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  • Nodecraft now sponsors the g33z3r_hd community!

    I am proud to announce that Nodecraft Hosting, a premium provider of high quality gaming servers, is now sponsoring our community!

    Through this partnership, Nodecraft has provided us with a server that we, as a community, can enjoy playing various Minecraft versions and modes together.  In addition, this server can be used for collaborations between myself and other Twitch and YouTube content creators to provide further entertainment.

    Since the demise of our last hosting service, I have been researching potential gaming server providers that can meet my high expectations of quality of service as well as helpful and responsive support.  After using Nodecraft hosting for quite some time, I decided to begin discussions regarding partnering with them.  As of Monday, January 18th, 2016, we have officially partnered with Nodecraft.

    As a part of this partnership, members of the g33z3r_hd community can receive 15% off of their first month of service with Nodecraft Hosting by using the discount code g33z3r_hd or by clicking on the following link:  https://nodecraft.com/r/g33z3r_hd

    In addition to the provided server, I also have a personal server through Nodecraft that I pay full price for.  This server is used as our community MC server that is currently running FTB Infinity Evolved v2.1.3 in expert mode that several members of the community have enjoyed playing on, building and creating amazing things!  All VIP members of the community (GameWisp Subscribers and Patreon Supporters) are welcome to join this server and play along.

    I highly recommend the services of Nodecraft Hosting and stand behind them 100%!  Let’s show Nodecraft how much we love them and make them feel welcome to the g33z3r_hd community!  I look forward to a long, and amazing, relationship with Nodecraft Hosting!

    g33z3r_hd

     

    g33z3r_hd


  • More than just “turning it on”

    So, as I was laying in bed and often do, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed while contemplating the reasons for my inability to sleep.  Then, it came to my mind and, as happens more than it probably should, my mind puked onto Twitter:

     

    streamingtweet

     

    You see, this thought has constantly gone through my head over the past year that I have been streaming on Twitch.  The amount of prep that goes into every cast, the amount of networking that is required, and the overall work that goes on behind the scenes is much more than most people understand.  Sometimes, just sometimes, I ask myself is it worth it.

    I am a part time streamer.  I stream when I have “free” time that I don’t have to dedicate to my full time job.  It took me around 9 months of streaming to gain my first 1,000 followers.  Now, several months later, I am over 3,500 followers and growing slowly everyday.  I don’t do anything else.  If I am not streaming or working, I am working on something related to my channel.  Working on my channel graphics, searching for new music, talking to other streamers, talking to my moderators, thinking of ways to further grow the channel; all things that consume my time outside of the stream (and the list goes on and on).  You see, as I stated in that post, there is a lot more to streaming that just “turning it on” and it can get frustrating.

    No matter how frustrating it is however, the rewards that are reaped from the hard work show in channel growth.  That is what makes this particular time on Twitch ever more frustrating.  As we have all heard from our favorite streamers, right now is a slow time on Twitch.  The primary viewer base is in school and going through testing.  This means that many of the people that normally watch streams are not watching…and rightfully so.  However, as a streamer trying to grow a channel, it is hard because viewer counts are down, follower counts are down.  It makes me start thinking that I am doing something wrong.  I have to constantly remind myself that this is a slow time and not to be so hard on myself…stop worrying about it.  But that is a hard thing for me to accept.

    Over the past several months, I have seen a real growth in my channel.  I have gone from an average of 5 to 15 viewers during the broadcast to between 40 and 60, sometimes as high as 100.  This has been a trend that, frankly, I have gotten used to.  I have gone from maybe 1 or 2 follows per stream to between 30 and 40.  This growth has really made me happy and, frankly, been something that I have taken for granted.  Over the past couple of weeks, viewership has dropped to between 20 and 30 viewers and I tend to see more unfollows than follows.  To me, this is very frustrating…even though it is a part of the natural cycle.

    I can’t tell you how many times the thought of quitting streaming has run through my head.  Then, I think of my community.  How much I love them and how much they support me…I can’t stop.  People like ecooper0760 who is a huge part of my channel and will do anything and everything to help me out.  uMadbro1911 who is supportive to the point of being ridiculous sometimes.  SCGRogue, MCGlenn, MrxGiblets, bebop…the list goes on and on.  People that are in the stream, supporting me day after day after day and have been for quite some time.  Then I think about new people to our community that express their enjoyment…it makes me smile and makes things better.

