What are people looking for in Streams?

[Blaine.4513]

Hi Folks :)

I've been on guild wars since release but i've had time away from time to time, with alot of time free at the moment, i'm looking into Streaming, but...what do people look for in Streams?Open world? Fractals? PvP? WvW?

i've streamed a few time on Twitch and i've had only a couple of people watching whiles i do daily Fractals,its just something id like to try to keep myself busy and gives me something to do :)

i'm open for information and tips :)

Thank YouBlaine.4513

[kharmin.7683]

From what I understand from the previous threads on streaming/twitch, most players prefer to play the game rather than to watch someone else play it.

[SkyCake.4216]

Very few people are going to be interested in watching anything in Guild Wars 2. People tend to prefer watching streams for the streamer and not for what they're playing. I don't usually watch streams, but will sometimes watching the recordings for Sips or Northernlion because I enjoy their commentary. They're fun. Or you can go the Asmongold route and be controversial. But, GW2 is never going to get you viewers that you don't already have. GW2 doesn't have those "hype" moments or anything new to discover.

If you insist on playing GW2, then I would suggest that PvP is your best bet if you're exceptionally good. At least PvP has some variance to it and has room for you do something impressive like win while outnumbered. Anyone can log on right now and do like 95% the game has to offer without much resistance. Like, no one wants to watch someone they don't know (you in this case) fight Drakkar when they've already fought it like 50 times themself. The fight doesn't change. Even streamers that pull like 30k viewers would have a hard time keeping interest in GW2. You could get away with WvW roaming but watching someone join a zerg would be pretty boring since you're just a part of the blob.

Which, isn't a slight at GW2. It shines in other areas. This is also of course all subjective and based on the observations of someone that isn't really big into Twitch. The only stream I watch with some consistency is Digital Extremes because they give a ton of information out on the game they dev and are also fun. Guild Wars 2 could use a community team like Rebecca and Megan from DE that can make an hour long stream both entertaining and informative.

[Donari.5237]

Kharmin is right. I know the only GW2 streams I watch are the ones the devs do to give us behind the scenes information and (rarely) announcements of something cool coming later. I will watch player-made videos that demonstrate how to do adventures or find collection items. Though I'm very glad Dulfy found lucrative work that ended her free time for documenting video games, I miss her clear, informative, just-what-you-need, only-game-sounds/music videos and web page guides.

To be fair, I don't watch streams of any game except when a friend is running something that I don't play myself such as Darkest Dungeon or remastered 1990's games. And I definitely don't watch anything live streamed that is in first person or zoomed in camera with a lot of motion since I feel like puking inside a minute. Heck, I gave up on Wooden Potatoes videos due to his having a character randomly running around doing things utterly unrelated to the voiceover. My stomach just can't take it :(

So if you can provide instructional guides without a lot of camera swivels, that can be viewed later and paused and rewound at need, you might garner a few views from me and others like me. No promises.

[Westenev.5289]

Personally, I'm more into the post-stream youtube edits. Generally the funny ones with wacky gameplay - kind of like A Music Guild Tries To Raid? I don't need a video tutorial on how to kill gorseval, what I want to see are memes and new ways to have fun.

I find that sort of content is popular with other games, but Gw2 has a lack of it - relatable content that makes fun of the many mistakes we all make.

[Orthonen.9470]

Casuals looking for raiding because they want to see the content they're missing. That's a start.

[Westenev.5289]

@Aridon.8362 said:Casuals looking for raiding because they want to see the content they're missing. That's a start.

Wooden Potatoes already did that though - the full story is on youtube. If you wanna see the fights, those are on youtube too.

[Danikat.8537]

@Donari.5237 said:Kharmin is right. I know the only GW2 streams I watch are the ones the devs do to give us behind the scenes information and (rarely) announcements of something cool coming later. I will watch player-made videos that demonstrate how to do adventures or find collection items. Though I'm very glad Dulfy found lucrative work that ended her free time for documenting video games, I miss her clear, informative, just-what-you-need, only-game-sounds/music videos and web page guides.

