stump of a pirates leg, can still stand using a peg leg until funds and development from those continued funds can later finish out the pirate's leg.

    :rolleyes: All of that makes for an extremely poor excuse to have to stream, yet that's what we have, while having some of the best fantasy interactive deco art there can be found.
    We are always going to be on the crap end of that game review stick, so we either need to place our most fun things forward, our more confusing aspects behind us, while we'er showing everyone the beautiful and fun things.

    That's an anthem that just isn't true, yet an anthem that many will beat out on their drum because they didn't realize why it wasn't described as being UO.

    UO was the spiritual successor of Ultima and was a little like Ultima, but only in looks, not in functionality, and both UO and SOTA are spiritual successors of Ultima. Nobody took UO away, it's still out there waiting for anyone that wants to play it. I remember when UO went 3D and not many liked it, opting to change their graphics back to the original character rendering. That same dislike is here in SOTA. So each Ultima transition is never the same as what came before... SOTA is not Akalabeth either, it's not The Savage Empire or Martian Dreams or even Lineage 1 or 2. It's just SOTA.

    But that's just another of our games weak points when talking about the game. These weakpoints mentioned above are very justified, but they are not going to change, so they've become our anti-anthem.

    But lets bring ourselves out of the heads of others and try and please ourselves here and maybe if we are having fun with whatever we're doing, then others will come because they see us having fun or discussing fun. I guess we griping about our weak points is a sort of style, but I think that has been well covered by the paid game reviewers. Maybe that's what may turn a coin or two in YouTube $ but it doesn't sound very fun to do to place my time into it.

    What makes our sota streaming a fun thing to be doing I think is what I'm after, or I should stock up of Tums, sell my sh.. and move on to another game... but I'm not :D I like SOTA for many player empowering reasons, like player made dungeons, player made towns, player made quests and the abilities that make all that possible, as well as encountering the Ice Giant.

    So that's why I think it's a matter of finding what in the game pleases yourself and then stream onward from there.
    ~TL~
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2021
  14. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    OK, let say you and I were planning on this and like any tank crew game, you hit an option inviting a crew member to man the tank's cannon but instead of the cannon, in this case it's like hopping on a mobile platform "aka You" and streaming from there. You would be running around killing stuff with all the party, while I would be able to use all our normal camera options to pan around and take different angles of the action "around you".

    Does that make any more sence?

    I don't think any other game out there offers this except something like WW2 Online and games like that where there are crew served things that two players could opperate.

    The player would see no difference in performance of their functions as a hunting Avatar, while the streamer rides along just opperating their own camera for streaming content.

    I'm suposing that the streamer would be the surrogate crew member able then to comment and do everything streamers do as streaming personalities.

    I see this as enhancing not only all of the above, but adding something that other streamers couldn't complain about, which is the idea of enhancing streamer's abilities through game functions.

    For instance if Laz and Jack were to do a show while riding around two different avatar (let's say two Avatar like Bridge Troll & Echondas) while Laz and Jack exchange views and exchanging views, while not having to be destracted by fighting monsters while they stream and comment on the action.
    ~Time Lord~
     
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  15. Time Lord

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    Being live, there are few options availible to enhance the viewer quality. When inviting a crew member adds camera angle and transition than what is presented becomes more apealing. If Capt Kangaroo held his own camera in the same way a streamer is restricted, then his live shows would have never been able to hold the children's attention, which is the same problems we're all investigating here, "how can we make things better".
    ~TL~
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2021
  16. Kabalyero Kidd

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    So, instead of the player streaming from his view point...someone else is streaming the player like a cameraman or a camera crew...
     
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  17. Time Lord

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    Yes Exactly like that.
     
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  18. Time Lord

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    Often times the streamer is a game reviewer with no time to build a character's skills enough to encounter or demonstrate complex or dangerous content, which such an ability as is suggested, this means that early content and early discovery content within our game (that generally do suck), can then be past right by so as to get them to our game's more interesting content.



    As a normal player who streams or makes videos, this player could then have more camera angles by taking along his camera crew member. In @Kabalyero Kidd videos for instance, which are very well done, we see the character's backside allot due to the Avatar's required operations. If such a system is used in these types of videos, then the ability to pan the view around, pan out or zoom in on the Avatar's face adds a much more dramatic effect.


    As an additive to the game, this then attracts more players who just love the video craft and streaming craft, yet may not be a professional streamer or game reviewer. Just as Lord British describes the human condition where we humans are natural story tellers and story viewers and readers/listeners, such a game additive then ttracts those that produce story content for the joy of it.
     
    Last edited: Sep 9, 2021
  19. Powersurge45

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    Unfortunately, streaming and Youtube videos are driving the market. Publishers and gaming companies are no longer in control of their own PR. Streamers like Asmongold and other personalities are driving the market. It is very hard to increase the player base when all of this is working against you. I don't really have an answer. I'm sure this has plagued Chris and his team for a while now. I'm not sure what the answer is...I keep coming back from time to time to see the new content and I feel our game is very close to being marketable. I just don't know how you go about putting the game into the hands of the folks that would actually play it. Gamers have become like "sheep" going to whatever is the new thing, because everyone else is doing the new thing. I feel like the entire gaming population has de-evolved into FPS fanboys unable to understand the beauty and complexity of our game.
     
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  20. Time Lord

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    Yes, I agree, it is because of these factors I have begun to seek out a Trojan Horse which can bypass the bad critic, can get quickly past our early game contant and bring the viewer into exciting and interesting content, while also driving a Cupid Arrow through the heart of the streamer/video game presenter, through the simple generic video game mechanic being a feature of the game, which is a feature no other game has. Crew served weapons and vehicles in other games have long achieved this, yet for different purposes such as shooting guns while another player drives.

    ~TL~
     
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