A summary of Gamescom, Reflection & Thanks.

Hello everyone, what a crazy week it has been. I'm taking some time today to reflect on everything, so here are my thoughts. The first section is about the LAN event on Saturday followed by some general thoughts about the week overall. This is going to be a very long post! So I'm going to add this to the very start: Please complete this poll about Mixer, it's very important for us to get some statistics about the stream: http://ift.tt/2wMmEEP

First, thanks to everyone for tuning in or attending the live event. It was a very special opportunity to do something on this scale and we learned a huge amount from it. We know that it wasn't perfect, but we also believe that overall we did a great job with the resources we had.

Promotion: Many people have been saying that they did not hear about the event in time. While it was very difficult to promote things from Germany (especially as robo and I were all hands on deck to run the event) I do feel as though we did a good amount of promotion in the weeks leading up to it. This included posts on social media, newsletter email to our mailing list, info in the escape discord and talk about the event on the qualification weekends. We could have done more, and next time we will make sure to do that. If you didn't hear about the event, please consider joining our discord: http://ift.tt/2xGkraA

It was also a challenge to promote the Mixer stream because it's completely new for so many people. When we say "Mixer" people don't automatically know it's a live streaming site like when we say "Twitch". Instead they think: "wtf is Mixer?" This does not work in our favour :p

As far as viewer numbers are concerned: we are very satisfied. Microsoft seem happy as well which is good but of course we know that the viewers would have been much much higher on twitch. It was also a bad time for the USA (which make 20-25%) of AoE viewership. With all things considered I believe we did well to reach 1500 live viewers during the finals on a completely new and unknown platform. And overall 40,000 people visitors to the page as well, which is higher than we usually get for our twitch events; also leading me to believe that many had technical problems.

Production -Mixer: Why? We know that Mixer was a drawback for the event, however, without making the deal with Microsoft to stream the event there we would not have had a $6,000 prize pool and would not have had additional support for the other expenses. The LAN event had a huge cost associated with it. Flying the players, covering accommodation and rental of the stage would have been too high a cost for Escape Gaming to bear alone. This was the compromise we made and in the end I feel like it was worthwhile. We will see what the future holds but this event does not mean that we are abandoning twitch. However, if there are future opportunities that are only possible if we make a deal to stream on mixer then of course we will consider it. It's always a matter of cost-benefit as KillerB would say ;)

Technical Problems As mentioned at the very start of the post, it seems like a lot of people had trouble with Mixer. This is something that I will pass along when it comes to doing an event review with Microsoft; so please give details about any problems you had. I have no doubt that this affected the viewer numbers significantly, but this event isn't about the viewer numbers as much as the experience gain and the opportunity to do something cool for AoE2 at the biggest gaming event in the world! Robo and I have probably gained multiple levels, I think Robo may have even evolved into a MegaAdmin during our all-nighter to get things ready on Friday.

-Quality: Bad- The stream start was delayed by one hour due to an audio problem, fortunately we managed to get it fixed fairly quickly. The audio in the venue was fine but there was a solid humming noise being output to the stream which would have made it unwatchable. The audio equipment was a stack taller than me (and I'm tall!), we had to have a specialist come and fix the problem for us, which after an hour and half of tinkering he managed; saving the day!

Aside from the initial delayed start I feel that the slight green tint was the only stream fault that we were responsible for. This was caused by a mistake in the settings of our capture card. We did not want to risk fixing it because when we tried to fix the issue before it caused OBS to crash and some other issues. The setup was a delicate balance and far far more complex than simply streaming from home! It was a brilliant learning experience though and this knowledge will hopefully carry forward into future events.

Good- Personally I felt like the show ran very smoothly, we had a really good setup with multiple camera angles, fairly clean transitions and good sound quality. The overlays could have been more advanced but we decided to keep it as simple as possible simply because of time constraints. Robo and I were running the whole show from behind the scenes and we were overwhelmed as it was! Adding the extra overlays to the stream would have tipped us over the edge I think. At least this time.

We had no drops and minimal frame drops, as far as streaming is concerned that's a big win 11!

The casters all did an incredible job. Of course, casting from home is second nature to all of us now; but being able to transition to the stage and take it in their stride was very impressive. Nili, T90 and KillerB gave fantastic commentary. They were very professional and quickly got to grips with the equipment and setup that we were running. It was also very cool to see T90 fly in from America especially for this event. Both he and Nilpferd contacted me immediately asking if they could be involved; of course the answer had always been yes! I also want to acknowledge what an amazing Interviewer KillerB is, his segment with the Forgotten Empires team was really impressive given that it was organised at the last minute. His ability to ask great questions off the cuff is a very special talent. And on the topic of FE, thank you to Cysion and Cedric for coming to the stage to show off Definitive Edition and give out some AoE merch goodies! Personally I would have loved to cast a match and was originally pencilled in to do two. However, after just 3 hours sleep the night before and a huge focus on the production side of things I felt like it was best not to. Huge thanks to the other casters for doing extra there, its very tiring casting for such long periods but even more so in the hot and loud environment of gamescom.

Also thanks to the local German players who helped us around the place with translation where needed!

Live- I feel as though the live show was a better experience than the stream. Aside from the one TV which was coming on and off (nothing we could do about that) everything was very smooth and good quality for the viewers. The only drawback was the lack of seating, but aside from adding $10,000++ to our budget to get a bigger stage there really isn't anything that could be done about that. The game is nowhere near big enough to justify this investment. Even without seats the crowd stayed from start to finish and we saw huge numbers of people walking by and stopping to check it out. More people probably saw the stage and the live event than the actual stream over the course of the day!

