Scheduling

HI EVERYBODY! I'd like to help sort out some details with my really confusing upload schedule. I happen to like lists so there are a ton of little side-rules and stuff based on what exactly I'll put up. 

Youtube Schedule

For baseline rules, I will upload up to 4 videos in one week, and up to two of the same game uploaded on the same day. I feel like otherwise I'm just oversaturating my audience. 

• Sunday

Sundays are for vlogs and other things that involve mostly me and for the most part do not involve video games. Sunday is reserved for update vlogs, Unfair-Y Tales (when it begins, which is actually kind of soon, so stay tuned), and Otaku Hell episodes if we start working on it again      

• Tuesday

Tuesdays are my general gameplay days, I upload anything that isn't a fighting game or a beat-em-up. Lately that has been SMITE and Super Smash Land (as I don't consider Super Smash Bros. games to be fighting games, they're more like 'party games' to me). Tuesday is also the designated day for Couples' Co-Op, which is released at 11 AM. I don't expect to ever play a fighting game together with Liz as that's not really something she's interested in. Maaaaaaybe a beat-em-up, but then it'd be released on Saturday. 

• Wednesday

On Wednesdays I upload highlights from my Twitch every other week. Even though the games might be different, I generally upload only two at a time at max. The highlights that I upload are all longer than a minute, I skip over sending ones shorter than that to YouTube. They are uploaded in reverse chronological order, so as of now I'm trying to catch up with where I'm at right now. Regardless of genre if they're highlights from my Twitch channel they're going up on Wednesday. The only exceptions are when I put up entire runs of a game/demo. 

• Saturday

Saturdays are my flagship day. I upload fighting games and beat-em-ups, since that's what I started my channel doing, and also the genre of game that I consider myself most attuned to. When I start the T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger LP, the episodes will be uploaded on Saturdays. You can expect MUGEN matches on Saturdays as well!

Twitch Schedule

My schedule on Twitch.tv is a little harder to manage, especially for me. As I don't really feel as though streaming is what I'm cut out for, nor do I have the necessary tech as of this moment to do it right, streaming is more of a secondary, maybe even tertiary activity for me. That being such, instead of coming up with a rigid schedule for it, I decided that I would stream after I've gone through two past broadcasts for highlights. Every other day I go through an hour of footage in one of my past streams looking for highlights. I realize that it's a lot harder for my audience to keep track of where I'm at in searching for highlights unless they ask constantly, so I try to make sure that I advertise when I'm going to stream via my Twitter, at least a day in advance. My family usually gets in the way of my streaming, so I try to provide updates between when I first say I'm going to stream and when I actually begin. Not only that, but I tend to play games that aren't in the database over on Twitch, so you wouldn't know I was streaming unless I advertised. 

So yeah, these are my two current schedules! I think that I'll probably keep both of these up at least through the end of the year, maybe indefinitely. I hope you all have a better idea of when I'm uploading. If you want to know why I chose any of these, it's because of data I had taken previously! I don't usually wing things like this, it's all about research! 

Just like Uncle on Jackie Chan Adventures always said "You must do MORE RESEARCH!" 

Don't Give Up!

