Category: Streaming

2020 Goals Expanded

Taylor Burian

Back in December I wrote a little blurb about some goals I set for myself for 2020 and beyond. I even shared a picture of the whiteboard (complete with my awful handwriting) that I’m using as a daily reminder of what I need to be focused on.

For those that are familiar with the whiteboard picture, or who recently came back from following the link above and saw it, I’m going to be talking about the left side only. I wanted to take a deeper dive into what those goals look like to me and how I might go about accomplishing them as the year goes on. (Next time I’ll go over the right side of the board, the things I need to be avoiding.)

First, a list of what they are and in no particular order of importance, followed by some background and motivations.

  • Publish a novel
  • Build my blog
  • Read MORE!
  • Stream consistently
  • Get healthy

The first three goals are all kind of a bundled package in my mind. They work together and complement each other.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always had two problems. Reading, and daydreaming. Some of you might be thinking “But those don’t sound like problems at all!” Well let me tell you, when you’re growing up and you can’t pay attention in class because your imagination runs away with you? That’s a problem. Not a exactly bad problem, just one that impeded my immediate educational success.

Reading, though, was a two-part problem in itself. I loved reading, often times reading several grade or age levels above my peers and therefore more difficult than the things we were tasked with reading in school. This influenced my attention problems by making me less concerned with the rest of my schoolwork. I was often bored with the content being supplied to me by the educational system, as it didn’t feel difficult or challenging enough, so I would struggle to focus and complete the assigned classwork. Compounding on that issue was the fact that because I loved reading so much, I had an expanded imaginative capacity and could easily get lost in my daydreams. Fantasy 1, School 0.

Why bring this all up? Because for all that those might have been problems in the past, I never fully realized my capacity to create things from my own imagination! For years I’ve had this itch to just jot down ideas and get lost in them. See where they go and what they can become. I needed a creative outlet. Naturally this led me to the idea of writing my own stories and trying to share them with the world.

By now you hopefully made the connection between two of the first three goals listed above. I need to read to keep my mind fed so that I can be creative and output content. But why the blog? Well, not everything I “create” has to be a fiction novel, and it needs it’s space, too. I needed a home for the shorter things. A refuge for my thoughts when I just need to vent. Almost like a sort of diary but with the intent that in sharing these thoughts and ideas I hope I can also inspire someone else. In the end, this is where the blog comes in handy. It’s my space to share whatever I have on my mind (and thereby get it OUT of my head so its not consuming me.) Plus it acts as a window for the world to see who I am, and reach a potential audience for all my writing (especially if I hope to publish a novel.)

So, an abundant desire to create, complemented by keeping ideas flowing through reading other peoples work (ideas can be contagious), and balanced by a secondary outlet for…well, everything else!

Now, onward to the next goal. Streaming consistently.

Why is this goal so important to me when I have the other ones for creative outlets? Well, this one has its own complementary factors for the others. Who says that reading a book is the only way to consume content that influences ideas? Plenty of video games have wonderful stories, the only difference between them and a book is that the visual is provided to you on a screen rather than in your mind. Streaming consistently would provide a whole host of benefits that complement not only my other goals, but my normally introverted lifestyle.

I may have mentioned it before, but in case I haven’t I’ll say it again. Streaming is like an extension to one of my already existing hobbies. I love playing video games, and I grew up sharing them with my family and friends. We would take turns and watch each other play. We would experience the roller coaster of emotions in the stories together. As an adult this is a little more difficult. We’re all grown up and leading different lives. Some of us have started families. Streaming let’s me carry the spirit of those experiences into the future and share them with people across the WORLD. Which in itself is important because as a mostly introverted person I don’t like to go out and socialize. Streaming let’s me be social in a different way and meet new people with a shared interest. Another family of sorts, but also an audience that I can hopefully connect, and share with, the stories I intend to craft. It let’s me express myself a little differently than I would if I limited myself to just writing out entry after entry here. For example, I can (in real time) test out jokes, or pitch ideas to my regular viewers to see if they have any input.

I guess the direction that it all really ended up going in lends to all four goals being somehow complementary to each other. It will just be reliant on how I manage the balance between them all.

As for the final goal, being healthy, this should be an ongoing thing. It also sort of stands at odds with the other goals, as those ones focus on being less physically active. However, if I can be healthy (which will include eating right and getting in shape) my body will not only last longer but it will improve my overall brain function (or so they say) which means I can be that much more efficient in my creative goals.

See! They all sort of work together, even when they may not really want to.

Alright, with the background and motivations out of the way, let’s take a look at how I MIGHT be accomplishing these goals.

Publishing a novel is going to require being disciplined (I mentioned this in my other entry linked above.) I’ll need to actually WRITE something before it can even get to the point of being published at all, but it wasn’t enough to just say I wanted to “Write a novel” because in the end what would have been the point of writing it if I didn’t want it published? Thus, “Publish a novel” instead. To accomplish this I scheduled time into my week (through Google Calendar, complete with reminders) to sit down and write. These time slots are kind of catch all slots, though, because I needed to have time to write entries for my blog as well.

