But first, if you don’t know who I am, my name’s Drunkonlife and have over 500 project zomboid videos chronicling my successes and failures on this channel and have channeled my inner Rick Grimes to the tune of 3000+ ingame hours.  To put it simply, saying I love this game is a clear understatement. 

Traits and Occupations

It all begins with understanding traits/occupations.  Now, I’m not going to get into the best character builds because I feel like that is quite personal based on play style but I will say this.  

If you are brand new to the game, you should focus on the traits and occupations that will help you not get killed early on.  What I mean by this is skills such as carpentry/metalworking/farming/fishing etc. etc. can all be worked on easily with skill books later and it is my opinion that these occupations don’t matter as much in the first couple weeks.

Also, as tempting as a burglar may be, the fact that you can easily hotwire cars if you can survive a week or two makes  the initial convenience of hotwiring cars not worth the cost of the occupation.

All this said, the better occupations for a beginner are going to be the ones with a weapons skill attached to their occupation.  For example, you can get a level 3 short blunt skill with the construction worker coming out of the gate, which means, as long as you use short blunt weapons, which incidentally, are probably the most common weapon out there, you will quickly level up your skill proficiency.  Also, most short blunt are one handed which means you can carry a second item in your other hand while fighting.  More on that later.

Additionally, with traits, you want to choose either traits that are hard to skill up OR traits that will aid you with combat OR in the very least won’t hurt you in combat.

Probably the hardest traits to level up will be fitness and strength as the xp scales significantly from one level to the next. 

2 traits that will significantly improve your survival chances are Gymnast because the nimble skill will make you more slippery and keen hearing.  Keen hearing will literally let you see a couple spaces behind you making a zombie less likely to be able to sneak up on you.

As you may or may not know, a rear attack by a zombie is almost always fatal.

There are also negative traits that you can balance out your character that currently don’t have consequences that are too severe.  Before I list them, just know that Project Zomboid is still a work in progress and they could change any of these traits to make the cost outweigh the benefit. 

These traits….my current go to negative traits are slow reader, weak stomach, prone to illness, smoker, high thirst and slow healer.  Slow reader because we can speed up time, weak stomach and prone to illness because as long as I am careful with elements and don’t eat anything rotten or poisonous, I should be okay.  Smoker effects can be mitigated with antidepressants, chocolate, alcohol and books and finally slow healer, because….well because frankly we won’t get injured often.

Short sighted isn’t a bad negative trait as long as you pair it with keen hearing and I’ve heard whispers on my discord that glasses actually help fix that trait, although that is just speculation at this point.

Spawn Points

Just like traits and occupations different towns will give a different experience and difficulty.  If you are having a problem with dying in your first couple days, both Riverside and Rosewood are good places to spawn into because both have less populated areas around their edges.  Between the two, I would recommend Riverside as you can shack up close enough to the town without actually being in the town.  Rosewood does not have a hardware store.

Muldraugh and Westpoint are more densely populated and therefore less beginner friendly.  Muldraugh, because there aren’t a lot of places around the edges of the city and Westpoint because the best loot is in the most heavily populated area….downtown westpoint.

Between the two, I would probably choose westpoint but only if I could make my way to the western edges of the city. 

Surviving your first week….

So, you’ve spawned in. Now what.  It’s kind of weird to think that my first tips video in 2019 suggested that you pick up almost EVERYTHING that you find.  Since then, my ambition has been tempered by frugalness and I will say that most items aren’t that important in early game.

Things that are important.  A hammer, a saw, and a screwdriver or what I call the holy trinity. Of course food and water as well and a weapon or two, preferably the weapon type in which you are most proficient in according to your occupation or traits. If you are a smoker, things like red books, alcohol and antidepressants will  blunt smoker withdrawal until you find cigarettes. Obviously matches or lighters. A pen or two if you find one for marking the map.

If you started on apocalypse settings, the power will still be on so food wise, that frozen steak will pack more of a punch than canned food and will go bad quicker so frozen food is always better than canned food.  Plus,you can always mark it on the map for later looting.  A can opener and cooking pot or skillet are two really good items as well.

If you run across any beginner level skill books and can afford the weight, take them as you can read them during downtime once you establish a safe house.  Any magazines that you find, such as the how to generator book or herbalist,  can be read on the spot.

If you spawned in Riverside, head west towards the edge of town or east to the bedroom community on the eastern edge of town.  Toward the west, outside the town, you will have a ton of farmhouses to loot as well as you will stay relatively close to the river, should you want to fish or forage.  To the east, the bedroom community has a ton of big houses but more importantly, big fences that will keep the zombie migration from the riverside town center down to a minimum.

The reason why you want to move to the edges is because starting out, you are less proficient with a weapon, more easily panicked, which affects accuracy and damage done, and are more likely to get overwhelmed by the city’s population more quickly.

By moving to the edges, you can start the process of building up your weapons skill and as the days pass, be less likely to panic when you see a zombie.