I feel like everything looked very professional, from the lightning to the sound to the stage setup. Everything was straight forward for the players (our top priority) and the competition was fair. Many people were asking if the players could hear the casters. We provided noise cancelling headphones and in combination with their in-ears and the general high level of noise in the hall players were not able to distinguish anything valuable from what the casters were saying.

Event: We were quite ambitious on the number of games that we thought we would be able to fit in. Keep in mind that this was our first ever full live production! We had to cut two matches down from bo3 and bo5 to bo1 and bo3. After each game we had to swap out the pcs as each player had their own pc to use and have set exactly how they needed. Overall this was a great way to do it, but the extra time needed was not factored in. This compacted with our hour delay at the start meant that we couldn't quite squeeze everything in. Gamescom had a strict 8pm finish time, at about 8:15 security came along and booted everyone out. Time constraints are a real issue with live events and it isn't easy to just add extra time to get the games finished. All in all I'm glad that we got all of the games in and finished at 7:58, two whole minutes to spare and enough time to say some thankyous on stage at the end 11

The only big problem that we had was forgetting to grab the recorded games off of the PCs. We didn't remember to get them when we left gamescom (we were in a big rush as everything was being torn down around us within minutes of 8pm). By the time we contacted them to ask if they could send files the PCs had already been taken away by Gigabyte and the rec games were gone with them. We're sorry for this, and hopefully we won't make this mistake in the future.

Attendance: Wow. I am blown away with how many people turned up for this event (and Nilis football meet on Friday. Huge thanks to him for arranging that!). So many fans of the game came from all over and it was amazing to see so many famous faces from the community. It's a rare opportunity and was a real pleasure to be able to arrange such an event which could be enjoyed by so many. The only drawback for me personally was a lack of time to really socialise as much as I would have liked. But everyone else was able to spend lots of time talking and enjoying each others company. It was great to be able to talk face to face over some drinks with so many. Personal highlight may have been playing hacky sack with Vipers cap after a heavy drinking session in an Irish pub with some guy from Ubisoft who was buying us shots. We had such a great laugh! On top of that, being able to meet people who have been following the stream for a long time, it's great to be able to put a face to the username and connect on a whole new level :D The AoE community is really special, the fact that so many of us were able to get together and feel right at home is a truly amazing thing. Thank you to everyone who came, and next time we do something like this I hope so see even more people! It was open for anyone to attend, so don't be afraid to join in next time around.

The rest of the week: I don't think anybody expected so much in so little time. AoE2 and 3 Definitive editions and AoE4 all announced on Monday. Of course, it's been a busy week, starting with KillerB and I appearing on the announcement livestream and then followed by a week of networking (and dealing with very big hangovers), meetings, streaming and of course setting up for our very own event on the Saturday. Monday Event- I'll keep this short because KillerB already posted a great thread on Reddit about this: http://ift.tt/2wMyLC0

I'll just say that first it was an incredible opportunity to be so intimately involved with the game. We did a lot to shape our segment and the production did amazingly well to accommodate us. Overall the event was a huge success, in fact, everyone there was super hyped and loving it. Sure, it was very noob friendly, but the 55,000 people watching were also mostly noobs. The hosts did a fantastic job (and their job is not to know AoE!!) and honestly, it was just a very well done event. The venue was decked out with cool props and people in costume. The atmosphere was super cool and the production was brilliant.

Meetings & Networking- We met with many of the Microsoft staff and even a couple of guys from Relic. I was very skeptical about these new announcements at first, especially given the track record with AoEHD, but coming away from Cologne I feel very confident. Not only did the Relic guys have a huge passion for gaming, but the things that they were saying showed that they had a good understanding of what Age of Empires means to so many people. They acknowledged that community feedback is going to be important throughout development (and that's going to start as early as next month). They also spoke a lot about how they want to create a game that feels like Age, but that also has fresh and exciting gameplay as well. I can't talk about details (Much like I haven't been able to talk about aoe4 for the last 6 months), but I feel positive. I expect Age4 to be at least 2 years away; but I also expect to be intimately involved with the project so it is very exciting. I hope that I and the others involved can help to steer the project in a good direction.

As for AoE2 Definitive edition I think we should be confident about this too. Let me tell you why. 1. If Microsoft screw this up then they also really hurt their reputation when it comes to Age4 as well. Something they can't afford to do. They have set a huge pressure on themselves to reach expectations. 2. Speaking to people about this project shows that they recognise what needs to be done to make DE great. Hearing this from the mouths of Microsoft people without having to tell them: hey you need to improve x, y and z gives me huge confidence. As for what DE may include, well, that's the exciting part. But one that you will all have to wait and see!

The future of Escape Gaming is hopefully positive, we would like to do more events. Right now we are starting plans for something a little bigger, and have an exciting side project which I just know the Age community will love. There will be a small break between now and our next thing; but keep your eyes open for that.

Overall I think that the renewed commitment to the franchise from Microsoft is very exciting. I expect there to be more events, more tournaments, more meet ups over the next years... and, hopefully we are only just at the foot of the mountain right now. For now, I am exhausted, and will take a couple of days to rest and recover from some gamescom flu as well. But things are moving in a good direction, life is good and Age of Empires will live on.