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Easy Allies |EZOT2| Love & Respect

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Maximo

Member
Really hope Ian and Brad continue the jolly co-op playthrough someday, preferably on group stream night as it wouldn't be as fun without the other allies chatting away in the background about it.

Was that the bloodborne Stream? Man they were otherworldly.
 
One of my favorite things to come out of Easy livin was Yakuza 0 was shown off well and a lot of the allies got to get a better sense of why Huber and Ben praise the series so much.

That and Brad is now invested and will continue playing. It's start is pretty story focused and it says something that on a number of occasions the whole crew were locked in 100% invested in the events unfolding.

Also props to Brads focus when all the side conversations were going on during other times

I think before Yakuza 0 came out a lot of the praise focused on the silly sides of the games and can mislead people in what the game is like. It's such a weird blend of super serious and super silly that just works. But a lot of that series crime drama wasn't strongly noted

Plus Yakuza streams always deliver.
 

Servbot24

Banned
I've only browsed a few of the streams on YouTube, but it seemed like a really awesome time. I hope they do it again someday, or another version of it.
 

luchadork

Member
easy livin was a massive success. so good. loved the whole thing.

excuse the fantasy booking but i'd love an eza schedule that had a few of these streams every quarter (sort of like wrestlings big 4 with wrestlemania, royal rumble, summer slam, money in the bank)

jan: ezagdq (50 hour allies-each-pick-a-favourite-game-to-"speed run"-and-raise-money-for-charity marathon)
feb:
mar: birthday stream (12 hour birthday stream)
apr:
may: ezo (12 hour fighting game only tournament marathon stream)
june: e3
july: easy livin (50 hour beach house marathon)
aug: gamescom
sep: tgs
oct: the people vs eza (12 hours allies vs community marathon stream)
nov: extra life
dec: psx
 
Was that the bloodborne Stream? Man they were otherworldly.
Yeah, one of the highlights of the weekend for me
It was pretty incredible.

I was considering posting a link to the stream in that "the opening of Bloodborne is too hard" thread, but decided it would be too mean to the OP.

so I'm watching the Wave Race VOD. Don says the phrase "down but not out."...

I am setting forward a motion to change Don By Law to be renamed Don But Not Out for the next season of the podcast, if need be
all in favor?

https://www.change.org/p/don-but-not-out
This is a good idea.
 
I'm having Easy Livin' withdrawal. It was so nice to always be able to tune in. Hope they'll do it again next year.

Also, I keep singing "Ian and Don hit the Beach" to myself. I can't make it stop and may need help
 
From what I saw it seemed like the Easy Livin stream was around 1000 viewers most of the time which is pretty damn good considering how long it was.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
I hope they can do more of these(not all of them at the beach house of course xD) I really enjoyed the vibes. I could complain about the contents as in what games and how long they were played but that is so subjective it's whatever there was still a lot to chill out with.

One day though I would love for them all to get together and play a few rounds of mafia/werewolf. It's such a fun game if people get into it especially with people you know.
-------------

On the new Frame Trap. I'm making my way through dq11 during my summer break right now and boy that game is insanely long.
If you got any question about it (ps4) feel free to ask.

That said on your hope of the review being streamlined from the 50+ hours I put in so far and being far from finished I have a feeling it won't work out that well :p.
The reason is that I don't see any places to save major time cause so much of the stuff I experienced has been worthwhile on a pure story basis for me.

Game is just pure unbridled childlike adventure. I recommend keeping the preview limited to the first few hours(to not spoil yourself too much) I really think one should experience some of this stuff with the full context. The cutscene direction especially has been extremely impressive some of the scenes.

One thing I didn't expect is that it would be quite as emotionally touching. The story has the usual DQ simplicity to it but I personally think it works out in its favor given that it gives it all a real sincerity. I will also say I really like the characters in this one.

Can't wait for the west to get it! What a crazy year this is.
 
First of all, I know this was dropped a few pages back, but I can't believe a couple people were speculating about someone being on the spectrum or playing it off as "this guy is REALLY annoying and has a gimmick he does all the time in chat, he must be autistic". Really? After that great L&R about inclusiveness of the EZA community written by a community member who actually has autism? That was really pathetic juvenile behavior. Just keep your stupid thoughts to yourself. That person probably posts here and has read what you said.

