Hey VR and pals,
I was wondering how much work was stream cooperation, as we have the current luck to get a lot of them in the past weeks.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have streams but I ultimately scared it could take time over game development.
Are the publicity/representives of VR working on that ? How much are the developpers implied in thoses streams ?
Thanks if I can get an answer, otherwise, just keep up the good work !
Here's what I have gathered:
Typically, preparing for a stream takes a pretty long time. Essentially it goes as follows: they have to decide what parts of the world they want to show off, and come up with a route that will show enough of it off (but not too much), and do so within the time frame that they have set. Then they need to make sure that part of the world is as polished and bug-free as realistically possible. Then they have to schedule sessions across timezones for ~5 devs and the streamer (usually Cohh) to rehearse that route a few times basically as if they were doing it live to double check that everything will go smoothly and prepare for how they want it to go. They of course want to put their best foot forward and make the game look good, so it's not as simple as just logging on and playing around. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. So naturally, there's a fair amount of thought that goes into making sure it's a good show. As you can imagine, this takes quite a bit of time away from regular development, which is why in the past it has only been worthwhile every 6 months or so.
The reason we are seeing more streams lately is because the run through Black Rose Keep is a route that they already prepared for a while ago to take the demos through at PAX. Dozens of fans, passersby, and game journalists got to play it in person, so now after PAX, it only makes sense to show it to everyone else that couldn't be there - it's such a cool looking zone and is a good representation of group gameplay. The run is easily repeatable and by teaming up with different streamers with very different audiences, it allows them to reach a larger number of viewers in a relatively short period of time. The game is finally getting to a point where the timing is right to start ramping up publicity and we are just starting to see the beginning of that shift.
I see, That's a "little" disappointment to read that no stream is truly genuine for the streamer, even if I can understand that getting things rolling right is more important (remember jim lee's first 20min ? :p).
I understand it's a lot of work, and I simply hope our expectation of seeing more aren't going against our final goal : getting the game released and fully functionnal.
The way I see streams Is that Cohh it kinda the official new content streamer no one has done a pan stream as well.
Thin it should be vip showing us something they thoght cool with a dev or 2 to talk about it.
No none vip or none cohh should be streaming this solo may a new stream with a team of vips and devs
MauvaisOeil said:I see, That's a "little" disappointment to read that no stream is truly genuine for the streamer, even if I can understand that getting things rolling right is more important (remember jim lee's first 20min ? :p).
I understand it's a lot of work, and I simply hope our expectation of seeing more aren't going against our final goal : getting the game released and fully functionnal.
I don't mean to suggest that everything is totally scripted. In an MMO, unexpected things always happen and their preparations are more like "we'll go here and then we'll do this, etc." But again, I've never done one with them so I don't know for sure all that goes on. And I should clarify that may not always include the streamer. I know the devs do their own test runs behind the scenes, but I'm pretty sure Lassiz hadn't really seen BRK before the stream. I just know that for the big production/reveal streams, Cohh has rehearsed with them beforehand.
MauvaisOeil said:I see, That's a "little" disappointment to read that no stream is truly genuine for the streamer, even if I can understand that getting things rolling right is more important (remember jim lee's first 20min ? :p).
I understand it's a lot of work, and I simply hope our expectation of seeing more aren't going against our final goal : getting the game released and fully functionnal.
if you ask me, the stream is truly genuine for many reasons, with a game with this kind of difficulty, one experience is gonna be different from the next. Eventually they may make it through without wiping lol. But this is what I loved about EQ too. Because of the difficulty, and the amount of mobs that randomly wander, the experience was never the same. I could take the same group into the same camp in old sebilis in EQ 10 times, and have 10 completely different experiences, one night could be smooth, and another could be rough. That's the beauty of experience in games like these. They made them so well that even when you think you got this RNG could easily pull down it's pants and take a dump on you and your group.
So a genuine experience will always occur thanks to these.
Granted, I'm sure the guys who are leading the runs know exactly what spawns where, which makes it easier, but you still see the wipe. Which is exactly why just because they are running the same zone over and over, doesn't mean it isn't genuine.
Don't look into the word "Scripted" too much. Its just another word for Raid/Dungeon Run Planning, and nothing more.
Edit: Same type of planning that raid and dungeon leaders will end up doing come Release :).
Venjenz said:While we're on the stream subject, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask, in relation to the most recent stream - are actual VIPs, as in those people who have given $hundreds and even $thousands to help fund the development of this game, going to be playing in the streams at some point, or is it going to continue rewarding those who have not donated simply because they already have Twitch follows/subs?
