Vigil Gaming Blog

Official Google+

2011-07-15T03:44:00.001-07:00

Vigil Gaming officially has a Google+ account. If you have Google+ make sure to add us to your circle! gplus.to/VigilGaming

Video Watching Contest

2011-07-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

As of this posting we stand at 610 000 total upload views. That means across all of our videos, our total amount of views is 610k. What we want YOU, our subscribers, to do is help us reach a milestone. Help us achieve 750 000 total upload views by the end of August. That's only 140 000 views away with 49 days to achieve our goal.

If we obtain 750k total views by the end of August we will hold a contest with sweet prizes for you all to win! So help us out! Thanks!

Mike's Computer Upgrade Update

2011-07-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

So as some of you know, my computer is pretty bad. As of today the video card is officially dying because it won't let me play for 20 minutes without bugging out. But today my brother came over and I asked him to help me out with my computer upgrades so I knew what I was looking for and I thought I'd share with you what my computer will soon become!!!!
To achieve this I'll need to get 3 more paychecks. The third paycheck I get August 11 so I plan on buying almost all my upgrades that weekend (minus some of the cooling units and a bit of RAM).

So to begin, my video card. My current video card is an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro. Old. I know. The new video card I plan on getting is an AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB chipset. I plan on crossfiring two of these hopefully after my fourth paycheck. One of these cards will cost me $200.

My motherboard is the first thing I need to buy since that's really important. I don't know my current motherboards' specs but I know it can only host 2GB of RAM and is pretty bad. The new board I want to get is the Asus Crosshair V Formula Socket AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 Chipset. I've heard GREAT reviews about it and it's a huge upgrade from my current motherboard. It can actually hold 32GB of RAM which I intend on filling up because it'll help video editing and gaming. The motherboard costs $230. I plan on buying 2 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 2000MHz RAM packages along with an 8GB Ram pack to fill up the rest of it. When I first go out to buy all this stuff I'll only get 12GB of RAM because I don't need 32GB right off the start. The 12GB pack costs $200.

My current processor I got back in December, if some of you remember, after my previous one stopped working. I don't know exact specs but I believe it runs at 2.3 GHZ. The new processor I plan on getting is the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 3.3GHz, 9Mb Cache, 2000MHz processor. HUGE upgrade, again. This will cost me $200.

Initially I was planning on buying a 3.5TB hard drive with 7200 RPM for like $70 but my brother said if I'm doing gaming or editing I should invest in a 10k RPM hard drive, despite the fact the space on them isn't massive. So I plan on getting a Western Digital 600GB 10000RPM 32MB cache hard drive. I believe I'll be able to slot in more than one hard drive in my computer now so I might pick up one of the 3.5TB ones later on. But the 600GB 10k RPM hard drive is going to cost me $250.

But besides that the only other things I plan on buying are a video card fan and CPU fan which should collectively total around $200.

The initial things I'm going to buy will total me around $1200 after taxes. In total, once I buy EVERYTHING I want, upgrading my computer will have cost me $1500+. That sounds about right for a pretty good computer. My initial plan was to buy the parts as I got the money and install it all once I had everything but I decided to wait until I had all the money so I could buy it all together and install it all because that way I don't have one of the parts sitting in my room for a month then when I install it it turns out to be broken and my 30 day warranty in store is over and I need to take it back to the manufacturer which takes longer.

So yeah, I'm STOKED for the upgrades to start rolling in. I'll be patiently waiting this next month out. I'll see what I can do about videos but my guess is there won't be much/anything from me until August. But when I come back I assume the videos will not only be back, but with super-fantastic-omfgitlookslikereallife! ultra high settings. Oh the joys of being a PC gamer. :)

Poll Results!

2011-07-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

Last month we asked you "What console do you play more of?" and unsurprisingly only two of the five options got any vote at all. PC dominated the votes with 11 votes (78%) and XBox 360 got 3 votes (21%). So from this poll we've concluded that more of our viewers play on PC than they do consoles. At least we hope we've got that right.

For the month of July we want to know: "What kind of videos do you prefer watching?" with the following voting options: "Gameplay/commentary", "Gameplay/Live commentary", "Gameplay" and "Montage"
So get to voting! The poll ends July 31!

The Future

2011-06-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone it's Mike! :)

I haven't done one of these update posts about what to expect from us in a while. So I'll do that now. This is what I hope to accomplish so don't quote me on any of it.

