Alabama Thread! (10/26/2016 update)

[Child Star]

The streams don't have to look the best. ASL should be more about raising the awareness that AL has a strong smash scene. That's why logos and the tshirts are a big thing

Historically strong scenes were dictated by player skills not numbers, but talent breeds talent so maybe having more people in the mix can increase the likelyhood of having more skilled players in the future.

I dont know what HASL stream numbers actually are, but its infrastructure is in line to create an user experience that is standard in high traffic streams/scenes

 

[rolfcopter]

Everyone knows HASLs stream looks the best

But their layout looks terrible idk what ur talking about

 

[Zoma]

Dear Alabama:

You won't get a popular Twitch or Youtube channel by streaming one tournament a month. That's just not how things work.

If we have a constantly-updating Youtube channel and a tournament stream every weekend, that's when we build awareness for Alabama Smash. I don't care if that responsibility goes to HASL or ASL, but I have my doubts that Auburn's semi-annual tournaments, Birmingham's 8-hour vods, or Tuscaloosa's one regular viewer will ever bring success to our respective cities alone.

 

[rolfcopter]

Tuscaloosa's one regular viewer

that doc pickle is one hell of a regular viewer

 

[Saki-]

Shoutouts to ChildStar to being the 1 viewer of the Tuscaloosa tournements despite being in bracket too.

 

[Dron]

Dear Alabama:

You won't get a popular Twitch or Youtube channel by streaming one tournament a month. That's just not how things work.

If we have a constantly-updating Youtube channel and a tournament stream every weekend, that's when we build awareness for Alabama Smash. I don't care if that responsibility goes to HASL or ASL, but I have my doubts that Auburn's semi-annual tournaments, Birmingham's 8-hour vods, or Tuscaloosa's one regular viewer will ever bring success to our respective cities alone.

I like this

and in regard to forcing people to use ASL assets and channels, I would never ever ever want to do that. I just want as many people as possible to know that all of those resources are out there and up for grabs for anyone who's interested in using them

everyone can keep and grow their own stuff if it's what they wanna do

 

[Sweaters]

Dear Alabama:

You won't get a popular Twitch or Youtube channel by streaming one tournament a month. That's just not how things work.

If we have a constantly-updating Youtube channel and a tournament stream every weekend, that's when we build awareness for Alabama Smash. I don't care if that responsibility goes to HASL or ASL, but I have my doubts that Auburn's semi-annual tournaments, Birmingham's 8-hour vods, or Tuscaloosa's one regular viewer will ever bring success to our respective cities alone.

Ok Brian since you seem down to do this how do you propose we make this happen? I know we should definitely put the ASL logo on overlays so if someone makes a post on reddit or something people will see that and look in to it. I think whoever the content creator is for each area would need access to the YouTube account to upload, I'm currently working with Andy on uploading individual vods more efficiently, cause he has a really good system down, and I'd be more than willing to upload them to the ASL YouTube channel.

 

[.Hook]

If we could de-interlace our game feed that would be sick

 

[Keet]

Ok Brian since you seem down to do this how do you propose we make this happen? I know we should definitely put the ASL logo on overlays so if someone makes a post on reddit or something people will see that and look in to it. I think whoever the content creator is for each area would need access to the YouTube account to upload, I'm currently working with Andy on uploading individual vods more efficiently, cause he has a really good system down, and I'd be more than willing to upload them to the ASL YouTube channel.

I think his point was that even though the number of tournaments in Alabama is increasing, we still only have one that streams regularly. HASL.

 

[Sweaters]

I think his point was that even though the number of tournaments in Alabama is increasing, we still only have one that streams regularly. HASL.

I thought he just wanted to get all the areas under one name in some way so it would be easier for Alabama's scene to grow.

 

[Zoma]

I'm saying everyone should use ASL, yeah. Dron is likely willing to give the information to the Twitch and Youtube accounts to each city, so the main thing would be to make sure that there isn't a conflict on when people are trying to use the Twitch channel. That's as easy as not scheduling tournaments on the same day, except necessarily in the case of BB, since it doesn't stream.

Each city can use its own overlays. The overlays aren't the important thing, as long as they look good.

 

[Flame Blade 2]

Cayce was that you memeing it up during that Squirtle Vs. Link match? I was laughing my *** off so hard. Nice meme dude. @ Flame Blade 2

Thank you, thank you. I was literally starving to death during most of my commentary. The spacies game was fun, I felt like you were way more consistent than I was though.

