Team overhaul

[Denferok]

Alright so at this point, I'm basically doing nothing with the team. It's a gigantic mess right now, half the people are inactive, I'm getting tons of requests to join, the requirements of joining are basically 0, some people are almost offended if they aren't in the team etc. This isn't even close to what I want the team to be and I've had enough of this, which has led me to this situation.

From the very start, I always wanted the team to be a small group of high quality streams (not talking about bitrate) of people who care and put effort into their streaming. Since then, a lot of people have disagreed with me, often saying that anyone within the community should be allowed in. This is completely against my vision of the team and it's hard to even care about it, I'm under a lot of stress right now due to rl stuff and it's hard to stay motivated to even respond to applications.

Basically what I'm suggesting is completely starting over, changing the team to be about a small group of high quality streamers. The team would no longer just be about fangames, but rather the community as a whole. This would reduce the size to about 10-15 people. If we don't do this, then I'd be willing to hand over the role of leader or just completely scrapping the idea of a team in the first place. Sorry for getting to the point where I'm basically saying "my way or no way" but it's very hard for me to concentrate on something I don't even have fun with when I'm under a lot of stress.

[Shoepert]

I've been streaming as much as I possibly can, going hours and hours a day. I've a lot of fangames to make up, but I'm probably going to marathon them in the future. I've got layouts, scenes, etc to give my stream life. I entertain, and it's something I want to do for a long time. I'm rarely passionate about anything, and streaming is definitely one of my main focuses.

I'd love to be part of it, but it's ultimately up to you. Glad you're getting it organized.

[Wolfiexe]

The issue I always felt with having the "anyone in the community can join" mentality is that at that stage, the team may as well link straight to the IWBTG directory on Twitch. I'd imagine a more exclusive team would make it stand out that little bit more or rather mean something, as opposed to just a flashy tag that you can get on your profile if you stream fangames for a little bit.

Of course I don't know what I'd personally have the requirements as. That'd be something you'd have to decide and form a ground for. Still, I think it'd be worth a look as I agree that in the current stage, the team tag doesn't really mean a whole lot.

[patrickgh3]

I personally would really prefer a hand-selected 10-15 person team. As it is now, the team doesn't benefit its target audience, e.g. non-longtime-fangame-community-members. I'd like to see it help attract more people to the community as much as possible. On a related note, I think it'd be nice to re-do the page graphics and to actually have a description.

From the "other side's" point of view, being a team member makes you feel good, like you're accepted in the community. I have my doubts that joining the team as it is today actually helps your stream numbers at all, it's mainly for that feeling of acceptance, those words at the top of your channel. I think this is the root of why some people oppose an exclusive team, getting a flashy badge revoked FeelsBadMan, even if most others did too. I don't know what the solution to this sentiment is, or if it even needs a solution, just thought I'd share.

[PiranhaTooth]

Oh man... a few differing opinions and points here, and all really valid ones at that. I definitely feel where Patrick is coming from in terms of feeling 'accepted' as it's put, but I doubt that would be too much of an issue in the long run, with a 'we've all been kicked out together' mentality, it'd soften the blow since you're not being singled out or anything.

I don't think it's a bad idea necessarily, starting from scratch. It would be taking a step backwards in terms of how far this community has come, but I can see how it frustrates Denferok to have something he's hand-crafted, built from the ground-up, be treated as a piss-take of sorts when it comes to being accepted.

If I had to give my own opinion on the matter, I'd say there needs to be a certain level of sheer skill involved when it comes to being a good candidate. Although skill is important, it's not what's in my opinion, the most important factor when it comes to picking candidates for the team. Respect. You can't get anything done without respect, and I think something like respect speaks for itself. People who've earned the respect of community members should be the ones representing them in a team like the wannabes.

I suppose that's all I really have to say on the matter. I'd like to sit down and stream more someday to maybe be part of something like this, but I'm in my last year of school so that's tricky to manage. Looking forward to seeing more interesting points people have on this topic.

[Denferok]

You're forgetting that the team is mostly about getting new viewers to check out the other streamers. A small team size is important if you actually want people to look at the team page. Skill is not important, the only reason why I had a certain skill threshold before was so I would not get ultra spammed with applications, what matters is how entertaining the stream is. If I go offline and it ends up autohosting someone who is doing a micless boss grind, even if that person is extremely good, new viewers aren't going to be interested in that.

[PiranhaTooth]

You're forgetting that the team is mostly about getting new viewers to check out the other streamers. A small team size is important if you actually want people to look at the team page. Skill is not important, the only reason why I had a certain skill threshold before was so I would not get ultra spammed with applications, what matters is how entertaining the stream is. If I go offline and it ends up autohosting someone who is doing a micless boss grind, even if that person is extremely good, new viewers aren't going to be interested in that.

