It's so loosely defined and open ended thus allows to do what they want. This is not how rules should be.
DauT was streaming MBL vs Slam EGC games and it was great. Are they saying that it's not allowed. Are they going to stop Viper from streaming his EGC or casting other EGC games if he wants to do it. I don't think so.
They will apply these things selectively and make up reasons every times, which is why such loose definitions.
That's correct and that's what we are trying to improve; to encourage more players to even stream on VO. We provide everything they need; the software, the configuration, the graphics etc.Jineapple wrote:
Okay, I understand the thought process behind it, but I don't think a blanket ban makes sense.
VO has had issues with covering Tournament games in the past, having other streamers help out, even if they make money off it helps exposure.
We also plan to integrate YouTube and that Chinese Twitch (forgot the name) in our Voobly client, so streamers have the icon and are recognized as streamers. There is also no problem, if people have a donation button or ask for donations; but if you always have the same two or three top streamers, you have a monpoly / oligopoly situation. And in the past we had to learn, that those streamers do everything to keep their position and also keep increasing the pressure on other streamers. This is not what we want; Voobly isn't a market place.
Jineapple wrote:
You also have to consider that in the last few months the supply of AoC to watch on Twitch has risen significantly. There are a lot more players streaming their PoV, Memb and T90 regularly draw a lot of viewers and there are the huge Escape Tournaments going on. I honestly kind of doubt that exclusive VCOM events will have such a huge draw. People want to watch their favorite streamers and that's often more important than the exclusivity of some tournament.
The focus should be therefore on building VO as a channel to watch. There are several possible alternatives/improvements, e.g. make earlier rounds open streaming, but keep (Semi-)Finals to VO streaming, ask commercial streamers for a cut of donations/sub money for streaming (But not the $150 upfront that no one is going to pay...).
We have added two new types of tournaments with own policies to exactly do this, building VO as a channel to watch. More to come later, we are still working in that part. But those policies do not affect the tournaments, we were playing on Voobly for the past months (we now call them unofficial tournaments / ladders / group events). The only thing that was changed, that the tournament host of an unofficial tournament, has the final say what is allowed and what is not, and that Voobly will enforce this for the host.
I knew you would bring up the $150. This event was an unofficial tournament as well, not a Voobly.com hosted tournament. The tournament hosts Genette and Carlos have posted their rules and we have been asked to enforce them. Nothing stops you from doing the same; and if more people want to do open streaming events, then please feel free to go ahead and host them. We had to learn, that most of our tournament hosts were hosting once and then never ever again, because of the attitude of certain commercial streamers. What's the point of hosting a tournament and putting all the hard work and efforts into it, if one guy streams it, takes all the viewers and keeps all the money and also refuses to donate to the prizes pool? That was the original idea of the $150. They were allowed to stream every single game of the whole tournament, if they donate this amount of money to the prizes pool.
And I repeat it again, everyone, any player or Voobly staff member can step up and say, that he wants to host a tournament now and this person will make the rules. And if you more and more tournament hosts decide, to do open streaming - even better for us, less work and drama about streamers who complain, that they are not allowed to stream.
We feel, it's a fair-use policy for both sides, and that guy, who does most of the work - the tournament host, has the say on this.
Please ignore those two new types of tournaments for now. Most of those rules are also legal requirements if you want to make business, for example with sponsors.
Jineapple wrote:
Most of all, focus on getting a good roster of streamers for VO. There used to be the possibility of signing up as a community streamer or as a part of the core team. I have seen no such thing since the old team under SMB disbanded. I applied as a community streamer back then (only really got around to streaming once though), but I have heard nothing, the AoCZone forums used for coordination have apparently fallen out of use. First and foremost, I think the focus has to be to remake VO into a channel that a lot of people want to watch - exclusive VCOM tournaments can be a thing once that happens, but they won't help until that happens imo.
Real life keeps me busy, I didn't have time yet to respond to all the staff applications. Sorry about that.
Our focus is indeed to rebuild VO, and before we can do this, we have to rebuild our team first. And you are absolutely right, we cannot do any Special Events or Voobly.com hosted tournaments without doing the former.
And also to repeat what I said in previous posts; we are all volunteers on Voobly, including myself. We spend our free time on Voobly and everyone of us is contributing to this place, and I think this is done fairly well, otherwise Voobly would not exist anymore. In the past, someone has tried to use our platform, to sell their own services and advertise their own web site and community, and even worse, they were using and also paying our own volunteers to achieve this - behind our back and with secret NDAs. Those NDAs have been leaked a couple of months ago. And sorry if I say this, but THIS is not acceptable and that's also the reason, why we changed our rules. Cause and effect.
