I mentioned in my blog in August 2023, which talked about my troubles with depression, that when I was feeling better from my most recent spike of depression, I was going to reassess my midterm and long term goals and write a blog. It took a while but I’ve been doing better for the last few months and I think it’s finally time to write that blog. I’ve already updated my Projects page.
On the project page you’ll find a list of projects, organized by priority. Each project has a little blurb what it is. Many of the projects are goals in and of themselves, but I am still reevaluating my non-project orientated goals. If I share those, they will be in a separate blog.
The rest of this blog will be about my projects. i won’t go over every project I mention on the projects page, but I did want to highlight a few projects, including a new one. First I’d like to say a few things on how I shuffled around the priorities on projects
Changing of the Priorities
If you remember what the projects page looked like before, the first thing you might have noticed is that many projects have moved down in priority. If fact, some of them have been added to a new category, the Graveyard. That, as you might guess, is where projects go to die, if any project really dies. A total of five projects are now put to rest
You might also notice that there is a trend for many of the older projects to be shifted down in Priority, I wanted to narrow my focus to make sure I could keep up on creating the content I feel I’m able to create on a more consistent basis.
My number one priority for the YouTube Channel is making sure that I post weekly content. Last year I managed to post every week all but twice, which I consider that to be a win. This year I’ve been trying to keep up on weekly content and so far I have, but I’m less concerned if I miss a week here or there.
One thing I need to get back to doing is posting YouTube Shorts. I just ran out of video to cut up and post. I need to work on creating a new backlog of fighting video I can do that with, but I’m less concerned with posting Shorts than I am longer form content. Shorts will really help grow the channel though, so I need to get back to doing that.
Discord
It’s time to try and rebuild the Discord server! When I first started streaming I thought it was important to have a Discord and while it did get some use, the community was small and it was hard to keep everyone engaged and it fizzled out. That was a few years ago.
I’m not sure why, but I studently got the bug and I wanted to try and relaunch the Discord. The community has grown and there was some interest, well enough interest for me to try again. I’m as surprised as you are!
My plans are pretty simple. I’ll be posting weekly discussion topics and try and do at least one community event a month. I know we’ll do watch parties, but I’m up for other community events too. The first movie will be the class 1981 movie Excalibur.
I hope to create a place for the community to hangout, talk about nerd stuff, specifically LARP, TTRPG and Writing, as those are the corner stones of my content and share resources. I want use to build each other up and have a good time while doing so!
I’m open to suggestions and I’ve created a forum on the discord for people to post suggestions, both for the discord and for future content. Join HERE!
New Project: Fighting League
This is my big new project for this year. I honestly tried to do it during winter to be released in spring, but that didn’t work out. Luckily all the people who were willing to do it in the winter are still willing to do it now. But I’m getting a head of my self, what exactly is this new project?
What Is This New Project?
Well, it’s a tournament of sorts. I’m doing a single elimination sword and shield tournament with eight people. I know, sounds kind of boring and honestly really short. How long can that really take? Well, It’s not just a single fight and it’s more than just a best two out of three. Each will fight will consist of 35 rounds and the person with the most wins will be considered the winner and will move on.
You might be thinking “Wow, that’s a lot of fights!” but honestly it’s not that many. Based off some tests it will lead to a video between five and ten minutes long. It will also be slower paced than my Foam Fights videos. I have a goal of making it easier for people to follow who wins and who loses.
The opponents will tap swords, when they die they will say say dead and put their sword on their head. They will then reset, tap swords again and fight their next round. I hope this will make it easier for people to tell the results of each fight. I know it can be hard to tell who wins a fight sometimes, even for people who can follow the fights.
The Bigger Plan
I’m excited to see how this turns out and to see the feedback from people. This is actually the first of many steps into building up to a rather ambitious narrative drive project that I wanted to get off the ground two years ago, the Gladiators of the Shows project. It was way to ambitious at the time. I decided I would take aspects of that larger idea and break it down into smaller projects that were something I could more easily attempt.
If this first attempt works out and there is enough interest I aim to try and make this a new staple of my content. I will try to create a tournament once or twice a year, depending on logistics. Eventually it might even morph into the Gladiators of the Shadows project, but I’m getting way a head of myself thinking of such lofty goals.
What Is the Time Table?
I do have a time table for this project but I’m hesitant to share it. I will say that I want to start publishing the videos at some point this summer. While I do have the contestants lined up, I’m still in the middle of scheduling the filming, it’s proving to be a little difficult given people’s schedules.
I will say that I would like to have the first trailer for the project out in July, but that’s about as much as I’m willing to commit to. Even then, I’m worried things could fall through so take that with a grain of salt, but I am very excited for this project and want to start hyping it up as soon as I can.
Upcoming Content
Given that I try to post content every week I have a lot of content coming up. Some videos takes more work to develop than others, but I wanted to take a moment to mention everything I plan to put out this year.
SKBC Videos
I have several things I’m working on that will come out this year. One thing people are sure to be eagerly awaiting is my SKBC class content. It’s coming but it might take some time. Editing the classes down to a digestible format isn’t as simple as uploading the raw video to YouTube. I want to break it down into chapters and structure it in some a way as to be better digested than simply the raw video.
I have two classes I recorded, Single Sword and Combat Computer. It’s likely that the Combat Computer course will be released first. I hope to have both videos out by the end of summer, but that is a soft time table. I have a lot of things going on this summer and I don’t want to over commit. That can lead to disappointment if something happens that causes me to miss said timetables.
I didn’t get as much SKBC video as I hoped, just those two classes and one Foam Fights video. That Foam Fights video is some what special, it’s Devry vs Nip and it just happened to be the first fight of SKBC 2024. You can view it HERE.
Foam Fights
I of course will continue to record my Foam Fights videos. It’s one of the core video types of this channel and that isn’t going away. Sadly, other than the one from SKBC, at the time of this writing I don’t have any on deck to edit and post. I need to get more lined.
I know that I will be able to record some in June at the Northern Lights Mid-reign campout. I certainly hope I have a few recorded and posted between now and then.
LARP Chats
I will have a new season of LARP Chats this year, I’ve already recorded three episodes. I’m not sure how many I will end up having. I think having as many as the first season is a bit ambitious, but I would like to get a total of six published this year. This seasons theme is community and what I’m pretty happy with I have so far.
Let’s LARP
I have several ideas for videos for this series but they are all still in the early stage. The last one I did (Link HERE) was more me talking about my history in the game and telling some stories. It was a new type of video for the series and I would like to do more.
I’m working on some leadership content for this video series as well. One video I’m workshopping is how people can dip their toes into leadership roles at the local level in Amtgard. I got some good ideas but I’m still brainstorming ideas, I haven’t even gotten to the point of outline a script.
Baelnorn and Friends
My goal this year with this chat show was to do it once a month. I’m going to fail that, but I’m okay with that. I’ve been pretty good so far, I’ve done one each month, but I won’t be able to do one in April, I just don’t have the free time. It happens, but I’m not going to let that get me down.
One thing I’ve done this year is make the show have a general topic that will will be discussing. February it was the Amtgard v9 Rules and March was NLCC. I think it’s turned out well so I’m going to keep doing it. Mind you, the show isn’t just about a specific topic, but it is what we start talking about at the beginning and set the town for the episode.
Final Thoughts
I’m excited for the rest of the year, between my big new project and restarting the Discord server I looking forward to having a lot of fun. The big surprise for me is wanting to get the Discord going again. When I started writing this blog it wasn’t event a consideration, then, out of no where I got the inspiration to give it another go. I hope you’ll join me in creating a fun community place to gather!
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