SAFEHOUSE

Once you are out of town, you can choose a house which will become your base of operations and where you can store your loot.  A lot of players immediately start the process of securing the windows with planks although I will say that if you do, any zombies who pass by your house will be more likely to be attracted to the planks.  Zombies are more likely to attack player built structures by default so most of the time I don’t even bother with securing the house initially.

What’s more important is to cover the windows and doors with sheets or curtains so a passing zombie can’t see you.  If they can’t see you, they are not likely to break in.

At this point, you have a couple choices to make.  Life and Living comes on at 6:00am, 12noon, and 6pm and offers a buff in various skills such as carpentry, foraging, fishing, and cooking for the first 8 days.  You could hang close to the house and increase your skills by simply watching TV.  Honestly, these shows can be found on VHS tapes so, ultimately they aren’t that important at this point.  I used to find value in doing this because it made me feel like I was moving in the right direction for long term survival. 

The other choice is to start to work your way back towards town, looting houses and killing zombies.  Personally, I suggest this choice as the initial population is low and if you focus on killing zombies, you can drive up your weapon proficiency quickly while taking advantage of the possibility of not getting overwhelmed.

I can’t over-state how important leveling up your weapon’s skill is. Which is why you want to use the weapons that you have a proficiency in. You will level up quickly and the higher your skill level the less stamina you will use to kill a zombie and the more zombies you can take on at one time.  Your weapon’s skill level is a better determining factor for long term survival than building things early game. 

Things that will get you killed quickly

Actions have consequences and make no bones about it.  Project Zomboid wants to kill you.  The game punishes you for complacency and making the wrong choices.  In most cases, your death will be the result of poor decision making.  Let’s fix this by understanding the most likely ways you will die.

 Every time you enter a house, you are taking a chance. Every time you jump blindly through a window, there is a chance of there being a zombie in a blind spot next to that window.  You can lower the chance of this by peering through various windows of the house to get a different vantage point.  A more cautious player may even hit a door with a weapon first and wait to see if there is a reaction from within the house.

You can also “shout quietly” while crouching by pressing q near a window.  This will alert a nearby zombie but not be so loud as to alert a zombie or group of zombies a couple houses down.

Everytime you open a door, you are taking a chance.  Just like windows, there are blindspots. If you walk past a zombie hidden next to a door, they will get you.  A good way to lower the chance of this is to run, not walk into a room.  That way if a zombie is there, you may brush by them but they won’t be able to react by grabbing you.

If you hug a corner, you are taking a chance.  Just like windows and just like doors, hugging a corner too close could result in getting a hug from a zombie.  Lower your chances by simply taking a wide angle around a building.

If you are fighting next to trees, you are taking a chance. Trees obscure your vision and if you aren’t careful, a zombie could be lurking in the tree line.

Which brings us to the final most likely thing that will get you killed…..moodles.

There are  3 moodles that you should pay extra attention to and probably call it a day when you are out fighting zombies.

The sleepy  moodle, the exhausted moodle and the overburdened moodle.  The sleepy moodle and exhausted moodle will decrease weapon damage done. The overburdened moodle will decrease stamina over time.  You can mitigate the effects through drugs like vitamins (which will decrease tiredness) or forageables such as ginseng (which will give a boost in stamina) or offset some weight by placing something in your non-primary hand or backpack if you have one.  If you are only affected by stamina debuffs, you can go somewhere to rest.  You can sit on the ground but one tip I learned here recently is if you rest by a chair or bed or couch, you can actually see the stamina meter and can rest until fully rested.

Pay very close attention to your moodles because they can stack if you aren’t careful.  Get tired enough AND overburdened and your stamina will never improve.  If you are fighting a group of zombies while exhausted, it will take you longer to kill each zombie which will reduce your stamina further. 

If you are tired AND exhausted, you will be putting yourself in peril.  Your best bet is if  one of these moodles appear is to either take care of them OR head back to your safehouse and call it a day.

Handling groups of zombies

When you are first starting out, you probably shouldn’t be messing with groups of more than 3.  Anything larger and you risk a longer fight and the longer a fight drags, the more likely you will get new zombies attracted to your fight.  If you need to engage, your best bet is to break line of sight around a house or building and backtrack around.  By doing this, you will have some zombies that will find a window to stick while others will separate from the group making it easier to pick them off one by one.

As your weapon skill levels up, you will be able to take on larger groups because it will take less time to kill each one.  Larger groups are best tackled in wide open spaces where you are aware of your surroundings and can’t get ambushed from behind.

There’s really not much more I can say other than if you stick to a certain weapon class group, you will start to get a feel for how close you need to be and will be able to handle groups better. Moving from a long blunt to a short blunt will cause more whiffs and could increase the likelihood of getting grabbed. 

RECAP

So let’s recap.

If you want to survive longer, here are the keys….