Due to time constraints during the week from having a full time job, some of the scheduled writing time slots actually overlap with reading/self-education time. The idea being that if I’m not doing one I SHOULD be doing the other. This gives me an opportunity to always be doing something considered productive towards the goals.

So, four days of my week have time allocated to reading/writing. Two of those days being my weekends, because as I alluded to above I don’t have an active social life. Thankfully, I separated the time slots on the weekends for reading and writing so that they don’t overlap. Less pressure. Again, this is all just for building up that “discipline”. Need to have good habits if I hope to accomplish anything productive. As the year goes on I’ll likely assign myself with more detailed goals. I have some in mind, I just haven’t imposed them on myself yet.

The streaming consistently goal is really rather simple. I told myself I needed to just stream three days a week, a few hours at a time. It doesn’t have to be any specific games (I like variety) and I’m really just trying to build up that discipline. Once I’m comfortable with it, I can explore ways to enhance the quality of my stream. Although, I did slot some time on my Google Calendar for Behind The Scenes work for my stream. Just some time to review what kinds of games are coming out that I want to keep on my radar, as well as be mindful of the games I already have in the backlog I put together (you can find it here on Backloggery if you’re curious.) That way I’m always thinking ahead for what I can be playing on stream and not fumbling around about it and making an excuse to not stream just because I don’t know what I want to play. This also ties into things I’m supposed to be avoiding if I want to accomplish my goals, but I’ll write that entry up later.

As for getting healthy? First thing I’ve been working on is just drinking more water and less liquid calories. I’m also trying to get into the habit of waking up early so I can hit the gym before work. I want to get to the point of going to the gym at least three times a week, even if it is just to walk on the treadmill for half an hour. Barring that, I’m trying to take more walks at work and hitting the recommended 6,000 steps a day that my fitness band keeps telling me I should be doing. (Yes, fitness app, I HAVE tried taking a walk today, you’re just glitched out! So chill.)

There you have it, a deeper dive into my current Top 5 Goals. Going to take them one step at a time and see where it all takes me.

Ads are killing discoverability

Taylor Burian

It finally happened. I’ve seen multiple Ads on Twitch when opening different streams.

I’ll admit, I use Ad blocking in my browsers and I have for years. Ads seem to pervade all corners of the Internet now, and one of the biggest draws for watching content on Twitch was the ability to go ad-free.

All you had to do was have subscriptions to your favorite channels (provided they had ads turned off) or link your Twitch account to your Amazon Prime account. I haven’t tried Twitch Turbo, or whatever it’s called, because honestly I shouldn’t have to when I pay for Amazon Prime but that’s just my opinion on that matter.

Twitch has been working towards changing all this for the last couple of years by injecting ads straight into a channels data stream and circumventing adblocking softwares, and there are a few issues I’m seeing as a result.

The first issue revolves around what I already alluded to with Amazon Prime and subscriptions. Those seemingly don’t matter, and others on sites like Reddit share the sentiment that it’s bullshit. Why are we paying for these things just so Twitch can put ads in our face? The idea of cord cutting, and transitioning to services like Netflix and Twitch, was to get AWAY from ads. Ads are a disincentive now for these kinds of higher level services and their subscriptions.

The second and third issue are related by the fact that they impact streamers.

The second issue I see is more specifically about ads being a disincentive for people to want to watch streams at all, so they seek content elsewhere. Let’s face it, as much as people are hating on YouTube for their business practices of late, at least theres a skip ad button in most ads. This gives people the choice of what they want to do, watch the ad if it interests them or move on. Not an ideal solution but better.

The third issue, and one that hits close to home for me despite streaming being a hobby, is that ads are killing discoverability of streamers that are looking to grow. THIS is why I’m writing this entry and I was spurred on by a couple of comments I read on r/Twitch. People are becoming aware that ads aren’t going away and can’t be blocked so easily anymore. They’re getting frustrated that every new stream they navigate to will start with an ad and knowing this they’d rather go watch a larger streamer. Why? One reason is because the ads on the larger channel generally say they support the streamer, and not “This ad supports Twitch” and another reason is they probably have a sub to that streamer and won’t get ads anyway.

Although adblocking is losing its strength, for now, I also saw another comment that I found interesting. Some people have different adblocking strategies and software that are still effective to some degree. Rather than circumvent the ad, and go straight into the stream, it replaces it with nothing. Just a black screen. And they’re fine with that. They’re comment was literally about how they would rather see up to 30 seconds of a black screen than watch an ad at the start of a stream. This is not a great solution, but if it makes the viewer happy then cool.

I’ll say it again. Ads are killing discoverability. It’s unfortunate and counterproductive to some of the other initiatives that Twitch has been working on to increase discoverability of new and growing channels.

Good luck out there, folks.

Networking is weird

Taylor Burian

Modern professional and social networking is weird, and the internet makes it as difficult as it is easy.

The way that I interact with people changes based on my goal (and theirs, if I happen to learn it beforehand) so I often end up bouncing back and forth between introverted and extroverted social and professional habits.