@MasterIcarus7 (SHADE) YOU'D BETTER BE AT BIO CUZ I STILL NEED 2 PUT THE HURT ON YA KID

 

[S£NPAI]

Thank you, thank you. I was literally starving to death during most of my commentary. The spacies game was fun, I felt like you were way more consistent than I was though.

Your Falco is pretty solid, a lot of unconventional stuff compared to other Falco's I've played. But yeah it was fun, shout out to CoxBox btw.

 

[Keet]

I'm saying everyone should use ASL, yeah. Dron is likely willing to give the information to the Twitch and Youtube accounts to each city, so the main thing would be to make sure that there isn't a conflict on when people are trying to use the Twitch channel. That's as easy as not scheduling tournaments on the same day, except necessarily in the case of BB, since it doesn't stream.

Each city can use its own overlays. The overlays aren't the important thing, as long as they look good.

I don't think everyone, especially HASL is going to agree to that though. If that's the case and we want ASL to be the "one stop" place to go to see Bama tournaments, then we should just host tournament streams on ASL. Which is what I plan to do for the next HASL.

 

[Saki-]

I'm not following that post at all, tell it to me like I'm 5.

Though the gist of the situation is this.

Hey, we all appreciate you guys trying to go big and make a name for your stream. If you want to you can build your viewer base from the ground up, all that is being asked is that if it's okay that ASL can redirect their audience to your stream. Or if you want you could use what is already available, has a following, and will have a helping hand....and help promote your fellow smashers in the state of Alabama.

I'm no streamer, and I certainly don't have a following or plan to for quite a while, I would just like to make sure nobody in this state is missing out due to the lack of exposure. Because well...we've proved to be an awesome community in the past and would love to get those who are joining us recently to experience this.

 

[Dron]

I don't think everyone, especially HASL is going to agree to that though.

are there not allowed to be two prominent livesteams within the same 50,000 square mile radius? this is about growth, not about competition between two groups that have no reason to compete

if HASL wants to come wherever and stream whatever, they should totally get the spot over the ASL stream considering their stream is probably always going to be better

If that's the case and we want ASL to be the "one stop" place to go to see Bama tournaments, then we should just host tournament streams on ASL.

if that's all we do, then the hub itself will never grow and we'll be capped at the ~400 followers we have now, which would be a dumb look

 

[Keet]

are there not allowed to be two prominent livesteams within the same 50,000 square mile radius? this is about growth, not about competition between two groups that have no reason to compete

if HASL wants to come wherever and stream whatever, they should totally get the spot over the ASL stream considering their stream is probably always going to be better

You're taking what I said out of context. When I said "I don't think everyone, especially HASL is going to agree to that" I was referring to Zoma saying that everyone should use ASL. HASL has their own channel and fanbase be it however small. I don't think Nick will be as open to just switching channels out of the blue especially after all the work he has put in to making HASL what it is. That being said, I don't think it would hurt asking him, and hell I'll even bring it up next time I see it at HASL. I just want to clarify that I think having one channel streaming every Alabama tournament would be a GOOD THING, I just think it's unlikely.

if that's all we do, then the hub itself will never grow and we'll be capped at the ~400 followers we have now, which would be a dumb look

Now taking all that into consideration, I went on to say that if certain streams such as HASL don't want to stream on ASL, then we can at least host them when they do stream. It may not be the ideal situation, but it would still allow someone to subscribe to ASL and be able to view any Alabama tournament being live streamed. I don't think that would do anything but increase the amount of followers.

 

[Child Star]

are there not allowed to be two prominent livesteams within the same 50,000 square mile radius? this is about growth, not about competition between two groups that have no reason to compete

if HASL wants to come wherever and stream whatever, they should totally get the spot over the ASL stream considering their stream is probably always going to be better



if that's all we do, then the hub itself will never grow and we'll be capped at the ~400 followers we have now, which would be a dumb look

I'm still going to argue that in smash culture, skill dictates stream growth, local advertising/online adverts will help with tourney growth.

Until i see some data correlating our youtube viewership to stream views/tourney participation, the most I can suggest is including ASL emblems to streams and focus on just getting better.

 

[Zoma]

I don't think everyone, especially HASL is going to agree to that though. If that's the case and we want ASL to be the "one stop" place to go to see Bama tournaments, then we should just host tournament streams on ASL. Which is what I plan to do for the next HASL.

Hosting streams does not benefit the host channel. Hosting your own channel from ASL is a good way to help yourself and no one else.

Like I said, I don't care what HASL does. Everyone else would be very foolish to not take advantage of the opportunity.

