Home Features The Zaffageek guide to Streaming to Twitch from South Africa: Part 4 – Problems and pitfalls

The Zaffageek guide to Streaming to Twitch from South Africa: Part 4 – Problems and pitfalls

5 min read
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Twitch

Part 1 – So You want to be a hero?  Part 2 – Finding your audiencePart 3 – Problems and Pitfalls

I am back…

…poor terminator reference, I know, but here we are at the end of this series of articles and what nuggets of wisdom are left? Essentially the nuggets I had to learn the hard way, the stuff that happens on and off the stream. Essentially my closet, that might or might not be full of skeletons, spiderwebs, and scary things.

Beware, the internet is dark and full of terrors

sausagefest

If you’re a woman streaming on twitch – and I am not speaking about the women that most people classify as boobie streamers – I am talking about the ones that want to share their passion, whatever that may be, with a wider audience – you may have a rough time.

You will probably have creepers, stalkers, fetishists, and people throwing money at you, expecting you to show some bewbs, and so on and so forth. Good luck to all of you, but it’s not that dark and not that full of terrors.

Get a good moderation team. Now the average size of moderators per viewer on the bigger streamer’s channels usually average about 1:150. That is 1 mod for every 150 viewers, but (and this is a big but) when you start out, remember that moderators also have real lives, so they won’t always be there whenever you go live. So, I would suggest a mod team of between 2 and 4 people, who you can rely on to be there most of the time. Also, don’t put up a wall of swords (when there are more mods than viewers), when you start out. You can handle most of the moderation duties yourself, and then decide when you would like a mod to start helping you out. Then you just ask.

Another thing to keep in mind is that personalities tend to clash. What happened in my case on a sub-only 7 Days to Die server, one of my subscribers had a fall out with one of my mods, live on air, while I was taking a break. The mod then proceeded to message me after telling me that I handled it poorly and that he will stop subscribing to me and obviously stop modding for my channel, and unfortunately for him, that sub is still a sub and I have moved on from it.

On the other side of the moderator coin is the fact that you need to communicate. It is not good to call out mods while you are on air, something I have done multiple times in the past.

They see me trollin’ they hatin’

Twitchtroll

Yeah, troll raids are a thing, and in my case, I got raided by a bunch of trolls from a bigger streamer’s channel (she was doing IRL at the time) and I was playing JackBox Party Pack. In a game where channel interaction can sometimes get graphical, in my unfortunate case it was a bunch of racists. Luckily I had one mod who was on the case and lots of bans were handed out, and this mod actually did some behind the scenes research on where these trolls came from. I also banned said streamer from my channel due to this, and for a few months a couple of emotes that could be used in a racist fashion were also banned from my channel.

Don’t be afraid to ban people. There are better people out there, the channel is about you and your community, and keeping your community tight is the most important thing of them all.

Yes, I have banned moderators on my channel before, while I was streaming. After the 24-hour ban was done, most of them came back.

You have a game, you have a game, everyone gets a game!

Oprah

Game giveaways! Should you do them? This is all up to you, for me personally I keep them few and far between because you will get a massive influx of viewers, but they will more likely be gone once the giveaway has ended.

“But Zaffa, what if a viewer gifted me a game to stream.”

By all means, stream it, but also keep in mind, that tastes differ. Since I started streaming, my Steam library climbed by a couple of hundred titles. Have I streamed each and every one of those games? No, mainly because some of them are crappy edge lord titles, but I don’t have the time and I have to make the call on which games I would love to play and stream at the same time.

Titles that I should get to include, but aren’t limited to Fallout 4, Battletech, and Escape From Tarkov. The reason being those games never got their hooks into me, even though I attempted to stream and/or play them. I will return to them all eventually, but there are other games that I would like to stream more than them.

Don’t feel guilty for not immediately streaming a viewer-gifted game. Get to it, when you feel ready.

So I face the final curtain.

We have reached the end of these articles, and there are many more tips and tricks that I can give you, but probably did not think of them at the time of writing. As I have said in the beginning, these things worked for me, and you might have a different experience. I am just one streamer with some knowledge and most of that knowledge might not even be applicable to you personally. Thank you for spending your time on these articles, and thanks to Geoff and criticalhit.net for allowing me a platform to spew information into the void.

If you are wondering whether or not to stream, I’m going to quote Shia Labeouf:

“Just do it!”

You can always find me on twitter @Zaffageek or on twitch.tv/zaffa_geek. Happy streaming!

Last Updated: August 17, 2018

12 Comments

  1. Kromas

    August 17, 2018 at 15:15

    Hey Zaffa. Speaking of. I am planning on running a 7 Days server when Alpha 17 hits. Wanna join us?

    Reply

    • ZaffaGeek

      August 17, 2018 at 15:37

      I might be able to, hit me up on twitter once everything is sorted 😀

      Reply

      • Kromas

        August 20, 2018 at 08:14

        Will do. Not sure when Alpha 17 drops it is already 2 months delayed.

        Reply

    • HvR

      August 17, 2018 at 15:37

      Can’t wait

      Reply

      • Kromas

        August 20, 2018 at 08:14

        Me too.

        Reply

        • HvR

          August 20, 2018 at 09:10

          Hope alpha 17 solves my current stability issue, 16.4 I can not play for longer than 45 minutes

          Reply

  2. Magoo

    August 20, 2018 at 10:27

    Don’t let your dreams be dreams!

    Reply

  3. Magoo

    August 20, 2018 at 10:27

    Yesterday you said tomorrow!

    Reply

  4. Magoo

    August 20, 2018 at 10:29

    JUST

    DO IT!

    Reply

  5. Craig "CrAiGiSh" Dodd

    August 20, 2018 at 11:15

    Thanks for the awesome articles Zaffageek, really enjoyed them.

    Reply

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