I know it has been a couple weeks since I last added an entry, but don't worry, I'm still here! This is actually something I've had on my mind for quite a while, but I'm really starting to notice it more and more, now that I'm part of a network. 
A lot of the people that were active in the fullscreen forums when I was active were people that had just recently joined the network, and they were stretching their legs, just like me. Most of the people that joined around the same time, especially the gamers, had actually just started to hang out on YouTube. Their channels were new, and they had all the vigor in the world! Then, slowly but surely, just about everyone I talked to lost their will to continue. Most of the contacts I had made through fullscreen have already pretty much just given up on YouTube. 
The majority of the people joining the network are actually new to YouTubing, especially with video games. It's the kind of thing where they follow some famous YouTuber and think they can just start right from the top. A HUGE problem I've noticed is that for the most part, there are only three types of gamers on YouTube. There's the 'dudebro,' who plays ONLY Call of Duty, Battlefield, Counter Strike and now Titanfall. Then there are the minecrafters, who add hour after hour after hour of footage daily to YouTube just of what you can do in MineCraft. Then there are the horror gamers, who basically use PewDiePie as a bible, and only play horror games he has played. That is basically ALL there is.
The amount of people that do games on Fullscreen that are not one of these three types of gamers could actually probably fit in a single fast food establishment's restroom. This fact is kind of disturbing (Though not because the few of us that don't fall into one or more of these three categories are now stepping in piss), but there's also the fact that there are thousands, if not, hundreds of thousands of brand new YouTubers entering the fray daily, putting the exact same content up. The sheer amount of competition each of these newbies (and I'm not using that as a derogatory term here, they are simply new) faces is incredible. To stand up and be seen/heard above this quivering mass of uniformity is quite the daunting task. 
I'm not necessarily saying that everyone should do it differently, as there is clearly an audience for those types of content, but... The odds of them succeeding are incredibly slim. I've been on YouTube for something like 7 years now, and I'm still not like... a worldwide name, but... I'm still here! Becoming an overnight celebrity really isn't something that 9/10 people, or even 999/1000 people is going to experience. I think it's time the majority of the people hopping on the YouTube bandwagon sample is just being themselves.
I see a ton of YouTubers that fit into one of those three categories just imitating a more widely known YouTuber thinking that that is how they will rise in the ranks. Unfortunately for all of us, just copying someone else is not a viable strategy when it comes to YouTube. Not only that, but even the biggest YouTubers change over time. Take PewDiePie for example, not even the grand subscription king himself still puts up only horror games. What makes you think that just doing the same thing day after day will let you succeed when it hasn't let anyone else? 
I'm not writing this entry to tell you that you can't succeed though! I'm just trying to give some of you a better idea of what you can do to succeed! If most of you spent a bit of time being yourselves, maybe it'd work out better for you. There's also the fact that after you have a great start, you need to use that momentum! I see plenty of newbies to YouTube put in hours and hours of work every single day and pester every person they pass by into subscribing/commenting/liking/favoriting/sharing their videos. While networking and spreading the word through social media is great, sometimes it can be a little much. I had a friend that jumped on YouTube and for I dunno, a month or so, and he sent me multiple messages every single day to tell me about his videos and subscribing and all of that. That can be a little much. 
Like anything else, there has to be a balance. If you keep things up like that for too long, it's pretty much inevitable that you will burn out. The thing with YouTube is that you're allowed to burn out, but only if you come back. You may not be walking into the same environment when you return, but, that may not be such a bad thing. I myself am not looking to become something akin to PewD's or even Robbaz, but I know that I can succeed, and I can expand, and I plan to do just that! If you're not famous overnight, don't sweat it, 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% aren't either. That in itself isn't a justifiable reason for you to give up! 

T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger

After much deliberation, I have decided what my next LP is going to be. A PS1 3D beat-em-up that goes by the name of

T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger

Status: Incubating

I know you might be trying to figure out why I picked a PS1 game, out of all my games to play through to completion, but... Let's face it, I'm basically a gaming hipster. "This game ain't popular? I LIKE IT!" While that is funny to think about, it's actually mostly true. I generally hate games that have a roaring hype-train just because they have one. 

I actually just recently finished the first Assassin's Creed and I'm kind of disgusted about the wonderful things I heard about it. I'm hoping trilogy II is better than this one was. It's the first game I have ever beaten, and literally as the credits rolled I said out loud "I'm gonna sell you." I've got the collector's (read: hoarder's) mentality, so to even bring myself to say that, you know the game must have really upset me. I'm gonna grab all the flags, so I never have a reason to come back, and then BYE BYE ALTAIR! 

I went off-topic again... Anyway, I picked T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger for many reasons other than "I'm going to enjoy every minute of it," like I did with Saints Row the Third. I started my YouTube channel with fighting games and beat-em-ups, and I realize that I've been diverging from my audience, even fighting them in some cases, at basically every step of the way lately. This needs to stop if I hope to rekindle the fire and the community I once had. Choosing a beat-em-up to play through really makes me feel good about what I'm doing, and what you guys are watching too! 

This is a game from my childhood, that I never had the pleasure of getting my hands on. I played the demo endlessly, and if that swamp level is in the complete game, then... I'm gonna breeze right through it! I have always wanted to put some work into it, and now I have a chance, and a reason to see it through to completion! There's also the fact that there's very little footage of it floating around, and I definitely feel as though this is a game that beat-em-up fans should check out. The only playthrough I could find on YouTube wasn't even in English, as a matter of fact! I just got a new EasyCap and it seems to be working well, so I'm looking forward to recording console games again!