 

[Saki-]

Host mode?
http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/07/host-mode-faq/

ASL would be on, we'd redirect to whoever else is streaming on that day if they want to do their own thing. W/W?

 

[Child Star]

Host mode?
http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/07/host-mode-faq/

ASL would be on, we'd redirect to whoever else is streaming on that day if they want to do their own thing. W/W?

Easy enough, still going to be hard to sell a stream with very little (at least unknown) skill.

 

[Saki-]

We better start getting gud then

 

[Child Star]

We better start getting gud then

We also need to travel more to regional stuff and win it.

 

[Zoma]

The thing is, you don't get new viewers when you host someone. You only get the host's current followers who happen to not be using the mobile app, which doesn't support hosting.

If HASL is set on being separate, the best situation would be for ASL to host HASL during HASL tournaments and for HASL to host ASL during ASL tournaments. However, that adds another responsibility for HASL.

 

[Keet]

We also need to travel more to regional stuff and win it.

Fine I'll do it, ugh.

Hosting streams does not benefit the host channel. Hosting your own channel from ASL is a good way to help yourself and no one else.

Like I said, I don't care what HASL does. Everyone else would be very foolish to not take advantage of the opportunity.

Wait why does hosting not help the host channel? If I knew of a channel that hosts every local tournament in Bama I would definitely follow said channel to stay in the loop. If ASL is established as the stream that hosts all other tournaments why wouldn't that help?

Edit: just saw that you said mobile app doesn't support hosting, that is a down side for sure.

 

[Saki-]

My little gas saver is always open to rides, and I'm always down for going to a tournament. If people would like to get together and discuss which events they'd like to be pooled to then I can help.

At the moment I've already plans for heading to Georgia and TN this month

Edit: Frago, unless I've got drill which atm is on the following days:
October 3rd-4th
November 6-8th
December 12-13th

and I'll be in Germany for January

 

[Mahgnittoc]

You can definitely build a stream with a low talent pool. Just constantly stream and have great quality. Streaming through ASL Gets more viewers to that channel which in turn can get more viewers to smaller streams when they pop up and want to be an independent entity. The biggest issue is if we have a great ASL overlay is making sure everyone's stream quality is up to par and that they aren't streaming in something like 240p

 

[Shenanigan]

I'm still going to argue that in smash culture, skill dictates stream growth, local advertising/online adverts will help with tourney growth.

Until i see some data correlating our youtube viewership to stream views/tourney participation, the most I can suggest is including ASL emblems to streams and focus on just getting better.

I don't agree with this at all. So let's say I get good, and at Tipped Off this November I make top 8. More than a few people are going to say "Wow this Shenanigan guy is really good! I wanna watch him play some more." Now they're going to go to YouTube / Twitch, where they'll find either:

1. A couple videos of me playing against terrible players on channels with like three videos total. And with knowing how lazy smash players are, at that point they're going to say "Man I really with there were more videos of this guy," and then they're going to give up.
2. A unified ASL YouTube channel / Twitch archive where they can find the vast majority of the sets I've played (over the past two months if we start now), where it's easy to find sets at a higher level (things like the winners semis and losers finals from Birmingham brawl this weekend).

The first option, which we have right now, leads nowhere. No exposure, no stream viewers, nothing. With the second, it's easy to see where it leads. Someone watches me lose to Zoma, and then they watch some of his sets because he's also really good. Next they're watching Ninkendo, or Spade, or Moogle, and through that discover all the skilled players Alabama has to offer.

@ Dron has given us incredible opportunity to plan for the future. Infrastructure is, arguably even more so than player skill, the most important factor in popular streams / channels. MD / VA during the heyday of Project M 3.02 certainly wasn't even close to the best region, but it wasn't SoCal or Texas or Tristate who was having 3000 viewer weeklies. It was the guys who put in the time and effort to put together an excellent show.

Perhaps right now we don't have the skill to command a following, but someday (hopefully) we will. And when / if that time comes, it would be a shame to look back at this moment and say "If only."

 

[Dron]

I don't think Nick will be as open to just switching channels out of the blue especially after all the work he has put in to making HASL what it is. That being said, I don't think it would hurt asking him, and hell I'll even bring it up next time I see it at HASL. I just want to clarify that I think having one channel streaming every Alabama tournament would be a GOOD THING, I just think it's unlikely.

yeah, HASL has worked way too hard to do something like that. that's why I've said if there's one city that I would never expect (or really even want, because I'd feel kinda bad) to ever use the ASL channel, it's them. hosting them is the solution on that front

Host mode?
http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/07/host-mode-faq/

ASL would be on, we'd redirect to whoever else is streaming on that day if they want to do their own thing. W/W?

the ASL being known as the hub of Alabama tournaments is only going to get us follows from people in Alabama, and anyone from Alabama who wouldn't just follow the channel in the first place perplexes me

you can't get any actual exposure through hosting, it's more of a commensalist relationship as opposed to a mutualistic one

 

[Anime]

ASL can always make play lists of the other scene's youtube video's. We would still have to make sure the logo and and maybe asl youtube link is up everywhere.

