State of the Role: Announcing Beacon! Our New Membership Service

Ultragramps, 17 days ago

I’m curious about this side project also, The Re-Slayers Take

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/ee7f961a-a51c-4bc5-b6df-50bd804fe286.jpeg

Ultragramps, 17 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

Beacon Exclusives

CRITICAL ROLE FIRESIDE CHAT

Join us in the tavern for a monthly Ask Me Anything (AMA) series where you can sit down with us and learn more about our Critical Role cast and guests! Questions will be curated directly from Beacon members via Discord and each episode will feature a different cast member for a 30-60 minute LIVE fireside chat. Cozy up by the fire and enjoy the deep dive with us starting May 21st with our first guest, Matthew Mercer!

CRITICAL ROLE COOLDOWN

Get a backstage pass to a Critical Role episode! You’ll be right there at the table immediately after Matt says “Is it Thursday yet?”, experiencing the cast’s post-show reactions. Share in the tumult of theories, the chaos of questions, and the pitching of plans from the cast after the show. If you’ve ever wondered what lies just beyond the curtain, this is your chance to find out! Starting with Campaign 3, Episode 83, you’ll get instant access to 10 episodes with new episodes dropping every Thursday with each new Critical Role episode.

BEACON EARLY-ACCESS

THE RE-SLAYER’S TAKE

Follow the audio escapades of the second-coolest monster hunters this side of Exandria: The Re-Slayer’s Take! After six misfit mercenaries are rejected from the elite monster hunting group, The Slayer’s Take, they band together as The Re-Slayer’s Take, battling supernatural creatures across the rugged continent of Issylra. But will they be able to overcome the plight of The Timberblight and its undead army? Can Idrin, Farah, Heera, Frog, Timpani, and Poogs learn to work together through it all? This all-ages actual play is carefully edited into a tightly woven narrative that’s easily digestible in bite-size episodes, making for a fresh new suite of Exandrian adventures for a long-time Critter, or a perfect first dip into the world of Critical Role.

The cast is led by a duo of game masters, George Primavera and Nick Williams (Hero Club), with the main cast including Jasmine Bhullar, Jasper William Cartwright, Caroline Lux, and Jasmine Chiong. The Re-Slayer’s Take premieres Monday, May 20th everywhere podcasts are found with new episodes every Monday. Beacon members get early access to episodes and stay two weeks ahead of the free feeds.

Learn more about The Re-Slayer’s Take on Beacon!

CRITICAL ROLE ABRIDGED

All the twists and turns of an episode of Critical Role in half the time! In Critical Role Abridged, the rich tapestry of a Critical Role campaign is lovingly distilled to its most pivotal, hilarious, and poignant moments in about 60-90 minutes per episode. Our Lorekeepers have ensured you’ll catch all the crucial plot points, characters, and worldbuilding you’ll need to get started with Critical Role, catch up to the current episodes, or revisit old friends. Plus, each episode is enhanced with new pieces of artwork, bringing key characters, items, and moments to greater visual detail.

Critical Role Abridged begins with Critical Role’s third campaign, Bells Hells, with new episodes airing every Tuesday at 10am Pacific. Beacon members receive the first 12 episodes right away with two new episodes dropping every week on Tuesdays & Fridays. However, to celebrate the launch of Beacon, we’ll be dropping the first 4 episodes on YouTube over the next week for everyone to enjoy!

TheDeepState, 20 days ago

Pass

jawa21, 20 days ago

This seems like a very ill-advised move. Video hosting, whether streaming or locally stored is extremely expensive. Their videos in decent quality are going to be a couple of gigs each. The cost of bandwidth for people to watch alone is going to be at a loss financially, not to mention the required tech side and the storage of the media.

LTT has many times the viewership and can barely justify their video service (FloatPlane). I do hope this does well for them but I will never be signing up because in my opinion this is doomed to fail.

Backfire, 20 days ago

A few weeks back LTT mentioned on the WAN Show that some YouTube channel would be transitioning to their own (paid) platform; said platform appeared to be running on the Vimeo video backend. If anything, using an external backbone seems like the smart way to go at it.

thisisdee, 21 days ago

If anyone here is a subscriber, please share what you think!

thisisdee, 19 days ago

I signed up for the free trial and I love CR Cool Down. It’s great to see the group discuss the episode, and Matt explaining things here and there.

I’m not a big Discord user but it’s not bad there either. Some of the cast has dropped by to say hi but overall it seems to have a good vibe there.

thisisdee, 21 days ago

Just wondering for users here, do you subscribe to them on Twitch? Or membership on YouTube? And are you planning on subscribing to this new service?

As someone who’s not in the US, I feel like some of their additional perks would be US focused and I won’t get as much value but I do like the idea of supporting CR without Twitch/YouTube getting their cut first (depending on whatever deal CR has with those companies I guess)

Ultragramps, 21 days ago

From what I understand they’re following the model of Dropout.tv and it should have the same services available in all regions. The main selling point, from what I can tell is the extra footage, such as the Session 0 prep for the upcoming live show that they announced would be part of the initial rollout. This is good news to the people who thought they would miss out on some of the campaign. I wouldn’t be surprised if they added their own serialized content like Dropout recently did with Thousandaires.

thisisdee, 21 days ago (edited 21 days ago)

Yes I think with perks I was mostly thinking of event presales, which would mostly be in the US. I’d still get the extra content and merch discounts outside of the US. Then again, if they never do shows near Australia, it doesn’t really matter to me haha. I’m definitely tempted to subscribe, especially since I ended by Twitch sub a few months ago. Side note I just clicked on the appstore link from beacon.tv and the app is not available in my region 😅

As long as their main campaign continues to be available for free on YouTube and Twitch, I’m on board with them expanding their production company to new shows with this model.

Ultragramps, 20 days ago

the app is not available in my region

That’s a bummer. I’m fairly certain they’re planning something in Straya. Being a show in the anglophone sphere, it’s a larger market than the UK (though their show in London was certainly boosted by EU travelers).

thisisdee, 20 days ago

Yeah that’s a big issue with AU. It’s so far away from anywhere else that we won’t have nearly enough travelers to come here