Also, since it's single player, I won't have to worry about the times I'm free to play and the times my partner is free to play. I think it's about time I started to look out for myself, no? I spent a lot of time deliberating how I wanted to get this on film, and I bought all the necessary parts for this to work, so I'm hoping it does. I plan on filming on my laptop with my easycap, while using my turtle beach headset's headphones to hear the in-game music, while I use the microphone on it to talk through my laptop. I tested that setup a couple times and it seemed to work via ps3, so I'm hoping it'll work via PS1/2 as well. I could play the game on the PS3, sure, but I'd actually rather play it on the actual PS1 or my PS2, since I have so much extra space on my six PS1 memory cards. Yep, I've got 6 of them. I have 4 PS2 memory cards, but I'm actually running out of space there. 

Also, for a little background on the game, I'm pretty sure that it was the basis for Kung Fu Panda. The game revolves around anthropomorphic animals that do martial arts. The main character's a tiger, and you have to defeat the Dragon Warrior. There's also the fact that DreamWorks Interactive are the developers, and I didn't realize that until I actually bought the game.

I'm not sure when you guys should be expecting to see this, but as of this very moment, I have a couple videos leftover from SMITE'S open beta, I have another video of the after-match animations to make (The loss animations for all the guardian-class Gods, if you're wondering), and some leftover complete videos of Super Smash Land. After all of that is up I plan on starting up Unfair-Y Tales, but! This series will come, I SWEAR IT.

Clan=Pro Since when!?

As most of you that follow me on the YouTubs know, I'm a big fan of the game SMITE. I don't particularly enjoy MOBAs in general, but SMITE has enough that's different about it, that I can still enjoy it. I mean, it certainly helps that I've got a bunch of friends that enjoy it too, but that's a whole different can of worms.
One of the things I've been running into, pretty much since the game released (besides the intermittent lag bombs, where entire teams suddenly start teleporting around... What's that about Hi-Rez? That didn't happen before launch...) is that people in-game assume that because I am in a clan, that means I am a professional, that everyone else in my clan is also professional, and that when together, we are some unbeatable, tokusatsu-like force. What the hell is that? 
While I will say that Brokidd, Kitherun, Phokidd and their group is really good at what they do, none of us are 'professional.' Pretty much every game that you play says "Do you play with friends often? Why not make a clan!" Nowhere in there does it say "If you intend to devote your life and every waking moment to never making a mistake in this particular game and forgetting to have fun, only caring about winning, then you should make a clan!" What happened to the gaming community with that one? Do they really think that winning is more important than having fun? Even when we're losing, we're still all having fun yelling at each other over on RaidCall. 
We asked someone in-game last night why they thought because we were a clan that we were professional, and they replied that it's not that we're professional, it's that we know each other. I mean, you should probably know everyone in your clan, especially if you're friends, but that doesn't mean I know exactly how they play. I have played with Kitherun and Phokidd a grand total of twice before, and all I know about them is that they are better than me. 
Another thing that confuses me about online play nowadays, since I've been playing a lot of SMITE and Titanfall lately, is the fact that it seems like there aren't very many developers, or even other gamers that believe that there is a 'new' stage to playing a particular game. In Titanfall for example, there is absolutely no matchmaking for any mode at this point in time, not even in Campaign. Your very first level in campaign, you could be level 1 against a Generation 9 or 10 at level 45 (That player is actually level 450-500). God forbid you're on that team then, because those players will berate you for being bad, even though you LITERALLY JUST BOOTED UP THE GAME. In SMITE, I've had people in Assault, where everyone has random gods, insult the crap out of people who have never played the god they got before to the point that they want to leave the game. You were new once too, you douchebag. 
Unfortunately, it seems like the mentality is that people who have experience were never new, that they were just born at some high level, knowing exactly what to do. What happened to humility? Is that a relic of a bygone age? I understand the 'big penis game' that most boys play (For those of you ladies out there, guys always compare themselves to others, but for the most part, only when they know they are better, and the laymen's term for that is the big penis game), but... I don't think it's right to play the big penis game with someone who basically hasn't even hit puberty right.  
Can anybody explain to me when exactly becoming part of a clan meant that you were a professional? That you cared more about winning than actually playing the game? 

