I Didn't Forget
An Early Start
It's 4pm on Sunday, March 1st, and it's 92°F (33C) outside, so I am getting an early start on my blog for tomorrow. I figure summer is getting started early, I should do the same thing, and this way I won't forget to write a blog post for this week. Here I am hanging out in my AC-cooled stream room, cleaning and organizing, listening to old mix CDs from back in the 90's, and reliving old memories, so lets just dive right into it!
Streams and the Heat.
The other day I had a couple of hours to stream, and even though the heat was up I decided to give it a shot. What a horrible mistake that was. In 1 short hour my stream room tempature shot up and the sweat started rolling and flashbacks to all the previous heat strokes I had came flooding in. I do not do well in heat like that and needed to end the stream way too early. This really sadened me, I mean yes this is more of a hobby for me now but I still want to provide a good show and good time and 1 hour was not enough time to hang with the community. I had heard recently that meld studio had introduced voice clarity which is suppose to remove pesky background noises such as AC units. After some preliminary testing, I think it might just actually work for my setup and I plan to do a live stream this week for more testing. It wasn't 100% perfect but compared to no voice clarity, it was a night and day difference when the AC was running. Without clarity on it sounded like I was on an old headphone mic from the early 2000's with alot of noise distortion coming though from the AC, with clarity on I sound more like me with a small distortion at the ends of my sentances. This leaves me with hope.
Future Streams
If all goes well with the AC and voice clarity, I will hopefully be able to stream a little during the day, even in the heat of the summer, so fingers crossed for that. With that, I also want to get some of the perks reinstated on the stream, such as player ID cards, working bots, etc. So this week, one of my plans is to sit down and look into reworking the streamer bot or even some other bots to get some functionality back into the stream. Saying that, I also want to reiterate that I will not be back full-time even if I wanted to. I want to keep things more casual, which will keep the stress down, but I still want you all to enjoy your time hanging with me, and if you do subscribe or gift subs, I want the stream to be worth your support, so there are things I want to get working. With my time away and my work life, I don't get to spend a lot of time on Twitch and with other streamers, but if there are things people would like added, such as the games we have, like the drop game, or fishing game that I don't know about, please comment below or message me on Discord.
Twitch Networking
Recently on stream I was asked for my opinions and advice on networking on twitch, this topic got me to rant and rave a little so I thought it might be a good topic for the blog. First off, there are some amazing streamers out there who are genuinely out to be helpful, friendly, and honestly keep the platform from devolving further into the muck. But with that being said there are some people out there who are out to use you so you really need to be guarded by who you trust. I don't know a streamer who hasnt been backstabbed by someone and I'm sure some even feel that way about me. In my time on Twitch I have gotten myself in trouble for pointing out the shittyness in a few others who are frauds. The biggest thing to remember about Twitch is that most people you meet are other streamers trying to "network" and aren't really interested in the content you put out. Just looking back on Twitch stats in February, there was an average of 2.11 million watchers for a total of 6 mil active streamers during that same period. With the introduction of streaming together and Twitch taking both streamers' numbers into account when showing "live" channels on the side list, networking and streaming with others almost becomes a necessity in the current environment on Twitch. So to end off this section I would recommend hanging out with people, and i dont mean the pop into the channel and say hi, throw on a lurk and rinse and repeat for another hundred streamers. I mean actually hang out with people and develop connections with them and also get to know them. It is hard for fake people to keep up with the lies they make so the more time you spend with someone the better idea you get about who they are. I have met some real snakes on the platform but then on the other hand ive met some great people and am still friends with them till this day, so take a chance, get to know people, but always protect yourself.
Youtube Let's Play Series
After losing almost 30 hours of pre-recorded gameplay footage for my YouTube series, I can happily say I was able to start a new game and get back to the point I left off at in the last episode. I haven’t had a chance to get a lot of video recorded yet but atleast had enough for the next episode of the series to release on Saturday. I will say, this has definitely taught me to pay better attention to the audio levels and make sure I don’t make that big of a mistake again. I am excited to continue on with this playthrough as the year progresses.
Final Conclusions
This blog ended up being almost entirely about Twitch and my streams, but that doesn't mean I am not actively working on my other business ventures and constantly thinking about a million things at once. If anything this blog post shows the love and care I have for the Twitch community and how much i think about the Sloth Army on a daily basis. Even if streaming isn’t my top priority, it still is a big part of my daily thought process. And can I finish off by saying how is it March already? This time thing moves just way too fast! Well I hope you all have an amazing week and hopefully if things go well I will be able to get more than 1 stream in this week... my plan is to get at least 2 in this week if all goes well.
