put ama in ur title and talk to ur chat
pub even tho it sucks
mge even tho it sucks

Just talk to your chat

Interaction while doing something mindless (pubs or mge) is the best part of streams for a lot of people.

Yeah but you need something to draw people in so that you can begin to interact with chat. Pubs are great to just stream while talking to chat, but pubs don't generally entice people to watch.

I guess that's where I was going with this. I mean I definitely don't ignore people when they talk/ask questions in chat, but at the end of the day how do you keep them entertained while watching pub tf2

do stuff like this http://www.twitch.tv/ggglygy/c/5402698

Be an entertaining person. Be informative, or be excited about stuff. Being a twich streamer is being an entertainer. If people aren't 100% brought in by your gameplay then you are the missing piece. Honestly with the small viewer base we have with tf2 if you aren't someone people actually give two shits about (b4nny, tagg, ma3la) then you have to stream on a very very consistent schedule. And even if you do you should expect between 30-80 viewers MAX unless you are an amazing personality or a top invite player.

we need leogeo2 back

Popped like a cherry.

http://youtu.be/snvYVQlMb0U

But seriously the most interesting in streamed tf2 content is high level play. I and I think many others like watching invite level scrims and pugs. If not playing in those, you could even cast or explain them, because there is a lot to learn. I remember when ruwin was pulling 500 viewers each night, much of it was just spent with him discussing the current state of the meta game and his thoughts on it.

seb with the big plays on granary at 13 yrs old

i watch streams of people i like and don't really care about the competitive skill of the person. you're going to get a lot more viewers if you're having fun and playing because you enjoy it, not just playing to play.

invite scrims will attract a lot of sidebar hits, but if you're looking for people to follow your channel and just watch your stream, it's about interaction and entertainment.

flame I am happy that you stream more frequently now. a new twitch username got you into the groove i guess

to address your question, yes just entertain.

i think you'll find that there are two groups of TF2 twitch viewers but with a huge overlap. there are people who are mostly interested in competitive play, and there are people who just like personalities and want background sound of entertaining people. you'll find pub people who have never touched competitive in the streams of the top comp guys consistently, and you'll find top level comp players hanging out in the chat of random dudes who have never played in esea if they have good streams. i think you can pull both sides off, so you'll be golden.

keep it up

EDIT: Huey also makes a great point below, though, that people likely want to see people do what they're known for when they tune in, most of the time. but I don't think that's the end of the world

My rule of thumb when I was still actively playing was to limit the "no-substance" streams. I tried to make it so like 80% of my stream time would be scrims, demo reviews, or casting. Other stuff like pubs, mge, other games, etc, were fine every once in a while but I didn't want to stream just to be streaming.

Basically I tried to make it so if you tuned into my stream at any random time you'd see what I was best known for, which is probably what you wanted when you clicked my name in the first place.

For someone in your position, I'd definitely watch your stream more if you were on a team again, or if you streamed your friends invite scrims as a spectator.

would people watch me if i streamed more tf2 VR?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl_xDcG8H5A

Maybe its time to script some IRC bots for chat. Bring back some IRC hangman and stream froyo scrims, we can take bets on how many times clockwork threatens to leave the server.

I still have irc trivia bot records from the past 5 years on pug.na/mix

I have to second what DanceNumber said. Having a schedule was really, really helpful for me when I was trying to grow my stream, as people could always tune in at the same time each day (or each week, if you don't want to stream every single day) and expect to find you live.

Also, it is important (in my opinion) to be interactive with your chat. When I stream I want the people watching to feel welcome there, and I do what I can to "break the fourth wall", and make the chat feel included with what I'm doing, even if in actuality all they're doing is watching me play a game.

I also think that its important to make sure that you're doing things you enjoy while streaming. If you're streaming pubs/MGE just for the sake of providing stream content, then you're doing those things for the wrong reasons. Having streamed pubs for a month after I stopped enjoying pubbing, I can say that it'll definitely have a distinct effect on the quality of your stream. People want to see the person streaming having a good time, so if you're just mindlessly pubbing for the sake of streaming and not really enjoying yourself, then I personally find you're missing the point of streaming in the first place.

can we get off geeksirc and get back on quakenet/gamesurge?

why did that happen to begin with? IRC used to be a normal way to communicate, now its a deadzone, mostly because we're alone on it.

Demo reviews and match analysis/commentary, especially if you can incorporate questions from the audience into the stream. My suspicion is that a lot of TF2 players would rather MGE or pub themselves than watch someone else do it. Demo reviews, on the other hand, allow you to offer something they can't make on their own, your experience and expertise.

Do pugs
While you're waiting for pugs to start, do pubs or mge or surf
That way you eliminate the downtime while also prevent pub/mge burnout
You are also either talking to chat or comming 24/7 with this system

You can also always just stream scrims when they start and then either end the stream at the end or do a chillout period

If you're smart/respectable enough you can do demo reviews if people want

Enjoy TF2 and be transparent while enjoying it.
Don't stream during prime time.
Be edgy(eat a banana to end of the stream).

The most important part is to actually enjoy TF2.

Just be a chill dude, look at slin. All he does is surf and play medic, but hes a chill dude so people watch his stream

The best piece of advice I can give is talk to your viewers. I don't mean just answer the questions they ask, use those questions/comments to strike up a conversation. This removes dead air and engages your viewers into chatting more and hopefully returning the next time you stream. You can have good conversations with only a handful of peeps, you'll make some twitch buddies while simultaneously growing your audience. Unless you're in a PUG or scrim/match, stay out of mumble and focus your attention on the viewers.

Remember that it takes awhile to build a viewer base unless you're a top level player and/or popular on some other medium (YouTube, twitter, etc.). Stream as much as you can as long as you're having a good time.

Shortcut strategy:

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Now we just need more people to talk in stream chat :)

hmu boy