My current work has taught me a lot about professionalism and networking, and the lessons I’ve learned there don’t always seem to sync up well with networking on social media. On the business professional side you have the mutual understanding that you aren’t trying to become best friends and are simply looking to work together for your common goals or interests. The other side, social media based networking, often is associated with trying to meet with people that have similar interests and hobbies and maybe become friends. At least, that’s my perception of the difference between professional networking and social media networking. The problem I run into now, though, is that social media networking and professional networking have meshed together through the Internet because that’s where the people are and businesses know that fact.

Half of the problem with them being so meshed together is that everyone is now in your business, whether you like it or not. This means both professional networking and social media networking play an important role in growth as a streamer.

One of the pieces of advice I’ve heard to grow as a streamer is you need to do at least some networking. You have to put yourself out there and talk to people “behind the scenes” of your stream. You have to make, and sometimes break, those connections to get the things you need to grow. Whether it’s sponsors or other streamers to help get your content some visibility. For myself this leads to an internal struggle between fear of the negative impact of mass perception and doing what I need to do to chase a dream.

“He’s just trying to be a leech.”

If that sentence sounds familiar, you’ve most likely read it, or something worded very similar, being used to describe a streamer on social media that’s trying to interact with a another streamer.

The other half of the problem with professional networking being meshed together with social media networking is that one is, essentially, a modern way to make friends. People often forget that fact when they start trying to network for a goal. My internal struggle is that I still see it as a way to interact with and make new friends, all while trying to make those important connections to grow my stream. And it blows. Majorly.

I’m afraid of wording something the wrong way and upsetting (and possibly losing) a friend, or being seen as a sellout by trying to get in the good graces of someone else because I want something that they have to offer as a resource for growth. I’ve mentioned it before, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Chances have to be taken. I only hope that if someone somehow feels like I’ve wronged them along the way that they forgive me for not wanting to miss an opportunity.

Let’s chase a dream and keep on moving forward.

Follow 4 Follow, Host 4 Host? Don’t waste my time.

Taylor Burian

You’ve probably heard the expression about doing something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Streaming is just a hobby for me right now, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t spent plenty of time thinking of what it would be like to do it full time. I mean, if you love playing video games and are comfortable behind a camera then why WOULDN’T you want to do it full time as your job? The problem that most people overlook is the level of effort that needs to go into building everything up to make it a viable source of income to support yourself in the same fashion as a more conventional full time job. A large part of that effort is often spent behind the scenes and can be very overwhelming if you don’t have help, and part of that help can also come in the form of networking.

In the couple of years that I’ve spent streaming thus far, I noticed a funny, yet sad, trend. This trend has been run into the ground and people the world over have already covered it in tweets, blogs, and vlogs of their own so why should I be talking about it on my own? Simple. I finally wanted to speak my mind about the topic after having been contacted a couple different times by different parties looking to accomplish this very activity for themselves.

The first time this trend of “networking” cropped up for me, I saw many different tweets from all kinds of people all pushing similar messages.

“Let’s all support each other and help each other grow! Follow everyone that responds to this tweet and go show each other some love.” or some such nonsense. I thought it to be absolutely dumb and tuned it out as a waste of time.

Eventually, someone replied to one of my tweets suggesting I join their Discord server for streamers with mutual goals to help each other grow. I was curious, primarily of the account that replied to my tweet. What I found was this Twitter account was replying to many tweets with roughly the same canned verbiage, but prefaced by a sentence relating to the tweet in question. After discovering that fact, I just couldn’t take it seriously.

The most recent example, and the one that helped me finally write this all up (admittedly, I had this topic in draft from since I started the The Dragon’s Grove) involved someone coming into my stream while I was live and say the following.

“Hey I just followed you, you should follow me back.”

I couldn’t believe it for a moment and had to process what had just happened. Someone had actually come into my stream and tried to casually request a follow for follow. Only thing that came to mind for me to do was to thank them for the follow but that I don’t believe in doing that follow for follow shit. I found out almost immediately after that this person was actually live on their own channel at the same time! THAT was upsetting, and was the straw that broke the dragon’s back. (Yes, I went there.)

So, why is all this upsetting? Why would I bother going through that rant? To help illustrate parts of why I don’t buy into the idea.

The Follow 4 Follow/Host 4 Host trend is like a shitty version of a Pyramid Scheme, with the exception that nobody “wins”. It’s all artificial. These people have replaced viewbotting with empty follows and hosts from real people. Sure it looks great when a channel has several thousand followers, but that number means NOTHING when you have nobody actually watching your stream. It also means just as little when you have those same exact people hosting you because chances are they share the same follower It’s just a collective of artificially inflated channels that are empty and devoid of content and community. It’s a waste.

You want to grow your channel and build a community? Don’t waste your time with that Follow 4 Follow garbage. It’s fake and yields nothing of actual value. Say it with me: Follow for Follow is Hollow.

Now, don’t waste my time peddling this idea in my channel or on Twitter. Do something that yields productive results and stop trying to find the easy way to success. WORK FOR IT.