 

[Dron]

Infrastructure is, arguably even more so than player skill, the most important factor in popular streams / channels. MD / VA during the heyday of Project M 3.02 certainly wasn't even close to the best region, but it wasn't SoCal or Texas or Tristate who was having 3000 viewer weeklies. It was the guys who put in the time and effort to put together an excellent show.

I was also gonna post something along these lines

I think both skill and infrastructure are super important, but the latter has proved to bring in totally disproportionate viewer numbers when compared to skill level (at least in some select cases like VGBC)

 

[DanGR]

99% of viewers literally only care about watching a combination of high level player skill and commentator skill.

A good looking stream helps cement a brand as a thing to follow/subscribe to- something to look for when browsing stream lists, and a reference when vaguely mentioning a set of players. People see a nice looking stream, and think "hey this looks great." Then they look at the player/commentator skill and decide whether to keep watching or not. If they like what they see, and they see a brand attached to it, they follow the brand to view more good content later.

But you mention 1 recognizable high level player/commentator in the stream title and people flock to it like vultures to a carcass. It doesn't matter what the stream looks like at that point because there's too many birds surrounding the carcass to even look at it.

If you guys want to be nationally recognized and popular like clash tournaments, tourney locator, vgbc, even matchup gaming, MVG, etc. then GET BETTER. That's it. Learn your matchups, learn your characters, quit complaining about stupid **** and get over your salty-ass over-inflated egos that only hold you back from greatness.

Edit: @ the above- the players on vgbc are loads better than us. It's not even comparable. Not to mention they have popular streamers commentating pretty often.

 

[Child Star]

I don't agree with this at all. So let's say I get good, and at Tipped Off this November I make top 8. More than a few people are going to say "Wow this Shenanigan guy is really good! I wanna watch him play some more." Now they're going to go to YouTube / Twitch, where they'll find either:

1. A couple videos of me playing against terrible players on channels with like three videos total. And with knowing how lazy smash players are, at that point they're going to say "Man I really with there were more videos of this guy," and then they're going to give up.
2. A unified ASL YouTube channel / Twitch archive where they can find the vast majority of the sets I've played (over the past two months if we start now), where it's easy to find sets at a higher level (things like the winners semis and losers finals from Birmingham brawl this weekend).

The first option, which we have right now, leads nowhere. No exposure, no stream viewers, nothing. With the second, it's easy to see where it leads. Someone watches me lose to Zoma, and then they watch some of his sets because he's also really good. Next they're watching Ninkendo, or Spade, or Moogle, and through that discover all the skilled players Alabama has to offer.

@ Dron has given us incredible opportunity to plan for the future. Infrastructure is, arguably even more so than player skill, the most important factor in popular streams / channels. MD / VA during the heyday of Project M 3.02 certainly wasn't even close to the best region, but it wasn't SoCal or Texas or Tristate who was having 3000 viewer weeklies. It was the guys who put in the time and effort to put together an excellent show.

Perhaps right now we don't have the skill to command a following, but someday (hopefully) we will. And when / if that time comes, it would be a shame to look back at this moment and say "If only."

When you can show me anything that has players that have great viewership, but a distinct lack of top level players I'd be surprised. If anyone wants to grow a viewship you have to ask yourself why watch X over Y? Theres a lot of tournements out there competing for a limited viewership and we dont have a compelling service to grab a lot of people. If you did get top 8 in a regional and people wanted to watch you play theyd be able to if people marketed the tournement with you being there. Then if someone like ninkend0 beat you (and the match was good) theyd say "wow this Ninkend0 guy is really good". Then if ninkend0 went out and placed well it would further confirm hes really good. If we play a lot of tournements that already have viewerships and do well. It will make our scene more attractive. It will take more than 1 top 8, but just giving people tons of videos to watch wont bolster our streams or scene if we dont already give the viewer something to compare our skill levels to. Do what you will, but historically people care more about content than how its presented.

THAT BEING SAID: if it will help getting people our to their locals, then you could make the argument that it might help the scene get better skill wise.

