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Forum Feature Highlight: The Livestream Calendar

KasperVld

By KasperVld
in 2014

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KasperVld

KasperVld

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Hello everyone!

Welcome to the second forum feature highlight, today I'd like to talk about a brand new feature we've introduced: the livestream calendar. So? What is it? The Livestream Calendar allows any user to add a livestream to the list, which can then be seen by everyone on the forums. Not only by accessing the streaming calendar specifically, but also on the forum's front page! Whenever someone loads the forum's front page they'll see all livestreams that are due to start within 24 hours just below the active members list. For example:

Nk6IpBV.jpg

For people interested in streams

You can not only view the calendar, but also request reminders for upcoming streams. To do so, open up a stream and find the bottom right corner of the box where you'll find a button called "Request reminder for this stream". Click it and you'll be taken to a menu where you can select how long in advance you'd like to be reminded of the livestream. Reminder emails can be slightly early or late. For example, a reminder scheduled for one hour before the stream, will actually be sent between 1:15 and 45 minutes before the stream.

For streamers

So of course the most important thing to you is: how do I add my stream to the list? This is both easy and tricky at the same time, so pay attention. First, open up the calendar by clicking the link above or by selecting the "Livestreams" tab on the main forum menu and selecting the calendar from there. On the top right there's a button labelled "Add New Stream", click it. You should now be faced with the screen below.

GLDrujv.jpg

First, add your stream's title. For example, I could add "Kasper's Space Program", this is the name that will show up in the calendar and on the forum's main page and it's good to add your Twitch username in the title so that people can recognise you. Next we'll have to make a choice between a standard stream or a recurring stream. A standard stream is just what it says on the box: here you can add a one-time stream, specify when it happens and add your own flavor text. It's pretty straight forward and I don't expect any problems there. As you can see the picture above is showing the recurring stream. This needs some more explanation in order to get it to work right. A recurring stream is a stream that is set on a schedule, for example a stream that happens every day, every other Tuesday or every first of the month. So how do we set this up? First, we need to establish if we're going to stream every day (select Daily), a specific day of the week (select Weekly) a specific day of the month (selected monthly) or a specific day of the year (select yearly).

If your streaming schedule has already started you can leave the start day set as is to today, if you're planning to start soon, set it to the first day you want to stream at. The end date is when you plan on ending your streaming schedule for KSP. Currently that date is set to 2014, but it's good to set it to next month, or perhaps the next two months, but be sure you'll keep streaming KSP for the period you select here.

While adding a stream you'll be presented with an area where you can add some flavor text, exactly like a post. For the purpose of allowing you to embed your stream we've added the

.

That's it for today, check out the Forum Feature Highlight post about the [thread=51861]reputation system[/thread] if you'd like to learn about that or the tutorial on [thread=65480]streaming KSP[/thread] if you're interested in streaming the game. I hope this post explained the new feature a bit, and happy streaming!

Edited by KasperVld
typo fix
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Pecan

Pecan

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Sorry, didn't realise it was a commercial promotion.

I was in fear of being bombarded by adverts but as far as I can see this is just the 'livestream' link at the top of the page. No, no reason to turn that off.

Is Squad retained by some video company or something though? It's been nagging at me for the past few weeks just how much more videos are pushed as 'the thing' in KSP than any other game I know. Of course, it might just be the community here prefers that, but the amount of it seems odd to me. It might just be because I have a broadband cap (fairly common in the UK) so have to watch download limits that I notice it so much.

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KasperVld

KasperVld

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It's not a commercial promotion though: this just allows members of the community to bring attention to their livestreams, although some streamers may be commercial (we're talking about a small group of individuals who make a living off this) most aren't. This is purely meant as a way for community members to share what they do with KSP with other community members. Squad is a private entity and is (I believe) a part of a marketing company that existed before it, but Squad in itself didn't have much to do with this functionality, it's just something I thought up yesterday to tell you the truth :)

People make all sorts of content for KSP: artwork, writings, custom controllers and also videos and livestreams. Squad really invests in its community by promoting all of these, mostly in their Daily Kerbal update and sometimes outside of that on the social media, between Video Wednesdays and Twitch Thursdays I kind of see where you're coming from, but there's also a lot of content to highlight :)

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Pulstar

Pulstar

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Streaming has actually gotten so popular that even the console manufacturers felt obliged to integrate twitch support into their newest consoles. It is simply the "in" thing now and KSP falls into the type of games that can be quite enjoyable to watch (multiplayer, sandbox and games with large degrees of randomness fall into this category in general IMO).

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Jananton

Jananton

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Hmm, one little question, when opening 'Live Streams > streaming calendar' are the times visible in the week overview adjusted to the profile of the user opening this page or are they all in a certain time zone that isn't mentioned anywhere?

Greets,

Jan

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KasperVld

KasperVld

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Hmm, one little question, when opening 'Live Streams > streaming calendar' are the times visible in the week overview adjusted to the profile of the user opening this page or are they all in a certain time zone that isn't mentioned anywhere?

Greets,

Jan

They're adjusted to your profile settings :)

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