 

 

Networking as a Broadcaster

Taylor Burian

I’ve spent a little time here and there over the last few months just kind of mulling over what it means to “network” as a broadcaster. Quite honestly it’s just as complicated as it is simple.

At a high level, in the simplest form, networking is just talking to people and making connections or friends. That being said, that’s also why it’s so complicated.

Social interaction in itself is not easy for everyone. It comes with its own set of Do’s and Don’ts, taboos, faux pas, etcetera. Do be genuine. Be yourself. Don’t be awkward, or too overbearing. You get the idea. In most day to day social interactions these kinds of things may have very little impact on your longterm standing with people because you don’t see them very often, or maybe only once, and as such you don’t generally care about the result of the interaction. Networking is a little different. I feel like it adds an extra layer of complexity.

When you’re trying to network you have to keep in mind that the people you’re talking to are going to be around more frequently, and that the impression you give does matter. So when you do start looking around for people to connect with, you should be looking at things you have in common and how well you’ll get along. It’s almost like shopping around to find a new friend, or trying to assemble a dating site profile of someone else. It gets a bit tough and awkward, but if you want to succeed at what you’re doing, especially as a broadcaster, you need to do it. Just don’t do it the wrong way, acting entitled like they owe you something for spending your time talking to them. Their time is just as valuable.

Respect can go a long ways.

Changing hobbies and habits

Taylor Burian

The last few years have seen me spend more time and money than I’d like to admit on certain hobbies and habits.

On the hobby side, I spent a lot of time and money on Magic: The Gathering. My favorite format being Commander/EDH made it more to try and purchase older cards that would end up sometimes being fairly expensive. I also used to play with a fairly large local group who shared the same enthusiasm for the game, but times have changed. While I still greatly enjoy the game, I don’t play it near often enough and as such don’t purchase cards hardly at all.

I’ve since replaced that hobby with streaming. Mostly because for me it’s just an extension of my existing hobby of playing video games. Oddly enough, I’ve probably invested just as much time and money into streaming that I did for Magic. So really, I could just go either way on a whim and not be too upset. However, I don’t want to feel like I’ve wasted all the time and effort I’ve put into streaming.

Let’s jump over to habits. It should be apparent based on the above hobbies that I wasn’t always the best with money. That really needs to change. I’ve done the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle before, and it isn’t fun. Now, although I don’t really live like that anymore, I do need to focus on saving money. I also need to focus on my health, and the two kind of go hand in hand.

If I spend more wisely on things, then I should be spending time on eating healthier and working out. I need to get back to the gym instead of letting my membership go to waste.

But to do the above I need to work on my habits. Need to find ways to be accountable to myself more than anything, and that’s a struggle I’ve always dealt with.

So here’s to hobbies that won’t hold me back, and building habits that will help me improve. Cheers!

Viewer Etiquette is important too!

Taylor Burian

This entry is a follow up piece to one I wrote about Broadcaster Etiquette, which you can find here.

It doesn’t really matter if you’ve visited a channel with an active chat or slow/dead chat because in my mind the following things all still apply when it comes to viewer etiquette.

There will be some carryover from my Broadcaster Etiquette piece, so bear with me because it could this entry long and repetitive (but I’ll do my best to freshen it up a bit.)

There are a wide variety of ways people, as viewers, can interact with a channel from both a positive angle and a negative one. I like to start off with the negatives and build up to the positives because I feel it’s better to end on a good note. So, to the negative aspects of Viewer Etiquette!

The Faux Supporter Returns

Just as in the Broadcaster version, this individual shows up for only a very brief period before deciding to abandon ship. They usually say something along the same lines as the Broadcaster version, but instead they name drop some other streamer followed with “[name drop] just went live, so I’ll catch you later.” Something to that affect. To a certain extent we get it. We can’t be everywhere watching streamers all the time, so picking and choosing is important. Just don’t go calling attention to it because it has the same affect as saying “I like them more” or “they’re more interesting” which oftentimes stings, and at worst feels like a stab of betrayal. Way to show your support.

A Linker to the Past (and Present)

Linkers, in a negative scenario, like to (you guessed it) paste links in chat and most often without permission. Depending on their intent they like to toss out links for a variety of things. Clips of things happening in other streams, other live channels, troll links, etc. If it’s unwanted or can cause some sort of trouble they’re doing it.

The ‘Notice Me, Senpai’

On the negative side of the behavior spectrum these types often come in two flavors. They abuse the donation feature, or they try to get in on viewer/community games with the streamer. Both with the same intent. To troll the stream and garner attention for themselves while trying to eliciting some sort of reaction from the broadcaster. The method of delivery is straightforward, but the content of the message isn’t always the case. In any case, regardless of the core motivation of the individual, it’s often targetted toxicity.

