We recently took some time to chat with streamer and long time player Kripparrian, to find out some of his favourite Path of Exile memories and what his life is like outside of gaming!

Hi Kripparrian, thanks so much for joining us for this interview! For those who may not be familiar with you yet, can you please introduce yourself?

Hey there! I'm Kripp, and I've been playing video games all of my life, starting from when I was 3 years old. I've been fortunate enough to be able to make a living off of it since 2012, and luckily Path of Exile has been part of my gaming routine for most of those years.

We owe you a huge deal of thanks for helping to popularise Path of Exile in its early days. What is your favourite memory of your earliest days playing Path of Exile?

My favorite part about PoE is to successfully create a new character and build that has not been done before. In the early days this was a much harder task, especially on Hardcore, as there were far fewer ways to reach acceptable levels of survivability and damage. My proudest moment of the early days in Path of Exile was successfully building my CI burning Discharge Templar.

What one thing caught your attention in the beginning and what one thing kept you coming back?

It always sparks my urge to play again when a new league is announced. I always play a new build that I've created, and I love to try to make it as strong as possible with the consideration of all the new mechanics and build options that come with each major update.

What is your overall favourite build from your entire Path of Exile playtime?

Besides, of course, the burning Discharge from the early days, I really enjoyed my super-budget Poison Blade Flurry + Abyssal Cry Berserker I made for Breach League. It was a very fast character with incredible damage, taking full advantage of the double dip damage over time mechanics, all while doing it on a budget from scaling with Hidden Potential and the use of blue items.

You recently played a Path of Exile private league with item scarcity mods. How did you find that experience?

In Delirium I made a private league in which only white and unique items could drop. I wanted to do this because I loved the Delirium mechanic, but hated having to run back through the entire map a second time just to pick up loot. One quirk about this league was that the items dropped from the Delirium mirror ignored the private league drop restriction and it became the only way to get things like veiled modifiers. This was fantastic as it made what were normally the worst Delirium loot options the most desirable as I slowly and painstakingly worked my way to being able to craft rare veiled mods on my gear. Overall, I preferred to play the game this way, and if not for the cumbersome experience of managing a private league, probably would otherwise play it over a normal league.

What are your favourite memories from attending ExileCon and visiting New Zealand?

The best part about ExileCon was to finally meet and hang out with the many Path of Exile content creators I had played with and have watched for many years. Together with my wife and business partner, Rania, we took full advantage of our trip to New Zealand and got to see many sights. New Zealand seemed like a magical place where modern society, nature, history, and culture all co-exist in perfect balance.

Which was your favourite Path of Exile league or expansion?

It's hard to think of a league that truly stands out as I had a good time in so many. Out of the recent leagues, I quite enjoyed Ultimatum as it always seemed worthwhile to play through the new mechanic and it felt rewarding each time.

What one thing would you change about Path of Exile if you were in charge?

I would make it a priority to re-do old mechanics and create new ones while being mindful of how many clicks need to be performed during play. Loot vacuums or pets and optimized inventory/stash management would be at the top of that list.

A long time ago, you famously died to a twinned Alira map boss that used corpse explosion. Does this still haunt you or have people largely forgotten?

People certainly have not forgotten this moment! During the Zizaran's Gauntlet for the 3.14 patch, I funded a bounty for someone to die in this exact manner, and while it was eventually claimed, it was actually very challenging as her corpse explosion constantly hits other corpses and you are more likely to just die to her attacks.

What made you want to start streaming?

After making gaming videos on YouTube for 2 years (for no money), their policy changed to where you could now monetize gaming content. This lined up nicely with the release of Diablo 3 so I made a team to take on the game as hardcore as possible, and they suggested that we stream our experience on Twitch.

What were you doing before you started?

Before I was a streamer, I was working as a computer tech and played games in my free time.

How has your life changed from before you were streaming until now?

Well, I have been streaming most of my adult life at this point, so as one would expect, life is entirely different. Gaming is now the job, but we have done well over the years, so we have been able to afford stability and nice things.

What hobbies or interests do you have outside of streaming?

Travelling with Rania, playing with our dogs, watching every show and movie Marvel puts out.

What is one piece of advice you'd give to someone trying to make a career out of streaming?

You should always begin streaming as a hobby, while managing your expectations. Nobody should begin streaming with an expectation of making a career out of it. If you enjoy streaming, and your viewers steadily increase, you can consider making a career out of it then.

What's the biggest difference between the experience of being a content creator many years ago compared to now?

Content creation has become very competitive and heavily managed these days. We have seen a lot more sketchy things happen in recent years, such as viewbotting. Thankfully, these notions don't seem to apply to Path of Exile's content creators. I feel this game is quite blessed with the quality of content creators that have supported the game tirelessly for so many years.

Are there any up-and-coming streamers that you'd like to shine a spotlight on?

I rarely get any chance to watch other streamers these days. The closest thing to up-and-coming streamers that I've watched lately include already established and fairly popular PoE streamers such as Steelmage, Mathil, Ziz, Nugiyen, Ghazzy, etc.

Do you have any projects on the horizon you'd like to talk about?

We have been trying to do weeklong streamathons, streaming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, during major content launches. Our first attempt at this was fairly successful during the 3.15 launch for PoE. We are excited to try to keep this going for future patches and games.

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Thank you so much for participating in the interview! If you'd like to follow Kripparrian, you can do so on Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch. Also, don't forget that you can support both Kripparrian and the development of Path of Exile by buying microtransactions from his Nexus page!