Streaming Update - Birthday Stream!

This streaming stuff just keeps adding up.

For my birthday, I got actual paid subscribers to my Twitch channel. There are two ways people can subscribe - they can spend real money through their Twitch account or they can use the one free subscription through Amazon Prime. During my morning birthday stream, Sophie Fatal came in the room and subscribed (real money) and then bought six gift subscriptions just to make my day. Then two more friends subscribed over the course of the day, and two other friends used their Amazon Prime benefits to subcribe later on in the day.

When I posted about it on Facebook, I was asked how the Amazon thing works. This is what I wrote:

Follow one of my links to my Twitch channel. Sign up for an account if you want to. If you have Amazon Prime, you can link your account. Then... well, watch all the people creating content for each other. While it's mostly a community of gamers playing their games with commentary, there are artists and writers who share their efforts. There are people who just get on and chat. The appeal is that there's a chatbox next to the video, and people watching can comment while the person is broadcasting, and the person broadcasting can respond to the comments in real time if they want. So you can develop a close-knit community.

The DC Universe Online community has become a friendly bunch, most of us, and when we finish our streams we tend to raid (send everyone watching) other channels playing DCUO. It was after spending a lot of time in one Twitch stream, and getting a great deal of support from them during my illness, that I decided to try streaming myself. So far, three weeks in, I've really enjoyed it. If nothing else, it allows me to talk too much, like my online namesake Tegan.

Twitch Affiliates don't get a lot of money, but if I manage a few more subscriptions I can at least pay for the emotes. And I could unlock the other four possible emote slots. See, Twitch wants to make money, so the incentive is to get emote slots which are unlocked with "Sub Points". Sub points are earned by getting subscriptions, which makes money for both the affiliate and Twitch.

• A Tier 1 or Amazon Prime subscription = 1 sub point = $4.99 or one free for every Amazon Prime subscription
• A Tier 2 subscription = 2 sub points = $9.99
• A Tier 3 subscription = 6 sub points = $24.99

The first additional emote opens up at 15 sub points. Then up to three more at 25, 35, and 50 sub points respectively - for a total of four extra emotes based on subscriptions. All the subscriptions giving points must be active at the same time - so it's not a matter of one person subbing over time - the total points of active subs must add up to 50 to unlock all emotes. Once an emote slot has been unlocked, it stays unlocked. So I only need to get 50 sub points once to get all slots.

As of this writing, I have 11 sub points, so I'm only four regular subs away from getting another emote slot. Being a bit aspie, I had to do the math. Please skip the rest of this paragraph. For one emote slot, I need four regular or two T2 or one T3 subs. For two emote slots, I need 14 regular, seven T2 or three T3 subs. For three slots, I need 24 regular, 12 T2, or four T3 subs. To open them all, I need 39 regular, 20 T2 or seven T3 subs. When I lay it out that way, it really seems incredibly unlikely that I'll ever make that final goal. Bummer.

I've continued to rank up a brand new stream only DC Universe Online character. The only offline stuff I've done with the character is rearranging stuff in his bank. As of today, I got the character to level 30, which is the maximum "level" in the game. From here on out, he will advance via gear improvements, which are called "CR levels" or Combat Rating levels of the best gear you have acquired. However, I haven't finished all the tutorial levels, so I'll probably complete those on stream. It took me 12 streams to get him to that level, with a lot of goofing around - I was not power leveling the character.

I've also finished my play through of The Room Two. I will soon start The Room Three, which I don't believe I managed to finish on my last attempt. I will probably start playing that on Monday. I still haven't decided what to do tomorrow. I have both the DC Legends mobile game and Among Us set up, as well as Doctor Who Infinity, but I'm not sure which one I'll be in the mood to do.

I set up some special audio channels on my PC, but I abandoned the effort when it became clear that Windows and various apps weren't going to respect the settings I put in. I was trying to route all my sound through a virtual mixer, but some apps ignored it entirely, others refused to use the correct input and Windows kept resetting the ones that worked until I rebooted the computer. The idea of having to reboot the computer before each stream was soul-crushing, so I scrapped the entire thing.

I'm also still learning how to use OBS to stream. It's not complicated, but it's not intuitive or straightforward, either. So I'm learning, and that's keeping me happy and focused. Things I need. When I think about my mental and physical state only one year ago, I'm stunned that I survived and am doing something new. It's a surprise.