Second, I nominate this as the next OT:

Easy Allies |EZOT3| Caution: BBT Spoilers Inside

Edit: Easy Livin was soooooo good. I have a lot of stuff to listen to at work now whenever I've finished the podcasts/shows for the week.
 
In my never-ending quest to find more local co-op games, the last EZA podcast made me realize that Divinity: Original Sin 2 (and Original Sin) might be worth looking into.

For reference, here are some of the most recent games my partner and I have played (excluding sports/racing games):

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Overcooked
Battleblock Theatre
Portal 2
Rayman Legends
Super Mario 3D World
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light​

Here are some unplayed games on our list:
Trine 2
Yoshi's Wooly World
Diablo III
Puyo Puyo Tetris​

So I come here to ask this community: do you think we would enjoy the local co-op offerings of Divinity: Original Sin?

Thanks for your help!
 

Hasney

Member
Divinity Original Sin is hard as balls. Me and my gf played about 6 hours and didn't get past the first town after the opening dungeon.
 

Auctopus

Member
Divinity Original Sin is hard as balls. Me and my gf played about 6 hours and didn't get past the first town after the opening dungeon.

God, thank you! I tried to get in to that game when it was on sale last year, invested 6-8 hours in to the first town and just got stuck with a log book full of about 20 quests. Maybe I'm a victim of quest markers and compasses but every single solution seemed so damn obtuse, I only managed to fully finish a few quests.

I couldn't stand the way you have to approach quests in a certain way. For example, in the first town, I discovered who the killer was for a long time before I could accuse them because I had to talk to a certain amount of people in order, then find a shovel and talk to a dog.

It was just so ambiguous and I just gave up once I'd unwillingly picked up a 30th sidequest and I'd lost track of where or what I was doing. I understood what was going on, I just hated the way you were forced to interact with the world due to the mechanics and quest progression.

Cool game though.
 

Hasney

Member
Yeah, there's the quest stuff and we thought "OK, done with this town now, let's go to this quest outside of town" and got destroyed in combat.

I know they're attempting to fix a lot of the quest stuff in the sequel at least, so hope it happens, because the rest of what I played seemed amazing. It was so fun on that murder quest to get everyone including innocent people arrested and then killing them in jail. Or for the undertaker, just killing him because he annoyed me.
 

abrack08

Member
Little nugget near the beginning of Frame Trap. Ben said he and Brad were getting ready to finally do the Persona Spoiler Mode, but decided to wait for Huber because he was 65+ hours in. So it seems like that's still coming at some point. I know the zeitgeist has moved on but I'm still pumped for it if/when it happens!
 

Budi

Member
No word on if Brad is going to review Lawbreakers? I assume it would be him if anyone. Would love to hear his thoughts, maybe Don't Skip if he thinks it shouldn't be skipped =D
 

Servbot24

Banned
Little nugget near the beginning of Frame Trap. Ben said he and Brad were getting ready to finally do the Persona Spoiler Mode, but decided to wait for Huber because he was 65+ hours in. So it seems like that's still coming at some point. I know the zeitgeist has moved on but I'm still pumped for it if/when it happens!
Zeitgeists suck; art is forever 🌲
 
Divinity Original Sin is hard as balls. Me and my gf played about 6 hours and didn't get past the first town after the opening dungeon.

Yeah I tried to play it with a friend. Did some stuff in the first town, wasnt sure what to do next so tried going somewhere else but every direction we went from that first town we got destroyed.
 
Really enjoyed what I caught if Easy Livin'. Going to have to watch the archives of what I missed. Excited to see how they will implement this type of stream in the future.
 
Just finished the Metal Slug 3 stream and I just have to say that Don really getting into the streaming spirit and having lots of fun was the highlight of the whole weekend so far. Next is Sengoku.

Don is a national treasure.
 
