Posted by John Irwin on December 8, 2011

In the gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas every day is crammed full of everything happening all at the same time. VanillaTV have a habit of making every day feel like that. When WIP last talked to them they were finishing up i43 so we start this show from there.

Comedian opens himself up on reddit to an AMA (ask me anything) though it seems unnecessary; he’s so open and truly excited by everything he’s doing he could easily be living an AMA everyday. In fact when South Africa’s own TF2 community interviewed him they have to pair him off with Salamancer to get any exclusive content.

That’s the thing with streaming live content, it’s addictive. As Comedian puts it, you’ve got to enjoy the spotlight at least a little. Little wonder then that VanillaTV is looking to other forms of media than the live shoutcasting, namely podcasting. With no current competition in the European market this can only be a smart move for them. Another smart move was Byte patching tings up with eSports hero, ThePledge. Now those two are back on friendly terms vtv has an excellent new caster on their roster and everyone is happy.

One of the more interesting moves for vtv was away from their video streaming partners, TwitchTV. Comedian discusses the thoughts behind the jump to own3d.tv and the benfits it provides in combinations for an increased presence on YouTube.

I personally feel in some way responsible for Comedian meeting Ruskeydoo, the 3D artist behind so many TF2 items (including the KritzKast Lo-Fi Longwave). With that encounter a sketch on a napkin has turned into the living, breathing model of a unicorn strapped to spy’s head. On its mention Comedian almost breaks down with pleasure, I can see why. The hat is ultra dopey looking but caries the charm of random excitement of the whole VanillaTF2 team. While no promises have been made that it will make it into the game yet, it stands a reasonable chance even on its own merits.

Not content with hats, WIP has a second exclusive from this chat. VanillaTV are organizing their very own two-day TF2 cup. Sometime in the next couple of months we’ll see two tiers of players battling it out to win mousemats designed by Torden. I’ve not seen them yet but I have a suspicion unicorns may be involved