AlaskanBlueJay

Unfortunately, I won't be able to do multiplayer with anyone until a new part I ordered comes in, because the way things are set up right now I can only have internet on one computer at a time. In other words, if I decide I want internet on the recording computer so I can stream, I can't have it on the computer that actually runs the games.  That should hopefully change in about a week.

As far as when I'm gonna be making a full return to business as usual, I still don't really have a way to predict that. The plan as it stands right now is to just ease into it at my own pace and not push myself super hard until I know I'm capable of handling that kind of pressure again.

Hey @everyone. Something has happened lately that I feel I should let you all know about. It's gonna be a bit longer than I'd planned until I come back again. The very brief version is that, due to a number of factors involving my personal life that don't really feel right to discuss here, Sarah and I are no longer in a relationship, and as a result I've had no choice but to pack everything up and head back to Fairbanks to stay with my folks for a while, until I can get a place here. My life in Palmer is suddenly and irrevocably behind me.

Hey everyone, brief sitrep on what's been going on lately.

TL;DR: Did some hardcore reevaluating over this longer-than-expected break and have decided to start shifting things to be heavier on streaming and less on recording, at least temporarily, so I'm not constantly working myself into the ground with a 10+hr/day, 7 day/week work schedule.

Originally the plan was to just take a brief week off, then come back full force with more videos than ever. That plan lasted about 24 hours before everything immediately went to hell. As some of you know, I posted a video a while back talking about my struggle with depression this past winter. To put it briefly, in the time that I've been back, that sneaky SOB has been gradually sneaking up on me again, and as soon as I didn't have a daily recording and editing schedule to keep me distracted it hit me like a truck.

This latest resurgence has forced me to admit something that I've been trying to dodge for years: the amount of effort it takes to produce the number of videos that I want to be making is just too far past my mental and physical limits to be possible by myself. And, since I'm unfortunately still not currently able to make a full living off those videos (much less hire an editor) I've had to do some pretty thorough reevaluating.

Bearing all that in mind, I'm gonna be making some pretty significant changes to the way I do things until and if the channel reaches the point where I'm able to bring some extra help on board.

Firstly, I'm gonna be posting a lot less videos in the near future. There are so many great games out there to pla that I've loved making serieses on, but I'm just not able to keep them all running at once without those serieses taking months and months to edit and produce. The simple solution to that problem, the way I see it, is to reserve the longer, laid-back playthrough type stuff for twitch streams, and post that footage more or less unedited directly you YouTube in chunks of a half hour to an hour at a time, rather than trying to focus super hard on keeping that stuff short and highly edited.

For non-story goof-off games like Just Cause and zombies, I'm gonna approach the streams relatively the same way, but only post the very best, most hilarious moments, highlights reel-style, to YouTube; I feel like that'll both give the channel a more quality-over-quantity feel and greatly cut down on the amount of editing I'm doing, both of which I think I'll be happier with in the long run.

Now, on the flipside, since I won't be occupying such an egregious amount of time editing anymore, I *am* planning on streaming over on Twitch for much longer and much more often that I have been so far; which again, I think I'll be a lot happier with in the long run since that'll let me have more time to just relax and interact with you guys, and (what a concept) actually enjoy playing the games, rather than rushing through half an horlur of streaming and then slaving away editing for 5 or 6 hours after that.

Another added benefit is that the extra time should, in theory, give me some more time to focus on more ways to make the channel grow that sheer volume of videos. Another realization I had during this break was that I really need to be aggressively pursuing some different ways to get the channel some more exposure; e.g. collabs, working with my kids to get some merch rolled out... stuff I've been talking about forever but never gave myself time to actually pursue.

So, (very) long story short, even though I'm gonna be pulling back pretty significantly on the amount of raw production I'm doing, I'm still gonna be working pretty hard behind the scenes, and if anything will be able to interact more with you guys in real time that I've ever been able to on the old editing schedule. Which again, fits that new paradigm of quality over quantity. So, hopefully you guys are as excited for this new experiment as I am, thank you again for your patience as I've been figuring this stuff out, and I'll be seeing you all again soon. :)