I ask because near the end of the actal dungeon part of the last stream, the sales pitch for pledges and different $50 and up packages went out to the people playing, in the stream, while a bunch of VIPs who are into PRF for at least several $hundred sat and watched. Is that going to be the deal? Actual supporters are passed over for the cool/popular Twitch streamers?
Just curious as to the ethos of VR generally, regarding who they refer to as VIPs, yet treat as not very not important for the purpose of stream testing.
Are you suggesting that the number of followers/subs shouldnt be taken into account by VR when selecting a streamer? The purpose of the stream is to get the "word" out to as many folks as possible, not "reward" VIP's for their support.
If an area is being debuted to the public via a stream before the VIP's get to see it, then that might be a legit complaint. All I am getting from your post is " wahhh, I gave money and I want to stream! I only have 50 followers but that shouldnt matter!"
Not trying to ruffle feathers but that is how it came accross.
@venjenz
Are you complaining about a stream program that started only a few months ago ?
VR has done nothing wrong by their pledges. They clearly stated what each pledge level offers and to my knowledge none of those promises have been broken. If you believed that you were entitled to stream time when you pledged, then I think you misread what you were paying for.
That said, VR actually did bring some VIPs (pre-alpha testers) into the stream with Jim Lee. It seemed like they were a bit off script there. If they had actually planned to bring in VIPs then they would have to be very well vetted and it would cause just as many hurt feelings for the 99% of other VIPs who were not selected.
Beefcake said: At this point, Streaming is basically a commercial. Do you complain any time you paid for a product, but they didn't offer you a chance to be in their commercial? Let's get real here. We paid/pledged for whatever level we each did. No where in those levels was a guarantee or even hint at being placed into a commercial. Anyways, even if they did allow SOME VIPs into the stream, you would complain that you were not included. The point of the streams is not to give a VIP a chance to play the game. They are meant to get others that have not pledged excited about the game, leaning towards potential purchase.
Exactly.
Not to mention, how do we know these twitch streamers didn't actually pledge themselves? Seems a little presumptious.
But even had they not pledged, just by watching the chat on these streams from people that discovered Pantheon as a result of those very streams equals more money for VR and more eventual funding (and possible immediate pledges). Which means those popular twitch streamers are, directly or indirectly, getting a hell of a lot more pledged to the cause than some dude with 50 followers. That's a win for VR, and should be a win for the rest of us.
Great question, MauvaisOeil!
As Director of Communications as one of my hats, it falls within my purview to get these streams up and running so I should be able to answer your questions for you. I've also recently taken on the role of Producer - and this helps out too - I'll explain shortly.
As you know, Pantheon is largely crowdfunded. That's where a lot of the development comes from - you guys. That being the case we've always known we would need to run promotions in tandem with development. The only way crowdfunding works is if people know about the game. So that was part of the motivation, along with our desire to show our current supporters how far we'd come. And in March of 2016 we did our first "big" gameplay stream.
Now, we also had a small team back then. We are still on the lean & mean side of things, but were even smaller back then. So we didn't have a lot of resources to use on making a large production. We took the content we already had, determined the areas we felt were the best ones to show, fixed as many of the game-breaking bugs as we could and made sure those areas were as presentable as possible. All in all, we took a couple months to plan it out and dev took time to make sure the areas were performing properly and then we had at it!
It was a resounding success. Much bigger than we had anticipated. Not only did it get the word out more for Pantheon, but it was such a morale boost for the team - seeing all your comments and seeing the community grow. We kind of became addicted. We did a couple more streams before CohhCarnage reached out and told us how excited he was, and that he wanted to get involved.
From there we started developing kind of a routine. As new content was going into the game it was always on the dev teams' minds that this content could end up in a stream. And as DoC I wanted to make sure that we weren't eating up a lot of dev time and that the streams could continue, but that it wouldn't be the priority focus of the devs for more than a couple weeks at a time. So we would touch base periodically and talk about what would be fun in a stream, and what the impact would be on development to make sure it was presentable.