First and foremost, I plan on spending my next couple paychecks on computer upgrades. I need basically a new everything. At the moment I plan on purchasing a new motherboard, RAM and video card. I'll probably have to upgrade my power supply to power it all and I'll probably get a new processor to replace this 2.3ghz one I got. The motherboard I have my eyes on supports 16gb of RAM which would be a HUGE upgrade from always having at most 2gb. The video card I want to get is the ATI Radeon 6770 which is almost 6 generations better than my current ATI Radeon X1950 Pro. Hopefully once all that is upgraded I'll be able to put the graphics up for my videos and record even smoother.

Now for game news, starting with Half-Life 2. I really want to finish the entire walkthrough for the game this summer. The only thing holding me back is rendering and upload times. The editing software I used for over a year for all my gaming videos, Camtasia Studio, has recently decided to not render my videos past 7% so I've had to resort to Sony Vegas. Using Vegas to render all 3 parts of level 4 will take me about 7 hours, 3.5 of those hours being spent on part 1 alone. Then, obviously, the files will be over 1GB in size so that's another 3 hours of uploading each. So I'm looking for a fix for Camtasia or a substitute because I'm not wasting an entire day just to render and upload.

For Counter-Strike Source I'm still trying to get gameplays. A decent amount of people have requested dust2_unlimited but I cant' find any servers that aren't deathmatch so I might have to just put another DM video out. I'm also going to be trying to get all the mod-type requests out of the way just because I don't play any of those game types and those are relatively easy to obtain footage for.

I really want to get back in to the Left 4 Dead 2 Mutation videos. I haven't bothered checking if Vigil has a video for the current Hunting Party or whatever mutation but the next mutation, whatever it is, Vigil will hopefully do a gameplay for it if we haven't already. In addition to that you got the new DLC being released at some point which will definitely offer some more gameplay from L4D2, even if it is a rehash of the Cold Stream level that would no longer be in beta.

The Portal 2 walkthroughs are something I'm going to be helping out with. I'm just waiting for Tha1337ness to post part 2/2 of level 3 I think so I can start uploading because I think it would be weird if I uploaded a few levels then part 2 from a few levels ago is uploaded. At the moment I have Chapter 4 rendered out and ready to upload. I had Chapter 5 ready to render but I accidentally deleted the footage so I'll have to go and replay it but that won't be too bad since I'm always down for Portal. The co-op is something else we want to do as well. Sw1tch and Tha1337ness might do live commentaries as they play through the co-op missions and/or I might go play co-op with a good random and get some footage and do a walkthrough.

I don't play Black Ops that much at all despite the fact that a part of me wants to get gameplay for it. There's so many Black Ops requests it's just ridiculous. Tha1337ness has been going for your requests more than I have and I think he might have 1 or 2 games. As for me, I have a video I got a while back doing a requested setup and I need to commentate it with the person who requested it but I just need to find the time to do that. I feel bad because I told him to answer me before like June 20th if he was interested, then I added him on Skype and haven't even said anything since then. :/

I needed to clear up some hard drive space so I uninstalled Day of Defeat: Source so for the time being that is in the inactive games list.
Alliance of Valiant Arms is probably going to end up in the same boat. I want to try and get another gameplay before I uninstall it just because a decent amount of people wanted to see more gameplay after my review-type video I posted on it.

When Team Fortress 2 became free, I decided to re-install it and see if I liked it any more than the last time I had played it and I did. I've been playing a lot of it lately, sniper on 2fort only. I plan on getting some gameplay but whenever I try to record in console the game gets very laggy. I haven't tried recording as I play but my guess is it will be too choppy by the time Fraps takes a cut of my FPS.

The only other things I have to say are that I'm looking for other games to play and possibly post gameplay on so we have fresh/new stuff on Vigil. In addition to that, I plan on buying an HD-PVR at some point this year once I have bought all my computer upgrades and a new TV so I can start recording stuff off my XBox. It would probably only ever be single player stuff since I'm awful at multiplayer games on XBox.

Thanks for reading and I'll talk to you all later!

Team Fortress 2 Is Now Free!

2011-06-24T08:23:00.001-07:00

Wow. I'm in disbelief. Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 is now FREE. If you've got Steam you can go and download the game now and have it for free. This offer is forever. That's nuts. Valve is amazing.
Having bought the game a long time ago though, I feel cheated. No I don't. I'm glad such a cool game is free. So go and get it everyone! Link below!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/440/

New Series Up Now!

