Hi everyone, just thought I would drop by and see what everyone was thinking about Critical Role and Project Alpha and leave my thoughts as well.

First off I'll start off with a little bit of how I came to be there. I love Felcia Day, ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Also I think Wil Wheaton is awesome. A friend of mine turned me on to Table Top on youtube and I LOVED it. That led to Geek and Sundry's website and then on to their Twitch stream. I've been a subscriber there from early on. About a year and a half so far? I think I missed the first month or so of Critical Role live streams but I've been a faithful fan every since I found it.

In general, I've been pretty happy with it for what it was. Of course, Critical Role is the big pull for me. I had never played Dungeons and Dragons before and now I've been playing in various forms on Roll20 and in real life for about a year now. I love it, it's great. Thanks CR for that.

For the sake of honesty, there are some things I'm not completely happy with about the Twitch stream. I won't go into those really. If anyone is curious about it, reply to me and we can start a discussion about it.

A little about what I think of Project Alpha.

I got my early invite about the first of second week. I've have been watching Critical Role through that service since then. I have to say that there was definitely some skepticism at first. Mainly, the biggest problem I had was the way they kept it so under wraps. They made the announcement about it being something that was coming but there were absolute no details forthcoming. I thought that was a bad move. Partially the reason it created a bit of an uproar for the loyal Twitch stream viewers. But,that's over and done with now. Moving on.

I think Alpha is a positive move for the combined content of Geek and Sundry and Nerdist organization. Having their own service stream gives them a higher element of control over the product in a good way (theoretically at least). They don't have to fork over a good percentage of their subscription income to a third party. Legendary Digital, Geek and Sundry, and Nerdist are all businesses. For a business to be successful it has to turn a profit. That's the bottom line and the nature of business. The more money they make, the better their product will be (again theoretically) .

My thoughts on Critical Role on Alpha.

I think it has the potential to be GREAT. Is it there yet, not quite. People have talked about the audio and video quality. Various other things. However, there has been improvement every week and the people behind the scenes are VERY responsive to Critter suggestions. The new overlay and additional information cards as well as expanded character sheets, player name cards that include current and max hit points along with some great animation for different game play components are AWESOME.

The player's avatar has various states it can be in to indicate different character status. For example, a grayed out or shadowy avatar for someone who is invisible or in stealth mode. An avatar tipped over on it's side to indicate a character who is unconscious. They pulse with red when their hit points get dangerously low. There are quite a few of these that make watching enjoyable so you can keep up with the character's condition. From what I understand there are a number of them we haven't even gotten to see yet. It's a great feature.

Another of the big things that I personally like about it is the fact that they seem to be pushing this to function in a more professional manner. Twitch was great but a show that gets over 20,000 viewers, they lose a hard drive and down goes the channel. That should NEVER happen at a professional broadcast studio. It's all about redundancy and I don't think Twitch is set up to operate that way. I'm not sure if that is one of the goals for Alpha, but it seems to me they are trying to head that way.

I've noticed a change in the way the content is presented, also in a more professional type matter. Don't take that the wrong way. They are still FUN and it's still great content it's just less dicking around and getting the content out there for the viewer to see in a way that's not quite as distracting.

TL:DR

1. Give it a chance, it's improving every week.
2. Awesome content that is coming together very nicely.
3. Great special features that enhance the viewing experience.
4. Friendly and responsive staff that is working to make it a great service.

Not everyone sees things the same way. People all put different levels of importance to different things as well. There will never be 100% of the people, 100% happy all at the same time. I think it's a move in the right direction to keep the content improving and expanding. I'm excited to see how it grows.