January 13, 2017

Streamer Spotlight : SlyyyPanda

When asked what exactly makes a “good streamer” some of the words and phrases that come up are: interactive, good gameplay, talkative, and consistent. These are just a few things that accurately describe Noble’s own SlyyyPanda. The definition of a social butterfly, Slyyy has never been one to shy away from a conversation with anyone. Perhaps his past in working in retail and sales prompted him for what would eventually become his current career as a Content Creator and Streamer. “I was going to school for studies in web and mobile application development with the ultimate goal of becoming a penetration tester until I eventually ended my studies due to working several positions in Finance and Real Estate that were lucrative enough to lure me away from my studies.”  Slyyy’s ability to interact with nearly every comment in his chat has always proved to be astounding considering how close-knit his community is in his chat. “I was always teased about being the social butterfly of the office because I would spend more time going around talking with everyone instead of locking myself away in my office working.” Slyyy hasn’t been shy in making sure 2016 was the year he started his stepping stone into streaming success, streaming consecutively for over 200 days – which ultimately lead him to his Sub Button on November 11th, 2016. A mere five days later, Slyyy made the decision to come on to Noble’s Stream Team – continuing to make strides in getting his name out there. Slyyy came on known as a Dead By Daylight main – becoming the self-proclaimed “Mayor Of Pallet Town”. As time moves on, he has evolved his gameplay in H1Z1 and is looking into showing off his competitive nature in Overwatch.

When you ask any regular in Slyyy’s stream or Slyyy himself as to what his stream ultimately feels like – one word comes to mind – Family. The community that was built by Slyyy and his viewers is one that can almost not be matched. Everyone in the stream, whether new or old, are treated the same. You’ll be welcomed with at least four hello’s and welcomes continued by everyone asking how you’re doing that evening. His community has proven to be a staple in his life, often helping make decisions to help navigate the direction of his success. Although Slyyy has the ultimate say in his decisions – he has made it very clear that the communication and connections his community holds are very dear to him. “I was brought to Twitch for viewer interaction while playing my favorite games, but over time our community has evolved to be so much more than that. Everyone in the community supports each other and interacts with each other both on and off stream, and time and again the community has proven to be a huge source of positive energy that powers our people through tough and stressful days.”

We wanted to get some insight on the origins of Slyyy’s streaming passion and how he’s looking into the future.

When did you start streaming and what inspired you to begin streaming?
I started streaming somewhat by a chance of circumstances one summer when my family decided to go on vacation. I was unable to go on vacation with them because of work but they needed someone to house sit for them and take care of their pets. At the time I was regularly playing Destiny on the Playstation 4 and was ranked in the top 1% in the world for a game mode called Trials of Osiris which was a competitive PVP mode. While house sitting I had transferred my account to my Dad’s Playstation so that I could continue to play without having to bring my own, and I noticed that he had one of the Playstation cameras set up for motion games. I had heard that there were was a website that you could stream games to and people would watch, and that on console you could stream directly to that site simply by hitting the share button on your controller and connecting an account. So I made an account on this website called Twitch and started sharing my gameplay along with the camera while I played Trials of Osiris over the weekend. To my surprise I ended up having 70-80 viewers show up and watch my gameplay and they all started asking me for tips and advice and how long I had been streaming. It was a lot of fun and I decided that it was something that I wanted to do more often. That weekend started my channel and as time went on I learned more about streaming, upgraded my stream setup, moved on to streaming with customizations and overlays through my computer and OBS, and I started streaming more and more. Eventually work got in the way and I took an 8 month break from streaming, but over that time I realized that I missed the community that I had been building and the interaction. It was 7 months ago that I decided that despite the great income I was not happy in the employment that I was in, and I wanted to try my hand at streaming full time – doing something that I genuinely enjoyed and cared about as opposed to something that simply paid the bills. In that time I’ve grown exponentially as a caster and channel, and we were able to reach our goal of Twitch Partnership. The rest of the story is still in the making, but I am here for the long haul in content creation and there are nothing but exciting things on the horizon.

What Games Do You Currently Play / Plan on Playing in the Future?
I started the channel as an extreme variety caster – different games almost every day, but now I primarily play H1Z1 and Dead by Daylight in order to build into specific game communities as our own community grows. Much of the variety that our channel used to have will now be a part of different series on our Youtube channel that will be launching this year. In the near future we are looking forward to playing Friday the 13th and Last Year as well as continuing to play some of our current games like H1Z1 and Overwatch.

What is your Favorite Game?
Currently, my favorite game is Overwatch because my gaming roots are in FPS, but I do not stream it often. However, that will change this year when I launch my split streaming schedule where there will be competitive games played in the morning time slot.

Have you ever played Competitive eSports Titles Before? If so, What titles? What’s your best accomplishment in these titles?
I have not played games competitively since my Halo 2 days where I played in local tournaments and such. I considered playing Overwatch competitively at one point but decided that putting time into my channel and other content creation was a better decision for me.

What is your Current Streaming Set-Up?
I use a dual PC setup for streaming – One PC dedicated to streaming/recording and one PC dedicated to gaming.

Stream PC: Quad core Skylake  i7, Nvidia GTX 980, 16GB RAM
Gaming PC: Six core Broadwell-e i7, Nvidia GTX 1080, 32GB RAM

The streaming PC captures video from the gaming PC via an Elgato HD60 pro capture card and all audio from both machines is fed to a Behringer Xenyx X-1204 mixer and then fed back to the stream PC for output.
Peripherals: Astro A50 headset, Audiotechnica 2040 condenser mic, Logitech c920 webcam, Razer Black Widow Chroma keyboard, Logitech g502 mouse.

What is your advice to aspiring Streamers?
Aspiring streamers often come to me for advice and there is so much information that I could give them because there is honestly so much to streaming that people do not see on the surface of a channel simply by watching, but if I had to give people just one thing to take away as a major contributing factor to channel success it would be consistency. You should stream as much and as often as you can afford to because at the end of the day channel success is a numbers game – you have to be exposed to as many people as you can. Find a time slot that works with your schedule and that you know you will have the energy and mental strength for, and stream at that time relentlessly. Your favorite TV show is on at the same time every day and every week without fail and your stream should be no different. It makes it easy for people to know when and where to find you, and most likely if you are consistent you will just become part of their daily routine.

How has your time been with Noble eSports?
My time with Noble has been great – they have been truly supportive of me and my channel as soon as I joined the team, and the interaction that I have had with the other casters has been nothing but positive, and I consider many of them friends. They have broken the mold in the way that many Twitch teams are viewed, and it is genuinely a family environment where everyone supports each other.

“Slyyy is a charming and down to Earth guy with a voice that belongs on the radio. His attitude and demeanor always make you feel like a part of the family in his chat. I’m so glad to see him come on board with Noble and can’t wait to see what the future holds for him.” – fellow Noble Streamer, Squigglepoof.

You can catch SlyyyPanda on Twitch every single day at 8 PM EST with an energy drink and his hookah in hand. Be sure to Tune in or Tab Up to support Slyyy. He will also be rocking the Front Page of Twitch from 9PM – 11PM EST every Tuesday until February 7th.