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sumichu: 2015-01-25 05:28:13 am
that Metroidvania guy
I hope AGDQ was fun for everyone! I feel like a lot of the main issues this time were mysterious tech problems that came up, and that will be the main focus of this thread. As always, we request you skim over the contents of this post and read the full details of anything relevant to you before posting your feedback. Check the replies as well so that you don't repeat information. Remember to use constructive criticism, because it will help us understand your concerns much better. With all that said, let's dive in!
The Hotel
I don't think there's much to go over here. I felt the staff was nice to work with, the space worked pretty well, and the main downside was the location and insufficient shuttle coverage for the local area. It is possible that we can grow and still come back to this hotel for one more year, and if we do that, we will be looking into using an outside shuttle service so that people can feel confident about going places when they need to.
I know something that has come up a couple of times is people's cards being overcharged, but that is something that seems to happen once in a while with large groups, regardless of the hotel. If you had an issue with this and did not resolve it with the hotel already, let us know so that we can assist you in clearing it up. There is definitely no malicious intent by the hotel with this, it is just that mistakes happen once in a while when you go through tons of reservations.
Hotel Wifi and Cell Coverage
The hotel wifi was brought to our attention as an issue several times, particularly as a question for streaming. Our policy moving forward with hotel wifi usage, regardless of where we stay, is that we will not allow it to be used for streaming. If you want to do a side stream during the event, you will either need to set up a 4G stream or provide your own wifi hotspot.
Cell phone coverage in the basement of the hotel has been identified as a problem, so if we return to this venue then we will look to accomodate attendees a little more to deal with it. While we cannot avoid using the rooms entirely, we will probably be focusing on having arcade machines down there and extra casual gaming space. We will not necessarily have the tournament room downstairs next time, but will consider branching off a section of each casual room for that type of activity.
Marathon Room Layout/Stream Setup
For the audience/general participant side of things, the main improvement is going to be having more open space for easier access to the main streaming area. Other improvements being considered that were actually desired for this event but held off because of not having enough time include giving host the ability to mute themselves when needed and giving the couch the ability to control the timer.
For tech, the biggest fix also involves better use of space, but for cords. We also will be moving the console rack so that it does not block people. The rack itself was very useful, but not in a very good spot. The decision to put it there was mainly to have it closer to the stream setup, but it is a bigger priority to not have it create awkward situations for the camera setups or have it block people's path.
We also want to have another sectioned off area to cut to when we inevitably have some long
setups (because even when things are nearly perfect, they still happen), and we will be working with individuals who have expressed interest in helping out with extra content so that we make better use of downtime. We felt this was a little overdue, and was another plan that suffered from not having enough time leading up to the event. Overall, we feel we have more than enough space to accomplish all of our goals, but will need the hotel to take care of the trash before we start to make it all happen.
Four Way Races
Mysterious tech problems during races were some of the biggest causes of delays. While we will be making it easier/faster for staff to switch out things when needed (like if a splitter or cord goes bad for no reason right before a race, because SotN), we will also probably cut down on the number of four way races in the future. It became apparent this time that having extra screens does not necessarily benefit a race unless the commentary is AMAZING (good or event great commentary doesn't necessarily cut it when people are trying to follow so much going on). Therefore, even when we have highly competitive games, we will probably refrain from doing a four way race except in a few special cases. The inevitably longer setup times are usually not worth it.
Stream Layouts
The layouts were a vast improvement over previous GDQs but still have plenty of work to be done. An obvious addition to make is having incentives on the rotation (which will take some extra work with the tracker and won't be something we have available in the next couple of weeks), and some other info that is not super pertinent could go there once in a while as well. The layouts will be open source, and we highly welcome improvements/suggestions for them.
Tracker
Aside from fixing the bugs that did cool stuff like not displaying hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, some other improvements in mind mainly focus on improving visibility of the tracker and making it so that it's not an eyesore or huge hassle to find data in it. By SGDQ, the tracker should be something more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. We’ll keep you updated on the progress.
Bonus games on schedule
I'm sorry that we did not make it clear enough that being on the bonus list for the schedule did not guarantee the run being an incentive or on the main schedule due to possible time constraints. In the future, we'll be less cute with setup block names and make this more explicit.
