Hey Everyone,
First off, I previously said I'd be resuming streams today, but the GPU doesn't look like it'll arrive today, so I fear we may be waiting one more day. It's currently at the Miami Post Office, but it doesn't look like it made it out on today's delivery for whatever reason.
Super bummed about it, but hey that's life!
While we wait, I want to publish my new, updated stream schedule and plan going forward because there are some big changes. This post is a little longer than I expected so feel free to scroll to the bottom for a TL;DR. But, I do encourage you to read the post in full as it provides more details.
VR eSports
Now most of you should know by now that I acquired a VR headset, but what you may not realize is that I've been partaking in VR eSports tournaments. As of this post, I actually have 3 match wins under my belt, with 2 in Onward and 1 in Echo Arena.
Currently, I'm in two leagues: VR League (run by ESL) and VR Master League (run by the Onward community). VR League is in its second season and we're in season 4 of Onward in VR Master League.
I'm primarily playing two games: Echo Arena, and Onward, with the plan to transition from Echo Arena (Think Ultimate Frisbee in space) to Echo Combat (FPS in space) when it's released. Ultimately, I'm looking to become one of the top competitors for VR FPS games.
So, what does that mean for streaming?
New Stream Schedule
First off I want to briefly cover a few ways training and competing in VR eSports will impact the stream:
- Start times will be less consistent
- I wont be able to stream some practices
- I'm only going to be playing Echo Arena and Onward on stream from now on
- Weekdays will feature practice and weekends will feature tournaments and skirmishes
With that said, let's dive into the new schedule:
Weekdays:
Weekdays are going to feature 4 streams Mon-Thursday. I'll be doing both Echo Arena and Onward practice on these days splitting it so that Mondays and Wednesdays will be Echo Arena game play and Tuesdays and Thursdays will be Onward game play.
As for times, I'll be playing from 7 PM to 11 PM EST Monday through Thursday.
But, and this is important, I may not be able to stream each of the Onward nights. For Onward, I'm currently on Globochem's practice team, and I'm not allowed to stream their practice. So, if it's a practice for Globochem, I won't be able to stream Onward that night.
In Echo Arena, I've made my own team: Stale Bread, and will be streaming those practices, so no worries there. This means we'll be able to consistently stream on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you'll need to check in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to see if I'm going live then. The easiest way to do so is to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Snapchat. I'll confirm whether or not I'm going live there.
Weekends
So for weekends, things will be a little more tricky. Times will obviously change depending on when tournaments are taking place and if we're in the season or in the off season.
Right now, the Onward season is finishing up with the semi-finals and finals, so I won't be partaking there. In the mean time, I'll be adding more Onward practice on Saturdays from 12 PM to 4 PM EST, but this may change if I can line up a skirmish or may not happen if Globochem does a practice that day. Again, keep an eye on my social to know when and if I'll be going live each Saturday.
Sunday's are going to be a bit more consistent, at least for the next few weeks. We are in the Echo Arena season, so each Sunday will feature a Cup Tournament. This tournament starts at 3 PM EST and ends whenever the tournament finishes. This last Sunday that was between 7 PM and 8 PM. I'll be aiming to partake in each of the weekly cup tournaments, and when we do expect the stream to start at 2 PM EST. If we don't get the required number of team members, this will just be replaced with another Echo Arena practice from 2 PM EST to 6 PM EST.
An important note for the Echo Arena tournament streams. I'm required to have a
Expect Sunday times to change as the season progresses.
TL:DR
I'm doing VR eSports now, specifically Onward and Echo Arena.
Stream times are:
- Monday | 7 PM - 11 PM EST | Echo Arena Practice
- Tuesday | 7 PM - 11 PM EST | Onward Practice (unless training with Globochem)
- Wednesday | 7 PM - 11 PM EST | Echo Arena Practice
- Thursday | 7 PM - 11 PM EST | Onward Practice (unless training with Globochem)
- Friday | No Stream
- Saturday | 12 PM - 4 PM EST | Onward Practice (unless skirmishing, in which case time may be moved, or training with Globochem in which case there will be no stream).
- Sunday | 2 PM - ??? EST | Echo Arena Cups Tournament (unless we have no shows, in which case, it'll just be practice from 2 PM - 6 PM EST.)
Hope you get your GPU soon! The waiting is the hardest part. I used to have a occulus rift but I personally am going to need 4k in each eye(and a crazy gpu to produce said resolution) to enjoy myself, and at the time I owned it they didn't even have motion controls yet. On top of that I could never seem to get the eye spacing right! So the experience was "MEH" for me at best.
Can't believe they even released without having motion controls, probably was the VR markets worst mistake yet; having their first consumer release only be half the total experience.
Ah, I run Windows Mixed Reality and so it's 1440x1440 in each eye. the display is much much bettter and I don't notice the screen door effect that's there in the vive/rift. However, tracking is a bit problematic. I'm personally waiting for Rift 2, which could bring things like variable depth lenses and everything to the mix.