2011-06-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

Sw1tch has done it again. The man who brought you Win and Fail of the Day is back, this time keeping you all wondering What Happens Next? Go watch episode 1 at http://www.youtube.com/VigilGaming and let us know what you think happens next! Leave as many guesses as you like!

Duke Nukem Forever Demo

2011-06-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

If you can play video games on your computers, Steam has just released the Duke Nukem Forever Demo which you can download for free here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/57900/
It will ask you for your age and you need to be 18+ to play so if you're not, just put in a fake year.
There will probably be some gameplay coming out of this demo for you all so stay tuned to our YouTube channel!

Quad Contest 2011

2011-06-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

This is just going to be a quick post thank all of you who voted for us for Operator Perry's 2011 Quad Contest. The quad video is our quickest growing video, sitting at 25k views as of this posting. We also managed to gain 200 subscribers over the past couple days which is our greatest increase in subscribers ever.

So once again, thank you all! We couldn't have done it without you. We hope to continue making videos for you all and staying true to what we wanted Vigil to be when we started it: viewer oriented.

Mike's Hard Drive & XBox 360 & Poll

2011-06-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

So I JUST (literally 2 minutes ago) got my external hard drive working with my computer. I could have had it working on day 1 but I guess I didn't search hard enough. All I had to do was go in to Disc Management and manually assign it a drive letter (J:/). So that means my external hard drive is up and running and I can start doing gameplays and stuff. :)

In addition to that, last week was my birthday (May 26) and I bought myself an XBox 360. If you want to add me, my gamertag is MikeNUrMouth but I only have Black Ops, MW2 & Portal 2 at the moment.

As for the poll, we had some cool results. The question was "At what point did you subscribe to Vigil Gaming?" and the results were as follow: 0-100 subs 42% (3 votes), 251-500 subs 14% (1 vote), 501-1000 subs 14% (1 vote) and 1001-1500 subs 28% (2 votes). It's cool seeing the spread of when you all subscribed. This months poll asks: "What console do you play more of?" with XBox 360, PC, PS3, Wii and Other as your options.

See you all later!

Mike + XBox 360 = ?

2011-05-22T20:34:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

My birthday is on Thursday and I haven't asked for anything from my family. However, recently I've been wanting to buy an XBox 360 since I don't do much on m computer anyway and all my friends are consoletards. Now the cool thing about me wanting an XBox is that it's currently on sale at Best Buy until my birthday for $300 (250GB console + Medal of Honor + Splinter Cell Conviction) and that is one hell of a deal. The money I'd be saving would slightly contribute to the purchasing of another controller and Black Ops.

So tomorrow I'll go to the bank and see how much money I have (just to see how much accessories I can buy with it) and ask my mom to let me buy it. I'm really hoping me using the "it's my birthday present for myself" trick will work since my mom hates me buying games so she'll definitely hate this, especially with exams only a month away.

But I'll keep everyone posted. If I don't get an XBox this week I'll for sure be getting one in the summer. As for the PVR, I'll take my time on that, but it's definitely something I want to get so I can provide more gameplays for you all, including more walkthroughs.

Speaking of walkthroughs, I might be starting the Half-Life 2 walkthroughs when I get my hard drive fixed. Maybe though. As for my hard drive, my brother needs to take a look at it and try to figure out why it's not working with my computer. I've asked the manufacturer via forum and they said to try updating my motherboard drives and reloading the USB root hub and that hasn't seemed to help so I'm hoping all that can be resolved.

In other video news, I went on Counter-Strike Source today and got a win of the day within my first 30 seconds in a deathmatch so that'll be going up at some point. I've also been playing some cs_italy since some of you have requested different maps, with one of you specifically giving italy as an example.

Also, the last thing I want to mention is Diablo 3. The beta is supposedly being released this summer and I hope to be a part of that beta. In terms of gameplay, I'm not sure many people will watch and/or like Diablo 3 gameplay/commentary on Vigil Gaming (this being based off the StarCraft 2 videos). So what I was thinking was uploading one Diablo 3 video on Vigil then the rest on another channel specifically focused on Diablo. I've already made the channel but it has nothing on it so when the time comes you'll all know about it.

