State of the Stream - Q2 2019

When I first hit start streaming just before Halloween 2018, the expectations were minimal. I spent most of the first month and a half battling technical issues, commentating mostly to myself, and still trying to define and refine the look and feel of this LevelUpLarry brand. 

There was one thing that I knew for certain from the very beginning, though, and that was that I wanted do my best to provide a unique "experience" for viewers while also giving a glimpse into my personality and gaming style.

Channel Pre-Branding Potato Stream circa November 2018

 Fast forward six months and I feel like I'm starting to find my groove a little bit! The technical issues always seem to pop up the more advanced the stream gets, but that's just par for the course. However, the biggest, most humbling realization has been the sheer level of positive community support which - without any question - has been absolutely incredible. 

By trade, I'm constantly dealing with metrics and corporate buzzwords, so to help paint the picture a little better, here are a few fun insights to share. I hope you don’t mind some of the transparency. Synergy!

In 72 streams, you've helped achieve:

  Over 400 Followers
  Over 100 Subscribers 
  Over 10,000 cheered bits
And some truly awesome relationships!

Channel Metrics - November 1 through May 1

I truly do thank each of you for this unbelievable support - that’s at all levels - whether it be financial or not.  Incidentally, a byproduct of the financial support has afforded this small operation to give back to the LevelUpCommunity, while also helping to improve stream production, through:

10+ LevelUpMerch giveaways back to the community
$100 in gift cards back to the community
20+ gifted subs of all tiers
4 (soon-to-be) 5 Twitch emotes
Some stream production upgrades

So, what’s next?

There are a couple of items on the roadmap for me as I look forward over the next six months. Some of these you’ve probably already heard me talk about and some may come as a surprise. Let’s break them down in categories. Content, Upgrades, and Schedule.

CONTENT

Throughout the last 6 months, I’ve strictly been on a consistent Tuesday and Thursday schedule with very few exceptions here and there. And as most of you also know, I’ve been almost exclusively playing Project 1999 - EverQuest since my very first stream. EQ has always been my comfort zone and it made perfect sense for me to play as a starting point.

As I look forward, there are three things that I'm looking very closely at (in order of release date):

Final Fantasy XIV Expansion: Shadowbringers
No Man’s Sky Beyond
Project 1999: Green Server

FFXIV is without a doubt one of my favorite MMOs outside of EQ, and in the past, I’ve typically filled my MMO void by jumping back and forth between the two.  It’s been somewhat of a tradition for me to go back and play through a new expansion and it’s something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought into as far as how it impacts my streaming.

No Man’s Sky is a game that actually has a bit of sentimental value despite its rough beginnings. My oldest daughter was just born around the same time it launched and it was quite frequent for her and I to travel through the vast universe together while she would be in and out of sleep. This massive upcoming patch gives me a good reason to consider getting back into it.

Project 1999 Green Server should speak for itself. While the details around the ruleset of the server are still unknown, what we do know is that it’s going to be a brand-new, Classic-true experience that has been in demand for years. Given my current content, this naturally makes sense to progress into once it goes live.

I mention these three games because mapping out the next few months will be tricky on how to balance my streaming content:

Do I want to continue to invest time into Project 1999 Blue Server when I know I’ll be restarting once Green goes live?

Does it make sense to jump over into FFXIV getting closer to July just for a few months and then jump ship back to Project 1999 Green Server?

Do I even bother streaming NMS or just save it for casual play on off days?

I clearly don’t have definite yes or no answers to these questions, but if you were to ask me which one I was leaning towards most at this exact moment, it would be to switch over to FFXIV for streams, play NMS casually when there's time, and sprinkle in EQ here and there where it fits until Green. FOR THE REMAINDER OF MAY, I WILL CONTINUE TO PLAY EVERQUEST - PROJECT 1999 and I will make a decision by 6/1 on what's next.

Wifey Wednesdays

Wifey Wednesdays is still in beta mode and LevelUpMindy and myself are trying to work out the “bugs” whether that’s trying to get on a consistent schedule, sorting out some of the behind-the-scene production issues, or just establishing what kind of joint content we'd like to work on. We’re constantly bouncing ideas off of each other and gradually evolving!

As it stands now, we will continue to joint stream on Wednesdays as it makes sense with our schedules.

HYPE LEVELS

The unique stream mechanic that was launched earlier this year has been, well, a little fast-paced and positively received by the community! There are a ton of ideas that I want to implement to help refine and structure it significantly more but it’s just been a time and execution issue. That, plus some of these ideas I have require some semi-involved graphic design and animations, which typically come at a premium. This forces me to be even more selective and strategic with how I evolve the program. More to come!

Social Media and Online Presence

YouTube presence is one of my biggest goals of this year and something that I have been severely overthinking for way too long.

While I still don't have a solid solution, I just need to establish some form of starting point. Here's what I'm going to attempt to do:

1 to 3 minute weekly stream recaps probably posted the weekend following both streams
Showcasing of some of the unique, enteraining aspects of my stream

Twitter’s simple enough. I just need to get in the rhythm of simply posting more frequently, networking, and particpating.

The website has been much better received than I could have imagined. It will continue to evolve and complement my streaming efforts.

Discord is booming with 96 folks on it. Feel free to swing on by and say hi! :)

UPGRADES

Part of achieving that “experience” I originally sought out to do started relatively simple. I noticed that it was very common for stream/channel quality and production to be either completely neglected or grossly overdone. Let me be clear, this is not indicative of a "good" or "bad" streamer. For me, however, these have been critical pillars to how I approach my streaming personality and content creation.

While there are still some of the basics I'm sorting out, I can't help but to constantly think about how I can increase production value. As I continue to refine this small operation, it becomes more clear where some financial pacing and technical limitations start to hinder achieving my end vision for the channel. Here are a few items that I’m going to be working towards obtaining over the next 6 - 12 months:

Significantly improved camera solution in the form of a mirrorless DSLR - got my eyes on the Sony A7 III
Continue to build up the lighting solution - one or two more Elgato Key Lights
Better green screen layout - a lot of this is contingent upon space which is being addressed
Upgraded stream assets - animations, outro, transitions, effects, GIFs

SCHEDULE

This one should have probably been up on top. I've been very humbled by the community's interest around me streaming more days. Considering the fact that I stream two nights (three when WifeyWednesday works) a week for an average total of 7 hours a week, I understand that it leaves a lot to be desired.

The ongoing dilemma has been this:

Maintaining healthy work-family-gaming balance
Ensuring that I can commit nearly 100% consistency to any additional day(s) I add.

I put a TON of weight into consistency, so if I tell the community that I'm adding a new day as a streaming day, then I feel like I need to be very confident that I can deliver that. There's definitely some room for flexibility here internally and I hope to share some good news in the near future!

IN CONCLUSION

I could go on forever, but let me just close on this: THANK YOU. These next six months will be tons of fun and I aim to deliver and execute on my "vision of unique experience" that I hope you aren't able to find anywhere else.

I also wanted to send out some extra special LevelUpHype to some key folks out there. You fine individuals have really stepped up your support and I'm truly grateful for it.

Most Tenured LevelUppers (5+ months):

Arynda

LegendaryChris

LourdLiono

imJGott

Alfrid/Gruf

Fritzy30

TechnoKelvin

Hypercrush

GutboyTV

Aervine

Salimus87