Bonus Stream
ded doggy. We wanted to try a different direction with bonus stream this time, making it less about speedruns and more about wacky games and multiplayer madness like it used to be about, but the community response to this was 99% of people leaving right after the main marathon ended. Between this, the staff being even more burnt out than usual as these events grow and more work is required to make them run, and the increasing need to start tearing down quicker, it seems best that bonus streams be discontinued at future events.
Registration
Because we went over the attendance cap this time and the event is growing to the point that locals should be aware of it ahead of time, we are not going to have on-site registration anymore. Keep that in mind and make sure to register online in the future. We will also make sure to have it up in a more timely manner. Also, running out of runner badges was inexcusable and we apologize for that. Can't say much other than we know how to fix it and guarantee it won't happen next time.
Game Submissions
Things that will change for submissions in the future are knowing what kind of equipment you use (mainly type of TV for console players, since that was an issue brought to our attention multiple times during the marathon) and for PC runners, what kind of special drivers/etc. you use for your runs normally. Also, the SGDQ game submissions will be a bit delayed, both to make sure it's done properly on our end and because it gives speedrunners a little more time to unwind and decide what they want to run next. The current planned date to open up game submissions for SGDQ is Sunday, March 1.
Addressing Issues to Staff
The staff wants to help make your experience at GDQ events as pleasant as possible, but we have found that we often are told about problems after the event is over. We are certainly capable of handling issues quickly when we are told about them (such as the audio situation with the host in the marathon room during AGDQ), and take people seriously when they have concerns. We have been making sure to take care of problems with attendees and staff members alike that have been brought to our attention, and are looking into providing more ways for people to communicate with us efficiently so that you can be comfortable with presenting your problems. If you have any suggestions to help with this process, feel free to let us know!
I'm sure not everything was covered in this post, but I feel that most of the main issues were addressed. If you have any other concerns, be sure to bring them up. Again, make sure to be constructive with your criticisms! I will not be personally addressing every single reply that happens in this thread, but there will be staff members reading it constantly and making sure to give thorough answers to posts. If there is anything sensitive that you do not feel comfortable bringing up in public for whatever reason, you are welcome to contact me personally via PM.
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Answers From Questions in Thread
Note: Large amount of text.
Romscout - Charity, Overall Event, Schedule
On top of the great work that PCF does, they are also by far the most flexible charity for giving support to our events. However, we have also spoken to other charities who wish to work with us, and like to keep an open mind about it. We have opened up choices for the community multiple times before, with the most recent being before SGDQ 2013. We certainly listen to community concerns about the charities we fundraise for and keep them in mind as we move forward and grow.
One thing that can be done to help with making a subscription desirable is to reassess the emotes we have or add new ones that people would want to use a lot more. The general chat policy is a bit of a bigger issue here, of course, so I'll go ahead and address that.
During this last AGDQ, we never went to a sub-only chat. We are open to changing this policy, but do not want to make the jump to a full sub-only chat for the entire marathon yet. Doing this could have very negative effects on the community. We may instead try an approach where we attempt to have chat be less negative first, then go to sub-only for a set amount of time when we experience high volumes of bad spam/negativity.
The games we choose are not solely dictated by donation potential, although that is certainly a big factor. You might have noticed during this last AGDQ that a lot of newer/current gen games did not fill up the room very much, and that is undoubtedly because most attendees are nostalgic for big hits from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. We have been very experimental in the past with mixing obscure and modern games into the schedule extensively, particularly at the last SGDQ, and the results for those runs definitely affected the lineup for AGDQ.
We want this to be a fun event for everyone who attends and watches online, so we will play to our strengths often and build the core of the schedule around what the community seems to love most. Don't worry though, because we will always make sure to leave plenty of room for other great speedgames that don't receive as much attention and would never have a consistent opportunity to be on a GDQ schedule regularly.
