TL;DR at the bottom if you don't want to read my ramblings.

My descent from hardly ever missing a scheduled stream day to having not streamed at all in the last couple of weeks was a slow one, been thinking about what caused it the last couple days and I think I've got it figured out.

I think it started with the release of DayZ's infamous .55 patch...dear god that patch was unplayable. So, with the game we built the channel on being completely un-enjoyable I had to branch into other games to stream, which wasn't all bad by any means, I like playing a variety of games, however with the lack of DayZ on stream came the lack of a lot of regulars coming around. Which is completely Ok! People have their preferences on games that they want to watch on Twitch and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, the fault was with my mindset, not with people not being there. I still love you all whether you watch any game I play or if you only watch when I play DayZ. Promise. My mindset: Full honesty, it was discouraging to see numbers drop when playing other games. But over the last few weeks of being off streaming I've reworked my mindset, more on that later.

My venture into Youtube....hasn't started yet. I did a lot of research on how to get started in youtube, what programs to use for recording, editing, idea's for story lines...etc. And then that was the end of it. Patch .55 came out right after I announced I would be doing more on youtube leaving me with no desire to play the game(none the less play with the intent of getting footage I could turn into a video) Reign of Kings, while I still think it's an absolutely amazing game for roleplaying and a great potential source of video material, the server I was playing on descended into constant base raiding and out of character dueling with very little role play outside of people talking with weird accents. I still have hope that the server will come back to life with some great role play in the future, and I'm confident it will, but for now, RoK is taking a backseat. Mainly because of Ark.

Ark is my favorite game that has come out in recent years, holy balls this game is great, but it's in a weird spot for player interaction what is what I like to stream. Even though it is a MMO, it's a very PVE oriented MMO, the portions of the game that I enjoy the most are PVE, which is one of the main reasons I can't watch streams of it, and I imagine a lot of the DayZ crowd(which my stream is mostly) also doesn't enjoy it. I'd much rather play Ark than watch it, and if I feel that way, I know many others do as well.

So at the end of all that happening I got a sinus infection, which then turned into an ear infection. Had no desire to stream in that condition, and this past weekend I was in North Carolina for my sister-in-law's wedding. It was ok. I don't like weddings, but North Carolina was pretty. Got back Sunday night and I've been rethinking my approach to streaming ever since.

It really isn't some huge ground breaking change in my mindset, and honestly it's the mind set that I aimed to have from the beginning, and I'd say I was successful in keeping the correct mind set 70% of the time, but 30% of the wrong mindset was enough to turn me off from streaming for a bit. Streaming shouldn't be about success, or growth as a channel. There is nothing wrong with success or growth as a broadcaster, but that shouldn't be the focus. Like I said, most of the time I felt fully aligned with that philosophy while broadcasting, but when numbers began to dwindle a bit because of the lack of DayZ, it began discouraging me, because I was thinking about it incorrectly. I should have focused on enjoying the game I was playing, giving quality gameplay and commentary while having a good time talking to everyone who was there to watch and hang out with me. It's a pretty easy fix to get past it though, I thought I was could have my viewer count showing on my dashboard without it affecting me, and for awhile I could, but from here out I'm just not going to put that number in front of my face. Also, if you're reading this, help me out by not telling me the viewer count :P

That being said, I'm going to not feel guilty about playing games other than DayZ, though now that I can enjoy DayZ again, it will still be the game that I give the most screen time. But sometimes I'm just gonna wanna play other games, some of you will watch, some won't...that's ok. Watch the games you wanna play, I do the same thing. (If a broadcaster switches to CS:GO while I'm watching that's the fastest way for me to switch, even if it's a broadcaster I'm subbed to.) No hard feelings, promise.

I'm excited to get started again, it's gonna be good and fun. Can't wait to see you all then.

TL;DR I rambled on forever about random bullshit/excuses. I'm streaming on Monday, see you then.

-Darktire