Moving to Twitch for livestreams

Bandwidth issues overseas. I know several players, in Europe and Australia that can't run twitch because of bandwidth unless it is a stream that allows for much lower resolutions.

 

The post made me laugh, primarily due to the Schwarzenegger comment

D'aww!

On a more serious note, IRC is terrible and Twitch can be streamed on a mobile platform.

Well, for one, I don't like watching drunkards wasting my time about extracting blood and giving trinkets. I watch the streams to get information so, if I can get that same info from a 3rd-party that could be un-biased and in a shorter amount of time, that'd be great.

 

Well, that one is quite enough to be concerned, however...

• Adding a third community, with known toxic elements, on top of our own forum and Steam...
• Rapid switching of established mediums, at a very late date (we used Google Hangouts during the Kickstarter, and moved to YouTube as it was a known commodity; it has been stable now for over 18 months, with no Twitch use at all. Until now.)
• There are features that just don't make sense. Why switch to Discord over the last couple months, if you are goin to move to Twitch which has a built-in chat feature? Which will be used in the future? Why divide the community input like this?
• Depending on other factors (say, an ongoing event like Extra Life), the Twitch platform can get bogged down. No problems like that from YouTube.

So, yeah. There are concerns.

 

how about the fact that youtube has:

1) better interface

2) better viewing experience as you can choose anything from 144p to 1080p/60fps and even 4k video on youtube, when twitch is limited.

3) Twitch has more latency issues as well for people then youtube does. Especially when you look at areas with slower internet speeds due to bad infrastructure (rural areas, areas overseas in many countries such as in Asia, Africa, etc)

4) Youtube has a far better mobile app too then Twitch.

5) Youtube has the better social experience too as well as more and better premium options as well.

6) rapid changing of platforms for social stuff will bring hatred and resentment, which we already deal with enough of in the SotA Community

7) Based on the recent response, it could give the look that it is Berek's history with Twitch that is the real reason for the change.

8) giveaway tools work in youtube streams just as well as twitch, beam, etc. giveaway tools are 3rd party ones of which there are tons of them that can be integrated into streams.

with Berek's recent edits:

- One link for any stream we promote - dont need Twitch to do this
- Similar to above, platform to allow us to keep you updated on streams on a single web page. - dont need Twitch to do this
- Higher quality for non-Hangouts streams - false, youtube actually handles higher resolution then even Twitch ie: 4k streams.
- Ability to connect Discord chat (still checking on this one, but that's what I hear) - Discord can connect to both YouTube and Twitch (see in the User Settings in Discord)
- Marketing/social is stronger - It may hold a larger market share, but that is it. The social part of Twitch is more toxic however.

 

- We're not adding a new community. We're adding a new consolidated livestreaming location.
- Switching is required to improve, so this will occur on occasion. We have hardly done this so far.
- Discord and Twitch are two different platforms. Discords is our main chat, while Twitch is our livestreaming platform. Just like with YouTube and Discord. Two different platforms.
- Bogged down? I've never experienced this, but we have had problems with YouTube in the past.

Love the comments, keep them coming please!

 

Erm, Youtube has been my primary platform since 2009 and I can tell you, its interface is abysmal (got even worse when Google took over). Twitch isn't that great either, but it's a step above. Video quality is depended on the streamer.

And this is coming from a guy who hates flash, btw. I cannot wait for Twitch to get HTML5 compatible.

 

I respectfully disagree. What about the youtube/youtube gaming interface for live streaming do you dislike? cause i would say it has improved since the reskinning and other changes.

 

You start livestreaming on Twitch, and have an "official" channel there, you are adding a community. The Twitch community. They can be... lets go with harsh. Sorry you don't see that, but its true.

If Discord and Twitch chat integrate, awesome. At least we have a consolidated communication platform then. I still would rather wait until after the summer to start on Twitch. Move into that when there are not so many concerns regarding persistence. I would NOT recommend our first Twitch outing in July...

 

This is definitely a valid concern, and if our testing doesn't go perfectly this week, we'll consider holding off on Twitch... we still need to acquire the URL we're hoping to, and that hasn't happened yet either.

 

A single voice is always drowned when placed in many...

You do and I don't and yes change can be a helpful thing, yet it can also be a harmful thing when regular channels are abruptly cut off.