I believe you may be a little misinformed on how GDQs are run and how the staff operates. All of the staff who worked at AGDQ have full time jobs as workers or students outside of their efforts for the marathon, and we do not make enough from organizing the events to live comfortably from that alone. We are not a huge corporate entity, and I would not expect the on-site or online experience of the events to convey that. Also, conference space costs a lot as the marathons grow, and that actually makes up a huge portion of the expenses. If the charity did not cover this, the registration fees would be too high for most people in the community to consider attending (including staff).
There are new tech issues that come up for almost all big gaming events, especially ones where the setup changes constantly due to growth. Even The International last year had some serious sound issues that they took a long time to fix, and the people producing that make a full living from making streams look and sound good. That being said, this is not an excuse for the mistakes that happen during our events, although you almost have to accept that something will go wrong when you attempt to stream for 150+ straight hours. A few production professionals have reached out to me since AGDQ ended, and we are definitely open to having them be volunteers or staff members if they are a good fit. One of the reasons our layouts improved so much is because someone reached out to us after SGDQ, and we hired him to work for us. We know there are always improvements to make, and sometimes we need extra help to make it happen.
As far as secrecy, Mike has publicly posted the budget for each of the last two events and has had open discussions with the community about it. Perhaps you missed it, but even if you did, the same thing will be done for the next SGDQ and there should be no issues there. We do not release the amount of pay for staff members because that is a personal privacy issue.
The two week period before posting the feedback thread was actually a soft rule added by Mike a couple years ago because of a few posts that were bashing the marathon within five minutes of it ending. I think we're pretty chill about posting it as soon as we feel ready, now. The only issue this time was that all of the staff went right back to work after the event, and we actually did not have time to post the thread until we did. Even so, the thread was put up less than two weeks after the marathon finale.
Your final statement about having to choose the charity or the community is a bit bothersome, though a few others have brought this up before. I don't know who exactly made that post in the ESA feedback thread, but I have made it clear to Edenal that I support ESA's efforts to raise money for charity while also bringing together the community. It is no different for GDQs. The community comes together and collaborates to support a great cause, and everyone benefits from it. There is no battle between the charity and the community that needs to be created, and I'm sad that concept exists to some people.
While it is doubtful that we will have a full second stream that is equipped to travel around all areas of the venue this year, we have already started exploring options for having an area set aside in the main marathon room for extra content to be specifically shown during setup time or other downtime. We realize that the "dead air" feeling inevitably happens with our current setup blocks and believe we have the means to improve this. We will have more details on this as SGDQ gets closer.
The PS4 was chosen as a prize for the halfway point in the marathon because it is not necessarily something desired by everyone, but is still valuable and is a big draw to a decent crowd. This was the same logic for it being the "halfway prize" for SGDQ. The grand prizes chosen for the end of the marathon were much more neutral to a general gaming audience. You are right about special prizes being donated by developers usually being a huge draw, though. As the events grow, it becomes easier for the staff to start conversations with bigger companies, so this is something we will be looking to have more of in future events.
We had issues at SGDQ with that for several reasons, including but not limited to sound problems and people unknowingly bringing food into the wrong areas often. We will tend to prefer having the event spaces broken up a bit in the future, like at AGDQ.
Mike and I have been primarily in charge of all prize-related tasks for the last couple of years, but we recognize that we have not been putting the amount of effort and passion that all of the prize donors and winners deserve into this because we have to focus on so much else. We made the decision to have a dedicated prize team on staff because of this, and we will do our best to ensure that prize submissions, showcases during the marathon, and shipments after the marathon will be much smoother from now on.
We know the events would not be anywhere near as successful as they are today without the awesome prizes made and donated by the community, so we are making sure to give you the attention you deserve from now on. I apologize for how lackluster we may have been with handling some of the prizes before, but the prize coordinators will definitely make sure that this won't be an issue again. The current prize coordinators are EvenSteven02 and Sent, but we may add more people to the team should the need arise.
Aside from the issues that Matt brought up, one of the primary problems with our old approach of having the entire crowd shown behind the couch as we grow is that when the room is empty, it looks REALLY EMPTY! We ran into this problem at SGDQ, even though we tried our best to take a neutral approach with being able to shift focus primarily to the couch or capture a big portion of the audience when needed.