Saints Row the Third

Well, let's take a look at my first "complete" walkthrough, and what I learned about YouTube and Let's Plays (LPs) in the process!

Saints Row the Third

Status: Complete-- For now.

There's a pretty common thing on YouTube for gamers to do, and that's to play through a whole game. It's come to be known in common internet jargon as a Let's Play, since the audience is somewhat involved. Also, if you seem open about it, as in, inclusive, that makes it easier for other people to involve themselves, but, going deeper into that kind of topic is something for its own post, so I won't bore you with details there!

Something I have talked a lot about when it comes to Let's Plays here on my blog is something that I discovered while attempting to complete this game. I chose it based solely on the fact that I knew that I was going to love absolutely every second of the game as I played through it. While this should be something that helps you decide what you want to LP, I think that more importantly you should be looking at the length of the game, especially if you're new to YouTube and LP's in general. Without a cemented audience, it's easy to lose people. It's also easy to become sick of something the longer it goes on. 

Another factor that led to this LP becoming somewhat of a problem for me was that I basically ran through the game in almost exclusively co-op. That meant that not only did I have to have the time to play it, but I had to make sure that my partner also had the time to play it. The more people you have working on something consistently, the more difficult it will become to actually get things done. It's kind of like a group project in school, you just know that at least one person in your group isn't willing to put in the commitment and effort that the rest of the group will undoubtedly put into it. I suppose it also doesn't help that both GrimJak and I are procrastinators. 

We started the series on YouTube, but I actually finished it on Twitch, since I didn't really see a reason to extend it past 60 parts, and I had virtually lost my entire audience by then anyway. Another problem I had, that I actually run into quite a bit when I'm working on gaming stuff for an audience is the uniformity of it all. More often than not, I spend my time trying new things and messing around with settings, so the quality of both the visuals and the audio is often all over the place. It's hard to inspire confidence in your audience when your quality undergoes such drastic changes. I've been spending a lot of time on my channel lately just trying to make everything seem uniform, as I think that this will greatly help me in the long run. You want to make sure that others know you for you. Your content has to be consistent if you hope to have a large following, or, even, any following at all. 

I mentioned just a bit ago that I finished my playthrough on Twitch, and if you want to continue the action, you can view the final parts of my playthrough of the story on my Twitch channel or click here, then here, and finally here. Now, I finished the story of Saints Row the Third, but I didn't actually finish all the DLC, and that is why my status for this series is 'for now.' The problem with me choosing an open-world game like this to do a LP of is that there's a lot of the time where I'm just wandering around doing the dumbest of things, and that makes the game even longer than it should be, which is already pretty long. 

According to the YouTube playlist, there's 13 hours of footage, plus the ~12 or so that's on Twitch. I chose to do this as an actual LP, meaning that I was going to film whatever I did in the game, which actually led to quite a few problems, with me having to set up whenever I was going to play and my indefatigable laziness. When I wanted to play or when GrimJak wanted to play, I had to set up my recording equipment, and sometimes I was unable to do so, or I was just far too lazy to do so, and that really made filming and playing quite a drag. There's also the fact that Grim's mission in virtual life is to be a bullet/grenade/magic sponge for whatever I am trying to do, so that I can hit nothing. FUNNY EXCERPT, ACTUALLY, we started to play Titanfall on PC recently, and not only does he block my shots with his body when I'm just running around as a pilot, but when he leaves his Titan and sets it on AI, the DAMN THING WALKS IN FRONT OF MY BULLETS JUST LIKE HE WOULD. Also, he is not allowed to wield fire anything in games because he will only set every other teammate of his ablaze. Furthermore, I am the most stubborn of gamers, but I love a challenge. I will sit in the same battle the same way at least 400x if I know that there's a chance I will win, that my strategy is sound. Usually though, my strategy is to win in the most ridiculous of ways. Grim, on the other hand, is not like that at all. He's quite the pragmatist, actually.

