These streamers are comically bad

[Bazy]

Wizard was locked in engagement. So the guy attempts to kite his wizard away... suffering disengagement attack after disengagement attack. The more damage he took the more he yelled at the wizard to get away...

 

 

/sigh

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_WVdrwoPUo&t=1847#t=30m08s

 

These are people that got a review copy? Are paid to play games? And talk about how much they loved IE games?

 

/mind blown

 

 

 

This is almost as good as Adam during the first beta demo

 

 

 

Edit: They all seem to brush off the tutorial tips...

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Tamerlane]

Being bad and yelling loudly is a major part of the schtick for a lot of Twitch/Youtube personalities.

 

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[Bryy]

Yahtzee Croshaw is also not a bitter old guy that talks a mile a minute and hates every game ever.

[MasterPrudent]

On one hand these guys haven't been reading the forums and playing the beta for months and the game doesn't exactly tutorialise. On the other hand they have access to the manual and the cyclopedia and there are the engagement lines and red shading under the movement cursor to let them know what's going on.

[Voss]

On one hand these guys haven't been reading the forums and playing the beta for months and the game doesn't exactly tutorialise.

 

Pretty much.

Also, these grapes? Comically Sour.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Voss

[Verenti]

The one I'm watching seems to want to play Skyrim. Seems to hate "nerds" as well. These are the people who get the game before the backers?

[Himntor]

Well hopefully that will change in time. I plan on making a playthrough series on youtube as soon as possible, I just hope I'm as capable with the game as with Baldur's Gate. Judging from my experience on hard in the beta, it shouldn't be too tough.

[like00111]

This streamer actually seemed to be decent at the game, bad at pronoucing the names (can you really blame him... ) I haven't watched to much, to avoid spoilers.

http://www.twitch.tv/theroguezombie/profile/past_broadcasts

[MasterPrudent]

This streamer actually seemed to be decent at the game, bad at pronoucing the names (can you really blame him... ) I haven't watched to much, to avoid spoilers.

 

http://www.twitch.tv/theroguezombie/profile/past_broadcasts

Well that guy is an Obsidian employee and he HAS been playing the full game for months.

[HozzM]

Does the full game not have any kind of tutorial?  I consider myself an IE veteran and 'good' at playing all of those games but the first time I played POE, I wiped on my first fight on Normal.

[Tamerlane]

To expand on what I said earlier, you've got a few things coming together.

 

First there's the basic demands of the medium. A streamer has a certain pace that they want to go at to keep things lively. A stream where they sit around and page through dialogue dialogue is a boring stream. A streamer also has a certain level of audience interaction that they want to meet that varies from person to person. Neither of these things are conducive to activities like "reading tutorials" or "paying attention in combat". Some of this is alleviated by taking the time to learn the game before streaming it (but a lot of streaming/Youtube culture, such as it is, highly values "freshness" - both in regards to how quickly the content comes as well as how new the player is to the content - so there are impediments there) or passing on livestreams in favour of, say Youtube videos where you don't have to worry about your chat (and can even do your dialogue in post!), but with a game that's on the cusp of release like this, that's a whole lot to ask for/expect.

 

Second, there's what I mentioned earlier: the schtick. A lot of these sorts of videos try to fall somewhere inside a Venn diagram labelled with words like "Wacky" and "Frustrated". Like I said, a lot of streamers, video makers, and audiences specifically want blind, no-foreknowledge experiences. This has sort of evolved into a weird kabuki theatre wherein the streamer plays up the, "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO HARD!" and "OH GOD I DIED AGAIN!" angle while they distort their face for their webcam and an animated .gif flashes the username of their newest subscriber. It's not my sort of thing, but it's a big chunk of the market, especially when you're talking about streamers who do not have single "dedicated" games.

 

Finally, I'm of the opinion that games like Pillars of Eternity just don't do video particularly well. Like, if you got to lparchive.org, there's a reason why virtually every RPG, whether it's western or eastern, is done in screenshot format. Some things just work better in different formats, y'know?

[Bazy]

Does the full game not have any kind of tutorial?  I consider myself an IE veteran and 'good' at playing all of those games but the first time I played POE, I wiped on my first fight on Normal.

It does. And seems to explains things pretty well... but most of these streamers just brush them off when they pop up. 

 

Also this is not there first playthrough

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Sensuki]

It's all your fault Tamerlane - you were the one who requested punishing movement in combat.

[wolfstriked]

Why cant we download the manual?

[Tamerlane]

You won't kill me, Sensuki, out of some misplaced sense of... self-righteousness!

 

And I? won't kill you, because... you're just too much fun.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Tamerlane

[Sensuki]

No, I'll spare you for now, but I will warn others of your treachery.

[Voss]

The one I'm watching seems to want to play Skyrim. Seems to hate "nerds" as well. These are the people who get the game before the backers?