It is inevitable that this issue will become more problematic as we grow if we take that approach again, and it will become even worse with the increased need for visibility to the entire audience when the room is full. It is impractical to move around projector screens much during the event, and they are a necessity at this point. This would make camera angles that capture everything perfectly almost impossible, even during the peak hours when the room is booming. It is a little easier moving forward to have some separation and focus on how to capture both portions of the audience better when needed.
I don't believe our rules really changed much from last year's AGDQ, but were instead focused on fixing issues that runners brought to our attention. One of our missions, since we started these marathons in 2010, was to have the focus be on the game, but it is definitely important to let the runners and audience have fun in their own way outside of that. When FiFi asked me if he could bring his mascot plushie with him for his run at SGDQ, I approved, and would do the same for almost any other similar request brought to me (unless it was lewd, of course).
I feel that something that's been happening ever since we started growing massively is that people take a couple of days to settle in, calm their nerves, and feel comfortable. It is not really the fault of anyone in particular, it's just something that happens when the stage and audience become bigger and the feeling of intimidation is stronger. I suppose I don't have any particular advice for this other than to remember we’re all just people playing video games on a couch for fun and a good cause. Perhaps this is something we could be presenting in the rules and orientation better, and I will definitely keep this in mind for the future. Personally, there were still a ton of memorable moments for me during this marathon. I hope that there were still some memorable moments for you, too.
We had a bit of miscommunication behind the scenes with the schedule due to the Tetris runner’s arrival time being delayed. When we had moved the Tetris run a couple of hours ahead, some staff mistakenly thought that the game had been cut completely at the same time that we were informed of Peaches_’ availability to run Kid Chameleon (when a scheduled game is unexpectedly cut or we end up ahead of schedule, we sometimes insert games into the schedule in this manner).
For Big Rigs, we encountered an error with Alex Navarro’s attempts to submit his game during the submission period that we were unable to figure out. We discussed internally and decided it would be alright to add it as an incentive to the AwfulGDQ block. We had it in the bonus list for a while, but a copy error ended with it being left out of the spreadsheet’s final draft.
We learned a lot from these two incidents and will work on improving both game submissions and communicating schedule changes internally.
Cool Matty - Tech, Setup
Sumichu - General, Event Organization, Sponsors, Game Submissions
We are going to try to make the submission form request more information the next time around, though we're not sure if the character limit for your description will change (there's a high volume of submissions). These suggestions are definitely helpful in helping us identify things that we should be looking out for. Thanks!
Laundry hasn't really been a priority in the venue search, but that will be one of the things we ask about and consider when we choose a venue (since our list of preferences is rather lengthy, we always end up sacrificing some, unfortunately).
MURPHAGATOR! - Enforcement
Raelcun - Volunteers, Donation Comments
answers from thread added to OP by sumi.
The Hotel
I don't think there's much to go over here. I felt the staff was nice to work with, the space worked pretty well, and the main downside was the location and insufficient shuttle coverage for the local area. It is possible that we can grow and still come back to this hotel for one more year, and if we do that, we will be looking into using an outside shuttle service so that people can feel confident about going places when they need to.
I know something that has come up a couple of times is people's cards being overcharged, but that is something that seems to happen once in a while with large groups, regardless of the hotel. If you had an issue with this and did not resolve it with the hotel already, let us know so that we can assist you in clearing it up. There is definitely no malicious intent by the hotel with this, it is just that mistakes happen once in a while when you go through tons of reservations.
Hotel Wifi and Cell Coverage
The hotel wifi was brought to our attention as an issue several times, particularly as a question for streaming. Our policy moving forward with hotel wifi usage, regardless of where we stay, is that we will not allow it to be used for streaming. If you want to do a side stream during the event, you will either need to set up a 4G stream or provide your own wifi hotspot.
Cell phone coverage in the basement of the hotel has been identified as a problem, so if we return to this venue then we will look to accomodate attendees a little more to deal with it. While we cannot avoid using the rooms entirely, we will probably be focusing on having arcade machines down there and extra casual gaming space. We will not necessarily have the tournament room downstairs next time, but will consider branching off a section of each casual room for that type of activity.
