Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Bimonthly Progress Report For My Twitch Channel, FuzzyJCats, July 2 To Sept 1

FuzzyJCats Twitch Channel

Now that I accomplished the most important improvement to my stream, not caring about numbers, I was able to focus on my goals listed in my last progress report during this period.  

I was getting better at talking and gaming at the same time, as it didn't quite take as much effort as before. I was able to stream without exercising just as well as before when I really had to exercise to perform.

Interestingly, as streaming seemed to be more and more natural (though not quite effortless which is where I want to end up at), I felt that near the end of the period, I actually fell into complacency, so I didn't really work on self-care issues, improving fluency, removing vocal tics and filler words, and the like.

I could tell that I was starting to become complacent around last week, because I didn't have that passion I have when I want to improve upon things. The good news is that this week, after realizing that I was almost going through the motions (albeit while streaming, I was having fun being with my community), I rediscovered that excitement and drive to work on improving my content.

I found one obvious area to improve is to have more purposeful gaming while chatting. My default strat of just moving the character around as I'm chatting just to provide some change in scenery is certainly better than nothing, i.e. having my character stand in one place. But clearly, we can do better than that!

Admittedly, the strat was a good crutch as I was getting acclimated to the multitasking, but since it's taking less effort to stream thanks to experience, I'd like to actually chat and purposefully move toward the boss, as boss fights are amongst the most exciting content.

The roadblock is that for some reason, I feel compelled to narrate what I'm doing in gaming, so if I'm moving toward a goal, I'd talk about that, as opposed to talking about more interesting subjects that my viewers present.

Therefore, I have to make a concerted effort to only talk about why I'm doing something if there's nothing else to address in chat, and I can't think of any other topics to talk about.

I feel by consciously gaming purposefully the entire stream, my streaming content will improve immensely. But by doing this, I do in fact have to exercise as that's going to take so much more mental energy than just going through the motions (that might explain why I was recently able to stream despite not exercising).

Fortunately, I exercised for the first time yesterday when my asthma was stable, and I have to make sure that I exercise regularly like I used to during the beginning of my streaming.

I also want to improve being more fluent. Due to being so excitable, my mind goes all over the place, leading to my speaking in fits and starts, and often not completing sentences. 

A great example of a streamer who is warm, friendly, constantly talks to chat, addresses and knows all of his viewers, and offers amazing gameplay the entirety of his stream is RichieTwoTeas. Although Richie's a professional streamer, and I'm a hobbyist, it helps to have a lofty goal to strive toward.

I believe that purposeful gaming and fluency are the two major improvements to focus on for my second year of streaming as achievable goals. The third improvement of community building does not appear to have concrete steps to take, but I can work on finding solutions this period. My first stream was on July 25, 2018.

Improving equipment to stream through PC using OBS greatly improves audio-visuals to a noticeable effect, so getting a decent PC and learning how to set up OBS is definitely something I'll be working on down the road.

Although I tend to do better with improving on one aspect rather than multiple, it appears that having good game content and fluency are intertwined, so it won't be "confusing" to work on both at the same time, as they are what you do when streaming.

An easy improvement I made is buying 4 season-specific sub badges through Own3D, which was rather cost-effective, and they often (always?) have 50% discounts. One set of sub badges costs $15 with the steep discounts - you get 3- 6- 9- and 12- month badges. So far, I featured the ice cream and pumpkin sub badges, and the other two will follow upon season change.

Responding to viewers have improved. I obtain logs through Chatty.

Goals Achieved:
  • No longer caring about viewer numbers
  • Incorporated 4 Sub Badges 
  • Using Chatty
Improvement to focus on for next period:
  • Purposeful gaming while chatting  and fluency = must do self-care

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