1. Choose occupations and traits that will give you combat buffs and focus on your strengths combat wise.  
2. Riverside is the most beginner friendly town in Knox county.  If you are really struggling, choose this town until you get a better feel for gameplay.
3. Find a safehouse along the edges of a town rather than in the city.
4. Your primary focus should be improving your combat skills by using a weapon in the weapon class you are experienced in.
5. Approach any house with caution.  Pay careful attention to blind spots such as close angles around buildings, going through windows and casually walking through doors.  Trees and bushes also yield blind spots.
6. Pay special attention to your moodles.  If you are over encumbered, tired or exhausted, consider calling it a day and heading back to your safehouse.  If you have two of those moodles, don’t risk it!
7. When you see a larger group, consider ways to separate the group into smaller packs before tackling them, especially if you are just starting out.  As you get stronger, larger groups are best handled in wide open spaces such as yards and roads.

Well that does it for this video.  If you enjoyed this video, consider giving it a thumbs up on your way out and if you haven’t subscribed to this channel, why not?  My name is drunkonlife and until next time, stay safe y’all!   

The post 7 Tips to Survive Longer When Playing Project Zomboid appeared first on Drunkonlife.net.

Every once in a while, I get a comment asking what’s the longest I’ve lived in Project Zomboid.  And I usually respond with the incredibly generic a few months because everytime the game feels too easy I up the pain threshold with mods and settings to make things more interesting.

You could say that the harder it is…the more it hurts…the more entertained I am.  And if this is you….if masochist is your middle name….if surviving on worms and cockroaches is your idea of a good time…..or if you are in the camp that thinks that project zomboid gets boring in the mid game…. Then I have a list of 6 must have project zomboid mods that will make things brutally tough for any survivor and have you wondering who’s your daddy now.

My name is Drunkonlife and I have nearly 3,500 hours in this game or to put it simply, if I played this game straight, I would have spent ⅓ of a year playing project zomboid. In fact, I’ve chronicled my project zomboid adventures with nearly 500 videos, all of which can be found on this channel.  

But enough about me….let’s talk about the mods that will take your soul survivor. 

#1 Ridiculously Rare Loot

In project zomboid, one of the main hurdles a player has is collecting all the things they need to set up a safe house.  This includes a saw, hammer, screwdriver,seeds for farming, food, generator, car, and an assortment of books in which you can learn things.

Even on extremely rare loot, an advanced player can find all these things within a matter of a few ingame days and be pretty much set up to survive the long haul.

Once you have all those things, you literally could stop loot runs and hang out in your safehouse in perpetuity or….until you get bored…..

Enter Ridiculously Rare Loot, a mod that will make you think you’ve struck gold whenever you find anything that could be considered useful to your cause in the zombie apocalypse.

What makes ridiculously rare loot so good is that it forces most players to first rethink traits because food is so scarce, and books such as herbalist are so rare that you may find yourself picking traits out of necessity just to get going.

Should you be a mechanic so that you can immediately be able to fix cars?  And if you do that, what are the chances you will even find a wrench anytime soon?  And if not, what are the chances that you will find the skill books necessary to fix them?

These are the questions you will be pondering with this mod.  One of my runs in Louisville lasted 3 months and I had yet to find any of the mechanic skill books, a generator or the how to book to make the generator work.

You can even make it harder by turning off the power and water and starting a month or two later so that any food that you find in the fridge would be rotten and inedible.

One thing to note here.  If you add any mods that add new books into the mix, it will decrease the chances of finding the vanilla books and magazines so tread lightly.  I did a school library run on extremely rare loot and the library was brimming with books.  On ridiculously rare loot, I found a total of 10 books, none of which I could immediately use.

#2  Worse Vehicle Condition

Once you find a working vehicle in project zomboid, the whole map opens up for you.  Since some items are more prevalent in other areas, a working vehicle immediately means more access to loot.

Enter worse vehicle condition which literally makes most of the vehicles in the world missing parts such as batteries and tires.  Couple this with ridiculously rare loot and you could spend days or weeks in game looking for a jack and lug wrench so that you can add a new tire to that barely working car you found that happened to have a key.

Worse vehicle condition makes finding working cars feel like a miracle sent down from the Lord above and will lengthen the early game significantly.

#3 Barricaded World

Aside from the occasional boarded up safehouse encounter, vanilla zomboid houses tend to be in great shape and taking over a house is usually as easy as clearing any zombies inside the house and closing the curtains to escape detection from any zombie that may be wandering around the house.  From there, it’s just a matter of grabbing some planks and securing the windows.

Enter Barricaded World.  The barricaded world mod will make knox county feel more lived in and look like the world has truly gone crazy.  Houses will be missing doors, some will have windows board up….some will have only one entry and exit point should you dare to rush in.

The thing I like about barricaded world is that it makes you rethink entering a building without properly scoping it out for entry and exit points.  Getting chased by zombies?  If you enter that house, you could literally be entering a self made tomb with no exit except for the way you came in.

A broken door may mean not being surprised by a zombie lurking behind it but nothing is worse than wondering how many zombies could be lurking in the shadows free to roam the entire house unfettered by doors as you loot unaware of a potential grave situation.

….and then there’s the problem of not finding a safehouse with doors to secure it.  What do you do?  Do you pile up tables in front of the doorway to prevent a zombie from sneaking in to where you are sleeping or continue the search for a more secure home?

