Live Streaming For Charity!

Hey Smogonites(Orange Islandians),

First off, I want to apologize in advance if I am not allowed to post this here. Moving on, I am going to be live streaming(if all works well) Friday night, a lot of Saturday, and maybe even some Sunday for Charity(Unofficially with Pikacharity). Two reasons I am saying this:
1. I am asking anyone if they can offer ideas to keep the stream going
2. Maybe to check out Pikacharity and/or streams associated with it
Elaborating from the first point, I am new to streaming and although I have gotten my stream to be running fine(tested today). I need ways to keep people entertained and wanting to watch/donate. I would appreciate it if anyone can please tell me or give me some ideas. Stream watchers, what keeps you entertained and what do you enjoy or like about a stream/streamer? Streamers, what do you do to keep the audience entertained?

Planned:
Showdown Teambuilding+Battles
Emerald Play Through
Possibly Working On My VGC Analyses(So I Can Stream And Get Work Done At The Same Time ;))
Drift Off Into League Of Legends
As you can tell, I'm kinda gonna wing it and I do not see that ending well.

The Pikacharity is something run by ThePikaWu in order to raise money for an organization that people can vote on. I say that I am unofficially streaming for this because I didn't answer the email(Forgot to) saying I will stream but I still wish to help the cause.

My Stream will be held here! Planning to edit this post with a streaming schedule when I get things figured out.

Any input and ideas would be greatly appreciated!
 
My only real experience with live streams is as a watcher, so unfortunately any advice I'm going to give is doomed to be "speculation-y" or 'here's stuff I liked that some guy did'

1) Put yourself out there. Advertise the stream on more places (where they appreciate it). Make sure the PikaWu is at least aware of your efforts by tweeting him, etc.

2) Audience participation is key. I love a streamer that keeps us involved with the playthrough. I don't generally mean stuff like nicknames and things, but also stuff like the team you're eventually going to build. Add extra layers or gameplay even through something like a diceroll system. There's a lets player in this forum attempting very similar to this, I don't see why you can't attempt an audience participation element to it (like twitch plays pokemon voting, but instead of dictating each action, they can direct gameplay changes?).

3) Try a challenge playthrough? Nuzlocke's are around a plenty but there's still plenty of fun things you can do. I remember seeing a Pokemon Emerald Hard edition mod out there
or something, there's literally gajillions of gen III modifications you can find.

4) Emerald is kind of a really, really old game. It's also a super popular game. Assuming the same rules apply to livestreams that do for Lets Plays, rule of thumb is you get more viewers with a newer game (majority of people watch newer stuff but you have more competition for views) OR you get more viewers with a lower profile game (small pool of viewers, but less competition for them).

5) Grind is boring and try to keep it to a minimum. There's a delicate balance between being overly prepared (boring) and under prepared (repeated deaths is tedious). It's fun to see fails sometimes, so don't try too hard for a perfect run.

6) Collaborate with someone. If I understood you correctly, you won't be the only one streaming There's a lot of people who will be something similar to you for this. If you have never attempted solo commentary, it can be an awkward, painful experience. A close friend or maybe even a stranger with shared interests as you might make it a lot easier.

Collaboration ideas can include things like a race to to the E4, rival battles sequentially during the game, or even any possible co-op pokemon games out there (the PokeMMO for FR/LG comes to mind). Could even be something like trade handicaps.


Will edit into this post if I can think of anything else. Best of luck for all your endeavors! I'll try to stop by your stream if I can.
 
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Hulavuta

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Hi Professor Birch, Jimera0 does his weekly streams on Friday too so I've sort of gotten an idea of what is fun to watch, haha.

First of all, it's much more interesting if you don't stream alone. Jimera usually has other Islanders talking at the same time, which prevents it from getting boring. I would recommend you ask around Smogon for people to join you, as it's way more likely people will watch if it is people they know. If you're targeting this mostly to Orange Islands people, I'd recommend going to #oi on IRC to look around.

Finally, as someone who is interested in VGC but is having a hard time getting into it, doing Showdown Lives would be really interesting. You can walk us through making your team, and give commentary against opponents on the ladder. If we're being honest, I've always found Showdown Lives to be far more interesting than speedruns or Nuzlockes or stuff like that. The actual game of Pokemon is not really that fun to watch, as JustOrdinary sort of pointed out. RPGs in general have a lot of grinding and repetitiveness and it's not really quite as exciting to watch as other games. Watching just battles on the other hand, is very interesting, especially when you're explaining things to teach the audience.

I'll also tag Jimera0 since he probably has a lot more to add!
 
Thank you both for your responses. So pretty much, it seems as if you had said that live battles>playthrough and that it is important to keep the audience involved. Definitely two things I can make sure happen and I will post when I am about to stream tonight!

P.S. I did get permission from ThePikaWu and he is aware I'm streaming for the charity!
 
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