Mike Hard Drive Update

2011-05-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

So the dude was unable to back up any of my files so I sent the dead drive back to Seagate (who, FYI, have the most retarded packaging rules ever). Anyway, I sent it to them last week and I got my new drive today. That's badass. Major props to Seagate for that.
So I rush downstairs and I plug the thing in to my computer and I hear the USB sound go off, I see that it's installing the new software and then I wait. No autorun. I fool around with it for a while until I get fed up and plug the drive in to my laptop and guess what happens? Software installs, autorun comes up and I'm able to access my drive.

This means 1 of 2 things. 1) If it's possible, I just need to replace my USB plugs on my computer. Or 2) (I'm leaning more towards this one since I really want to light this fucking piece of shit computer on fire already) I buy a new computer for a couple paychecks worth of money.

So as of right now, I technically COULD BE posting videos for you all but since my computer was moulded from shit I need to wait longer. I haven't looked at the price ranges for new computers but if I'm getting a decent one that can handle gaming and stuff it'll probably cost me a thousand bucks or more. If anything that'll be 2-4 paychecks which is 1-2 months.

See you when I see you.

Yo Yo

2011-05-10T15:11:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

I just wanted to update you about my hard drive situation. I got it back from the guy and he said he couldn't back up any of my files which sucks because I had a lot of stuff on there, some of which was pretty personal and just something I wish I could keep. But obviously, my luck with computers and related products damns me in the end.

Anyway, I FINALLY mailed the stupid thing off to Seagate yesterday. The thing is is that Seagate is so retardedly anal about how you have to package the product you send to them and I'm not sure if I packaged it right. They said I needed some foam shit around the drive in a corrugated box and the person at the post office just was like "Wtf are they talking about?" so I just got a regular box, put some newspapers around it (despite the fact they said NOT to use that....) and shipped it out.

I believe it's on express so it went out yesterday or today. I don't know how long Seagate takes to send you something new but hopefully it's quick. I know that once they send it it takes 3-10 days. Anyway, until I get that new drive (if I even do..fuckin' Seagate) I can't film anything since I'd record on to that drive for better quality videos, plus I have no space on my computers main hard drive.

However, I haven't had much time to play games lately because I've got school work just kicking my nuts. So I've got to get that stuff complete and make some time for games when it's done. Til then you have Tha1337ness and Sw1tch to keep you company :)

Oh and one final thing, Sw1tch graduates high school in a few weeks (what a cutie) and says he's getting an HD PVR as a graduation gift so expect more videos from him! We're also going to start testing out a new format for commentaries...involving our subscribers...get excited. :)

Peace in the middle East! <3

A year later...

2011-05-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

Exactly a year ago today Vigil Gaming was created.

It’s crazy how Vigil Gaming has evolved over the past year. From our first video of the Left 4 Dead 2 opening cinematic to our most recent videos, we have grown not only in content but also as a community. We’ve gone from posting multiple videos a day to not posting anything for multiple weeks at a time. We’ve gone from minimal views to viral amongst the gaming community. And all of our success, all of our progression, we owe to each and every one of you: the viewers.

The creation story has been told multiple times before but I’ll give a quick recap of it: on this day Mike really wanted to create a gaming channel. Sw1tch suggested starting a channel with him where they could both post. Mike accepted this and thus began the process of coming up with a name. Mike threw out “VigilGaming” after looking up the definition of Vigil and found that it was a perfect fit. Both Sw1tch and I R Black agreed it was a good name and so started the channel.

Patar was the first new member of Vigil Gaming, joining just a few days after we started by posting walkthrough videos for Fear 2. He later left the channel due to personal reasons and started his own channel: GamingMadeEz. His contribution to Vigil Gaming can still be viewed in the first half of our Portal 1 walkthrough videos.

Dyzix was the next new member joining shortly after Patar did. Though he did not post much he was still a great contribution to the team providing beta StarCraft 2 footage and helping boost our views early on. Dyzix has always been a “moral support” for everyone at Vigil Gaming and currently helps with our revenue.
Sgt. Pepper is the latest and currently last member to join the Vigil Gaming crew. He joined a few months after the channel was started and has since become a regular uploader providing quality content including videos which amassed high amounts of views.

Now let’s switch over to I R Black. He was technically always a member of Vigil Gaming since he was there when we started it though he only ever uploaded one video. Though he does not contribute to our video tally personally, he is always around to help produce our content by providing assistance in games such as Left 4 Dead 2 or Counter-Strike.