Marathon Room Layout/Stream Setup
For the audience/general participant side of things, the main improvement is going to be having more open space for easier access to the main streaming area. Other improvements being considered that were actually desired for this event but held off because of not having enough time include giving host the ability to mute themselves when needed and giving the couch the ability to control the timer.
For tech, the biggest fix also involves better use of space, but for cords. We also will be moving the console rack so that it does not block people. The rack itself was very useful, but not in a very good spot. The decision to put it there was mainly to have it closer to the stream setup, but it is a bigger priority to not have it create awkward situations for the camera setups or have it block people's path.
We also want to have another sectioned off area to cut to when we inevitably have some long
setups (because even when things are nearly perfect, they still happen), and we will be working with individuals who have expressed interest in helping out with extra content so that we make better use of downtime. We felt this was a little overdue, and was another plan that suffered from not having enough time leading up to the event. Overall, we feel we have more than enough space to accomplish all of our goals, but will need the hotel to take care of the trash before we start to make it all happen.
Four Way Races
Mysterious tech problems during races were some of the biggest causes of delays. While we will be making it easier/faster for staff to switch out things when needed (like if a splitter or cord goes bad for no reason right before a race, because SotN), we will also probably cut down on the number of four way races in the future. It became apparent this time that having extra screens does not necessarily benefit a race unless the commentary is AMAZING (good or event great commentary doesn't necessarily cut it when people are trying to follow so much going on). Therefore, even when we have highly competitive games, we will probably refrain from doing a four way race except in a few special cases. The inevitably longer setup times are usually not worth it.
Stream Layouts
The layouts were a vast improvement over previous GDQs but still have plenty of work to be done. An obvious addition to make is having incentives on the rotation (which will take some extra work with the tracker and won't be something we have available in the next couple of weeks), and some other info that is not super pertinent could go there once in a while as well. The layouts will be open source, and we highly welcome improvements/suggestions for them.
Tracker
Aside from fixing the bugs that did cool stuff like not displaying hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, some other improvements in mind mainly focus on improving visibility of the tracker and making it so that it's not an eyesore or huge hassle to find data in it. By SGDQ, the tracker should be something more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. We’ll keep you updated on the progress.
Bonus games on schedule
I'm sorry that we did not make it clear enough that being on the bonus list for the schedule did not guarantee the run being an incentive or on the main schedule due to possible time constraints. In the future, we'll be less cute with setup block names and make this more explicit.
Bonus Stream
ded doggy. We wanted to try a different direction with bonus stream this time, making it less about speedruns and more about wacky games and multiplayer madness like it used to be about, but the community response to this was 99% of people leaving right after the main marathon ended. Between this, the staff being even more burnt out than usual as these events grow and more work is required to make them run, and the increasing need to start tearing down quicker, it seems best that bonus streams be discontinued at future events.
Registration
Because we went over the attendance cap this time and the event is growing to the point that locals should be aware of it ahead of time, we are not going to have on-site registration anymore. Keep that in mind and make sure to register online in the future. We will also make sure to have it up in a more timely manner. Also, running out of runner badges was inexcusable and we apologize for that. Can't say much other than we know how to fix it and guarantee it won't happen next time.
Game Submissions
Things that will change for submissions in the future are knowing what kind of equipment you use (mainly type of TV for console players, since that was an issue brought to our attention multiple times during the marathon) and for PC runners, what kind of special drivers/etc. you use for your runs normally. Also, the SGDQ game submissions will be a bit delayed, both to make sure it's done properly on our end and because it gives speedrunners a little more time to unwind and decide what they want to run next. The current planned date to open up game submissions for SGDQ is Sunday, March 1.
Addressing Issues to Staff
The staff wants to help make your experience at GDQ events as pleasant as possible, but we have found that we often are told about problems after the event is over. We are certainly capable of handling issues quickly when we are told about them (such as the audio situation with the host in the marathon room during AGDQ), and take people seriously when they have concerns. We have been making sure to take care of problems with attendees and staff members alike that have been brought to our attention, and are looking into providing more ways for people to communicate with us efficiently so that you can be comfortable with presenting your problems. If you have any suggestions to help with this process, feel free to let us know!