Ragging on 'nerds' is a youtube/twitch joke trope.  Depending on who is using and why, it can be less funny (taking it for cereal) or more funny (self-deprecating humor).

[Bazy]

To expand on what I said earlier, you've got a few things coming together.

 

First there's the basic demands of the medium. A streamer has a certain pace that they want to go at to keep things lively. A stream where they sit around and page through dialogue dialogue is a boring stream. A streamer also has a certain level of audience interaction that they want to meet that varies from person to person. Neither of these things are conducive to activities like "reading tutorials" or "paying attention in combat". Some of this is alleviated by taking the time to learn the game before streaming it (but a lot of streaming/Youtube culture, such as it is, highly values "freshness" - both in regards to how quickly the content comes as well as how new the player is to the content - so there are impediments there) or passing on livestreams in favour of, say Youtube videos where you don't have to worry about your chat (and can even do your dialogue in post!), but with a game that's on the cusp of release like this, that's a whole lot to ask for/expect.

 

Second, there's what I mentioned earlier: the schtick. A lot of these sorts of videos try to fall somewhere inside a Venn diagram labelled with words like "Wacky" and "Frustrated". Like I said, a lot of streamers, video makers, and audiences specifically want blind, no-foreknowledge experiences. This has sort of evolved into a weird kabuki theatre wherein the streamer plays up the, "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO HARD!" and "OH GOD I DIED AGAIN!" angle while they distort their face for their webcam and an animated .gif flashes the username of their newest subscriber. It's not my sort of thing, but it's a big chunk of the market, especially when you're talking about streamers who do not have single "dedicated" games.

 

Finally, I'm of the opinion that games like Pillars of Eternity just don't do video particularly well. Like, if you got to lparchive.org, there's a reason why virtually every RPG, whether it's western or eastern, is done in screenshot format. Some things just work better in different formats, y'know?

The ones Im watching seem to be playing normally. A lot of these have had the game for days. This is not there first playthrough... 

 

Also I've seen some very good streams of this game. The first one was done last night was by a developer and was good. Sensuki's was good. Josh's stream in January was excellent and the PAX stream as well.... Thus, not sure I agree this genre is not conducive as you say

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Bazy]

This streamer actually seemed to be decent at the game, bad at pronoucing the names (can you really blame him... ) I haven't watched to much, to avoid spoilers.

 

http://www.twitch.tv/theroguezombie/profile/past_broadcasts

Yah he was good...

 

But he is also a developer at Obsidian

 

 

Then again so was Adam when he fought the beetles....

[Tamerlane]

1: The three people you mentioned have way more experience than "a few days" (besides the fact that many streamers/Youtube folks either didn't play the game before the streaming embargo dropped or were making recordings of their play during that time so they could push videos out the door the second the embargo dropped). One is the lead designer, another is an Obsidian employee working on a different project (I think?), and the third probably has more Beta time under his belt than anyone else.

 

2: To varying degrees, those videos are much more focused than your average stream video. Josh's PAX video is the strongest example of this. There's miles of difference between playing specific chunks with a high-level party meant to show off exactly what you want to show off and booting up a game and running through it.

[TrueMenace]

I was looking at some of the streamers on twitch, and I decided to pop in on this gamer chick's stream of Pillars.

 

It was terrifyingly awful.

 

She was blasting HER OWN MUSIC on top of the game's music. 

 

I then decided to ask her why, and she said her "audience" loves her music and told me to leave. 

 

She was also not even playing. I swear, 95% of these streamers are spending time reading donations, subscriber updates, etc. then playing the game.

 

It's quite a disgusting cultural phenomenon that Twitch created with these "personality streamers". 

[Dorky88]

What I find more baffling than some people playing bad is seeing a couple of twitch streamers with about 30 followers.

Why they got review copies I have no idea.

[Bazy]

1: The three people you mentioned have way more experience than "a few days" (besides the fact that many streamers/Youtube folks either didn't play the game before the streaming embargo dropped or were making recordings of their play during that time so they could push videos out the door the second the embargo dropped). One is the lead designer, another is an Obsidian employee working on a different project (I think?), and the third probably has more Beta time under his belt than anyone else.

 

2: To varying degrees, those videos are much more focused than your average stream video. Josh's PAX video is the strongest example of this. There's miles of difference between playing specific chunks with a high-level party meant to show off exactly what you want to show off and booting up a game and running through it.

Right... But I was responding to your point that this genre is not conducive to videos. Just saying I enjoy watching the ones that are done well. 

Edited March 24, 2015 by Bazy

[Tamerlane]

Well, without a screenshot LP to act as a point of comparison, that's kinda something that just has to come down to "my word", y'know?

[Bazy]

Well, without a screenshot LP to act as a point of comparison, that's kinda something that just has to come down to "my word", y'know?

I know