To further explain the neccesity of talent in successful smash streams, because of its competitive nature, you cant really advertise your stream as the "fun" stream like a lot of twitch streamers do, we are primarily in a talent dominated market (casters are also important obviously), but it's very hard to invision me watching a smash tourney with good commentary, but lack of talent (in my care it should be read "Notable players").

 

[Dron]

Edit: @ the above- the players on vgbc are loads better than us. It's not even comparable. Not to mention they have popular streamers commentating pretty often.

true, but there's still a lack of top tier talent at their weeklies, which still get like 5k+ views sometimes

if anything, I think this shows how truly abysmal this scene is in terms of talent (at the current moment, with a few exceptions)

 

[Saki-]

the ASL being known as the hub of Alabama tournaments is only going to get us follows from people in Alabama, and anyone from Alabama who wouldn't just follow the channel in the first place perplexes me

you can't get any actual exposure through hosting, it's more of a commensalist relationship as opposed to a mutualistic one

Oh, I thought that was the goal. Going regionally/nationally would be pretty cool but would that make this more business instead of casual and fun? I mean I'm probably not looking at this right at all but if that is the end goal then we will need to I dunno......actually work for it? Have some people who would want to commentate practice and gather tips from other commentators (I actually have a page saved from last year), have our players get together and do matchup and gameplay help, and I guess anything thing else that would swap a hobby into a team thing. When I see it that way, I think of just who would actually be up for something like that. School/Work/Lack of High Competitive interest seems like it'd be the biggest problem idk.

 

[DanGR]

true, but there's still a lack of top tier talent at their weeklies, which still get like 5k+ views sometimes

if anything, I think this shows how truly abysmal this scene is in terms of talent (at the current moment, with a few exceptions)

Weeklies is like half of what VGBC does. They wouldn't have as nearly as much success as they do now if it weren't for the amount of traveling their stream team does to nationally recognized events. I mean just take a look at their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/VideoGameBootCamp/videos

I see top players all over the page.

edit: Even in their weeklies I see Boss, who was a monster in the beginning of this game's meta, and a nationally recognized low tier warrior during Brawl's days. Pink Fresh, Neo, Logic, and Chudat are also names that I recognize from Brawl days that I see scattered throughout their weeklies.

 

[Child Star]

Weeklies is like half of what VGBC does. They wouldn't have as nearly as much success as they do now if it weren't for the amount of traveling their stream team does to nationally recognized events. I mean just take a look at their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/VideoGameBootCamp/videos

I see top players all over the page.

This is the very top percent of streams, theres some room to exist under them, but i think most of them do host weekly events that more often than not have at least 2 players of interest.

 

[Dron]

Weeklies is like half of what VGBC does. They wouldn't have as nearly as much success as they do now if it weren't for the amount of traveling their stream team does to nationally recognized events. I mean just take a look at their youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/VideoGameBootCamp/videos

I see top players all over the page.

what I'm saying is their weeklies, that usually lack top level talent, still get absurd amounts of views just because GIMR grew the VGBC brand very very well

but I'd rather not talk about this much more because I don't actually think these points are that important

 

[Dron]

Oh, I thought that was the goal. Going regionally/nationally would be pretty cool but would that make this more business instead of casual and fun? I mean I'm probably not looking at this right at all but if that is the end goal then we will need to I dunno......actually work for it? Have some people who would want to commentate practice and gather tips from other commentators (I actually have a page saved from last year), have our players get together and do matchup and gameplay help, and I guess anything thing else that would swap a hobby into a team thing. When I see it that way, I think of just who would actually be up for something like that. School/Work/Lack of High Competitive interest seems like it'd be the biggest problem idk.

I probably should've clarified that the ASL being a hub for AL-related smash stuff IS the goal, but having the twitch stream gather viewership from other scenes is definitely something to consider and strive for

the stuff you mention is also very important but they're not things that can be as easily addressed as the couple of ideas that I'm looking to try and carry out

I think those things deal more with player to player interaction/support as opposed to a big overarching goal

 

[Mahgnittoc]

S@X still gets views because they have a couple of mid-high tier players but then they have people like TK and EE behind the mic that can constantly keep people entertained. I know I've tuned in just to listen to them and not even watch the matches. I'm pretty sure if VGBC were to stream on an off day they'd get a smaller number of views. I know VGBC does more than just weekly but the numbers pouring in because they've created a big brand for themselves show that people aren't just looking for top level play. Most people on the stream don't even realize that s@x isn't top level play because most of them are scrubs. We need to stream more and prove that we are entertaining enough to tune into