wow Shadowlands Alpha Streams, Ion Hazzikostas Interview

[Starym 3,801]

 

The gates of the Shadowlands Alpha have opened and there are quite a number of people streaming right now, so we thought we'd spotlight some of them. First off we have Sloot, who has the distinction of hosting an interview with game Director Ion Hazzikostas on his stream soon:

Then there's Method's 24/7 channel, doing a similar thing to their Race to World first event, with raider Cayna and caster Falcone commentating over various Method streams:

Sticking withe the top raiders, we have current World First guild master Max from Complexity Limit and Method's own GM streaming as well:

Then we have some of the most popular personalities, with Toweliee and Preach:

There's plenty more to see, of course, so if these aren't enough, head on over to the Twitch WoW directory and pick your favorite!

 

Latest Shadowlands News

• Shadowlands Development Update Notes: April 9th
• Allied Races No Longer Require Grinding Reputation to Exalted
• Controller Support Strings in WoW Shadowlands Alpha Client Found
• Shadowlands 9.0.1 Build 33978
• A New Leveling Experience in Shadowlands
• Hunter Stable Size Increased in Shadowlands
• Shadowlands Class Changes
• All Covenant Class Abilities
• Shadowlands Developer Update
• PvP Vendors Return in Shadowlands

[Bobbis 208]

Ah of course, the streamers get in first... Method and CL I get, they are the ones that will push the game furthest in terms of raiding and have done so. Streamers are just another plague and I can't wait for it to go. 

 

I am aware they're free advertising and it makes business sense, just generally dislike streamer and influencers (mainly the latter)

Edited April 9, 2020 by Bobbis
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[Rhondis 148]

7 hours ago, Bobbis said:

Streamers are just another plague and I can't wait for it to go.

How are they a plague? Can you elaborate more on this...?

7 hours ago, Bobbis said:

I am aware they're free advertising and it makes business sense

I can understand seeing the issue with Streamers getting it "first", but keep in mind some streamers have strong opinions that won't praise the game I.E Preach. I think it's a smart move on Blizzards part to see what can be fixed and not fixed. Especially with the controversial Covenant mechanic introduced in Shadowlands.

[Bobbis 208]

6 hours ago, Rhondis said:

How are they a plague? Can you elaborate more on this...?

I can understand seeing the issue with Streamers getting it "first", but keep in mind some streamers have strong opinions that won't praise the game I.E Preach. I think it's a smart move on Blizzards part to see what can be fixed and not fixed. Especially with the controversial Covenant mechanic introduced in Shadowlands.

Plague side is that there's so many of them, and this is also including influencers and non wow related, they've turned things from helpful, into a ballache to find things. Anything you search for there's a video that's 90% crap and waffle, and 10% what you want. Even things like recipes for food, 80% of page rubbish, 20% actual recipe. Just anyone out trying to make money from advertising which has led us into the need for adblockers.

The volume of these, and any media outlet really has also helped the spread of misinformation, and the ability for anything to become exaggerated. 

 

On the streamers getting it first, the issue there is "some", I have heard of preach and yes he doesn't sound like a blizz shill, which is good, but many are. There are also a lot of people who don't stream, who would also be the critical voice needed that won't get a chance at alpha, or even beta, because the priority seems to be streamers and the free advertising they bring.

I've been lucky to get into the last two beta's, but at late stages. I reported all the bugs I found and tried to test as much as I could whilst also playing live. I watched a couple of streams at the time where they just ignored things and used the new content just to get likes/views and show it off. 

[Rhondis 148]

9 hours ago, Bobbis said:

Plague side is that there's so many of them, and this is also including influencers and non wow related, they've turned things from helpful, into a ballache to find things. Anything you search for there's a video that's 90% crap and waffle, and 10% what you want. Even things like recipes for food, 80% of page rubbish, 20% actual recipe. Just anyone out trying to make money from advertising which has led us into the need for adblockers.

 

Any form of platform that promises a steady stream of revenue is of course going to draw a lot of attention... but it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. People can pursue their desired jobs if they want, even if it just means living off of donations and subs. 