The Raider

This one goes hand in hand with The Raid Leader from my other blog post, and can be the same individual as The Linker. If the raiding broadcaster in question has built up a toxic community, The Raider(s) are likely going to act in a toxic fashion once they reach their destination. Almost always they wind up flooding the targetted streams chat, and while this behavior isn’t a problem for some communities where chat moves too fast for most to notice, ultimately it can make the other viewers uncomfortable and unable to enjoy or appreciate the stream if they’re not accustomed to the influx. This can also be a struggle for the broadcaster on the receiving end of the raid because they might be pushed out of their comfort zone and feel pressured to keep up with chat, only to see the possible deluge of spam and toxicity.

Okay, enough talk about the negative and toxic aspects of viewership. Let’s get to the positive side of things.

Viewers play an important role in the success of a stream, both on the numbers side and on the behavioral side. The numbers aren’t really important at this point, because what matters is how a viewers behavior and respect impact the mental state of a streamer and their community.

The Gifter keeps on giving

The Gifter can be a generous viewer, and pillar of a community. Just like a broadcaster dropping gift subscriptions, a viewer has the ability to do the same. They can support the streamer and their fellow viewers in this way, and make a difference in being part of the positive forces that keep a stream going. Their generosity also makes regular viewers that are lucky to receive a gifted subscription able to feel more inclusive in the community.

The Donater

Monetary donations are never required, but they help keep the show going. For some streamers it’s also a way for more pointed contact with a viewer who has something to say. On the positive side here they contribute to the stream monetarily and give a mental boost to the streamer, but depending on if they include a message they can help boost the value of the stream by being entertaining in itself.

The Lurker

Last, but definitely not least, is the one behavior that can truly make a difference without always going the extra mile. Under the current setup for discovery on Twitch, The Lurker can oftentimes have the most positive impact. For those that worry about the numbers (when they really shouldn’t) just seeing a number greater than 0 or 1 in their viewer count is a good thing. For those looking to rise up and build their channel, having plenty of people who like to lurk in their channel can be a blessing. Speaking for myself here, thank you to all the lurkers (but not you, chat bots.)

The end result is the same as I’ve said previously. It’s all about respect. Respect the rules of the channel you’re in. Respect the broadcaster and your fellow viewers. Otherwise you get the ban hammer.

Stay awesome out there, dear viewers.

Obsverations on Broadcaster Etiquette

Taylor Burian1 Comment

Over the course of my time spent streaming and interacting with other streamers I’ve noticed different things about how each of them acts or handles specific kinds of situations.

I’m sure all of these have been called out before, some more than others, but I felt like offering my own take. Let’s start with the Bad Etiquette.

The Faux Supporter

For a long while I’d only ever seen others mention this kind of behavior. Until recently. I’ve now personally experienced having someone come in to my chat, say something along the lines of “Hey, just wanted to drop in and say hi and show some support before I went Live.” and then they leave just as quickly. I had only seen this individual in my chat and in friends chats a handful of times over the course of maybe a month. We talked and interacted at least a little bit each time, but never enough to really form a connection or be considered on amicable terms. Then they pull that move and I was just baffled. Why? Did this person not actually understand what ‘support’ meant? They literally Grandpa Simpson’d me. Thankfully, I haven’t seen this individual since that incident so I’ve had time to think over how I would further respond to that kind of action, but it’s just as irritating as it is baffling to me.

The Linker

This one is interesting, and easily dealt with. This person can be either a broadcaster or a regular viewer that doesn’t stream at all. They both do the same thing, but oftentimes the intent behind the action is different. In the case of the broadcaster what they do is for exposure and/or bragging. They take a clip of their stream and try to post it in another streamers chat. Unless they’re on good terms with that streamer, they’re usually easily blocked. No posting links either because of AutoMod, a moderator bot, or a regular mod doing what they do best. I still see it happen from time to time, but it’s usually easy to ignore because of how easily it’s handled. That doesn’t diminish what it says about them though.

The Donater

I feel like these individuals are more often just throwing away money. Sure, they might be monetarily supporting another streamer, but their intent is clear as day. Donating money just to have your name and message flash across the screen for people to see. The message usually contains the same kind of content. Things that call out they’re a streamer too and want to be noticed. (We get it, it’s hard to get viewers and build your community, but this isn’t the right way.)

So, unless you’re in a stream where it’s common practice to have someone drop a donation to recommend a Host or Raid candidate, you might typically see more of these come through from the broadcaster themselves rather than a friend of their channel.

The Raid Leader

I don’t see this one very often anymore, nor always in a poor light, but I have seen it used terribly before. In this case, the broadcaster incites their viewers to go raid another streamers channel without actually invoking the Raid function. This particular behavior can have a couple of different results based on the intent of the broadcaster, or the lack of control over their community.

The first one is toxic flooding. A broadcaster is, ultimately, the one responsible for having built up the community they see in their chat, and if they let it be a semi-lawless mess then it ends up being toxic and chaotic. So when they start looking into another streamer (who may be live at the same time) they may be inadvertently inviting their own viewers to go flood the unsuspecting target of their investigation. This can be detrimental to the recipient streamer if they haven’t experienced it before. A sudden influx of viewers gets their hopes up, only to be brought back down quickly when they realize how toxic they are, and suddenly they aren’t enjoying themselves anymore. It takes away from their experience of streaming and leaves a bad taste in their mouth.

