Gemstone IV and Twitch

[Drew]

Wouldn't a client that echoes the text make a lot more sense for streaming? Bandwidth wise at least.

[Hlendril]

My own two cents on Gemstone on Youtube and Twitch:

First things first, we all need to know that this is 2018 and in 2018 what are the chances of people appreciating MUDs? People are just have too little of an attention span to even care abut reading, much less watching someone play a 30 year old text based game. I`m one of the few twenty year olds who even play this game. Had it not been for that strange Magic the Gathering Youtube channel that advertised Gemstone for some reason (Heck I dont even play MG, please forgive me!) I would have not known bout this game`s existence. Now, people only care about the next Call of Duty game or whatever for them to care about playing, much less watching, a person play Gemstone, a text-based game. People just arent as imaginative as they used too. I remember as a kid, watching Lord of the Rings hoping I`ll make those dreams of being in a middle-earth like world come true, or close to it. I`ve played many RPGs of varying graphical power yet none of them are as immersive as this. MUDs in general seem to be way more immersive than modern games where its more about grinding and not about roleplayng. I`m sure if you roleplayed in any modern roleplaying game, most of the time people will just laugh at you, because for them their character is just a character, no personality just gaining XP and loot. I mean GS does that as well but its more apparent with modern games it seems.

Now, going back to watching GS, I think the only way people will watch GS gameplay is not to show them gameplay, but rather summarize it in a clean, entertaining way and manner. You know, like a comic fandub of sorts. Leafiara has made countless storyline Logs in the main Forums and if someone made the effort of reading that text and acting out the character`s voices, maybe people will be interested. I mean, Gemstone is like Dungeons and Dragons. Nobody wants to watch four dudes with Mountain Dew and Doritos sit on their ass for nine hours straight making odd noises while throwing dice. But if summarized and told in a cinematic, narrative type of story-telling it`ll work. D&D is still popular and relevant and people DO watch D&D just not in a way people think they watch it. I mean, what would ye rather watch for nine hours strait, dudes throwing dice or Witcher 3?

All in all, I think gemstone should be read like a storybook rather than following a standard lets-play format which always fails. Also, Gemstone isnt relevant anymore and Youtube wasn't around when the game was first released to draw a familiar crowd upon. Its rather obscure nowadays, a hidden gem buried under Tripple-AAA overrated garbage of modern mediocrity. Ach! I dont mean to offend people who play such games, its just that I`m a 40 year old trapped in a 20 year old`s body, thats all. Too old fashioned for my generation!

[Methais]

Wouldn't a client that echoes the text make a lot more sense for streaming? Bandwidth wise at least.

Someone had something like this set up a couple years ago. I don't remember who it was or what the script was called but it was pretty neat while it was around.

The biggest problem with streaming GS is only other GS users are going to be able to keep up with it because a casual isn't going to know which text to ignore. People who aren't familiar with MUDs tend to think that every word on the screen is relevant and needs to be read when probably 90% of it can be ignored. And a stream that stops long enough to give viewers time to read every room description for the ones who might be interested will be a pretty slow and boring stream.

[Fallen]

I agree that for best viewing you'd need to play radically different than normal. You'd want scenarios that are already planned out in advance, and narrate throughout to explain what's going on and bring attention to important points. Heavy use of squelching, battle brief, ect should be used and disabled at certain points to draw attention to what's taking place. It may even be worth recording your gameplay, narrating either through voice or overlaid text, then editing the recording down later for a condensed experience.

Stuff that I could see working:

1. Completing a dangerous hunting task from the Adventurer's Guild.
2. Completing a Warcamp assignment.
3. Starting near hitting a Voln step, hitting the required favor, then completing the rank.
4. A walkthrough of various hunting grounds, explaining the background lore and showing off the creatures.
5. A lightly scripted RP event where only a few characters engage with one another, and is centered around some event (CvC, etc)
6. A Commune.

I agree that just stuffing a feed onto Twitch isn't going to work. You're going to need a highly curated experience to highlight what Gemstone has to offer.

[audioserf]

To add on to Fallen's post, to me this would be interesting for unique builds/showcasing insane equipment. Nobody wants to watch Lord Joe Blow the level 32 sword and board ranger hunt scaly burgees. I want to see a 30m wizard with a blink greataxe housing the Scatter or something.

[Fallen]

To add on to Fallen's post, to me this would be interesting for unique builds/showcasing insane equipment. Nobody wants to watch Lord Joe Blow the level 32 sword and board ranger hunt scaly burgees. I want to see a 30m wizard with a blink greataxe housing the Scatter or something.

Yep, unique builds and auction toys would make for several nice episodes.

[Methais]

I agree that for best viewing you'd need to play radically different than normal. You'd want scenarios that are already planned out in advance, and narrate throughout to explain what's going on and bring attention to important points. Heavy use of squelching, battle brief, ect should be used and disabled at certain points to draw attention to what's taking place. It may even be worth recording your gameplay, narrating either through voice or overlaid text, then editing the recording down later for a condensed experience.

Stuff that I could see working:

1. Completing a dangerous hunting task from the Adventurer's Guild.
2. Completing a Warcamp assignment.
3. Starting near hitting a Voln step, hitting the required favor, then completing the rank.
4. A walkthrough of various hunting grounds, explaining the background lore and showing off the creatures.
5. A lightly scripted RP event where only a few characters engage with one another, and is centered around some event (CvC, etc)
6. A Commune.

I agree that just stuffing a feed onto Twitch isn't going to work. You're going to need a highly curated experience to highlight what Gemstone has to offer.

Fuck that, ARE YOU GUYS READY TO ABSORB SOME EXP WITH ME TODAY?!?!? THIS IS GONNA BE INTENSE!!!

To add on to Fallen's post, to me this would be interesting for unique builds/showcasing insane equipment. Nobody wants to watch Lord Joe Blow the level 32 sword and board ranger hunt scaly burgees. I want to see a 30m wizard with a blink greataxe housing the Scatter or something.

The other side of that is posting logs is just as good if not better, since you can scroll back and forth through it at will.

[LivderaDeralleur]

I actually considered streaming my gameplay once, as I imagine there'd be some curiosity as to how someone completely blind plays GS. Though I'd probably have the opposite effect of making people's brains explode as they try to keep up with my text-to-speech screen reading program while also reading the text on the screen. Plus all the sound effects I have going on to cue me to specific things happening (MOB attacking me, getting hit, tier-up chance for UAC, etc.)

Might be interesting to try to lure more blind players to the game, I suppose.

[audioserf]

The other side of that is posting logs is just as good if not better, since you can scroll back and forth through it at will.

You're right about that. I don't think Twitch is a great format for GS.

[Geijon]

This is Dice, Camera, Action.

https://www.twitch.tv/dnd

They do of course have Chris Perkins so it's likely a quality we'd not approach, but this seems to be the concept that folks would find entertaining.