Mike has been with Vigil Gaming since day 1. As mentioned earlier, he came up with the name. Mike has probably uploaded more than half the content on the channel. He strives to provide videos you all request from him. From Left 4 Dead 2, to Counter-Strike to Black Ops he’s got a stack full of requests that he’s constantly trying to get for you all. On top of that he manages the website, Twitter and most of the interaction in the comments.

Sw1tch is the mastermind behind the channel itself. From thinking of doing the channel to multiple different series we have going on. Sw1tch actually thought of the Win/Fail of the Day series, request a setup and other things that have made Vigil the unique channel it is. Because of Sw1tch we are the audience-based channel that we are today and he continues to supply the channel with progressively better montages and gameplays in the future.

In a year Vigil Gaming has managed to find the secret to being a successful gaming channel on YouTube and we’ve used it to our advantage with success. In 365 days we’ve gathered almost 1450 subscribers, almost half a million total uploaded views, featured almost 30 different games and accomplished amazing feats such as being the first channel to post HD/commentary footage from The Sacrifice DLC in Left 4 Dead 2. We’ve had our down days in the start when everything was still a little confusing and personalities clashed but we were able to sort things out and continue on this wonderful adventure.

We greatly appreciate all of your support over the past year and we hope to grow even larger over the course of this next year by both expanding our game library as well as following through with some promises. We plan on continuing our efforts to be a channel that loves to communicate with its audience and provide content relevant to what they want to see. We plan to have a great follow up to year 1 and we hope you all will stick around to see it all happen.

From each member of Vigil Gaming: thank you very much for your support. We love you all. :)

Well Hello There!

2011-05-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone it's Mike! :)

So the websites been pretty dry lately as has the video content up on Vigil Gaming. I thought I'd stop by here and give everyone a quick update.
Firstly, I'm feeling that "uploader" feeling I had back last year around this time when we stared. Speaking of which I just reminded myself that Vigil turns 1 in 3 days. That's amazing!

I'll begin by saying that I'm not making any promises, this is just how I'd like things to play out.

Portal 2 will be coming to Vigil Gaming soon. My hard drive is being fixed as we speak (though I have a feeling I'm being scammed and I'm not getting it back :/) and once that happens I'll have somewhere to film all the gameplay to. Single player will definitely happen but I'd like a friend to play co-op with me. Sw1tch says he'll be getting the game sometime within the next month so hopefully he'll be my co-op buddy.

I'm trying to get back in to Counter-Strike Source but it's still not sparking anything for me. I want to get some mod gameplays as well as some of the other requests you guys have wanted.

The same goes for Left 4 Dead 2. I feel like there isn't much fun left in that game (at the moment, at least) but I'll probably play it religiously at some point in the future.

I've thought about making Team Fortress 2 gameplays and that's another maybe. I haven't liked the game since they updated the crap out of it and allowed engineers to control their sentry guns (seriously, that's fuckin' bullshit!)

Personally I'm standing by my view that Call of Duty is terrible. That being said I do have a Hardcore TDM game from a couple months ago where I went on an absolute tear. It's unlikely there'll be much more videos from that. And I know I haven't done ANY of the requested setups that I got but that's for 2 reasons: 1) I don't play the game that much to be good at consistently and 2) The requests are challenging.

Just some final things I'd like to mention: make sure to follow us on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/VigilGaming) and vote on the new poll! Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all soon! :)

HELLO!

2011-01-31T13:52:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

So this is the really delayed post. :)
Just here to say what's up? I haven't been playing much games lately but I do still have some more videos from December to upload then I'll have to get some new footage. I've gotten a lot of Black Ops and CSS requests which I'd like to get to. The Black Ops requests are definitely a lot harder to get due to my lack of good in the game but the CSS requests don't seem that bad so we'll see.

I don't remember exactly how many videos I have left but I know one of them is CSS Surf, finally!

Also there's a new poll that ends this Friday so get to voting!!!

Poll Results

2011-01-07T16:08:00.001-08:00

Last week we asked you "If you remember, when did you subscribe to Vigil Gaming?" and only one of you answered, "June 2010". Hopefully we get some more votes on our poll but this week's poll simply asks: "Death in fire or drowning?" Feel free to leave your explanation as to why in the comments!
This poll runs until Friday, January 14, 2010! See you then!

2010 In Review

2011-01-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone it’s Mike!

First of all on behalf of everyone at Vigil Gaming I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year! In this blog post I’d like to go over what 2010 has been like for Vigil Gaming, so if you’re interested feel free to read on.