I have taken all of this as a lesson though, and I hope all of you out there will too. In my opinion, when determining what to go for during a LP, especially when you're starting out, there's got to be things you consider first:

• Will I enjoy seeing this game through to its end?
• Is everyone that's working on it willing to do the same?
• Can I keep a quality standard throughout the process?
• How long will it take me to finish the game? (Especially if you're new to LPs & YouTube) 

Demo Review: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Hi all! I'm trying to go back to things I've done before, along with finishing off requests, and otherwise giving the people what they want, so I figured I'd get back on track with demo reviews! The first one I'll be taking a look at on the blog is the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 demo. I previously took a look at Fuel Overdose and Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 and then added in some information over on the old Okamigakure forums. From now on I'll be using the blog here for similar posts!
This entry should appear to coincide with the release of my video, so you should be able to get from one to the other without a hitch. Unfortunately, this particular video will mark the release of my first video where my EasyCap has begun its own descent into madness... The audio is messed up on it, it takes about 6 minutes to stabilize, rather than cut in and out and then after an hour or so it has another 6 minute period of destabilization. I believe my course of action will be to get a replacement, and then I will begin moving up until I snag a useful HD capture device. Ahhh... The future. 
In any case, back on topic! I didn't actually play any of the first Lords of Shadow game, but I did take a gander at the demo for the second game (Mirror of Fate) in this particular series of Castlevania games. I know that Patrick Stewart voiced a major character in the first game, and while that does make me want to look into it, at least for the cutscenes, hah, this demo of the second game has sort of turned me off to the series as a whole. 
Castlevania has always been one of those series that I've wanted to get into, but playing this has taught me that I should go with the main series.
Supposedly the Lords of Shadow games are a reboot to the series, and I don't know whether or not I like that. Hideo Kojima (of MGS fame) helped work on the series when it first began and due to his influence, I'm sure you'll realize it's got a lot of cinematic qualities to it. Unfortunately, a lot of the time cinematic qualities don't translate very well into good game design, and this particular game is no exception. Don't get me wrong, it's very pretty and the voice acting is pretty decent, but in my humble opinion, graphics should be far less important than gameplay. This game probably did not take that into account. There's only one part of the demo that has odd graphics, and that's the FMV at the end, wherein who I believe to be Alucard and his blade get exceptionally pixelated and glitchy looking. Other than that, the game maintains the same level of quality in the looks department.
The soundtrack is also somewhat gothic-inspired, which I am glad for. It's what you would expect from a game in the Castlevania mythos. There are far too many games nowadays that employ electronic or, far more likely, dubstep, simply because that is what is en vogue, even if it doesn't suit the source material AT ALL. I apologize that the sound quality from the capture is a little weird, especially for the beginning. 
The game however, is more about the combat than anything else, so why don't we take a look at that. Since it's a Castlevania game, you naturally use a whip (SPOILERS : Your character was once Gabriel Belmont, the first of the line, but now is Dracula). Since you are Dracula here, you obviously can't use Vampire-Killer, as... well, you're a vampire, so instead you sort of... form a whip out of blood. From what I've seen of the previous games, the combos are exactly the same as using a whip were previously. You also are given two other combat items, and you can switch between the three on the fly in combat, for a sort of DmC-type feel. You've got the Void Sword, which steals health from enemies, and the Chaos Claws, which allow you to FALCON PUNCH, I mean... break enemies' guards. You can also dodge and block. 
Blocking on time with an enemy's attack (read: parrying), is essential to combat, and thus one of the biggest flaws in the game. Remember how I said that cinematic qualities don't necessarily translate into a good game? In the case of parrying, which is essential to combat, there is a slow-mo couple of seconds at impact, and a large, flashy, spark-spraying splash each and every time it occurs, which is admittedly VERY OFTEN. It's not so much the slow motion, which removes you from the moment that's bothersome, it's actually the shower of sparks. You can literally see nothing around you every time you parry, which makes the game very difficult. It's very difficult to die since you can use the void sword and also suck the blood out of your enemies, but the way the camera is positioned, so that it only cares about you and not your enemies, makes the shower of sparks INCREDIBLY problematic.
Enemies for the most part do not care whether or not you are hitting them, they do not go into stun states about 90% of the time you are wailing on them unless you have parried them already. If they are preparing an unblockable strike you can launch them though. Not only does parrying get in the way of viewing the action, but more often than not, the attacks that you can do by holding either the horizontal or vertical attack buttons (Think Soul Calibur) also make it relatively impossible to see. Being flashy does not necessarily make a good game, and I wish more developers would realize this.
The game makes use of quick time events (QTEs) basically any time it can, often with no real reason at all. Every time you beat an enemy to near-death and try to suck their blood, you have to do a QTE, which honestly makes no sense at all. On top of that, to finish a QTE, you can hit just about any button on the controller, and the animation for them, which consists of two circles merging, basically takes up the entire screen, so there is little to no skill involved at all. Both things involving QTEs I saw no reason for at all in the demo. When you suck an enemy's blood, none of the other enemies bother you, so it's not like you need to worry about that. The other time was hanging off the automaton's arm. I suppose in this case they were going for a Shadow of the Colossus situation, but the fact that the QTE occurs after the impact, when you are literally just hanging there doing nothing and nothing is trying to dislodge you makes very little logical sense to me. 
In combat, enemies can use unblockable attacks, which you must get away from. What angered me about this is that not only do all of the regular enemies' unblockable attacks have their own animations, but the developers also found it necessary to draw gigantic circles on the weapons of the enemies so that you know when they're going to attack. I feel that that is also unnecessary, since you can clearly tell when an enemy is about to launch an unblockable. The devs seem to be trying to offer you WAY MORE HELP THAN IS NEEDED. 
Not only do they give you more help than necessary when in combat, there's also way too many hints during traversal segments. After the initial one, anything you can climb on is a radioactive looking glowing nipple. ON TOP OF THAT, there's constantly a prompt for the "Show path" button, which then places a glowing circle on top of each radioactive nipple. Then, ON TOP OF THAT, as if it were necessary, if there's somewhere you need to go that doesn't have a nipple, a cloud of bats will fly around it. That's too many things to show players what they should be doing. 
There's also a long section where you traverse the automaton while the angel-looking fellow shoots at you. You need to use his arrows to break bolts on the armor of the giant automaton, and the game will NEVER stop telling you what to do. The thing that absolutely infuriates me about this particular section is that it shows you before you get there during a scripted event what you need to do, by essentially doing it for you, but then the camera zooms in after to each of the exact same pieces, like you couldn't figure it out. After you break them, it zooms into WHERE YOU BROKE THEM. YES, I FUCKING KNOW, I JUST DID THAT. It then does that EXACT SAME THING each time one of these events occur, as if you were mentally deficient and couldn't figure out what to do, even though you just did it thirty seconds ago.
There's also sections where you need to rip something off the automaton, and while it glows radioactive yellow, words that take up something like 20% of the available screen space show you, with a diagram of the proper button no less, that you NEED TO RIP IT OFF. YES, I GOT THAT.
I have never played a game where it seemed like the developers were moreso than holding my hand, telling me straight to my face that I was a fucking moron, and they were gonna help me through this trying time. I was looking forward to trying out Lords of Shadow, but I have been so very sufficiently turned off by this demo, that I will probably never partake in the actual game. I hate when people say games have gotten harder over the years, when the opposite is clearly true. If you think games are getting harder, then the team behind LoS2 are the developers for you! 

