FrankerZ Theater Day Three [TwitchCon 2016 Panel Recap]

For the complete list of panels, check out the main

TwitchCon 2016 panel recap

post.

Transitioning from VOD to LIVE

VoD link#

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchconfrankerz/v/92636123?t=13m42s

Moderator#

NukemDukem

Participants#

Elspeth, MissMae, JonSandman

• A lot of Youtubers came to Twitch 2 years ago when the ‘Youtube Apocalypse’ happened. This was when cutscenes and ingame music started to get copyrighted.
• Twitch Clips have made it very easy to make quick YouTube videos.
• Some of the differences between live streams and VODs (Videos on Demand):
• • VODs are easy to catch up on missed moments
  • VOD’s need editing, when you’re done with a live stream you are done with gameplay
  • Live streams are interactive
  • Live streams have more of a personal feel with your followers than YouTube has
  • A lot of people don’t like donation messages and thank you’s etc when watching a VOD so this is something you might want to edit out if you’re going to use it on YouTube.
  • Streaming on Twitch is a lot more laid back compared to YouTube, you start to care a little bit less about the way you look and how you behave.
  • On Twitch you only have about 10-20 seconds to grab someone’s attention, so it’s important to instantly grab a new person’s attention. On YouTube this is less important.
  • When you start off streaming it’s important to bring in a little variation in your streams, especially early on. The later you start with this the harder it becomes to keep the same amount of viewers. You should try to get the viewers attached to you, not the game you play.
  • When it comes to getting access to things like review copies it helps to get a highlight reel of yourself. Don’t be afraid to contact them, showing initiative weighs a lot.
  • Companies have started to realize it is a lot cheaper to give out keys to content creators compared to buying ad-space on TV or radio.
  • There is a function on YouTube that will let your followers know that you are streaming. This helps bringing in your YouTube following to Twitch. Also let people know you stream on Twitch at the end of your YouTube videos.

Management Through Moderation: Bringing Value to the Streaming Table

VoD link#

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchconfrankerz/v/92636123?t=01h42m06s

Moderator#

CohhCarnage

Participants#

theBoatman, triwar, barrycarlyon, Pal_me

• The easiest thing for a streamer to do is to find a moderator or community member who can take of things infrastructure related.
• When you notice a mod has started to become available less, have a chat with them. Communication is key, there might be things going on with them that are only temporary. There are going to be mods who are just going to disappear. When they do you might want to remove their moderator tag within your channel for security reasons.
• Good ways to deal with huge growth spurts is:
• • Get a system to easily update new mods on rules etc, a handbook for instance
  • Have mods whose role it is to just watch chat (if you have a safe-for-work-chat for instance)
  • Set up a schedule to make sure there is always chat coverage
  • Your chat wants the rules that you’ve made for them, so a lot of regulars will help with making sure new people know the rules when they join.
  • With clear rules it is easy to have bots that help with channel moderation
• When choosing new moderators there is an application process with rules they need to accept before applying. It’s important to get a mod that works well with your current mod team, in some cases even more important than with the streamer.
• Modding has become a lot more than just watching chat, the more systems you add to your stream, the more work your mods have to do that takes away from watching chat.
• Documentation on how to train a new mod is important. It makes sure everyone is up to date and aware of all the rules. Makes training new mods a lot quicker.
• Establish a person that newer mods can go to, to ask questions.
• There are many packages you can get now that help with managing your stream, you could make a custom one but keep in mind this can be expensive and take a lot time to get working the way you want.
• Overlays come to existence by watching YouTube video’s about a game and using this info to make sure you don’t hide UI elements from a game for your viewers.
• The most useful tool to moderate your chat is a properly set up a bot, this leaves very little actual banning and purging to do and your mods can spend time talking to and helping the community.
• If you’re new in a channel and aspire to become a mod, be a member of the community and spend a lot of time in the channel and more importantly in the chat. Follow the rules and help out mods when it seems like they need it.
• If you’re a mod you are responsible for the reputation of the streamer you mod for. This means that when you are in different channels you still need to, for a large part, stay true to the rules of the channel you mod for. What you do in other channels might look bad on the person you mod for.
• If your community is not big enough to set up an application process and get a bunch of applicants, always look to your regulars. They are the ones that know the rules and already show up day in day out.
• How much moderation you need depends on the kind of channel you run. The more features your channel has the more work there is.

Surviving Twitch Plays Pokemon: Adventures in Twitch Chat Engineering

VoD link#

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchconfrankerz/v/92636123?t=03h13m46s