Just gotta give Easy Livin'/Easy Allies an insane amount of credit for having a 50-hour stream that went largely flawlessly. I don't mean this to sound rude to them because I'd feel this if any other group attempted such an ambitious thing as well - I just had bad thoughts about all the various potential ways that such a gargantuan stream in a foreign environment to them could go wrong. I thought there was a great potential for internet problems galore, sound/mic issues/game issues and just any of the potential for lunacy if you put any group of people in a room live on the internet for such a long time. I think Jones or someone mentioned they'd think about a survey or something and I'd love to fill that out as I'm sure themselves and now the audience might have some ideas to improve if they decide to try something similar in the future. Overall, can't state enough how happy I was to have that on for much of the weekend and also love being able to catch up on the archives (that were awesome to be uploaded so quickly).

To change topics a bit, one thing I'd love (hopefully if they get a studio!) would be lengthy group game streams similar to what Giant Bomb East is doing right now (Sunshine, X-COM, Yakuza as specific examples). One that I think would make a great one even though I'm hardly a wrestling fan at all would be Huber/crew actually having the proper amount of time and creating a fully-fleshed Defaulte (or some other abomination) career in WWE. Some of the hardest I've laughed at EZA I think is them creating that character twice now and the insanity, intricacies and the surprising amount of lore that the character seemingly already had. But both times I've been bummed that they just had to drop it for time concerns and Defaulte is now once again gone from us indefinitely.

It's disappointing seeing a slight dip in their Patreon recently taking us further from the studio goal, but it sure seems they've picked up a ton of subs on Twitch recently. I wish that somehow contributed to the goal as well because I really think their streams from the studio (likely multiple people more often) will bring in a bigger audience for them as well.

Just some more unsolicited Easy Allies advice:
-Update the goals/Patreon.
Community comments for May were recently posted so they are a few months behind and I honestly don't think it's worth it all to continue it in the current way. Both April/May were 36 minute long heavily edited videos with Jones reading basically essay after essay. Both videos have less than 4k views. I know it's not about the views and yada, yada, yada...but as someone who could contribute to that tier, I've been skipping it every month. I like the idea of the community being involved in some way, but this just seems like a woeful use of their precious time.

-Game Sleuth/Retrospectives. I love both of these, but it's obvious they aren't focusing on these majorly, WHICH IS PERFECTLY FINE as they've added other great shows/content... Still, they're both on the Patreon and we're approaching a year and a half in and we've had likely 2 Retros (counting Souls one) and 3 Game Sleuths total.

-Studio hype up.
IF the studio is a priority for them, they've done a poor job of communicating what that would mean to them/us. Would this allow them to collaborate more? More group streams? More easily produce content (Top 10's return?)? Final Bosman-esque show return with a studio? More timely and less evergreen Huber Syndromes (I think I heard he records 4 at a time)? It could seriously be a game changer (or not), but if they are excited about it, it really hasn't been communicated well at all. I've heard a few quips in various streams, but the vast majority of their audience isn't aware of what a studio could potentially mean thus many are likely lukewarm towards contributing to that goal.

-Communication/social media
To piggy back on the last topic, promoting themselves or what they're doing is the only thing I'd say Easy Allies is 'bad' at. Thankfully, they aren't cagey or lying to the audience, they just aren't great at letting us know what they're doing at the current time. I follow many of them and Easy Allies on twitter, and they are never consistent with saying they are going live. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So many times I've just bopped in to Twitch and they are hours in to a stream that I never knew was happening (a bummer that many of these have been the sponsored group stream). I KNOW they have a website with a schedule, but it just seems kind of expected that they'd post/hype up streams/content (nearly 20k followers on twitter) as I'm sure much of their audience is on twitter everyday and not their website. Like, I don't want them going full-blown "Greg Miller constantly self promote mode," but find that happy medium. It's just odd seeing all their heavily followed Twitter accounts and how little all of them post about what they're doing/what they're excited about when it would definitely benefit them and potentially grow their following.

It's just wild to me the obvious amount of hard work they put into the various things they create and how little they promote it. I bet much of their more casual audience had no idea Easy Livin' was even happening this weekend. They posted about it once on their twitter at the beginning of their stream this weekend (1am my time, so I'm sure MUCH of their audience missed it) and never again after.