The second version, and arguably the worst one, is when the broadcaster themselves ACTUALLY calls for their viewers to go blow up the other streamers channel. This one is worse because it emboldens their viewership and supports the idea that being toxic is okay. (There’s actually another version of this behavior, but I’ll explain it further down.)

The final one I’ll touch on in this category of behavior is related to the first. The broadcaster might not be trying to call attention to another streamer regardless of how they encountered each other, but their community is still going to have individuals who go on an unsolicited raid once they figure out who it is.

All of these raid behaviors are a product of the broadcaster’s personality and the way they’ve built up their community.

I probably missed an example of something in there somewhere but I still have more to go over.

Now let us go over some of the positive behaviors I’ve seen when it comes to broadcaster etiquette.

The Gifter

This isn’t totally new, but has seen an increase lately. Ever since Twitch implemented the ability to gift multiple subscriptions at once, it has become easier for people to support their favorite communities and streamers. In this case, the broadcaster wants to help another streamer out, so they drop a large number of gift subscriptions on them. This gives a positive mental boost to the recipient streamer and can help their community feel more involved. I’ve seen this behavior paired up with another one I’ve already alluded to above, but suffice to say it can be used to a greatly positive affect.

The Raid Leader (again)

This category on the positive side? You bet! This is actually the one that inspired me to write this entry at all.

The Raid Leader can be a positive, supportive force as well. I’ve seen it first hand when a broadcaster acts with good intent in this category of behavior. The second reason above in the negative version can be flipped on its head. The broadcaster incites their community to go raid another live channel for the express purpose of helping them gain exposure at no cost to them. They wind up sharing followers, bolstering the total number of the recipient to help them grow their community. Often times, though, it isn’t some random streamer they found but was one who they were previously familiar with.

A subset of this behavior is when they ARE looking for a legitimate Raid candidate because they themselves are ending stream for the time being. I was recently part of one of these situations on the recipient side as a channel moderator. Someone that was a common viewer and friend of both channels managed to pull some strings with the raiding broadcaster and I had a feeling I knew who it was (and they privately confirmed it for me almost immediately, making me promise not to tell. Don’t worry friend, I still haven’t told anyone it was you.) So it got me curious and I decided to look at the end of the VOD from the incoming streamer. This where it really struck to write this blog post. They said two things that I respected greatly. “Please don’t talk about me or my channel in there,” followed immediately by “we’re going in there to support them.” Respect where it’s due when a Partnered streamer says something like that going into a smaller stream.

I mentioned earlier that The Gifter behavior can be paired up with another. Here’s that case. A positive force of support, when The Raid Leader is also being The Gifter. They go in with their community on a legitimate Raid at the end of their own stream and shortly after hanging out for a bit they drop a large number of gift subscriptions to viewers. They’re attempting to bolster the recipient streamers community numbers but also somewhat enforce that increase.

I think I’ve ranted long enough, and I’m sure I missed some other great examples of both negative and positive broadcaster etiquette, but I want to end on a simple note.

At the end of the day, it is all about Respect. Respecting each other, and ourselves. If you have bad behaviors and etiquette (or provide an environment for toxicity to develop) as a broadcaster then you don’t really deserve respect for it. If you truly support one another in a positive way, and show respect for each others effort, then you deserve respect in return.

Do your best to stay awesome out there.

I was recently asked a very important question related to goals.

Taylor Burian

I was having a late night conversation with a friend on his Twitch stream and he mentioned that something had lit a fire under his ass to get something accomplished. My response was a comment about how I haven’t found the motivation to do the things I want to do, and followed with quoting Chris Tucker’s character from The Fifth Element “Korben my man I have no fire.”

Image result for fifth element i have no fire gif

He then asked what ARE the things I want to do? What are my goals? I had to mull over that question for a moment, and told him I should probably just make it a blog post, because it was going to be a long answer. After starting the draft for this post I continued thinking it over.

The next night we had continued part of the conversation during my own stream, but I didn’t want to go into too much detail on stream when I had already said I would write this entry, and my friend was also adamant I save it for the blog. So here we are now, and hopefully you are reading this.

My last couple of “5-year plans” were fairly simple. Graduate college. Done. Find a decent job that I could use my education towards. Done, although that one more or less fell in my lap after some minimal effort and a bit of luck. That one ended up falling through, though, and I had to take a few steps back. I put in some effort with that “networking” thing they say you should do and I was able to get back on track. After I got myself into a new job that fit well enough I figured I was good. But that’s where things kind of stagnated. I got comfortable and didn’t give a second thought to what I should try doing next. So back to the point. The questions. What are the things I want to do? What are my goals? What’s my current 5-year plan? I didn’t have a clear answer to give and needed to think things through before responding.