Before I get in to that I quickly want to tell you about the new poll. Last week’s poll asked you all: “Who was the first person recruited to Vigil Gaming?” with 50% of you (1 vote) voting for Sgt. Pepper and Patar while no one voted for I R Black or Dyzix. The correct answer is Patar. Hopefully this week we get some more voters! This week’s poll asks you all: “If you remember, when did you subscribe to Vigil Gaming?” with all the months from May-December 2010 and January 2011 being an option. This poll ends on Friday, January 7, 2011. Now for an essay of what Vigil Gaming has accomplished in just over 7 months.

Vigil Gaming was started on May 4, 2010 after about 30 minutes of deciding on a name. The original 3 were Sw1tch, Mike and I R Black since he was part of the name making. Dyzix was the first person asked to join Vigil but he was offline when asked so it was Patar who was the first person to be recruited. He was recruited after he mentioned he wanted to post some Fear 2 walkthroughs on his channel. With some encouragement from Sw1tch and Mike he happily accepted his offer to join us. Dyzix joined shortly after.

For many of you Patar is a new name. The reason you may not have heard of Patar is because, for personal reasons, he had to leave Vigil Gaming. However, do not fret for he can still be viewed on the first half of the Portal walkthrough videos. And all is well since we all still talk and remain friends.

Over the course of just over 7 months Vigil Gaming has amounted 434 videos, 1170 subscribers, 358 444 total upload views, 24 327 channel views, numerous honours and many “YouTube firsts”. All of us at Vigil Gaming can safely say that this is the greatest channel we have ever been a part of as well as the fastest growing. When we started out we had 11 or 12 subscribers, over 50% of those being just me. It wasn’t until we hit up our other channels and told our subscribers to head over here to check us out that we started getting some new people. Overnight we found ourselves up to about 60 subscribers which is when we had to start working for our subscribers.

Very early on we were getting a lot of views on our videos. From the Left 4 Dead 2 mutation videos to StarCraft 2 Beta to Counter-Strike Source Beta. Our first video to crack 1000 views was, I believe, a video posted by myself on May 11 that went over ALL the Counter-Strike Source Beta achievements as well as the stats panel. Many people enjoyed that and just within a week we were getting a lot of views. In addition to this, Dyzix was helping out by providing StarCraft 2 Beta videos such as “Easy Win Strategy For New StarCraft 2 Players” and “Protoss Rush Tips For New StarCraft 2 Players” which both amounted to 1000 views respectively very quickly.
Our first “big” video that massed a lot of views quickly and I believe was our first view blocked video was a video by me posted for a contest Left 4 Dead 2 was holding for a Mutation. The video is called: “L4D2LastSurvivor Ellis’ Mind” which is a “Freeman’s Mind” kind of video that is a minute long and has 3 “events” that are narrated.

Though we didn’t get picked to win the contest off our 2 popular submissions both contest videos, to date, have accumulated 49 243 views collectively.
As we stepped in to June we finally hit 100 subscribers just a month and 2 days after starting our channel. June would prove to be one of the best months for Vigil Gaming. First of all, June is the month we launched the Win and Fail of the Day segments as well as started doing Vent Recordings which is just a fun fact. But on June 24, as we stood at around mid-100 subscribers I posted a video that REALLY helped us get some attention. The video is entitled: “CSS Doesn’t Suck After Update (ORIGINAL VIDEO)”. Initially, it didn't have the (ORIGINAL VIDEO) part at the end but this was the first video of ours that was being re-uploaded by other YouTubers. To my knowledge, 2 people have/had re-uploaded the video to their own channels.

This video was one that supported Valve in their changes to the Counter-Strike Source game after much of the community seemed to lash out on them for changing the game completely. With my sarcastic, asshole attitude I disproved much of everything I read about in about 5 minutes of the forums and from browsing YouTube videos. I posted this video on the Steam forums and that’s when it lifted off. Within an hour or so it was view blocked at 301 views and all of us were stoked. I remember the day before Dyzix had mentioned: “You know you’re big on YouTube when your video gets view blocked.” And here we were 24 hours later with Dyzix coming in Vent and praising me and the video. The comments on the video just wouldn’t stop, both positive and negative. This video helped us get like top 50 in most favourited, rated, commented and viewed charts. To this day at least one comment on that video is made. In about 24 hours the video updated its views to show around 1400, and by the end of the day I believe it was sitting at around 5000 views. To date the video has 44 688 views and remains our most popular video in all departments.