#4 Disinfect or Die

In 1945, a scientist by the name of Alexander Fleming won the nobel prize for his discovery of penicillin, which reduced the death rate by 58% post 1945.  Prior to this, an injury as minor as a cut on the arm could result in a slow, painful death due to infection.

In a zombie apocalypse, you would have to think that an untreated wound, which would be highly likely, would result in a debilitating infection and possibly even death.

Enter Disinfect or Die, which ups the ante and makes wrapping up that wound quickly with a rag that is sterilized and keeping it clean a necessity…if you want to live that is.

Disinfect or die makes it so that a casual walk foraging in the woods could cause a fatal scratch if you don’t take the time to sterilize bandages.  With  ridiculously  rare loot, finding disinfectant will be tough so finding a cooking pot to sterilize and stockpile them should be added to your “must have list” when you are looting.

When your injury goes from bandaged to dirty, the clock starts all over again unless you have another sterilized bandaged to treat it.

#5 Scent of Blood

Up to this point, I haven’t made this more difficult with your typical cookie cutter, add more zombies to make things harder advice when trying to up the pain in project zomboid.  This stops here though with the next mod for the masochist in you.

How about zombies that can smell when you are bleeding?  Scent of blood will have every zombie in your immediate area honing in on your position whenever you get scratched or lacerated and don’t immediately treat your condition.

What makes this so satisfying is that usually a scratch is going to come from the undead, and in most cases, it will bring down every zombie in your area to you, like moths to a flame.  So, you are scratched, the zombie that scratched you is probably not dealt with yet…and you know that there is likely going to be more zombies headed your way.

What do you do? 

Do you disengage and immediately try to treat your wound thereby limiting the amount of zombies that can smell you?

Do you finish the zombie, treat your wound and then hope that there aren’t many in the area?

Or do you risk running away with the injury and attract more zombies everywhere you go until you can find a safe space to treat the injury?

If you are running disinfect or die in tandem with Scent of Blood, every second your wound isn’t treated becomes a ticking countdown until you are dead.  If you are running barricaded world, good luck finding a house that is secure enough for you to catch your breath.

#6 Customizable Zombies

Sprinter Zombies can be truly terrifying but you know what is more scary and, quite frankly harder?  Sprinter zombies mixed in with fast shamblers. Before you disagree, hear me out.

With all runners, you know what to expect.  With a mix, anything is on the table.  Enter that building and see 3 zombies kind of just hanging out doing zombie stuff?  How do you approach it?  They could all be slower.  Then again a couple could run at you once they notice you.  

You go into an unscouted area and see a couple zombies…do you engage not knowing if right around the corner there are more and one of them could be a sprinter?

That kind of scenario will mess with your mind because you don’t know what to expect.

Now you can set zombies at random using zomboid’s custom sandbox but what I’ve found is that it feels like nearly every zombie is a sprinter.

Enter customizable zombies, a mod in which you can set up the zombie population to be a percentage of shamblers, fast shamblers, fake dead, and sprinters.  If you want to be surprised occasionally but not often, I would suggest a sprinter percentage in the 1-5%.  Just enough to keep you on your toes.

______________________________________________________ 

Finally a bonus mod that I’ve found to be somewhat satisfying and believe it or not, not masochistic but just feels like this goes well with the mods above.

I’m of the opinion that some zombies should have loot every now and again. Not too much loot but a gimme every now and again to make me feel like at one point the zombie I just axed in the face was a human being.  On vanilla zomboid, you won’t find much in their pockets.

Enter Dylan’s Sensible Zombie Loot.  With this mod, you will find things like canned food or an occasional weapon or something like cigarettes…things you’d expect to find on someone who at one point or another could have asked you for directions.

What I like about Dylan’s sensible zombie loot is that it doesn’t drop loot often and usually it is a can of food…which will feel like a win if you are running ridiculously rare loot.

And that’s a wrap y’all…..6 mods that will slow the game down to a crawl and make the masochist in you begging for more.  My name is drunkonlife, leave a thumbs up on your way out and don’t forget to hit that subscribe button for more project zomboid content.

The post 6 Must Have Project Zomboid Mods to make midgame less boring appeared first on Drunkonlife.net.

A zombie survival game? Sign me up! Decision Red Daze is an isometric zombie game that is one part RPG…because you create and cultivate a squad of hardened survivors of the apocalypse….and one part tower defense game by the developers of FlyAnvil.

The world is in ruin…governments have been abandoned and everyone is off to fend for themselves. It is our job to take our character, build a base, defend ourselves against the zombies in the mist (or…red daze…) and explore the map for more potential soldiers/survivors in the world.

It’s available on Steam for $19.99 USD at the time of this writing and is one of the few games that I review that isn’t in early access.

When you first start out, you get to choose what kind of survivor you like, which ranges from a soldier to a builder to a ranger all of which have varying advantages/disadvantages, especially in early game. One thing to note here and I’m not 100% sure that this is true but I think that regardless of what occupation you choose, you can train up to take advantage of other occupations.