A valid point. Substituting entertainment for skill is probably a much better idea. It's kind of hard to think otherwise in this instance though. Considering a solid %95 of the popular wannabes are exemplary players, we've been conditioned to think that being a good player is a sizable portion of what it means to be in the team. That being said, you're totally right. After a second evaluation, entertainment over skill, since that would also better represent who we are as a team in terms of personalities and such as well.

[Onynekyu]

Since this community is supportive and welcoming, i don't feel the need to be a member team nor octrasized. That's why i feel good and like this community

I always feel that Wannabes team helps new comers to discover fangames world and community ("non-longtime-fangame-community-members" as patrick said ^^), like a showcase of fangames community and a first-step ladder. 
It was my case last year when i discover fangames while having no clues of what it is. I wander on twitch team, discover popular fangamers, then i follow "I wanna be the guy" game and discover/meet other awesome people. Now, i care less attention about wannabes team, but more about fangames community overall.

So I agree to put entertainment ahead of skills for the team. Also, having 10-15 members seems reasonable to me.

[Zero-G]

This is your team den,you should do it how you like it the most.you already helped alot of lower viewed channels with this in the past.making the team morw clean would still benefit the whole com since people who wanna watch it get addicted anyways and will dig deeper.with too many,nobody might profit of it cause of the mess.

Gonna write more later at home cause of streamers without mic like gza or speedrunners here and there.

[pieceofcheese87]

Personally I haven't even checked the team page in months and I never use it, so it doesn't really matter to me what you do with it.

[OhNoezEinPandy]

Completely fine to refine the twitch team to your wishes. Your team, your rules. Its nice of you that you still put it up as a discussionable topic here nevertheless.

Only pro/con argument I see is actually that the autohost feature shares the attention of viewers if they check their following page between all members. There is no con here if a "boring" stream gets hosted because no person in the world would unfollow just because the wrong guy is hosted.

[tehjman1993]

I'm still in the 'we need more team events' camp regarding these discussions. We used to have fun community events that anyone could do. BINGO was a big one, off the top of my head. I think a lot of these feelings towards the team are two-fold:

(1) Twitch fails to provide any team-related support. In fact, they've made it worse and irrelevant after the removal of the 'follow all' feature.

(2) We don't do fun, minor events that the team could easily set up. We don't do BINGO, we don't do blind races, we don't do anything. We all have our own communities and it feels very isolated. Granted, there's overlap, but sometimes it feels like "The Wannabes" are a conglomerate of streaming islands. We need more activity. We do Fangame Marathon as a yearly event, but what else? I'm sure doing small things, even like friendly races with team members, monthly events, etc. would greatly help the team.

Edit: I should put that in the end, it's ultimately your decision on what you do with the team. However, I do believe it is in your best interest for more events if you want a more positive look on the team.

[Denferok]

I would like to do more events of races and such, the problem is that a lot of people have the mindset where they know they can't win, so what's even the point of joining. There doesn't seem to be a way around this because a lot of players don't focus on the fun aspect of a race. I also can't really think of common events that don't involve speedrunning or racing. Ideas are always welcome of course.

EDIT: A relay race is always something I've wanted to do, if we do another fangame marathon this year I'd love to organize it.

[OhNoezEinPandy]

You can also play bosses head to head and see who has the better PB after 30 minutes.

You can also prepare a template gmk and make needle for 20 minutes which the over one has to play.

We can try to revive BINGO with the win8 problem out of the way.

There are alot of ideas outside of "basic" speedrunning. And even that you can turn into something else if you just run a single stage of a game multiple times for 20 minutes and then compara pb's.

Edit: but you're right. The "I don't wanna lose" mindset is pretty widespread here.

[tehjman1993]

I would like to do more events of races and such, the problem is that a lot of people have the mindset where they know they can't win, so what's even the point of joining. There doesn't seem to be a way around this because a lot of players don't focus on the fun aspect of a race. I also can't really think of common events that don't involve speedrunning or racing. Ideas are always welcome of course.

EDIT: A relay race is always something I've wanted to do, if we do another fangame marathon this year I'd love to organize it.

I'll agree with the bad mindset - it is something that is hard to fix. I think this is more prevalent in games that are already established as "speedruns", such as NANG or K2. Blind races, on the other hand, are much more random and anyone can really win.

To put in perspective, about 2 years ago me, fireball, and piece blind raced a ton of fangames that we all had never played before. Some were avoidance, some were needle, some were adventure. We seemingly had a nice split between winners of each blind race, and there wasn't a feeling of "I'm going to lose" when you started the game. Fireball and I also just did a huge blind race of a new game on steam which was incredible - we were only off of each other by a few minutes while the entire run took us over 6 (?) hours.

My point being that it depends on the event to alleviate the mindset of "I'm going to lose so why bother" when joining.

Regarding BINGO, Cake has been compiling a small private list (I think) of games that he thinks would be great in BINGO, so I think reviving and building BINGO back up would be little trouble. If it's done right the first time, we won't have to worry about it dying in 2 weeks.