The following day we hit 200 subscribers and 6 days later hit 300. However, we didn’t take full advantage of the new audience we had just acquired and only posted a few CSS videos afterwards which may have caused some people to not subscribe or unsubscribe. In the subsequent months not much happened. We continued posting our videos, a lot of which was walkthroughs and requested videos from the audience. The next game that brought in some views was Alien Swarm which Vigil Gaming was the first to post full, HD with commentary gameplay of. The views remained in the low thousands but that’s better than nothing. Much of the views and subscribers were being obtained from the L4D2 mutation videos and the StarCraft 2 videos, especially once the game was released at the end of July.

In early August we announced our first ever contest which celebrated 500 subscribers. In this contest we asked the viewers to design an avatar and/or background for us which, if selected, we would display and give credit to. The winners were announced a month later. The avatar we have kept to this day and it is provided by the YouTuber “DeathnoteforL”. The background was nice while it lasted but we ended up switching it in a couple months to our current background which was done by Sw1tch.

At the end of August we recruited the newest member of Vigil Gaming, a friend of Sw1tch’s under the name of “Sgt. Pepper”. After a few weeks of getting to know and trust him it was decided that we’d make his biggest dream come true. :) He began by posting a Modern Warfare 2 gameplay on Vigil Gaming and soon became a consistent contributor and even helped us earn a handful of subscribers and views. In around mid-September came the release of Halo: Reach which Sgt. Pepper kindly posted walkthroughs for for the first two levels. The first video he posted quickly gained the attention of the Halo community and to this day has accounted for 13 112 views. The other 4 videos he posted as walkthroughs have all received over 2000 views each.

October was the next big month for us. As we were almost at 800 subscribers, the Medal of Honor Open Beta for PC came out. Both Dyzix and I posted gameplays for the game and both those videos have received 2800 views. A day after these videos were posted “The Sacrifice” DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 was released and we knew this was a big opportunity to get seen. We posted a walkthrough for the new campaign a few hours after it’s release. We weren’t the first to provide gameplay because another user beat us to it by a couple hours, HOWEVER, we were the first channel to provide an HD with commentary video for the campaign. Part two of that video to this day has audio problems after I had to delete it and re-upload it around 6-7 times. Collectively that video got around 10 000+ views. However, as the views stand now the 3 part walkthrough has provided 23 627 views. In addition to the new campaign, L4D2 got a L4D1 campaign called “No Mercy” for which Sgt. Pepper provided a 5 part walkthrough for. Each video has received over or almost 1000 views. This DLC helped us gain 100 subscribers in just 5 days, which is our current record for how quick we have obtained that amount of subscribers.

I feel like I haven’t discussed Sw1tch’s contributions to this channel enough, since he is an absolute genius. To begin he is the person who first suggested we do “requested setups” in Modern Warfare 2 which he began doing immediately. This concept has now been applied to all of our games so that you all can tell us what you want to see and we’ll do it. He is the fellow who suggested the Win/Fail of the Day series. He’s provided you with numerous montages that make you need to change your undergarments. He’s given you a few tutorials and reviews on certain things which have all amounted over 1000 views. In addition to this and more, without Sw1tch there would be no Vigil Gaming. He was the one who suggested it. And if that’s not a big enough contribution, I don’t know what is.

At Vigil Gaming we pride ourselves in being a viewer oriented gaming channel which, we believe, separates us from the incredibly big gaming channel crowd. We have so many outlets that we use to try to communicate with our viewers. We are one of, if not the only channel, who asks the viewers what they want to see and delivers the content for them, even if only one person wants to see that one request. We believe that if we post what you want to see in addition to what we want to see this will create a great balance and connection between us and the viewers which makes you all know that we’re not a regular gaming channel, we’re one here for you because we know that you’re watching and you’re supporting us and if you're not liking the content then that's only bad for us.

To date Vigil Gaming has posted 434 videos across 25 games across both Xbox 360 and computer. We have had an extraordinary 2010 and plan on continuing our success in to the new year of 2011. We have had the opportunity to turn one of our favourite past times in to something you all can enjoy as well. Thank you for sticking with us and thank you for watching, subscribing, commenting, rating and telling your friends if you do.

Recording Update

2010-12-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

So for Christmas I asked for an external hard drive and I got one that's a terabyte. :) I installed Fraps on to it to kind of take the pressure off my computer in hopes that I would be able to retain some FPS and it seems to be working. So today I spent a lot of the day recording some stuff.

