Hey everybody, apologies for the low quality on Viper's camera. The software we use has been acting up a bit but I found a better solution for the future, so this won't happen again. Thank you very much for watching and hope you enjoy the episode!
Amazing content as usual, always click and watch full as soon as I see it! Thank you very much guys! Cool to see Ornlu here as well! Also looking forward to NAC, really excited for that one
RBW was fantastic. It wasn't perfect, but it felt like a proper event and even as a viewer on RU-vid I felt part of it. The draft added to the drama, as did the band, the silly costumes, all that stuff. They could've done more, but hell, it was my world cup.
I can see the appeal to some, but I'd rather just have more AOE2 (gameplay) content. I intentionally started watching later so I could skip all the non AOE stuff.
Ornlu seemed quite down (totally understandably) about not being invited to the Wololo event. I know it has been discussed previously on the podcast, but I hope future events can give an opportunity to him and others that work so hard but haven't fully "broken through" yet
Hopefully, Noble Apartment Cup won't have the same issue that The Grand Melee had, so many AOE2 fans already spent their money on tickets for Red Bull, and another LAN so soon, they may not have more money this year to go to another LAN.
Sadly I think it's as you guys mentioned the scene is just saturated. People in general have a lot more free time to watch game content and streamers during COVID, when a lot more viewers and content creators joined, but the growth of the scene was never sustainable. Once normal daily life, social and entertainment returned, people don't have that much free time for watching streams, so they are naturally funneled towards the number one or two favorites. Often quality is not the issue, it's just that the cake is already shared and as long as old viewers is content with their no.1 favorite streamer, nothing motivates them to switch to follow other creators. It's not just for AoE community, but many other popular game streamers and smaller content creators are facing this issue too. I will miss community members like Lidakor. He is the kind of relatively small creators that really committed a lot during the COVID period to upscale his content, hoping to find a sustainable position in the scene. He did a lot of things like community awards, highlights and also hosted creative tournament like the 2 pools. 2020/21 was such a great period for AoE2. And I will miss you too Ornlu. Your contents are great. Often times in life success or not is not because you're worse than other people or did not work hard enough. Wish you all the best!
I totally agree with you. I was somebody who watched a lot of streams pre- and during covid. After 2023, almost nothing. Life changes, priorities changes, the priority of your interests change.
ornlu definitely doesnt have worse content, he is just unfortunately in the algorithm, his streams can be pretty entertaining funny and analytical too.
You know what, I did compose a little intro for my old Podcast "Kings & Plebeians"! But I feel like it sounds like the intro jingle for a news broadcast or whatever and not really fitting for this Pod 😅
This isn't a definitive answer by any means, but we can track compare the number of active players on Steam during a server maintenance to number of active players on the same day and hour in preceding weeks, and generally based on that we can presume that the SP part of the playerbase is at least 60%, since the player counts usually drop by 40%
If there was a live quiz, I know I wouldn't be selected, but I'd crush it. My game knowledge is almost encyclopedic at this point. But sadly traveling again this year is just not possible, especially on a 2 month notice... Now if only I could transfer that knowledge into actually playing well 11
The streamer/caster discussion around 35:00 is, like how Ornlu hinted saying its frustrated him before, has been a contention point for a long time, I think. I started watching/listening to AoE streams much more over covid; I would turn a stream on and listen/occasionally watch while working. Like Viper mentioned, I pick(ed) my preferences, tune in most days and then multitask. When Viper and T90 came back to twitch, I myself being primarily a Memb viewer at the time (and occasionally watching Viper/T90 on FB) at the time noticed how his viewership went down noticibly. I now mainly watch Viper and T90. I think it DEFINATELY is due to viewers having their preference of streamer. It is something that is not unique to AoE2 as well. Many other games, there are tons of quality content creators, but people have their preference and the creator that appealed to more people at the right time has/had the most viewers. I think there is an element of luck, beucase I have seen it several times before where a larger streamer that mained a particular game started doing variety or quit, there was always a "viewership vacuum" or sorts, and it the viewers would, in essence, find a new "home" for content of that game. I've noticed that for most games it generally falls into two categories: Viewer Interaction and just being good at the game; some viewers like watching the gameplay and interacting with the streamer, others simply like watching someone who is good at the game. Take League of Legends for example, the pro players in the leagues have a huge chunk of the viewership, and others who are not pro have celebrity-style status, where their name is known (with sometimes over the top content) and that entices people to watch. With AoE, it is interesting, becuase the Viewer Interaction generalzition is, for the most part, replaced by Casting, so the viewership is between Casters and Players. With the limited amount of games/tourneys to cast, people can only watch one caster, so they gravitate towards who's casting style they like the most. For casting, uniqueness and style sets one apart from others. For example, I started watching T90 more becuase of his Low Elo Legends series.
I liked RBW a lot! It was so much fun, despite the technical problems I love how hard the production team worked for the event. And I think TheViper is right, for me I have little time to watch aoe2, so I just watch the streamers that I’ve always followed, is my relaxing time
Agree with ornlu that people follow the streamer and not the event. and is a pity. The numbers from WDC 2 were not bad. Maybe were bad for Ornlu, but in general i saw good viewers counting all streamers.
Ressonance22 was in a very bad headspace, lost his job, and lost interest in AoE2, tried something else he cared more about but nobody else and then disappeared. KillerB is something I'd really be interested. I am still in his discord and have him on Steam.
About small streamers getting more viewers: I think you have to find your viewers outside the community. Erich Müller is a German example. He does content with more famous streamers outside of AoE and it is extremly entertaining because those other guys are clueless and they learn the game which is what new viewers do with them. They key part is not gameplay but banter. So find a way to get new audience instead of trying to convince current AoEviewers to switch
Truth is ornlu could've done 100% better job promoting the tournament. After it was announced there was no promo videos talking about it, no videos about it podcast style, nothing. There's a reason why people turn up for the big names and it's not magic. Also adding to this the current big names were not born amazing, they've improved over time and are still improving.
Hera always does this. When he encounters something that he believes is unfair he uses it on the big stage to show everyone its unfair so its taken out without much discussion
That's the way to get things to be fixed. Honestly, Hera is a hero we need but don't deserve. He takes all hates for doing this but he is the one who forced devs to fix things. Not by complaining like thousands of us do but by showcasing it in the highest level where it becomes a PR issue and the dev have to fix it.
Imagen Red Bull Wolololo with 9 vil start - would be better immediately. And for me the problem with command move and hera was - clearly hera is investing the most and the best player by far and that he think it needs to be banned but still use it shows very low attitude or akward way to think of competition. If he would believe in himself and his skills he would want to win the final without even thinking using that move. That would have shown class.
There were a few issues with the marble run. The lack of “stakes”, as they say, was a big issue. And there wasn’t much time or incentive to become invested in it. That said, I liked the marble run. I just think it could use a little improvement.
Nelson, if you do get the chance to do a live quiz for the audience and you'd like some help then let me know if I should send you an email or something. I have a lot of experience hosting quizzes for 100+ people (even writing a book about it :) ) so there might be some extra factors that you may overlook
