The post-Con blues are very real. Not because the conventions are some mind blowing event, (Seriously, if you've walked the show floor of one gaming related Con you've seen them all) but because of the people. I've been to Pax Prime 3 times now and each has been more amazing than the last. If I'm ever forced to only pick one convention to attend each year, it will probably still be Pax Prime, BUT- TwitchCon was an experience like no other.

Even though Pax is pretty focused on gaming and nerd culture, it's still a very broad focus. Where TwitchCon differs is that the focus is on 2 main things: Broadcasting and Community.

Seeing everyone's passion for broadcasting was an extremely motivating thing to witness. I've been going back and forth trying to decide if I wanted to pursue broadcasting more seriously, or just keeping it as a hobby that I do occasionally. After seeing how broadcasting has changed so many peoples lives for the better, not just the broadcasters themselves, but the viewers too, I've decided I'm going to dive in head first and go for it. That's going to look like a whole lot of different and new things for the channel, but that's a whole other story that I'm not going to focus on right now. We gonna do it big! And I can't wait to bring you all along on the ride with me.

But beyond broadcasting the passion for and within communities was beyond amazing, and even changed my worldview a bit.

I've always been a person who has been extremely attracted to passion. Whether it's through song lyrics and compositions, passion for a persons work or hobby...passion for fighting injustice, or just trying to leave the world a little bit better than it was before. Seeing someones passion will always bring a smile to my face or a tear to my eye, even if I'm not particularly passionate about the same things(or hell, even if I disagree with what a person is passionate about). Within the community at TwitchCon I saw passion, and a lot of it.

I did a lot of just hanging out(and even more drinking) at bars with people throughout the weekend, but what we did was more than just drinking or playing pool in a bar. We were spending a small portion of our life together. Sharing in our passions, our fears, our joys, our failures and successes. For this one weekend the walls were down and it was because of a sense of community within us. I fully believe that the human race has a deeply ingrained desire to be a part of a community. For those of us at TwitchCon we found one, and a damn good one. I don't think I fully really realized how much the Twitch community means to me until I began typing this up. To outsiders we're a bunch of nerds sitting in front of computers after a long day of work or school just watching video games.

But if being one of those "nerds" means showing passion and compassion for people regardless of race, religion, gender, interests or hobbies, then count me in. I saw it all this weekend. Passion for art, anger for mistreatment of people based on their hobbies, joy just to be spending time with people, appreciation for being a person that listens, the list goes on and on. I wouldn't exchange the experience I had this weekend for anything in the world.

TwitchCon changed things.

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 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥/excuses. I'm streaming on Monday, see you then.

-Darktire

TL:DR Taking a shot at Youtube story telling; Stream schedule will be a bit more relaxed, fewer but hopefully longer streams. You're all amazeballs. Turtles.

Some of you may or may not have noticed I've not been streaming quite as consistently as I was in the past. I've been busy for one, but also trying to decide the direction I'm wanting to take my content creation. Sorry for keeping you all in the dark, but just needed time to kind of gather my thoughts on this issue, so here's what I got:

Changing gears in content creation: I've always been much more comfortable and able to express myself more effectively when given the chance to write down my thoughts rather than answering/speaking immediately upon being asked. How I imagine this is going to translate to content: I'm going to try my hand at Youtube, I'll still be streaming, but probably not as frequently(more on that below). I think I will be able to more effectively provide an interesting narrative/story through editing and creating a story rather than live entertainment. Again, not that I'm not still enjoying streaming, I just think Youtube could possibly play to my strengths better than live streaming does. We'll see, it'll be an experiment and I fully expect to suck ass at it at first, but dammit I'm gonna try!

Stream Schedule: Going forward my streaming schedule is going to be a bit more relaxed. I still love streaming and I'm still enjoying it, however it does at times begin to feel a bit like a chore to have to be live starting at 5pm every day except the two days of the week where I have other commitments.

Specifics: Monday and Tuesday I'm still expecting to be stream nights, though I'll probably begin streaming earlier in the evening. Say 3pm ish? And streaming longer than in the past but with no set stop time just in case I'm not feeling it that night I don't feel obligated to continue to my set stop time.

Wed/Thurs: Still can't stream other than maybe VERY short streams before my usual stuff those nights.

Fri/Sat/Sun: Going to move these 3 days to "If I feel like it" status. With Sundays being a pretty likely day that I'll be streaming. Still a good chance that I'll be streaming on these days, but I don't want to feel obligated to do so on the weekends. Been neglecting real life relationships because of the stream(no one has said anything to me, just an observation I've made myself).

Expectations moving forward:
I don't know ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about Youtubing/video editing so it's going to be a learning process and my first video probably won't come out for awhile. Stream viewership will likely decrease in the short term as streams will be less consistent, however I feel I'll be able to provide better quality streams rather than more quantity...we'll see how it turns out. Partnership was a goal, however I'm moving that to "It'd be cool if it happened, but I'm not going to sweat it if we don't get there for awhile". Over all, I just want this to be fun and to be able to create entertaining content. I think these steps will allow me to accomplish this best. All in all, this is a learning process and changes will be made if something doesn't end up working.

Thank you all so much for supporting me. Whether you've been here since day 1 or you just started following me today, you're awesome and I appreciate you. Thanks for everything <3

Turtles. Cuz the TL:DR said so.

-Scott (Darktire)

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