The game kind of takes you by the hand and baby steps you through the world showing you that you need to find materials to upgrade your defenses for the eventual attack of your base. Initially, your base looks pretty bare; a gun turret here and something called a repeller, which incidentally will broaden out your world as it is upgraded.

Your Mission? Find other survivors willing to join the good fight all the while picking up loot from different zombies and loot containers so you can build up your defenses.

Decision Red Daze First Impressions

The game is still a bit rough around the edges as combat and evasion are off kilter in terms of what you can/can’t do. Steam reviews reflect this assessment although, to the developers credit, they have been updating and fixing some of the more vexing problems.

The post Decision : Red Daze Review/Gameplay appeared first on Drunkonlife.net.

So, I started “playing” with YouTube in early December by doing 3-4 streams for the month but January was my first real full month as a YouTube streamer. As you can see, the revenue has been moving upward from month to month though I expect it to stall eventually as my main game has started to lose initial hype over their latest update. No biggie though as I don’t expect it to fall ‘mightily’. Of course, it’s a bit early in the game so you never know.

As a comparison, I will show my last FULL month on Twitch, which was in October (I took a week off in November for Thanksgiving and had COVID for 10 days in December.)

The difference in revenue is striking….YouTube almost doubled Twitch’s revenue. It shouldn’t be that surprising though as there is a much greater preference to watch stream VODs after the fact for YouTube and YouTube (believe it or not) actually advertises these VODs in their ecosystem for more potential discovery and new subscribers.

To illustrate this, here are the last 4 videos on my channel at this point, all streams.

As, you can see each of the previous videos are still getting views per hour (VPH). This is probably from my existing viewership ‘catching’ up who couldn’t watch the stream live as well as a few who found me via recommended search. It’s probably the biggest plus to streaming on YouTube versus Twitch; the fact that each stream can become a VOD which can help with discovery. New viewers can find you when you are not online. Your online stream library just grows with each new stream kind of building on the previous day.

Twitch Culture (bits and subscriptions) VS. YouTube Culture (superchats and memberships)

One of the big ‘I don’t knows’ about YouTube was all the chatter I was hearing in terms of YouTube lacking a streaming culture. Many talked about chat being quieter on YouTube and not as responsive to things such as memberships (which is YouTube’s version of Twitch Subs) and superchats (Youtube’s version of Twitch bits). After 2 months, is there any truth to this statement?

So, once again, this is my last Twitch full month and my subscriptions accounted for about half of my income with the majority of it coming from cheering (bits). And here is my YouTube revenue from February 2022…..

From simply an apples to apples comparison, the revenue differences are negligible although Twitch comes out slightly ahead overall. There is a striking difference between how viewers ‘reward’ streamers though, where Twitch actively encourages gifted subscriptions (something that will vary wildly in revenue because those gifted subscriptions rarely rejoin on their own). There is also a striking difference between Twitch’s bit system vs. YouTube’s superchat system.

Why is that?

Understanding Twitch bits vs. YouTube Superchats

So, all bits received from Twitch goes 100% to the streamer while with Superchats, there is a 70/30 split between the streamer(70%) and YouTube(30%). On the face, it would look like Twitch would be the better deal until you realize that the two platforms make money differently by taxing either the streamer (in YouTube’s case) or the ‘tipper’ (in Twitch’s case).

What this means for the typical Twitch viewer is that they have to make a two step process in order to tip the streamer….they have to purchase the bits (1 bit = 1.4cents) directly from Twitch and then tip the streamer from there. For the streamer, a viewer spends $1.40 to tip 1 dollar to the streamer.

With YouTube, typically a viewer’s account is already hooked up to their bank account a dollar to tip is one dollar. The streamer is taxed 30% on their end so that dollar is in reality, 70 cents. In essence, the “cost” goes to the streamer at payout.

For a viewer wanting to tip, it makes more sense to them psychologically to purchase a dollar for a dollar. Of course this is all speculation but I have noticed a bump up in tips(superchats) from YouTube compared to Twitch(bits).

I think it’s also important to understand that no matter which platform you are on, the platform will get their money one way or another…….

YouTube Memberships vs. Twitch Subscriptions

So, memberships with YouTube are basically modeled after Patreon’s model, where the content creator gets to choose their membership levels/perks/prices. You can go as low as .99 or as high as $99.99. In my case, I chose 4 levels, two of which are lower than Twitch’s lowest level. The reason behind this was because I wasn’t sure if the YouTube community would be as likely to become a member as Twitch as Twitch’s culture is subscription based. Basically, I was thinking baby steps for the viewer here. Plus, it’s really cool to be able to charge less for viewers that want to support but don’t have $4.99/month to spare.

Like superchats, the membership fees are split 70/30 which, in my eyes afforded me a lot of leg room since a $3.00/month sponsorship would be $2.10. As a result, my YouTube membership average comes out to $2.60 per member…or .10 above what the tier one Twitch subscriber would be worth.