I recorded 2 CSS videos, an AK gameplay on Office and an M4 gameplay on Office.
I recorded like 3 or 4 StarCraft 2 league games from way back in like October.
When I'm done commentating all of the videos and rendering them I'll take a picture of all the videos that are going to be uploaded in January. There's going to be a lot from me which should make up for my inactiveness a few months ago. Plus those videos will be fillers for me while I study and am unable to get new footage.

Happy Holidays everyone! See ya!

Update, Holidays, New Poll

2010-12-24T17:50:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

First of all I'd like to start off by wishing all of you a Merry Christmas! If you don't celebrate Christmas then Happy Holidays! We hope all of you had a splendid time.

The update portion of this post pertains to just me. My bandwidth has like 7GB left on it which I'm trying with so much effort to save without actually turning off my router so I won't be posting any videos until my bandwidth resets on January 4, which coincidentally is, I believe, the day I return to school. -.- However, in January you can look forward to I think 3 Black Ops gameplays, 2 Counter-Strike Source gameplays, a Fail of the Day brought to you by I R Black and some more Left 4 Dead 2 stuff! However, January is the last month of my first semester so I'm going to be extremely busy with projects and studying for exams.

Now for the poll. Last week we asked you: "Should Vigil Gaming do live shows?" 71% of you (5 voters) said yes we should while 28% of you (2 voters) said we should not. I'm going to be buying a laptop on Sunday, December 26 so going off the poll results I'll probably use the webcam in that laptop to broadcast some live shows from uStream a couple times a week. This weeks poll once again tests your Vigil Gaming history knowledge: "Who was the first person recruited to Vigil Gaming?" with the following options: "Sgt. Pepper", "I R Black", "Patar" and "Dyzix". This poll ends on Friday, December 31, 2010!

Poll Results & New Poll

2010-12-17T18:55:00.001-08:00

Last week we asked you all: "Who initiated the creation of Vigil Gaming?" with all the known members of Vigil Gaming as options. The results were Sgt. Pepper with 75% (3 votes) and Sw1tch with 25% (1 vote). The actual answer is Sw1tch. :) He had the idea to start a gaming channel with Mike. The more you knoooooow!

This week we want to know: "Should Vigil Gaming do live shows?" with only "Yes" and "No" as options. These live shows would be actual live shows, not gameplays, that would be broadcasted by Mike. I think it's possible to live stream gameplay and I'm pretty sure Sw1tch has a hard on for doing that but this poll isn't about that.

So go ahead and vote! This poll ends on Friday, December 24, 2010!

Mike's Back In Business!

2010-12-17T12:39:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

Good news! The processor came in the mail today and it's hooked up and I am officially back on my PC. :)
Videos may still be a bit delayed since I have other priorities but they'll hopefully be coming!

Live Shows?

2010-12-15T18:27:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone it's Mike!

I'm just wondering, and this will probably be the poll for tomorrow but feel free to leave me a comment, would any of you be interested in attending Vigil Gaming live shows? Like on uStream or BlogTV. It wouldn't be a gameplay (though I'm sure Sw1tch would love to broadcast himself playing on JustinTV) it would just be me in the flesh talking to you all, answering questions and what not. I just want to see if there's a good amount of people who'd be interested before I put all the time in to it only to have like 6 people show. :)

So let me know!

Longer Videos FTW

2010-12-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

For those who haven't already heard, YouTube has increased the time limit of uploads for a ton of users. They did not specify if there is a new limit but by the way they described it there is no time limit. However, your video is still bound to the 2GB maximum file size. Regardless, good job YouTube. This will definitely be a useful tool at some point. Would have been cool during the StarCraft 2 walkthroughs but let's not get in to that.

To read more about it visit: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/12/up-up-and-away-long-videos-for-more.html

Mike Update

2010-12-11T18:05:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

So I got word today from my brother that the new processor for my computer just shipped out today. It should be here within 1-2 weeks, but he's more than sure it'll take 2 weeks. Let's hope it just gets here as soon as possible.
It'll be a blast having a better processor that now runs 3.0 GHZ instead of whatever I had before. Plus I'll be able to finally play some games, and make videos for both Vigil Gaming and HopelessProd!!!

The one thing I'm glad for is that Black Ops will have had like a month to fix itself by the time I can play it again so I'm hoping when I get back it'll be running smooth, especially with my new processor.