Ultimate Empire Showdown - Commander Cyrious Interview

Greetings, soldier! 

The Ultimate Empire Showdown begins this Sunday 11/20 and in celebration of our 10th Anniversary Event, we want to take some time to interview the team captains! Today we had a chat with Commander Cyrious, team captain of the Terran Republic. Learn how the commander became a prominent content creator in the PlanetSide 2 community.

Hello Commander Cyrious!

From spectacular player guide videos on Youtube to intense infantry combat on Twitch broadcasts, your content has reached the eyes of many players from around the world. Tell us how your journey to becoming a content creator for PlanetSide 2 began and how you’ve become one of the most prominent PlanetSide 2 creators on Youtube.

This game really has been developed with player feedback in mind.  I had my own ideas of things I would love to tweak or rework in Planetside 2.  I started video creation as an outlet for those ideas.  It was fun to imagine and reimagine things like the battle flow in Planetside 2, and what was more rewarding was the resulting discussion generated in the community.

Walk us through some of your most memorable moments in your broadcast journey with PlanetSide 2.

What really put me on the map was asking “Is it still worth playing Planetside 2” after the game had already been live for 5 years.  The greater gaming community really responded positively, many not knowing a game like this existed and grateful to finally find it.  From there we have had a blast casing out of the Cyrious News Network headquarters, going over all the game updates live.  Outfit Spotlights, Community Smashes, and Outfit Wars have always been a blast to highlight and some of the most fun streams for me are just Saturday Morning Platoons with fans and followers.

What are some of the commander’s processes when it comes to content drafting for PlanetSide 2? How are the ideas imagined and then executed in your space?

Coming up with a video for me is really about asking the question “How can we make Planetside 2 better?” or “What would help a new player get into Planetside 2 and have more fun with it?”  From that point I work out what sort of training would be most helpful or come up with a good discussion topic to share my opinions on, and get the community’s feedback on.

What kind of preparations must go in place when leading a platoon for PlanetSide 2’s 10th Anniversary event, the Ultimate Empire Showdown?

Well, it starts with the word FIRE!  And then you just never call cease fire.  Embrace the dakka, and advance relentlessly with wild suppressive fire.

 But really, it's about sending the call out to all those brave soldiers that have been doing glorious battles in Planetside 2 for 10 years plus.  The privilege is all mine to stand shoulder to shoulder with these experienced, veteran players.  Each one of them knows the battlefield just as well as I and all our combat prowess coming into focus as one Ultimate Empire Showdown force will be unstoppable!

What advice would you give a player looking to take part in squad leading in PlanetSide 2?

Be confident in your decisions and focus on creating an adventure for your audience (Squad or Platoon Members). You are going to make the wrong call sometimes, that’s OK.  Your job is not to be 100% correct but keep the adventure moving with new objectives.  Sometimes a battle charge, even if it won’t win the base, can be the most fun adventure for the moment.  If you make a bad call, call it out and have a laugh about it, and then immediately move on to the next adventure.

For future content creators looking to follow in your footsteps, what tips could you give to help guide them through growing their presence in the PS2 content creation space?

Content Creation has to be about passion first and not about “making it.”  Find topics you are interested in talking about, you can do a bit of searching to see where your interests line up with what people are watching and make great videos about it with no expectation of views.  Once you have built up a library of your original content, people will either discover you, if its what’s on the community’s mind, or you can share those ideas at the right moment.

Thank you Commander Cyrious for this awesome Q&A session, we wish you and your team the best on this weekend’s event!

God Speed Fellow Auraxian!  I will see you... Planetside!

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- Mithril, PlanetSide 2 CM