Still, the overall monthly subscriptions goes handily to Twitch although the lionshare of the support came in the form of gifted memberships…which are a 50/50 split between Twitch and the streamer.

If you were to look at my paid subscribers (Twitch) vs. my paid Members (YouTube), the difference shrinks and could be the reason why superchats are a third higher than Twitch bits. Once again though, just speculating.

The post Stream on YouTube or Twitch? – February Report appeared first on Drunkonlife.net.

Here are my thoughts one month after……

YouTube Viewership Numbers (Twitch vs. YouTube)

The graph above shows my overall December view numbers. This is the sum of views from ALL of my videos. At the time, I was posting very sporadically, occasionally dropping a stream VOD from Twitch(hence the occasional spike in traffic) but for the most part, I pretty much didn’t drop videos at all. The ending of December marked the beginning of me streaming on YouTube.

On the first day of January, my average daily sat around 6k views for the entire channel. I streamed nearly everyday (5-7 days a week) for the entire month. That giant spike you see was a one minute long stream clip I posted that went semi-viral in which that particular day spiked up to 48k for the day (I also streamed that day)

For perspective, here’s the average views BEFORE the big spike. The number of views for the channel from simply streaming 5+ days a week accounted for nearly a 2k jump in views….

…and 3 days after the spike

The reason why I am even showing this is because, while Twitch is concerned about concurrent viewer average primarily, with YouTube, the emphasis is on viewership and subscriptions on the whole. In a period of a month, my “views” on YouTube literally jumped from around 6k a day to around 14k a day…or double in the period of a month. That number is bound to go down a little more but I figure that it should sit in the 12,000 views/day.

Twitch Viewership Numbers

It’s not fair to compare Twitch viewership numbers to YouTube viewership numbers but I’m going to do it anyway to illustrate the differences between the two. With Twitch, you are only as good as you can be when you are live. Twitch viewership rarely watches VODs after the fact and there is little to no discovery resource for you unless you are live. That said, here are my Twitch numbers for my BEST month of the year (I would show December but I missed half of my streams due to COVID and other things.

As you can see, my views for the entire month of September on Twitch accounts for literally ONE DAY of views on YouTube. Once again, the reason for this has to do with the fact that you are only being watched when you are live. In my case, that was 3-4 hours a stream, 4-5 days a week.

I should also point out that that 81 viewership average on Twitch puts me in literally the top .1% of all Twitch streamers, which is disheartening when you look at the revenue made from that.

I understand that it isn’t fair to compare the two since YouTube has the benefit of views after streams and gives you a growing catalog that can become exponential in growth BUT we are talking about building a brand overall, right?

Twitch Follows VS. YouTube Subscribers

Follows on Twitch are the life blood of potential new viewers for your channel and as you can see by the graphic above, in the month of September, I was averaging 224 new followers to my channel, which is about the average for the 2020 year. My situation on Twitch is a bit different since in September I already had a small subscriber base on YouTube (~9k subscribers) and like a lot of YouTube channels my follower growth came from both my live streams as well as the occasional YouTube viewer who followed a link to twitch.

The equivalent of a Twitch follow would be a YouTube subscriber. How do the two compare?

I am going to illustrate this in a “weekly format” for the month of January to illustrate the upward trajectory from streaming on YouTube regularly. I’m not sure what the difference is between the beginning of January (which was relatively low) and what happened in the third week (which jumped like 3x upwards) but my suspicion is that by streaming regularly on a schedule, YouTube rewarded my channel with more potential views from the “suggested” pool of their platform.

Interestingly, the first 3 days of February (google analytics are delayed a day or two) almost accounts for the same amount of followers for an entire Twitch Month average!

Discovery Twitch vs. YouTube

One of my biggest beefs with Twitch is the general lack of discoverability. There are pretty much only a couple ways that you can get discovered on Twitch –

1. Choosing the right game in which you can compete in relative to your viewership CCV average that has viewer demand – Twitch makes getting discovered fairly difficult with this as you typically are fighting their “kingmaker” algorithm which means the person with the highest viewership is at the top of the directory.
2. Getting Raided/Hosted by others – Not as beneficial as you would think. Typically a raid may net follows but it is more than likely it won’t net more viewers if the streamer raiding you streams around the same time. There is also the problem of “ghost” viewers that come along with the raid….those that are lurking but not active.
3. Getting views from other platforms – IE. transitioning YouTube/Instagram/TikTok viewers over to your live channel. MUCH MUCH HARDER than you would think (I have an article here that discusses it. It’s two years old but it’s still relevant even now)
4. Stream often and for more hours – Because you don’t have the benefit of someone discovering your channel when you aren’t streaming (on the platform), the final solution is to stream longer and cross time zones. The bigger streamers tend to stream at least 8 hours a day and most do it for 5-7 days a week.

I could go on and on about how ridiculous it is to try to grow solely from Twitch but I will just say this. You will eventually reach a point where your attrition levels will outpace your growth if you stream on Twitch exclusively. There are very very few partners that go beyond 400+ concurrent viewership averages that aren’t streaming insane hours to get there. And there are quite a few >100 CCV twitch channels that stream insane hours without getting there.