At this point, those were all the high level life goals I had and managed to accomplish. I would like to mention that I had other things I would have liked to do, but those things always got put on the back burner because they were of a lesser priority and wouldn’t guarantee I could pay my bills. Now that I have a little bit of security in my life, I can go back and revisit some of these ideas. The first of which was something I had wanted to do long ago. I wanted to write stories. Maybe write a novel or two and see where that takes me. The second thing I wanted to do was an idea introduced to me much more recently, and that was streaming.

Thinking back on these ideas, and what initially motivated me to pursue them as goals, I came to a couple of different conclusions

For writing it was the concept of being able to create worlds and dream up stories that I could share. I loved that idea, but because I had started it so young (all the way back in elementary school) I couldn’t properly nurture it on my own. I needed help to encourage and guide me. Outside of a few activities at school I never got the necessary push, so the idea withered. It didn’t outright die, as I’ve always kept dreaming and sharing my ideas, oftentimes without writing them down. Whether that was a mistake or not I can’t say for certain, but the ideas were out there and were being further developed in the back of mind, being influenced and shaped by the books I would read or the TV shows I watched. As I got older the importance of money was introduced into my life, and eventually I began to see writing for part of what it was to the authors. It was a job, albeit one they most likely enjoyed wholeheartedly. It was then that it clicked for me that maybe writing wasn’t something I wanted to do, because I had decided it wasn’t going to be worth my time when it came to earning a living. Looking back I could tell that something inside me hadn’t totally given up on the idea, because I was still curious. Through my time in high school and college I would occasionally read up on different authors thoughts about the subject of writing fiction novels as a career. The way they made novel publishing seem like a daunting task was, again, a bit of turn off. So I shelved the idea since I had already set myself on a different path by the time I had reached college. Now I want to revisit the idea and set some goals for myself.

On the subject of streaming, the idea intrigued me for a couple of different reasons. The first of which, since I was already an adult (maturity level subject to discussion), was that I could potentially make money from my hobby of playing video games. So I dug in. I did research, lurked in channels, made a variety of friends, all so I could understand what streaming really was. Shortly after I had officially started streaming the dots began connecting in my head, and I realized several things. The first thing I realized was that for some streamers it is a full time job, just like for authors who publish several novels year after year, but to get there it was going to take a lot of time and effort. So I tossed aside the idea of making money off of streaming, because with that kind of motivation I was only going to get angry and depressed when I would have undoubtedly discovered nearly no money being generated. After coming to terms with myself on that piece, I came to the second realization of what streaming actually was for someone who already played games as a hobby. Streaming was just an extension of my existing hobby. A hobby on top of another hobby. I could choose at my leisure if I wanted to stream, or not stream but still play games. The final realization, and arguably the most important one, was what streaming actually meant to me. I realized it was a way for me to share with others (there’s that concept again) and enjoy games with other people. It gave me an oddly familiar feeling. It was almost like the return of something I had done as a kid. My siblings and I shared our video games, and we loved watching each other play. So it’s no wonder I was able to quickly latch onto and become comfortable with streaming. After coming to these realizations I concluded one thing. If I wanted to continue streaming long term, and potentially return to the original motivating factor of earning money as a goal, I had to reconcile with myself about what it all meant to me. I had to reach a certain point of maturity. Yes, it would be great to make money doing something I love, but I needed to be doing it for the right reasons. After seeing the way things had turned out I had to come to terms with myself that I needed to have a much more noble goal, and that the money portion was not the object of importance. That’s when I started to tie things together in my head.

So, if you’ve read through to this point, thank you. Now that you’re more aware of a couple of the things I want to do, you might still be wondering what the goals are. After all the recent conversations and self-reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really only have one goal and it is quite simply stated as “To reach and have a positive influence on as many people as possible.”

Each thing that I want to do is going to have its own set of challenges, some similar and others unique, but accomplishing them could yield the results I want to see. It’s going to take long hours, lots of effort and sacrifice, but in the end it would be worthwhile to see that I’ve left my mark on the world. I think I’ll start right now.

To my friend “Manny” for getting me thinking, and inspiring me to write this blog entry. Thank you. Stay awesome, my friend, and I’ll see you on Twitch and Discord.

P.S. I’m a bit of a sucker for less popular films with cult followings.

Image result for never give up never surrender

Your streaming setup can be as complicated as you want.

Taylor Burian

There are plenty of guides out there on this subject, so this one won’t be a guide of any sorts but rather just a backstory of how my streaming setup evolved over the years. The idea being that you can start anywhere with streaming.

Building a Gaming Computer

The starting point was actually a couple of years before I even thought about streaming. At some point I decided to build my own gaming PC, and had a friend help me pick out parts for that project. Most of that first build is actually still in use as of the time that I’m writing this post.

Long side story for another time, but the same friend that helped me build my gaming PC also ended up becoming my roommate not long after the fact and ultimately influenced my decision to start streaming.