(Just a word of advise to my friend, don't ever say that in front of a marriage counselor)

This is one of the most educated statements I've heard in support of Twitch, but I don't use a mobile, preferring that "when I'm playing the game is when I'm best commenting on it".

You're not "adding it, you're moving it". Though that may seem like apples and oranges, "we don't have oranges in our game yet, which would be consistent with our games inclusiveness".

Subtracting is not adding anything... The wider audience is the best audience and if both are easily done, then we need to provide the ability to "opt in or out of either".
Consistency is synonymous with history and Twitch has never been in our history.
~Time Lord~

 

@Berek Can you please respond to the original point of this thread...

Twitch is (currently) based on Flash and due to the security issues of Flash, many refuse to use it for security reasons.

So, you are now asking people who have been loyal backers to have to install an unwanted, unsecured program to be able to view what is likely the most important live stream to date. Now they have to choose to take this risk or not view the live stream.

Since we've already been doing it via YouTube, why can't we just do both for this first time so that everyone can participate? Is it a matter of the upstream bandwidth or something else?

 

when you link your Discord to twitch, it lets you see what discord servers you can connect to. This was to provide streamers the ability to easily have a discord server for their subscribers. It also lets you link roles for your mods as a streamer to them in Discord, as well as for subscribers. It doesn't integrate it into a shared chat when you stream. Whoever said that was the case lied or was ignorant.

 

Third option : install flash on virtual environment with vmware

Joke aside, I've no strong views on this.

I use Twitch for Star Citizen and I noticed a slighty higher latency than with the Sota streams on youtube.
I'm not a big fan of Twitch chat nor interface either.
But if necessary, I will use it.

 

Well, just to throw out there. If Port moves to twitch I will no longer be able to watch any of its videos. Twitch is a dismal product as far as it's web platform and apps, and doesn't work in my security first environment. As such switching to it is an act to exclude me unless you also upload the video to YouTube as well.

Twitch is designed for game play streaming and even has a TOS which excludes it from being used as anything else. As Port hasn't been doing video streaming the game and is more of a round table, I am not really sure why they would think about changing.

Kind of a shame as the hangouts are the only way I stay up to date. Once they move I have little to update me on a very expensive investment.

 

Twitch allows the big streamers on their platform to choose "creative" as an option for not streaming gameplay. Small time streamers with low viewer counts who use that option for showing game development work, art and drawing stuff, etc. get reported and temp banned at the hands of the TOS rules then. However, the big streamers who bring in the $ for Twitch, act under a different rule set at the behest of those running twitchtv. The fact too that so many businesses block twitch just makes it as terrible too.

 

That is not correct. I do not have Flash on my machine. At all. Currently Twitch does not work without Flash. If I go to Twitch with my Chrome or Firefox browser and try to watch anything I can't.
If Portalarium doesn't simulcast on YouTube then those of us who take security seriously will not be able to watch it. The fact that some time in the future Twitch will switch to HTML5 is of no help those unable to watch the End of World live stream.

The concern is genuine and legitimate. Please simulcast streams until Twitch moves to HTML5. I see this as more than a problem about a minority not being able to watch the End of World live stream. It is a litmus test.

 

I missed which point you were referring to in my post about what is incorrect.

 

you would have to pay $ to have a twitch turbo account to access the HTML5 one atm. Forcing community ppl to pay $ to watch on a terrible platform is taking the community and treating it with zero respect. Why at the very least making the Youtube one the primary still is important. Keeps consistency for the main streams of importance for the community. If they want to do secondary ones on Twitch, then so be it. But there will simply be those who wont or can't watch them. Especially if you are in an area with slow or bad internet.

 

In the engineer's lexicon, there is a term which can be used called "overbuild" where the new system is put in place alongside the older platform that has been used by the current user base.

Sometimes it's more work to pull off such a change in this fashion but it would really be great if it's functionality was adopted.

 

Twitch will eventually be our primary, whether that's during the telethon or not. We can't please everyone, but we will find a middle ground. Know that Twitch is more prominent and more popular, and is overall a better platform for livestreaming. That is why we're considering it.

I understand that not everyone is going to be pleased, we can't appease every scenario when changes take place, but we will try our best!