Also, there's the craziness of Bosman creating a new original show that only existing Patreons know/knew about, so they were the only ones being asked to contribute more to the Patreon (which I was happy to do! But, c'mon). I don't 1% feel that was done in a malicious way at all, just one of the weird EZA quirks, but it's just such an odd business move I can hardly even comprehend it.

Still, there's nothing like EZA and the group dynamic on the internet. Best in the biz, one of the greats, 10/10. They're only getting better with time and I can't wait to see what they do next.
 
Really hope Ian and Brad continue the jolly co-op playthrough someday, preferably on group stream night as it wouldn't be as fun without the other allies chatting away in the background about it.

They should make it a regular thing, a new show - called "Allied at the Hip."

Where Ian and Brad jolly-coop a different game each time. One hand each on one side of the controller.

See Quoted Post Above

I think EZA is at their best when they are doing their own unique things, especially in regards to the time and resources they have. Not necessarily what Giant Bomb is doing. And Patreon subscriptions go up and down, such as the nature of that kind of business model. Their patreon alone is bringing in over half a million dollars. That built success shouldn't warrant concerns, I don't think. Agreed on game sleuths / retrospectives. I think they need more people / resources to put them out in a more regular fashion and if anything, they should let patreons know up front at that tier that they should only expect one per year, if not longer.

I don't get what you mean by promotion? Do you expect them to allocate a big budget aside for an actual advertising campaign? Furthermore, they did tweet about it, and I for one appreciate them not spamming twitter every hour within the same information. EZA's audience is their patreon audience. It's a smaller, yet more highly engaged audience. That's how they are structured. And they've been having a lot of success with that method. Furthermore, they were getting 1,000 + views throughout the weekend, which is in line with their group stream days. Meaning the audience showed up. Remember the whole point of having a patreon is that they don't need to be thirsty to get every single random guy to watch their stuff. And to be honest, the audience, content and fan base is a lot better for it because they can better control things on both ends.

I get your concerns but you shouldn't be worried. I think these guys know what they are doing, as they've been doing it for years now. Of course naturally there is always room for improvement, and those improvements will come over time. In fact, I'm pretty sure everything you've said are things EZA has already internally discussed among themselves already.

EDIT: Also check out their website more often. It does a pretty good job of letting people know what's when and where.
 

abrack08

Member
-Communication/social media
To piggy back on the last topic, promoting themselves or what they're doing is the only thing I'd say Easy Allies is 'bad' at. Thankfully, they aren't cagey or lying to the audience, they just aren't great at letting us know what they're doing at the current time. I follow many of them and Easy Allies on twitter, and they are never consistent with saying they are going live. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So many times I've just bopped in to Twitch and they are hours in to a stream that I never knew was happening (a bummer that many of these have been the sponsored group stream). I KNOW they have a website with a schedule, but it just seems kind of expected that they'd post/hype up streams/content (nearly 20k followers on twitter) as I'm sure much of their audience is on twitter everyday and not their website. Like, I don't want them going full-blown "Greg Miller constantly self promote mode," but find that happy medium. It's just odd seeing all their heavily followed Twitter accounts and how little all of them post about what they're doing/what they're excited about when it would definitely benefit them and potentially grow their following.

It's just wild to me the obvious amount of hard work they put into the various things they create and how little they promote it. I bet much of their more casual audience had no idea Easy Livin' was even happening this weekend. They posted about it once on their twitter at the beginning of their stream this weekend (1am my time, so I'm sure MUCH of their audience missed it) and never again after.

Yeah I agree with all of this. Once the Easy Livin' GAF thread was made, I saw several people who post fairly regularly in this thread (so probably not even just casual fans) who had no idea it was happening ahead of time. They did post the announcement trailer on the YouTube channel eventually and mentioned it on a bunch of group streams but still, they gotta at least step their Twitter game up for @EasyAllies.
 