However, I fail to see why they are not helpful in terms of searching for a video. As someone who doesn't own a TV and mainly uses Youtube I hardly see any negative effect that you claim these streamers bring when searching for a video. A vast majority of the time I am able to search up what I need and boom. In fact, I hardly even see any streamer videos unless you go out of your way searching for them I suppose. 

You have a cynical way of looking at streamers in a negative light. I will admit, there are a couple of bad apples, H3H3 being an example who streams his Podcasts and in turn places snippets he thinks are good on Youtube for money which can harm the reputation of such streaming services like twitch. But then again you got some quality streamers who just genuinely want to entertain folks, much like Sips from the Yogscast, Day9 TV, and Winterstarcraft to name a few. Just because there is a whole lotta of em, doesn't mean Streamers as whole are bad in general. 

Also to put my two-cents out there, it is quite smart for Blizzard to give the Alpha access to these streamers. Even if the streamers are Blizzard Shills or not, the viewers themselves get to see the gameplay and mechanics put forth in this upcoming expansion which in turns drive forward discussion and adding ideas to improve, change, or remove systems that are implemented. Who knows, maybe with enough feed back Covenants could be changed for the better and not become another system that punishes you for not min/max the correct way?

[Bobbis 208]

14 hours ago, Rhondis said:

Any form of platform that promises a steady stream of revenue is of course going to draw a lot of attention... but it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. People can pursue their desired jobs if they want, even if it just means living off of donations and subs. 

However, I fail to see why they are not helpful in terms of searching for a video. As someone who doesn't own a TV and mainly uses Youtube I hardly see any negative effect that you claim these streamers bring when searching for a video. A vast majority of the time I am able to search up what I need and boom. In fact, I hardly even see any streamer videos unless you go out of your way searching for them I suppose. 

You have a cynical way of looking at streamers in a negative light. I will admit, there are a couple of bad apples, H3H3 being an example who streams his Podcasts and in turn places snippets he thinks are good on Youtube for money which can harm the reputation of such streaming services like twitch. But then again you got some quality streamers who just genuinely want to entertain folks, much like Sips from the Yogscast, Day9 TV, and Winterstarcraft to name a few. Just because there is a whole lotta of em, doesn't mean Streamers as whole are bad in general. 

Also to put my two-cents out there, it is quite smart for Blizzard to give the Alpha access to these streamers. Even if the streamers are Blizzard Shills or not, the viewers themselves get to see the gameplay and mechanics put forth in this upcoming expansion which in turns drive forward discussion and adding ideas to improve, change, or remove systems that are implemented. Who knows, maybe with enough feed back Covenants could be changed for the better and not become another system that punishes you for not min/max the correct way?

You raise valid points, and I don't totally disagree with them, just find most incredibly annoying and encouraging of poor behaviour. In retrospect it's mostly influencers and the idea of them that I really dislike, but I've yet to find a streamer to like. Few vids of Spiffing Brit were ok, but just gets OTT, and I like tea but jesus... 

The other side is I'm not looking for vids, I prefer text and reading to a video. In all the years of raiding, I have found the IV/WH/TB written guides far more useful than any video bar archi mythic, but that *filtered* was mad. YT is ok but again far too many ads. For a company we know uses and sells our data, to then have that many ads, and also ask for premium is just extortionate. 

As I said, business wise it makes sense, however I wouldn't agree that it helps much. Yes it drives discussion, but as seen on reddit and WH, there's so many views on anything before things are really seen and tried properly. Seeing things in a stream, unless fully live, is open to edits and things being exaggerated or hushed, or just put out of context. Hell, people just seeing patch notes can show full on arguments and debates about very much unknowns. The AoE cap for example, I am not a fan in theory, but if it means dungeons have less trash but maybe more important stuff, I'm happier. There have been discussions on Reddit and WH over how it's good/bad, why, what for, why it's the end of the world etc, but there's no way to know until we see the dungeons and try it. And that was before the T+E(?) interview where it was somewhat explained.