To be fair, I don't watch streams of any game except when a friend is running something that I don't play myself such as Darkest Dungeon or remastered 1990's games. And I definitely don't watch anything live streamed that is in first person or zoomed in camera with a lot of motion since I feel like puking inside a minute. Heck, I gave up on Wooden Potatoes videos due to his having a character randomly running around doing things utterly unrelated to the voiceover. My stomach just can't take it :(

So if you can provide instructional guides without a lot of camera swivels, that can be viewed later and paused and rewound at need, you might garner a few views from me and others like me. No promises.

Same here. On the rare occasions I watch streams at all it's for a game I don't own but I'm considering buying, and then just so I can see what the gameplay is like as part of deciding if I want it. Other than that I'm not interested in watching streams or pre-recorded videos because if I'm at the computer (or even on my phone) I'd rather be doing something myself than sitting watching someone else do something. If I wanted to do that I'd watch TV.

The only time I watch videos of games I own it's because I'm stuck on something and either can't find a written walkthrough or it didn't help. In that case what I'm looking for really isn't what most streamers want to do because I just want a straight-forward, direct demonstration of how to do it with a minimum of fuss. Let's say it's a jumping puzzle. My ideal video uses only the in-game music and sound effects, starts at the nearest waypoint and goes straight to and then straight through the puzzle at a normal speed with no unnecessary tricks and with the camera positioned to show what they were doing at each point as clearly as possible. The streamer is only talking to explain what they're doing and (if it's not obvious) why they're doing it (and ideally this is subtitled). I'll skip ahead to the bit I'm stuck on, watch what they did, check I can replicate it in-game and then shut the video off again.

Similarly the easiest way to get me to stop watching immediately is to start the video somewhere totally irrelevant, spinning the camera for no reason while they go on about what was in a previous video, fill the screen with logos and pictures and other things which are not the game, or play music over it. I don't care if it's my favourite song of all time, it doesn't fit the game (especially if it's my favourite song, that would just be weird) and shouldn't be there.

I have no idea if I'm in any way representative of GW2 players in this respect, I can only speak for myself. But I've generally gotten the impression that people who want to stream GW2 generally do better with guides and lore/story reviews and other informative videos than simply showing off themselves playing normally.

[Raknar.4735]

Most of the time I watch streamers because their personality is fun. The game / gamemode doesn't really matter, as long as they keep me entertained.That said, there hasn't been any streamer that regularly plays GW2 that kept me entertained.

[Holykitten.3064]

I look for funny streamers, the game is irrelevant.Are you charismatic? Can you hold attention for hours at a time?

[Infusion.7149]

Really there's only several types of viewer content applicable for GW2: guide type content (i.e. for harder raids, fractals, or just openworld collection type location stuff), organized PvP (monthly AT , organized GvG), and "entertainment" / "for laughs" content such as random offmeta builds doing content (doesn't matter if it is PvE/PvP/WvW).

For anything that isn't particularly difficult there's no reason to waste time on a video ; same goes for un-organized player vs player modes (ranked PvP / unranked PvP / WvW vs randoms). Guides for those can be found on the wiki , metabattle, discretize, or other places and the videos for those are generally just viewed maybe once or twice if the text version isn't clear.

The only thing that a video of say a world boss achieves is if there is a fail condition (ala Drakkar). It is completely uneventful otherwise and not stream-worthy or video-worthy.

[Dadnir.5038]

Mostly, people look for entertainment in stream. A bit of adrenaline rush from risky play or some smart move that they can't participate in for whatever reason.For educatif content (raid/fractal/dungeon/jp... etc.) people look more for something "permanent" on which they can refer at their own rythm (detailed written guide or video).

[Kulvar.1239]

@SkyCakeLight.3750 said:Very few people are going to be interested in watching anything in Guild Wars 2. People tend to prefer watching streams for the streamer and not for what they're playing.

Not entirely true. The thing with GW2 is that most of the things can be done by players as the entry level for most activities are low. Why watch someone doing Dragon's Stand when you can do it yourself ?