    Then there are the streamers that have helped me along the way.  People like SiylissTV, FamousCobain, DethridgeCraft, Miss_Undastood (or whatever your name is this week :P)…people that I don’t want to disappoint by quitting.  The help and support that I have received from them has been amazing!  There are others that have helped along the way but these are the streamers that have really done a lot for me and my stream.  So, in my mind, quitting would be failing them…

    Over a year ago, I started out with the goal of having fun streaming and making it a full time endeavor.  Quitting would throw all of the hard work that I have put in right in the toilet.  I am not willing to do that.  Not yet.  Not until I have done everything that I can do…not until it is no longer fun…and streaming is still fun!

    Alright, that is my brain puke that I needed to write.  The things that I needed to get off my chest.  It may not make sense, it may be completely stupid…but they are my thoughts…take it or leave it.  I am NOT going anywhere…

     

    I love each and every one of you and can’t wait to see you during the next broadcast!

    Laters,

    g33z3r_hd

     


  • Wait, Amazon Bought Twitch?

    Yeah, I have heard…Amazon bought Twitch.  Well, as of the writing of this post, the deal wasn’t finalized yet but it has been announced.

    What does this mean to everyone on Twitch?  It means good things…I hope.  First, and foremost, Amazon is HUGE!  They have the technology and infrastructure to make Twitch bigger, and of course, better!  More ingest servers for streamers, better connections and, hopefully, a reduction in stream delay.

    When the rumors of Google buying Twitch were flying around several months ago, I was honestly very worried and was starting to plan my next move.  You see, if Google HAD bought Twitch, I would have moved on and found somewhere else to dedicate my efforts.  In my opinion, even UStream would have been better!  But, as we know now, that isn’t the case and I am not going anywhere.

    Amazon has promised to leave Twitch alone to do that which Twitch does best…provide a platform for Streamers to connect with viewers…and I love it!

    Laters,

    g33z3r_hd


  • My Open Letter to Twitch Regarding VoDs

    I recently authored an email to Twitch’s feedback account.  This email is quoted below.  I have not received a response to it as of the time of this post but I wanted to share what I wrote with everyone.

    Oh Twitch –

    I have to say that I am a little bit on edge right now.  That said, I am going to try my best to make this bit of feedback as productive as possible.

    Your roll out of the 3rd Party Content ID system has been a disaster in my opinion.

    Since I began casting, I have been a HUGE advocate of compliance with DMCA and with copyright.  As a photographer in my past life, I have been effected by copyright violation on more than one occasion.  So, as such, I completely understand, and agree with, the proper respect of an artist’s rights to control their work.  I started out my time streaming on Twitch playing no music at all.  Then, the day came, when I was able to find music published under Creative Commons license to play during my broadcast.  As time went on, I was able to secure the permission of several artists to use their awesome catalogs of works during my stream.  Amazing artists like Approaching Nirvana, Orician, Savant and Section Z Records, Zircon, Big Giant Circles, and Monstercat.  I have grown my music library using exclusively these artists and removed the Creative Commons licensed works to highlight their amazing work.

    I have gained permission from these artists and labels either through direct contact or through blanket permission given by the artists and labels to Twitch streamers and YouTube content creators.  I have gone to great lengths to ensure I comply with the requests and requirements that they have set forth in their permission and licensing to use their content during my broadcast.  Between always showing what song and artists is currently playing to providing contact information and routes to purchase the music, I have made sure that these artists get the credit that they deserve and have requested.

    I have never had a problem with the enforcement of DMCA.  As a matter of fact, it has always been like nails on a chalkboard when I hear a streamer, large or small, playing music that there is no way they have received permission to play.  I support the enforcement of DMCA all day long and twice on Sunday.

    Enter Twitch.  On August 6th, when the new relationship between Twitch and Audible Magic was announced, I was initially impressed that Twitch had started down the road to ensuring enforcement of the use of 3rd Party content.  I was hopeful that Twitch would be able to weed out those that were playing music that they clearly had no permission to play during their streams.  Then I was able to see the system in action.  It was, and remains, a mess.

    The initial roll out of these new changes seems to have been very hasty and less than thought through.

    Eliminating 30 minutes of a VoD because just a few seconds of 3rd Party Content was detected is a perfect example of this.  If the system that Audible Magic uses can identify the start of a piece of 3rd Party Content, it should certainly be able to identify the end of it.  There is no reason in the world that 30 minutes of a VoD should be muted based on the presence of a piece of 3rd Party Content that has “matched.”