Now having taken on the role of Producer as well it allows me even more insight into the development schedule. This affords a luxury of taking even less time from development as I already know what's being worked on, and what's coming down the pipe. I can use our schedule to sketch out some rough target dates that would make for a good stream with new content, and Joppa, Dan Krenn and I will hash out some ideas. The actual "scripting" is usually done by Joppa, and by that I mean the path we follow in the stream. He'll determine ahead of time where there's good pockets of fun content and plot out a route to make sure we hit those areas. That's about all the scripting that's involved though. Everything else about the stream is organic. We usually don't even know if we're going to live or die in the stream until we get there. Although if we're tight on time we'll sometimes use GM cheats to make sure we hit all our targets in the alotted amount of time. To help facilitate this you'll sometimes here me cueing the group that it's time to move on, or wrapping up a topic of discussion so we can get to the next in time.
Also now that we're in pre-alpha, we know the areas that are going to stream well, so it's become a bit easier to do some streams, all the while trying to have as little impact on dev as possible. It's inevitable that dev will always be impacted in some way so we do careful considerations, try to determine how big of an impact it is, and measure the desired results. I can say, to this date, we haven't regretted a single stream. Every time we do one we see the community grow and new excited people finding Pantheon for the first time. But it still has to be moderate, as you suggested, MauvaisOeil, otherwise we'd be caught in the trap of constantly making new iterations of demoware, and I'm happy to report that we've avoided that pitfall, as I'm sure our pre-alpha testers would be happy to tell you if they weren't all under NDA lol.
Bazgrim is also correct (is anyone really surprised? haha) - when we have a solid build like the one we had for PAX East, we can reuse it with multiple streamers. That's why you're seeing several so close together this month. Dev impact on these streams: the length of the stream + 15-30 mins for a mic check and introductions.
Now the cool part: because progress is steadily being made and actively tested internally and then externally with our pre-alpha testers, the game is truly getting to a point where soon we'll be able to allow more independent streams. Up until now they've been guided sessions mainly because we don't think anyone wants to see a stream of someone running off the map and falling off the edge of the world type of stuff. But the promotions team is already discussing the implementation of the streamer program which will allow more people to stream with less involvement from dev. Once we're at that point the impact of streaming on development will be quite minimal.
To answer one more question before I sign off here:
Venjenz - we do currently have VIP streamers. Out of respect for their privacy I won't say which, but certain VIPs are doing the streams you have been watching. Right now, yes, we are unfortunately at a stage where we need to prioritize audience reach - that's just a necessity since it's taking development time and we need to make sure that that time is spent reaching as many people as possible. But, as the previous paragraph mentions: soon streaming will be available to many more people. It's unfortunate we haven't been able to have all interested VIPs involved in streams, but that would potentially be hundreds of people and simply not manageable at this stage.
TLDR: Dev impact from streams exists, but is minimalized as much as possible, and will be getting even more minimal as we progress.
Nothing is ever TLDR, except some recent newletters I couldn't end reading on my smartphone (Jokes aside)
Thanks you for the complete answer, that's allways some sort of comfort to see an official answer not routed by the "official representative" but by the right person at the right moment. No offense on Kilsin, but seeing Joppa, Convo, Aradune or yourself taking a break for an answer to us, is allways somme sort of "trust bridge" built everytime.
I get a better sight, and I'm more confident than ever, that thoses 3 back to back streams are not a nail in the foot of the dev team, but a cunning and non consuming opportunity to show some recent progress of the game the the audience, widening the game's reach to different audiences. I feel also less convinced by Baz's overscripted view of the streams, as I prefer genuine reactions at least from the streamer, if not from everyone.
@Kilsin - my apologies to you and the VR team, as well as the streamers who have done all the hard work so far. I let certain personal feelings get the better of me.
I am certain the fine folks at VR have a proper plan in place for all future streaming and marketing efforts.
Venjenz said:@Kilsin - my apologies to you and the VR team, as well as the streamers who have done all the hard work so far. I let certain personal feelings get the better of me.
I am certain the fine folks at VR have a proper plan in place for all future streaming and marketing efforts.
It's all good my friend, it happens to the best of us. Passion and emotions are a good thing but they can cloud our thoughts sometimes, rest assured the team is focused on the development of the game and that is their top priority. :)
Livestreams are absolutely the best way to advertise Pantheon...I am with this method of advertising 100%.
As to our pledge perks..the higher you pledge the more perks you'll get. I personally wouldn't want to be falling over myself in a livestream ..knowing there are thousands watching me...that would give me horrendous stage fright. hehehe Anyway our perks come later. I love watching the livestreams and the chat that goes with it, also occasional comments from the Devs that make my ears perk up...ooooh bean spillage. :)
Cana