Voobly.com does not allow commercial streamers to take recorded games of Voobly.com-hosted tournaments, sweepstakes, or other events and broadcast them in any Voobly.com game lobbies, game rooms, chat rooms, forums and web sites run by Voobly.com or publish them as videos on the internet.
Voobly.com, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to remove the streaming privileges of any streamer at any time without notice. Without limiting the foregoing, Voobly.com retains the right to deny service to any streamer who violates the CoC or Terms of Use.
Elusive is highley unlikely to ever improve voobly even with a higher income.We could all start to pay voobly a little every month. let's say 2$€£ a month. The current sub model may be to expensive for most players. But if we would pay a little to play on voobly the main dev elsusive could start working actively on voobly again and we would get a better client. I'd say 2$ are not much for anyone a month to play a game on a stable and well organised client.
If voobly created age of empires II it would be a different story. The fact is, the game they are hosting does not belong to them.
I agree that it's weird, but when the creators turned their backs and left the game for dead, Voobly not only saved it but developed* the best AoE experience seen (to this day, even). If HD didn't happen, the game might as well belong to Voobly.
But HD did happen and here we are in a real weird spot.
*(UP devs obviously share a lot of credit for this as well)
We could all start to pay voobly a little every month. let's say 2$€£ a month. The current sub model may be to expensive for most players. But if we would pay a little to play on voobly the main dev elsusive could start working actively on voobly again and we would get a better client. I'd say 2$ are not much for anyone a month to play a game on a stable and well organised client.
There have been widescreen mods out since before UP iirc
One of the precursors to voobly had it as a premium option i believe
There have been widescreen mods out since before UP iirc
One of the precursors to voobly had it as a premium option i believe
I think you are wrong here if memory serves me right. Higher resolution support came with Userpatch and Voobly did try to charge for it as far as I remember. After sometime they rightfully stopped.
Widescreen patch was available on Voobly long before the Userpatch was adopted, it was a premium membership feature only though
Widescreen patch was available on Voobly long before the Userpatch was adopted, it was a premium membership feature only though
We could all start to pay voobly a little every month. let's say 2$€£ a month. The current sub model may be to expensive for most players. But if we would pay a little to play on voobly the main dev elsusive could start working actively on voobly again and we would get a better client. I'd say 2$ are not much for anyone a month to play a game on a stable and well organised client.
Thats a whole different topic. First of all with userbase of this small size 2$ per "contributing" user is going to be peanuts compared to the income of a good experienced software developer. Second, the subscription prices are indeed too high ranging from 39-79$ per year. The only membership which comes with good benefits is Platinum which costs 79$, now compare this to other software products
- Windows 10 Home license costs you 80$ as a one time fee.
- Office 365 subscription for your entire family costs around 100$ a year.
- Overwatch which is a full blown game costs around 40$ as a one time fee.
- Most of the anti viruses costs 40$ a year.
I can go on but the point is the price which Voobly is asking is not worth it. You can argue that lower prices are due to economy of scale but at the time of spending the money the questions always are (1) What else can I get for same money? (2) Is this product worth it?
Its not like there are no other options to Voobly, slightly inferior ones but if you care about playing then most of them are good enough. Most of the people will move to the free options because what Voobly is asking is not worth it.
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If Voobly as a platform was really that great & unique then someone would have acquired it for millions and built it into something bigger. Market does tell you something & its foolish to ignore it. Imagine the scenario where Voobly does get acquired for some good amount of money. Who will get it and what will the so called volunteers receive?
Just actually looked at pricing there and it's a bit FUBAR :lol:
https://postimg.org/image/dpgfjitjr/
Need to shorten the length of periods and incentivise with bigger discounts - Posted full in the knowledge that as have been told many times Voobly staff dont check the AoCZone, but to be honest they really should do.
https://postimg.org/image/8s2uyerkn/
Images too wide apparently to post
Widescreen patch was available on Voobly long before the Userpatch was adopted, it was a premium membership feature only though
Which, if I am not mistaken, was basically adapted from the free wide-screen patch which Boekabart made?...
http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aokc ... 9399&st=25
Widescreen patch was available on Voobly long before the Userpatch was adopted, it was a premium membership feature only though
Which, if I am not mistaken, was basically adapted from the free wide-screen patch which Boekabart made?...
http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aokc ... 9399&st=25
Which wouldn't be too surprising. HappyLeaves created spectator dashboard and now it's marketed as Voobly created feature.
wot?