    That aside, when content is flagged, not only does the streamer not even receive notification that content has been flagged (we have to go watch our VoDs to find out or hear from our viewers), there is no information that says why the content was flagged in the first place.  No identification of the content that triggered the flag, nothing.

    This leads to the biggest problem of the whole system; the appeals process.  I would more likely say, the absence of an appeals process.

    As would be expected, when I discovered that several of my highlights and past broadcasts had been flagged and muted, I began the process by clicking on the “appeal” button above my video player.  Problem number 1, this just attempts to create a new email to send.  An email that I have no clue what to write…no clue what to say because I don’t even know what content was flagged other than a bunch of something in a 30 minute block.  Is there a buffer ahead of the flagged content?  Is it the content that is playing when the muting starts?  I have no clue.  So, I just write (in ever one of the emails) something to the effect of “I have permission and here is my proof.  I provide screenshots and links to documents and websites that provide license and permission to use the content.  Out of the 5 or 6 emails of this kind that I have sent, I have received responses from 2 that simply say we are going to look into it.

    Fast forward to today.  I received another response today regarding one of the 2 cases that I had already received the “working on it” emails for previously.  It said that I needed to fill out a form and provided a link to it.  I followed the link and was greeted with a nice, threatening form that basically is designed to provide information to initiate a law suite against me.  Nowhere does it give a place for proof of license or permission.  No where does it give space to do anything but agree to the jurisdiction of the US court system (or other foreign court) and wants to provide me information such as name, address, telephone number et cetera.  All without any kind of assurance of privacy or any kind of security such as SSL.

    In addition, this form requires that you provide a list of the flagged content that was removed.  Again, how can I even complete this form when there has never been any kind of notification of what the supposed 3rd Party Content was?  Just completely makes no sense.

    So, long story short (well not really), I am very upset with the way that Twitch has handled this entire situation.  It seems to me that someone at Twitch came up with this idea that Twitch needed to be in compliance and just quickly threw something together without doing any type of due diligence or preparation.  For crying out loud, if you are going to institute a new system like this, you should have your OWN appeals process in place and ready to go before you roll things out.  Before you launch.  Not putting up a button the next day with a link to an email address!

    At this point, it really seems to me that Twitch no longer cares about it’s broadcasters or viewers.  Twitch seems to have simply moved into the realm of “we will do the minimum to get by and cover our asses” awaiting a hopeful buyout by someone…It is very sad.

    So, in closing, I would ask this.  Can you please put into place a system that notifies streamers when their content is flagged and what the content is that triggered the flag?  Can you please institute a PROPER system that allows for a streamlined appeals process that helps those of us that are doing things “by the book” to get through it without the overly threatening tone?  Can you please show the Twitch community that you actually care about us and fix this thing?  I realize that I am a VERY small streamer, and I don’t have much of a voice (if any) with you but I beg you…please

    Jeremy

    g33z3r_hd

     


  • Stream-A-Thon This Saturday (03/8/14)

    Join me this coming Saturday (03/08/2014) at 9am US Central time for the kick off my first Stream-A-Thon!

    How long is a Stream-A-Thon you ask?  Easy answer…I have NO idea.  I suspect it will be at LEAST 12 hours but will be shooting for 24…we shall see.  I am going to stream until I can stream no more!

    We will be playing Minecraft (of course) in various incarnations, maybe some PS3 and Xbox 360…we will see what we feel like!  Maybe even play some Flappy Birds or Flying Furry!

    As a bonus, I will have 3 Minecraft account cards to give away randomly throughout the stream…don’t ask when the giveaway is going to be because I am just going to do it when I feel like doing it.  If people continually ask about it, I will delay it even longer…

    So that’s that!  I will see you Saturday at 9am US Central time (GMT -6)

     

    Cheers for now

    g33z3r_hd

    PS – As an aside, due to the Stream-A-Thon, I will not be casting on Friday night as I do normally so that I can get some good old fashioned sleep prior to the event!


  • Tomorrow is the day!!

    Be there…or be square!  Well, be there or miss out on the opportunity to win one of 5 valuable gift cards!

    My stream, starting at 7 pm US Central time…http://www.twitch.tv/g33z3r_hd

    I will be drawing a random user present during the stream at random times for a random card…you must be present and following me on Twitch to be eligible to win.

    Up for grabs:

    3 Minecraft Cards
    1 $20 Playstation Store Card
    1 $25 Xbox Card

    So, tell everyone you know and be there at 7 pm sharp!