Couples' Versus

Okay, this is absolutely the last one... I SWEAR. I am totally out of options, after all.  

Couples' VERSUS

Status: Incubating

This will be the series where we really get our blood flowing, as we FIGHT TO THE DEATH, TOOTH AND NAIL, AGAINST OUR ADVERSARIES-- That's a little much. No, that won't really be what's going on. Couples' Versus will be a series where me and Liz go head-to-head against another couple! We get to have fun smash talking someone else for a change, and then gloat in victory side by side! I say that like it's an absolute guarantee that we'll win, but... That's probably not going to happen, haha. 

The plan for this is for me and Liz to go head-to-head against another couple, probably starting off in video games, but maybe other kinds of games too! Though, I'm rather certain if we play drinking games though, I'll be carrying her. Literally. In any case, I'd love to breathe some new life into my channel, especially when I can invite others to join in on the fun too! 

Any couples out there wanna issue us a challenge!? We'll gladly take you on (maybe)! I suspect this will probably be the last series that actually starts up, since I've got to goad my friends into joining us. Though, what I just typed would actually be really great, if other couples challenged us to things! I have a few ideas for that already... LET THE GATHERING OF YOUTUBE COUPLES COMMENCE!    

Seriously though, I think a really great way to change things up on your channel, and appeal to a much broader audience is to collaborate with like-minded individuals. I know for a fact that my channel just wouldn't be the same if I didn't share my friends with the rest of the world. It's been great to invite people into my home that are physically incapable of being here, and I hope that that never stops! I mean... unless I'm naked or something, then SHOO!