YouTube Discovery

Alternately, YouTube discovery isn’t any easier but is exponential over time (or it can be). It should also be noted if you are a streamer with little to no viewership on YouTube, you WILL struggle. While Twitch has a streamer directory where viewers can actively find a game they want to watch and a list of streamers playing said game, there is nowhere on YouTube that shows a list (that I can find).

Instead, with YouTube, the channels that you are subscribed to bubble to the top of your feed.

What this means for you if you don’t have viewership on YouTube, you will need to build your viewership in ways other than streaming live. For that reason alone, I seriously doubt YouTube will ever outpace Twitch. The amount of work that has to go into a YouTube channel to even make it remotely successful is, frankly, more than most Twitch streamers will be willing to devote. Even a small channel like mine, which I’ve been steadily building for 3+ years, struggles with discoverability.

I’m really not sure how else the algorithm suggests streams although I will say that after about 3 weeks of consistent streaming (on a schedule), I started getting more and more viewers who said they found me elsewhere and weren’t subscribed to me before.

I think what’s important to see here is that 5 days afterwards, the stream above is STILL getting views from various areas of YouTube.

Monetization Twitch vs YouTube

I was debating whether to even put this in here as it’s not meant to brag (I can hardly brag about these numbers frankly) or make anyone feel bad who may be doing worse. That said, I think if you are wanting to turn content creation into a “dream job”, you really need to understand the difference between the two in revenue so you can decide what amount of work is worth the little bit of money you may or may not recieve.

Both platforms offer revenue sharing in the way of ads, bits (or superchats), and subscriptions (aka YouTube memberships).

While there is significant resistance to Creators displaying ads on Twitch, with YouTube it’s not really a thing. Some of this boils down with content creation culture between the two platforms. With YouTube, no one really blinks when an ad plays before a video or stream. With Twitch, a viewer is more likely to scroll away.

It should be no secret how little ad content matters in the grand scope of things when it comes to Twitch. Because of this, I’m going to show my entire earning last year on Twitch to illustrate exactly how little ad content matters.

so, 105,000 views netted $120.87 in ad revenue OR about $1.15 per 1,000 views….for the entire year.

YouTube for comparison…..

I’m not sure what I can and can not show in terms of revenue breakdown but my advertising revenue account for about 2/3rd’s of actual revenue with the other 1/3 going to superchats (the equivalent of “bits”) and memberships (aka “twitch subs”).

I think when you look at potential revenue for Twitch vs. YouTube, YouTube becomes the clear winner between the two IF you can gain traction within the YouTube ecosystem. If I didn’t grow one bit more on YouTube and continued to stream at the same rate I’m currently streaming, I would easily double my earning potential of Twitch. Of course, that’s all hypothetical.

Of course, YouTube has a ways to go in terms of normalizing memberships (I currently have about a 1/3 of my average Twitch membership total on YouTube) although the difference is a 70/30 cut (70% to you, the creator vs. 50/50 with Twitch) and you can define your membership prices yourself.

Superchats vs. bits has been about the same although with YouTube, they take a 30% cut from that (vs. 0% from Twitch because Twitch passes on the cost to the person buying the bits)

Final Thoughts

A month in and I feel like moving to YouTube has been possibly the best decision I’ve made in terms of content creation to date. It’s nice to be able to be able to have viewers actively watch streams as a video on demand afterwards and get discovered from those videos. It’s also been awesome to be able to occasional promote my streams on the same platform with clips that get featured within the YouTube algorithm.

That said, I think if you are a person that simply wants to stream, YouTube is probably not going to be for you. While discovery does happen, it requires an active YouTube viewership to push you upwards into the YouTube algorithm.

Want to comment or have a question? Discuss this on Twitter – https://twitter.com/drunkonlife/status/1489685408988504068

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My first foray into Surviving the Aftermath was filled with mixed feelings. The game felt clunky and the micro management of the colonists had me overwhelmed. The RPG element…the “heroes” that you moved from place to place on the world map had a hollowed out feel to it. That was a year or so ago when Paradox had just released the game into early access with a roadmap. That was then though. Surviving the Aftermath came into full release a month or two ago and I decided to revisit the game to see what had changed (if anything) and if some of the early access problems had been fixed (they had).

The initial elements of the game focus on what type of world you want (exactly how apocalyptic do you want?), setting up the name of your colony, your flag and your motto, choosing two “heroes” and then you are off to the races. The world is a procedurally generated map which will change from playthrough to playthrough to extend replayability. In the opening, your scout can set up a camp (the game gives you some “freebies”…tents etc. to set up initially). You set up the camp site, hit a flare and a small group of colonists join you.

Game Events are a Thing

When you first start out, Surviving the Aftermath plays a lot like what you would expect. The early parts of the game are managing your colonists needs, setting up resource gathering centers for food and supplies, tents for living as well as medical tents and other assets that you would expect from a city building game.