Budi

Member
-Communication/social media
To piggy back on the last topic, promoting themselves or what they're doing is the only thing I'd say Easy Allies is 'bad' at. Thankfully, they aren't cagey or lying to the audience, they just aren't great at letting us know what they're doing at the current time. I follow many of them and Easy Allies on twitter, and they are never consistent with saying they are going live. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So many times I've just bopped in to Twitch and they are hours in to a stream that I never knew was happening (a bummer that many of these have been the sponsored group stream). I KNOW they have a website with a schedule, but it just seems kind of expected that they'd post/hype up streams/content (nearly 20k followers on twitter) as I'm sure much of their audience is on twitter everyday and not their website. Like, I don't want them going full-blown "Greg Miller constantly self promote mode," but find that happy medium. It's just odd seeing all their heavily followed Twitter accounts and how little all of them post about what they're doing/what they're excited about when it would definitely benefit them and potentially grow their following.
Nice post, but about this part. It takes 5 seconds to open up the website so you don't need to "be" there. And you also get the benefit of the times being converted to your timezone, plus it's the entire schedule in advance and in a neat package rather than a separate tweet. Another extra would be the "in the works section". Let's not forget that all their videos are linked there so you immediately see what is new, also what is old. Every main show has their separate section for easier browsing. I don't see how Twitter would be better source for this, if people aren't using the website they are missing out and should fix that themselves. Set it as your homepage for convenience even.

And they actually tweeted about the Beach House in advance too, at monday on the same week.So there was plenty of time to catch the tweet, ofcourse maybe it gets drowned by the other tweets. Which is also why I really think that the website is better than Twitter. Also there was the youtube video to promote it + mentions in podcast and streams. I don't really believe that people would want daily reminders in Twitter or something. And again, everyone should check the website to see it's coming. The website is awesome, I can't say it enough. They need to promote that if something (tbf they have) and as I said earlier here, it needs to be included in the next OT!

Fair feedback nonetheless, good read.

Edit: One thing about the website actually, was talking about this with my friend at work. Some kind of bios of every ally would be great addition if possible. Something about their background, their interests, favorite games/genres, personality etc.Or just short freeform introduction. Something that introduces them especially to new viewers. They could even spice it up and every ally would write their own description of another ally. It's not a huge deal, but not everyone follows their podcasts/streams regularly where they would get to know the personalities. So especially considering reviews some might want to know what kind of guy is reviewing the game. If their taste matches with the writer.
 
Nice post, but about this part. It takes 5 seconds to open up the website so you don't need to "be" there. And you also get the benefit of the times being converted on your timezone, plus it's the entire schedule in advance and in a neat package rather than a separate tweet. Another extra would be the "in the works section". Let's not forget that all their videos are linked there so you immediately see what is new, also what is old. Every main show has their separate section even for easier browsing. I don't see how Twitter would be better source for this, if people aren't using the website they are missing out and should fix that themselves. Set it as your homepage for convenience even.

And they actually tweeted about the Beach House in advance too, on monday on the same week. Also there was the youtube video to promote it + mentions in podcast and streams. I don't really believe that people would want daily reminders in Twitter or something. And again, check the website to see it's coming.

Nice feedback nonetheless, good read.

I also don't think that Easy Livin' was some obscure event. They had good viewership numbers throughout the entire weekend. Much in-line with their group stream days.
 
I think EZA is at their best when they are doing their own unique things, especially in regards to the time and resources they have. Not necessarily what Giant Bomb is doing. And Patreon subscriptions go up and down, such as the nature of that kind of business model. Their patreon alone is bringing in over half a million dollars. That built success shouldn't warrant concerns, I don't think. Agreed on game sleuths / retrospectives. I think they need more people / resources to put them out in a more regular fashion and if anything, they should let patreons know up front at that tier that they should only expect one per year, if not longer.

I don't get what you mean by promotion? Do you expect them to allocate a big budget aside for an actual advertising campaign? Furthermore, they did tweet about it, and I for one appreciate them not spamming twitter every hour within the same information. EZA's audience is their patreon audience. It's a smaller, yet more highly engaged audience. That's how they are structured. And they've been having a lot of success with that method. Furthermore, they were getting 1,000 + views throughout the weekend, which is in line with their group stream days. Meaning the audience showed up. Remember the whole point of having a patreon is that they don't need to be thirsty to get every single random guy to watch their stuff. And to be honest, the audience, content and fan base is a lot better for it because they can better control things on both ends.

I get your concerns but you shouldn't be worried. I think these guys know what they are doing, as they've been doing it for years now. Of course naturally there is always room for improvement, and those improvements will come over time. In fact, I'm pretty sure everything you've said are things EZA has already internally discussed among themselves already.

