Rivalcade Overwatch, Gaming, Hosting & Esports in 2017!

Hey everyone, I definitely owe you all an update – I will try to write more often this year! Many of us are starting to emerge from our winter hideaways as the weather finally starts to warm up in the UK. I have also been very busy and will continue to be in the next few months! I’m going to cover my new home, my gaming / streaming / hosting ambitions for this year as well as my involvement with Rivalcade Overwatch!

New House and Gaming Room Update

When I last wrote, I was moving into a new home which was effectively a shell of a house. However, I did have a dedicated front room which was going to be my pet project! I am now almost finished with the basic setup. Here’s a sneak peek:

Yes, those are Millennium Falcon blackout blinds! :) As you can see I also finally got myself a gaming chair. I even did a review of the GT Omega Racing EVO XL, and I paid retail price for the chair as well – a totally honest review. Check it out! In fact, I’m reaching out to them to get a second one so that there’s one around for co-casting or when my flatmates also want to be gaming in the room. I’ll write a separate blog post on my chair review next week or the week after.

My workspace is also ready – I am now using 144Hz monitors for the first time in my life and am really enjoying them! A lot of my evenings have been spent video editing rather than making use of nice refresh rates, though. That said, I don’t regret it! Work hard, play hard.

YouTube, Overwatch, Hearthstone & Streaming

I’ve managed to broadly stick to my plan of having at least 2 videos a week on YouTube, while also making the quality of what I do a lot better. This might not seem like a lot since many YouTubers upload videos every day! However, on some days my schedule looks like this:

• Wake up 08.00
• Work 09.00
• Get home ~18.45
• Reheat some dinner, work on a video 19.00-00.30
• Shower, sleep 01.30

I’m really happy with my focus on trying to get as high quality as possible though. It’s not getting the views yet, but some of that is also down to an Esports vs a casual audience and my decision to focus on the former for now, for Overwatch (see my Rivalcade Overwatch bit at the end). I still enjoy my Hearthstone Tavern Brawl videos and even just as a casual player, they’re great fun!

Here’s an example of one of the Battle Report series of videos I’m doing right now. This is for the ongoing Overwatch APEX Season 2, and this video features two international teams vs Korean teams.

I am hoping to find at least one night a week to start a regular stream. However, I want to make sure that I can commit to the same day each week before starting this and keep up a rhythm. For this reason I’m not rushing into it, and I’m happy to wait until I sort the rest of my life out and I can commit the time. There aren’t enough hours in the day! When I’m not streaming my own gameplay I will still be commentating elsewhere, like with Rivalcade Overwatch below.

The subject of my stream will also likely be casual gaming – I’ll be sharing the games that I don’t normally commentate on or host events for. I’d like to be more laid back and interact more with my stream as well. Perhaps some retro gaming, or new indie games? Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions!

Events and Commentary

Last weekend I hosted the SEGA “Make War Not Love” event at PC Gamer Weekender. It was a really fun event working with a small group of amazing people. All the talent stayed to pack up at SEGA, and the atmosphere felt more like a LAN party at someone’s home than a commercial event. It was fantastic! The photo below is from days 3 & 4 at the Olympia Exhibition Centre – Jessicat did an awesome job of setting up the studio.

Because of how little time I have, I am pivoting more towards hosting and interviewing at events. I still love and will keep doing commentary, but I will focus more on hosting this year. It frustrates me seeing hosts at live events that asks “How do you feel?” when they can’t think of anything else to say, for example. You do not need the most analytical mindset to ask intelligent questions – just some strong basic knowledge and good feel for the people you’re speaking to. I love this a lot and enjoy interacting with people from all walks of life at events – at times it doesn’t feel like work at all!

Naturally, away from that I am still going to be casting whenever I can. While I want to focus on hosting live events, I can hardly turn away from my first love! :) As a result I’m hoping to share a few more events with you in the future. For now, though, I can tell you this!

I will be casting the Rivalcade EU Overwatch Cups from tonight onwards!

Rivalcade Overwatch Cup

It’s been a little while now that people have noticed a lack of Overwatch tournaments in Europe. In time I’m sure there will be plenty, especially after Overwatch League is announced. However, in the meantime I’m very excited to be joining the Rivalcade Overwatch team! I will be broadcasting the European Overwatch tournament every Tuesday at 9pm EU / 8pm UK / 3pm Eastern US (vaguely time-zone dependent but I think that’s right!) starting tonight. I hope to see some of you there!

So as you can see, quite a lot going on at the moment and I will do my best to update you more often! I’m looking forward to hosting, casting, streaming and YouTubing in 2017 and life has definitely settled down in a good way. All I need now is a lot of coffee and an unlimited supply of 48 hour days!

See you later on Rivalcade Overwatch!

JoRo