What sets this game apart from typical city builders are “events” triggered by your colonists, in which case, as a leader you have to make a decision that can affect your colony overall. That pile of wood that some of the kids stole to make a fort…do you allow that to happen or reclaim the wood because resources are scarce? Decisions like these will affect the overall mood of your colony.

Other events can be a catastrophe. Things like drought or a winter storm or meteor shower all can have devastating effects to your growing colony. The good news is you get a day to prepare for them. A lot of times though, if you haven’t started accounting for the worst situation, you can only watch as your colonists suffer the effects.

Building the gate

With most city builders, you are tasked with handling only the things in your immediate area. With Surviving the Aftermath, the whole world will open up to you once you have enough resources to build a gate. Once the gate is built, you can start to receive more survivors and more importantly, take your heroes out into the world to scavenge for resources, find other communities to trade, and get much needed research points to expand out into better housing, start farming and craft more efficient tools.

Only heroes can move on the map and you can actually purchase more heroes or occasionally find them waiting at the gate with other survivors waiting to join.

Heroes play an important part

Remember when I was talking about how you start with two heroes? The heroes have different abilities that will affect how good they are at fighting, looting, and gathering research. They are essentially the bridge between your colony and the post apocalyptic world. They are also more likely to be apt defenders of your colony should hostile forces try to raid your camp (it happens).

Heroes can also serve as an outpost to the outside world, gathering up research points (slowly) and occasionally take on the various quests that Surviving the Aftermath will throw at you. But it’s a balance. Do you send all your heroes out into the world and risk something happening at your colony while they are away or do you leave one or two there to protect the colony? It’s essentially a risk/reward conundrum.

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The game is centered around a town called Earlsboro and is a rogue like meaning that a procedurally generated map will make certain that no two games will be alike. Well, the start is the same with your friend meeting her demise and giving you a gun to start your adventure of “escaping Earlsboro”, a sleepy town with lots of hostile city goers who happen also to want to eat your face because they are….wait for it…..CANNIBALS.

Your mission is to explore the town, collecting clues via radio signals, that will ultimately get you out of this hell torn town. Along the way, you can craft items, build a base, rescue friendly survivors and cause general mayhem in the town by killing off large hordes of cannibals!

Make no bones about it. Cannibal Crossing is hard. The campaign is one and done. If you die once, you will have to start from the beginning. This isn’t a bad thing though…. each playthrough is a progression that gives you points to improve your starting characters and opens up more characters to choose from.

In addition to this, Cannibal Crossing allows for multiplayer with up to 4 of your friends at once so you and your friends can die together! Neat!

I found Cannibal Crossing intensely engaging and addictive! This is still in early access and the dev team are actively improving the game at the time of this writing.

You can review all the the games I’ve recommended on my steam page – https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33143554-drunkonlife/

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You command 4 road weary heroes in a post apocalyptic world where the fate of your colony lay within your hands. The mission? Make your way to the dome of domes to scout out a new place for the thousands of people you have left behind. El Dorado…or in the case of Ashwalkers, the dome of domes. I previewed this game, in a short video of Indie Games I’m excited about in 2021 here but got an advance copy of this beautifully gray point and click adventure. And here are my thoughts.

Ashwalkers is survival journey through a harsh world without rules or judgement. Only your choices matters in the face of moral dilemmas. The dilemmas come quick into the game. Do you leave your leader to die at the hands of a giant wolf OR do you stand and fight, risking the entire group? Do you mercilessly attack people you meet on the road to the dome of domes, killing everything in your cross hairs or do you try to diplomatically weave your way across the ash filled landscape? Or do you choose the stealth route and avoid all things altogether?

Along the way, you have to manage your resources (ie. food and “wood”, which gives you warmth), choosing who carries what, when you should camp….what you should do when you camp ( do you send out a scout for more food and wood which in turn affects warmth, hunger and sleep?….do you build a big fire, increasing your warmth but also alerting wildlife and other people to your position? etc. etc.)

The game, created by Nameless XIII, promises 34 different endings for a little bit of replayability although as I recorded this for YouTube, I couldn’t help but feel like I was spoiling it for people interested in the game. The game operates in chapters (I finished chapter one) and at the end of each chapter gives you a “score” based on the decisions you have made along the way.

It is a point and click choose your adventure game, which is something I haven’t played since I played Disco Elysium.

As far as graphics go, Ashwalkers is gray. Like I mean very grey. Gray is a good color because it makes things like an injury really “pop” onto the screen but after about 20 minutes I couldn’t help but wish there was more color (maybe later in the game?). I did like the comic book-e graphics which reminded me a lot of the Survivalist : Invisible Strain graphics which I thought was a nice touch.

Overall, I liked the game and at the time of my initial YouTube video, I wasn’t sure what the price point was. I was actually elated to discover the price at around $11 because personally with a point and click game that has so few outcomes, I think that this would be a 1-2 playthrough and you are done kind of game. Still, I really enjoyed the game and feel like at the price, if a post apocalyptic point and click adventure with a nice comic book motif is your bag, then this game may scratch that itch.

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