EDIT: Also check out their website more often. It does a pretty good job of letting people know what's when and where.

I think I worded it weirdly, I didn't mean "copy" Giant Bomb at all. I meant more I enjoy the long play group thing which isn't really a Giant Bomb exclusive thing at all. They're just doing an excellent job at right now. Right now the vast, vast majority of group streams we get are 2 hour bits of games with no continuation. Love to see multiple of them dig into a meaty game where time is really no hindrance, which a studio might make that exponentially easier.

Also, probably worded it odd as well about the Patreon stuff. I'm not really concerned about the ebb and flow necessarily, just that people respond well to goals and clarity, and I think their next major goal, the studio, has been unclear.

About promotion, no didn't mean to actually use $ to advertise. I meant basically the only time they mention Patreon is 2 hours into a podcast. They also very, very rarely mentioned it all during Easy Livin'. They all have Twitter accounts that are strangely mostly silent when they're in the business of "putting themselves out there" so their content can get some eyes on it and the audience can support their careers.

I'm also not advocating "spamming" twitter whenever they do something, but they had a 50 hour 9 person livestream that they posted about once (real late at night for most) during the entire duration of the stream. Honestly, I would have posted once for each time they switched games. Like, it was nice seeing 1k plus during the stream, but there's no reason that this needs to be an "artificial" cap or anything. They make incredibly great content and there's no reason they need to be "under the radar."

Also, i'm not worried about them financially at all if it came out that way. But ask anyone in the world, probably especially people that live in an expensive city like LA, they'd like to be making more money. And frankly, they deserve to be making more money considering the beloved content they put out. More money means they can get out of Jones' garage, maybe travel more for events, more resources and other things that would serve to improve their product and their personal situations.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree I need to check the website more. IT IS a great resource. It's just that a reminder multiple hours in advance rarely helps me out. Unlike the website and I'm sure this true for many others, Twitter is an open tab on my computer all day long. So many times one of them or the official account has posted a minute or two before going live that I completely forgot about that I'll just click the link and tune in.
 

Budi

Member
I feel that reward tiers are better incentive than goals themselves. I can raise up my pledge with hopes to reach a goal but how long will it take that enough other people tag along. With interesting/fun/beneficial and what have you reward tiers, people raise the pledge and immediately get something for it so it's more compelling. So how would they get 1 dollar patrons to give one or two more and 5 dollar patrons to give 10. This would make the goals happen faster I think.
 

Budi

Member
They also very, very rarely mentioned it all during Easy Livin'. They all have Twitter accounts that are strangely mostly silent when they're in the business of "putting themselves out there" so their content can get some eyes on it and the audience can support their careers.

I'm also not advocating "spamming" twitter whenever they do something, but they had a 50 hour 9 person livestream that they posted about once (real late at night for most) during the entire duration of the stream. Honestly, I would have posted once for each time they switched games. Like, it was nice seeing 1k plus during the stream, but there's no reason that this needs to be an "artificial" cap or anything. They make incredibly great content and there's no reason they need to be "under the radar."
There's literally a "Support us at patreon.com/easyallies" on the screen for the entire stream whenever they are playing and not in fullscreen picture of the group. And they played what, about 30 games? 30 tweets in 50 hours for one continuous stream seems bit much. But sure I guess they could have tweeted atleast once a day. I really don't understand why this twitter thing is so important. Can't you just open up the easy allies website tab next to twitter tab, or maybe Twitch? Twitter is worse in so many ways as I said in my earlier post. I really hope they don't start to stress with the Twitter stuff, it's unneeded and unnecessary extra workload and will annoy some people if done to excess. It's not EZA error if someone doesn't know the schedule, it's an user error. (unless for some reason they don't update the website ofc). They have given us tools and people refuse to use them, but ask for personal reminders on the website they are accustomed to use. Reminders when the stream starts to people who already follow them won't make them grow financially. If you miss a stream live, they upload it to Youtube. No harm done.

Edit: Pfff, double post sorry. It's late, almost 4 am. I should sleep and soon wake up for work.
 
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