Twitch Streamer Series- Part 49

There are those streamers who enjoy using their cameras and those who don’t so it’s always a different experience when you can see the streamer and their reaction to just hearing their reactions through their voices while they play games. My favorite are always those with the camera on and they have decided to play horror games because their facials are hilarious!

1. What is your Twitch name?                                                                                                                           My Twitch name is Banestorm and you can find me on twitch at twitch.tv/banestorm.
2. Is there a special reason you chose that name?                                                                                      A majority of my pc gaming career was spent playing MMORPG’s one of which was World of Warcraft which I played for 11 years. I was always creating characters and deleting them, putting them in the guild and taking them out. Wasn’t long before members couldn’t keep up with all my characters so to make it easier I always created my character as Bane something. Banestorm was one of the names I carried into other games as well, especially anything where I was gonna have lightning abilities.
3. Why did you become a Twitch Streamer?                      My wife and I are parents to a special needs daughter with physical and developmental issues. At periods throughout her life, she has needed extra help and support at home to aid her in school, physical therapy etc. As she is older now and spends a majority of her time in school, I searched for something to keep me busy while I took my turn as the homemaker. That’s when I found Twitch. I was hooked instantly.
4. Why did you choose to stream for Twitch?                                                                                                   Because that’s where the party is at. Quite honestly it had more people than any other streamer service so there was more people to meet and possibly game with because I was, and continue to be, a follower for several communities. I like being part of different communities for different games and Twitch provides the most options.
5. How long have you been a streamer?                                                                                                           I’m currently on my third year of streaming and have no plans to stop soon.
6. Do you only stream or do you have another job? If you are comfortable in telling my readers, what is your other job?                                                                                                                     I’m currently streaming full-time thanks to having perhaps the greatest wife on the planet. When we sat and talked about the opportunity I had to do this thing while staying at home with my daughter, she told me to go for it. She has been 100% behind me for this without hesitation. Even on my worst days when I want to throw in the towel she is the one who picks me up tells me to reach for the dream. 
7. What are your favorite games to play?                                                                                                           I enjoy a lot of different genres and I’m generally down to try most titles. The games that I really enjoy the most are multiplayer games such as co-op pve games or squad/team based pvp games. I occasionally play single player story driven games but not to often.
8. What are your favorite games to stream?                                                                                                       As a variety streamer I play a lot of different games on stream from popular games that don’t take a lot of time to pick up and learn and even less time to master to games that have a higher skill cap and require some instruction or research to get you started. But, to be quite honest my favorite part is learning a game with my community. Whether it be a new game or an older game that I’ve never played I love sitting down and asking questions about the game and letting the chat teach me. And I love when I’m learning a game on stream and someone else who is just learning comes into the chat. We begin to form this brainstorm learning environment. One of the hardest things about learning a game is knowing WHAT questions to ask and in a group environment that process can really spark conversation.
9. Do you have any games that you would like to recommend to my readers to play and why?                                                                                                                                                                 There so many I could recommend but generally when answering this question I like to pick 2 games that almost always get passed up
   by gamers.                                                                                                                                                       War Thunder is a cross-platform multiplayer vehicular combat MMO set in the World War II era. It has both hand and airplane combat with naval combat currently in development. It has arcade, realistic, sim and custom combat modes. It has what I believe is the best free to play model for F2P games and has infinite value because you never have to spend a penny in this game to enjoy its full content. While premium vehicle and premium time are available to help you grind tech trees faster they are not required or are often given away as rewards or
   prizes for events.                                                                                                                                                Mechwarrior Online is also a free-to-play vehicular combat MMO by Piranha Games that has, you guessed it. BIG STOMPY ROBOTS. This game is quite possibly the best F2P game on the market. The community is absolutely amazing and the Mechwarrior Universe is as rich in lore and content out of  the game as titles like Warhammer 40K and Warcraft. If I were to settle into one game and make it my main game, this would be it.
10. Was it hard to talk to your viewers when you first became a streamer? How long before you became at ease with streaming?                                                                                                  It’s still hard for me on a daily basis. As a person who grew up in a small town where everyone knows each other large groups of people or public speaking scares me to death. I have the absolute worst stage fright. I find the more comfortable I get with a game and talking about it, the easier it becomes to initiate or engage in a conversation with a viewer. But anytime I try something new, I have to walk around and pump myself up before stream, look in the mirror give myself the motivational speech, pretty much everything short of throwing up. 
11. Would you like to tell my readers anything else about yourself or your channel on Twitch?                                                                                                                                                                 Just that I hope anyone interested in stopping should know I am an absolutely terrible gamer. I have definitely passed my prime in gaming and my prime probably wasn’t that good. I aspire to be average and most games so because of that I’m in it for fun of it. I do play some competitive games like Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm but rarely get on the ladders to rank up. I want everyone to have a fun experience where winning is secondary. I have always been taught and still believe in my heart… It’s not whether you win or lose but HOW you play the game!

Don’t listen to his hogwash about being a terrible gamer! He does just fine when I go visit him and watch his stream. Though I mostly lurk in there, it is a great stream. And he likes to play with others and that always makes it even more entertaining. His channel is  twitch.tv/banestorm so come and join him.