Making the Leap

Anyways, after a couple of years of playing on that PC, I made the leap to try streaming. I was on a single PC setup, the CPU was an i3-4340 and GPU was a GTX 760, so I wasn’t going to try anything too graphically intense. I think I started out playing a little bit of Terraria and Starbound. After a little bit of tinkering with my setup and trying to optimize what I had I ended up making small hardware upgrades. Staying on the single PC setup meant upgrading the RAM and the CPU first. So that’s what I did! I forget the exact timing of a lot of my purchases but at some point I upgraded the gaming PC to handle more intensive games, but some of the ones I was playing at that time (like PUBg) were still a little too much for good quality streams at the time, which eventually pushed me to decide to build a second PC to handle the workload of streaming. Before I made the jump, though, I did order a bunch of other things to try and increase the quality of my stream.

Digging in Further

Aside from the PC, there are a handful of things that get recommended for increasing the quality of a stream. I got a standalone condenser microphone with a USB interface (a Focusrite Scarlett Solo, which has so far served me fairly well), and some studio headphones. The microphone was a nice addition, but it took a fair amount of tinkering and research to get it working right. There’s no telling how many times I ran into issues using it in OBS Studio. Maybe a story for another time, another blog post. Continuing on!

Two is Better than One

It was probably a year or so into streaming that I decided to build a second PC. I began by doing some research into how it could be done. I already had an internal capture card (an Elgato HD60 Pro) to stream console games, so I thought that would be fine to use. I took that out of the gaming PC, bought some parts for a second PC and used some of the spare parts left over after upgrading the gaming PC. Eventually I had myself a streaming PC, but it used that original i3-4340 so it wasn’t anything spectacular, but I did see an improvement in being able to play some games without issues while my stream was live. It wasn’t long after that I also made arrangements with another friend to buy some of his spare parts, and further upgraded the hardware of both PC’s. That’s all just on the hardware side, which is simpler in comparison to the things I did on the software side to complicate my streaming setup.

Extra Complicated?

Now, I haven’t totally covered ALL of the hardware pieces of my current setup, but that’s because it’s important to cover the software portions so that it’s easier to understand why I added a couple of hardware pieces. First thing is Voicemeeter Banana. This was fun (Note: Sarcasm) to setup on my systems because it was how I was going to control where my audio sources came from and were directed to (this was prior to the Windows 10 update that allows users to basically do the same thing.) I may not be using this particular program to its fullest potential, but that’s not important. What is important is that I don’t have speakers on either of my PC’s, only the one pair of headphones, so I use the VBAN portion of Voicemeeter to port audio over the network between the two systems. Why? Because I ran into audio delay issues while playing games and streaming. The short story of that: I was playing PUBg with friends while streaming, and I would get shot but hear the sound of the gunfire probably a full second or more after I was already getting hit. Not a fun time. So I switched my headphones over to the gaming PC and had all my audio from the streaming PC (primarily for alerts) ported over the network.

But Wait, There’s More!

The other thing I did was switch from using my internal capture card (which is now reserved strictly for consoles) to using the OBS-NDI plugin. This thing has been amazing. It uses OBS Studio on both machines, with one sending all the A/V data over the network back to the main streaming PC before being uploaded to the internet. At this point I feel I should mention a couple of things. First, I have a couple of roommates who both play games online. So we’ve shelled out for a decent internet package to accommodate our traffic. Second, because of this I didn’t want to have my VBAN and NDI traffic bogging down our combo modem/router because I was using two of the four ethernet ports and limiting each of them to only having one. So I purchased a standalone gigabit ethernet switch to plug both of my machines into and have a the one line out to the new router my roommate purchased. That whole arrangement is probably unnecessary, but hey, it’s my setup and I like being unconventional sometimes.

Another piece of the setup that is probably unnecessary, but is more for my convenience, is a HDMI Switcher. It was kind of expensive, and I didn’t really NEED it, but I wanted it. I use that switch between the few gaming consoles I have setup at any given point so that I can transition quickly. Also, it makes it so I don’t need to go to the back of the streaming PC to swap out an HDMI cable. I haven’t noticed too much of a latency issue that can’t be accounted for in OBS, or that impacts my ability to play a game, so I keep using it in conjunction with the internal capture card.

I know I missed mentioning webcams and monitors earlier, and probably something else I’m forgetting, but I feel like those are a bit more basic and don’t add much to how a streaming setup can evolve over time. The monitors don’t really add too much to the complexity of a streaming setup, because everyone has a different way of organizing their screens, and the webcams aren’t always a necessity for streaming. I currently have two webcams setup when most people only ever use one. One I use for a facecam (a Logitech BRIO 4K, probably overkill) and a second one (a Logitech C920) I was using for random things like creative streams or spontaneous dog cam. Having two Logitech cams on the same system was tricky because only one would get picked up by the Logitech Webcam software, but both could be worked with in OBS Studio.

I think I’ve covered most everything in my setup as it stands today. I can’t say that all of it makes complete sense, but it seems to be working so yay me! I could probably put together a timeline if I really wanted to to help explain how things went, or even include a diagram of my setup, but I might just do that later. For now, this is what I’ve got. Hopefully you enjoyed reading this! If not, tell me. Critique me. Rip my blog post apart. Even though this was probably a subject I rambled on about, I need to learn somehow. Catch you next time!

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