Mise-en-place, Part 2

2023-11-17

Well tl;dr, I've finished my prep to stream Drakklor on Twitch, and am planning on doing so Tuesday at 8pm ET on my new-fangled channel:

• https://www.twitch.tv/watchkdot

I will do my best to keep up with Tuesday streams at the same time at least for a couple weeks and then reassess. If you're interested, save the date(s)!

The boring details re: tech

I had a successful tech test stream earlier this week and was happy with the results. I even got visited by my first bot offering to sell viewers, so I guess I'm making some waves already. If I'm going to do this more long-term, I'll want to improve a few things:

• Buy a webcam. I have a somewhat uncommon work/home computer setup in that I use a laptop and two monitors, with the laptop placed below my main monitor, essentially - serving as a 3rd screen and as my keyboard. For now, I'll be streaming using its integrated camera which is actually quite decent, but at a bad angle for the purpose of streaming; the angle itself isn't great (looking upwards at me), meanwhile my eyes are looking at the monitor above during streaming, so it sort of looks like I'm staring over top the webcam - because I am. I'd want to buy a USB cam to put on top of my main monitor - maybe one of those ones with an integrated lighting ring because...
• ...my lighting situation isn't great. A webcam with a built-in ring light may mitigate that, but I could also get a key light. My schedule has me streaming at night so no natural light (during winter) and my existing lighting isn't optimal for streaming.
• Get a proper desktop mic instead of the one attached to my headset, which is decent quality but definitely has room for improvement. Also, it would let me swap out my chonky headset for something minimal during streams.
• Maybe upgrade my home internet connection. I only have a 100/30 Mbps connection which may shock people since I'm such a techie but I honestly think it's fine - and only $40/month. I only really notice it as an issue on large game downloads which will take a while, but really boo-hoo, I have to wait a couple hours to download a game once and a while. Anyway, I used to have fibre before moving into my current place - but to get that here I'd have to go with an expensive Bell plan which is bad because it's Bell and it's expensive. My test stream had no issues with stability or dropped frames but having a bit more upstream to stream with would be ideal.
• Get a long LAN cable to run from my "office" (and streamer den) to my router, because I use Wi-Fi in here. Again, this may be shocking re: being so techy, but I think my Wi-Fi performs fine. I figure if I encounter any stream stability issues, I could temporarily run a cable around the wall while streaming. Eventually, I want to get a cable through to my router properly, but the problem is the wall in between happens to be concrete - so that's a whole thing. Running it under the baseboards is also an option but also a whole thing. And like I said, the stream tested fine and I don't notice any issues with the Wi-Fi during general use, but it's in the back of my mind.
• I don't see a lot of value in a small stream deck, but I guess it's something I could do if I want to do what all the cool streamers do. I know people who don't even stream and have them, for some reason.
• A green screen seems even less necessary for my purposes, but maybe not if I pivot to other games.

Anyway, some of this "production value" stuff would also improve my setup for work calls which would be an added benefit. I'm not actually considering this stuff too seriously (despite just writing a manifesto about it) because I think my setup is Good Enough for a couple of streams without being off-putting, and I don't really think I'll stick with streaming. This is more so just an exercise about the experience of doing it vs. intending to do it regularly/seriously.

But in my usual fashion, I've obviously devoted a lot of time thinking about optimizations and the what-ifs.

The boring details re: streaming

I have several concerns, basically:

• The typical concerns about it being an awkward enterprise to undertake and do well.
• The added difficulty of remaining engaged while speedrunning, which requires a lot of concentration.
• Might be difficult to foster interest in Drakklor therefore viewers may tune out quickly. Actually, I don't mind in theory even having 0 viewers because again, this is really about exploring the process; I have no problem talking to myself while broadcasting into the ether. However, engaging & etc. is part of the whole deal of streaming. Luckily, I've got some Discord friends who will likely lend some token support at a minimum.
• I believe my current strategy in Drakklor is very optimized and will be hard to beat. I'd like to beat my standing record (4m 51s) live but I think it will be tricky especially re: being semi-distracted while I do it. Also, if I do beat my record, I'll have to figure out how to pull the Twitch VOD and extract the run so I can put it up on my YouTube - but I'd be happy to do so. I'm not planning on publishing the stream VODs (unless anyone asks) but I do have them enabled for this purpose.

Is that it? I think that's it for now - it's certainly enough for now. This ended up being long. A bientot.