Moderator#

IrelandofEndor

• Some quick facts about the state of Twitch chat in February 2014:
• • Over 800k concurrent users
  • Tens of billions of daily messages
  • ~10 chat servers
  • 2 engineers
  • 19 amp energy drinks per day
• What are chat servers?
• • Many machines, each one running many programs
  • Different kinds of programs that do different things
  • Chat servers/programs talk to each other, this is the hard part!
• So it’s not like you send a message to one server and this displays it, it goes through multiple servers.
• The public reactions about Twitch Plays Pokemon were mainly positive, media outlets described it as being ‘mesmerizing’, ‘miraculous’ and ‘beautiful chaos’.
• A quote from the BBC: “Some users are hailing the development as part of internet history”
• Twitch Plays Pokemon timeline:
• • TPP hits 5k concurrent viewers
  • TPP hits 20k
  • Twitch takes preemptive action
  • TPP got moved on to an event cluster
  • TPP hits 50k, this is where the problems start. Messages are not being delivered
  • Twitch chat engineers are being rushed to the office and start investigations
• Chat servers are organised in several clusters. If one cluster fails the others can pick up. You can a cluster a specific purpose (for instance: use one cluster for a League of Legends tournament).
• A couple of tools that were being used to debug the problems:
• • Server logs: text file that describes ongoing behavior of a program
  • Dashboards: graphs that show the health of the server and how they behave over time
  • Linux command line: programs that allow you to dig deep into the state of a machine, process log files etc.
• Debugging principle: Start investigating the software closest to the user.
• The server all the users connect to is called the Edge server. It’s called the Edge server because it connects the internet to the internal services of Twitch. It sends and receives messages to and from users.
• User info is being stored in a database. A database runs on hard drives. Making the story capacity big but slow. Twitch also uses cache servers to store info on temporarily. These servers use memory, making them very quick but not equipped to store data for long periods of time.
• After a lot of digging in server logs they found out that a Cache server was not being used optimally. It had 16 CPU’s but only one of them was being used. The solution was to make a cache for every single CPU and distribute info in each of those. It worked but did not have as big as an impact as was hoped.
• So a problem was fixed, but it was not the only one so the search continues.
• Next up, Linux commands were used and they found out there were many connections being made, but not being used. They found out the test chat server was responsible for making all these connections but not using them. The server was turned off resulting in users being able to connect to chat again and able to send messages. Problem fixed!
• The lessons that they learned from this scenario is:
• • Better logging/instrumentation needed to be added to make debugging easier
  • Generate fake traffic to force them to handle more load than they need
  • Be better at using diagnostic programs and keep knowledge up to date
• What have they done since:
• • Started using Amazon servers
  • Use a better infrastructure
  • Change chat code from Python to Go
  • Higher reliability by changing architecture

Characters Welcome

VoD Link#

:

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchconfrankerz/v/93040407

Moderator#

: Chase

Participants#

: BurkeBlack, CallofCthulu, General_Mittenz, FuturemanGaming

• Two ways to be a character
• • 100% encompass the character and only be that character
  • Be that character sometimes, while occasionally being just yourself
• Being a character streamer can go as far as forming the entire channel theme around that character
• • Username, graphics, alert sounds, etc
• It’s important to rehearse and know well how your character works so you don’t miss a beat and fall out of character
• Most of the participants are variety streamers and don’t necessarily play games that fit their character.
• Can’t rely just on a unique character/theme to be successful
• • Commitment to the character is important
  • Game selection, networking, and other factors are just as necessary
• Improvisation and charisma are beneficial skills
• Fully embrace your character and know what your goals are for your channel
• How to maintain energy from being in character for the entire stream?
• • Avoid caffeine, it can actually make you last longer and avoid the crash.
  • Protein, make sure to eat. Don’t be afraid to take a break for a snack.

Maximize VR for Performance and Streaming

VoD link#

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchconfrankerz/v/92636123?t=06h13m36s

Moderator#

Kent Bye

Participants#

Frank Soqui (INTEL), Todd Hooper (VREAL), Zac (HyperRPG)

What is happening in VR streaming right now?

• People are taking the natural approach to streaming VR, they use the old way way of streaming and try to make it work with VR.
• Gamers are very enthusiastic about VR but there aren't alot of games right now and it’s hard to stream at the moment. There are high hardware requirements.
• Twitch is all about interaction, it is hard to maintain this interaction with your chat when streaming VR games because you’re closed off.
• VR game development right now is very focused on the single person, an audience is not included at all.
• You need to have several people with you to be able to catch alerts, read chat etc to make sure you still stay interactive.

What is happening in VR streaming in the near future?

• VR headsets at the moment are early versions. Expect to see many changes especially when it comes to performance.
• Is expected to have just as big of an impact on gaming as smartphones had, but this impact did not come quick.
• Gaming is leading the charge when it comes to pushing VR, but the technology is being used widespread in many sectors.
• Communication is going to change from 1 big text chat where everyone can talk to each other to getting smaller groups in the VR space where you can only interact directly with the people in your group. Communication with everyone else is going to take a step back a little to for instance hand gestures.
• Get viewers to be able to interact with you in the VR space, instead of outside of it.

Hardware consideration for VR:

• Right now it's pretty GPU heavy, trying to move this to the CPU.
• Streaming VR from a console seems to be unlikely because the current consoles are already at their limits.
• 2 PC setups going to be the standard to stream VR because FPS drops in VR is a lot more noticeable than regular gaming and it's noticeable at 90fps instead of 60.
• There needs to be a certification to make sure the hardware you buy is ready for VR. It is important to make sure the first experience someone has with VR is a positive one. If it’s not they're more likely to be put off.
• Render extra cameras on a viewer’s PC instead of the streamer’s. Adds more points of view and takes the extra strain off of the streamer’s PC.
• The upcoming years there are going to be a lot of new hardware upgrades coming out designed with VR in mind. Increasing performance and lowering prices.

What works well with VR and what does not?

• Creative and simulation type games work well at the moment and don’t require a lot of work.
• There is no competitive game for VR at all right now, there are games coming out with leaderboards so it is not to hard to make the next step to competitive gaming.
• High motion games don’t work well for VR right now because of hardware limitations, lower FPS means people get sick watching quicker.
• Allowing viewers to spectate in the VR world is requested a lot, DOTA 2 has made a first step and it's expected that more games are going to be following. It allows viewers to be their own cameraman instead of leaving the spectating to someone else.
• Mobile VR is not a priority right now because there are too many limiting factors like battery life.

There are several resources to talk with other streamers and developers about playing and streaming VR. Reddit is probably the easiest one to access for everyone but there are also Discord and Slack servers.