Even though I've been unable to stream tonight, I haven't been fully resting on my laurels (yet) either!
I've gone into Windows and updated OBS, and various other games, launchers, and software, as it's been a while since I have! In any case, what I do in OBS Windows won't be 100% aligned with what I've done in the Linux version, as I've forgotten the exact positions of things, as well as having issues placing things in some cases.
Additionally, I've finally gotten OpenTESArena working in Windows, and I now understand how to sort the configuration files, so I'll be able to do similar in Linux as a result; I'll also be looking into setting up either a drive or partition (possibly a USB stick) for all my old games that use Dosbox or source ports to read data from, mainly so I can have a single location (across both Linux and Windows) to access data files from, without needing to install more than one copy of the files, which should conserve space and make things a little more efficient!
Additionally, I'm considering scaling back my streams on Twitch to no more than 4 per week (due to some thoughts I've had recently), with additional streams (just 1) happening on other streaming platforms via Restream.io; at present I'm looking at using YouTube to stream, then pushing the streams out to Mixer and Smashcast, and perhaps Steam. You'll notice the lack of Twitch here, because it's against my Affiliate exclusivity agreement to stream to Twitch at the same time to other platforms, but given that I'll have 4 stream slots on Twitch (2 Mon, 1 Wed, & 1 Fri), streaming the remaining slot elsewhere shouldn't be an issue.
And yes, that means that the Sunday Evening Chill & Tinkering Tuesdays will be streamed on YouTube (Mixer & SmashCast); I'll be making a link to my schedule page on a Twitch panel (as well as listing only my Twitch streams on there) to tidy up things, and also allowing me more space to do things; this of course means as well that I'll be scaling things back to a some minimalist info thing, as I'm moving all links and further info to the main streaming page, and refactoring my streaming section in general to make things a bit nicer and overall more professional!
I'm still trying to find my feet as it were, so a lot of changes will likely happen between now and February next year, hopefully good ones overall, but I now will only be doing a max of 4 streams a week on Twitch, with the remaining 2 being streamed on alternative platforms, mainly so I get use out of the accounts! The best thing is though that the streams will be available as VODs on YouTube, so they'll be able to be seen at any time after they're done! Keep in mind though that I'm still trying to cap my streaming at about 20-24 hours a week, so I'll be considering how long each stream lasts for (the info will be provided to say how long each session lasts for, though do keep in mind that a "+" indicates up to 30 mins past the finish time, to allow finding a save point, or tie up loose ends). I'm not sure how everything is going to work as of yet, but do note that my Sunday and Tuesday streams won't have any "warm up games", nor will the Multiplayer Monday slot (ever), because the warm-up time will usually be reserved for preparing to stream.
This is a provisional list of things in my head right now regarding the streams, and the info below should be relatively straightforward:
Sunday - Sunday Evening Chill (SEC) / 21:00-00:00+ (YouTube) / "Relaxed" games, such as Sandbox, Space/Trading Sims, Farming Sims and the like (Random choice) / Solo w/ rare multiplayer
Monday 1 - Mind-Bending Mondays (MBM) w/ UberFate / 15:00-19:00 UK Time (Twitch) / Puzzle & Strategy Games (FTL/Strategy Roguelike & Main Game) / Solo
Monday 2 - Multiplayer Mondays (MM) / 21:00-00:00+ UK Time (Twitch) / Multiplayer games (Main Campaign of chosen game n multiplayer)
Tuesday - Tinkering Tuesdays (TT) / 20:00-23:00+ (YouTube) / Game Maps, Mods, and Total Conversions (Random choice, but with continuation if campaign/series of maps) / Solo w/ rare multiplayer
Wednesday - Wandering Wednesdays (WW) / 20:00-00:00+ (Twitch) / Adventures & RPGs (Barony/RPG Roguelike & Main Game) / Solo w/ rare multiplayer
Thursday: No Streams
Friday - Frenetic Fridays (FF) / 21:00-01:00+ (Twitch) / Action & Shooter Games (The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+/Action Roguelike & Main Game)
Saturday: No Streams / UberFate has planned stream on his Twitch channel
Admittedly, this is a brain dump, but should give some idea of what I want to achieve; I'm also hoping that this will also allow me to gain more overall followers and views too, as up till now - and technically up till the 8th of December, as I want to phase out SEC and TT from Twitch after then, as well as giving people 2-3 weeks to adjust to the new streaming venue; it'll probably take me around 6 weeks to do up a new proper schedule to display the info I want to display, so this is your notice as to withdrawing those two streams from Twitch.
In any case, I'm going to look at how many hours all this streaming will take up, as I need to see if it sticks with the 25 hours requirement, as I still want to make sure I meet that goal; the 12 days one is easy enough, especially as I'd be doing 3 days a week, and it's over a 30 day period, so in theory I should manage 13-14 days with relative ease. I'm miles away from 75 viewers to make Partner (if I ever make it, or get accepted), but if I implement a system that has the other 2 goals in mind (with my streaming plans), it'll mean I just have one goal to focus on. A side-benefit of YouTube streaming as well will give my channel some extra followers down the line, but also allow me to increase the watched hours by a fair bit, as 4000 watched hours in 365 days is still a lot to undertake, so the sooner I get started, the better!
Of course, this also means that I'll need to set up new overlays to facilitate the other streaming platforms, which should be relatively easy in theory, as I can replicate my Twitch one, though it would have different stats attached to it; this means that I'll be counting Mixer Followers and YouTube Subs on the same overlay, though I probably will refactor my other overlays to include Mixer and YouTube as there's space for them, and the less faffing about with overlays I have to do, the better! Thankfully, the overlays that are pretty much static have plenty of space to include Mixer and YouTube, but because the gameplay one has space at a premium, what I'm doing necessitates a separate overlay. Even the intermission one could technically be shared across channels, but I think it's important not to do Mixer, Twitch, and YouTube in one overlay, especially as Twitch is my main one anyway!
In any case, I should be able to roll out the overlay changes over the next 2-3 weeks with relative ease, so watch out for that when it comes, and give your feedback on it if you're able to, as I want to see what you all think! In any case, changes are very much afoot at my end, and hopefully they'll result in a more professional setup, and also more visibility, because I really need it at this point in order to grow my channel, and at least partially stop my average 30 day viewer count drop between 3 as well as help give UberFate and my other projects some traffic due to my increased visibility!
Again, with regards to my follower counts on my overlays, remember that they actually have the "GU offset" in the numbers, because they will always be a few out from the followers that my streaming/video channels count, so the overlay totals are the actual counts I'll be working from, as they've been adjusted to make sure that I don't include GU channels, and actual independent followers. I'll therefore make any announcements in line with my overlay follower counts, so don't be surprised if I say I "finally hit X amount of followers!" when it clearly shows that I've got more than that looking at my channel. Now granted, I made a "100 followers" announcement when I had 100 adjusted followers, but that was because it was still a milestone of sorts; Mixer, Twitch, and YouTube will now follow those rules. With this in mind, my adjusted goals for each of the platforms respectively (and the next one up) will be 10 (25), 100 (250), and 50 (100), which will be implemented over the weekend.
Lastly, I'll be attempting to attend the Twitch London event from 18:00 (though I may arrive after that time more likely), so if you're attending, be sure to @ me on Twitter, or on the Discord group, and we can meet up! Granted, I'm not actually expecting many to do this at this event, but I thought I'd put it out there, just to get into the habit of doing it for every event I go to from now on!
With that said, that's it from me for now... I'm going to start making some changes to my overlays over the weekend (possibly right after this blog post!), so things should start looking better in some respects. In any case, take care, good night and I'll see you all soon.