I'm sure not everything was covered in this post, but I feel that most of the main issues were addressed. If you have any other concerns, be sure to bring them up. Again, make sure to be constructive with your criticisms! I will not be personally addressing every single reply that happens in this thread, but there will be staff members reading it constantly and making sure to give thorough answers to posts. If there is anything sensitive that you do not feel comfortable bringing up in public for whatever reason, you are welcome to contact me personally via PM.
---
Answers From Questions in Thread
Note: Large amount of text.
Romscout - Charity, Overall Event, Schedule
Quote from romscout:
Quote from Cronikeys:
Is there any sort of discussion that goes into what charity we, as a community, support?
On top of the great work that PCF does, they are also by far the most flexible charity for giving support to our events. However, we have also spoken to other charities who wish to work with us, and like to keep an open mind about it. We have opened up choices for the community multiple times before, with the most recent being before SGDQ 2013. We certainly listen to community concerns about the charities we fundraise for and keep them in mind as we move forward and grow.
Quote from BaronHaynes:
One other thing regarding subs: Currently, there's no real incentive to subscribe to the channel. You're not going to talk in this thing, no one is going to see what you have to say, and the room is never in sub-only. This is partly a Twitch problem, I think it'd help tremendously to be able to turn on sub-only locally and talk in a functional chat with other subscribers, but the site doesn't have that functionality. This could be a good middle ground if it was ever a thing. But at the moment, there's no reason to subscribe apart from a handful of emotes vs. just making a $5 donation.
One thing that can be done to help with making a subscription desirable is to reassess the emotes we have or add new ones that people would want to use a lot more. The general chat policy is a bit of a bigger issue here, of course, so I'll go ahead and address that.
During this last AGDQ, we never went to a sub-only chat. We are open to changing this policy, but do not want to make the jump to a full sub-only chat for the entire marathon yet. Doing this could have very negative effects on the community. We may instead try an approach where we attempt to have chat be less negative first, then go to sub-only for a set amount of time when we experience high volumes of bad spam/negativity.
Quote from Linkinito:
Nintendoverdose of games
That's a proven fact, there was half the time and half the games dedicated to Nintendo platforms. We can't deny that some games bring a lot of donations, especially Zelda and Mario, but I think there should be some rebalancing on next editions, and give more space to Sega, Sony and Microsoft which were not that present, even though some big games from them were showed (Sonic block, iconic PlayStation licenses, Halo 2). I think that we could trade like a day of obscure games from Nintendo platforms towards heroes from other consoles. ESA does it better than GDQ, in my opinion.
That's a proven fact, there was half the time and half the games dedicated to Nintendo platforms. We can't deny that some games bring a lot of donations, especially Zelda and Mario, but I think there should be some rebalancing on next editions, and give more space to Sega, Sony and Microsoft which were not that present, even though some big games from them were showed (Sonic block, iconic PlayStation licenses, Halo 2). I think that we could trade like a day of obscure games from Nintendo platforms towards heroes from other consoles. ESA does it better than GDQ, in my opinion.
The games we choose are not solely dictated by donation potential, although that is certainly a big factor. You might have noticed during this last AGDQ that a lot of newer/current gen games did not fill up the room very much, and that is undoubtedly because most attendees are nostalgic for big hits from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. We have been very experimental in the past with mixing obscure and modern games into the schedule extensively, particularly at the last SGDQ, and the results for those runs definitely affected the lineup for AGDQ.
We want this to be a fun event for everyone who attends and watches online, so we will play to our strengths often and build the core of the schedule around what the community seems to love most. Don't worry though, because we will always make sure to leave plenty of room for other great speedgames that don't receive as much attention and would never have a consistent opportunity to be on a GDQ schedule regularly.
Quote from Billnye_Fan:
What strikes me as odd is that PCF knows AGDQ gets roughly 75-100k viewers. Why didn’t they require you to spread actual information about preventing cancer to the large audience? This to me seems like a huge flaw that an organization who seems to focus on awareness wouldn’t want to educate an audience of 100k+ people. PCF seems like it would be a much better SPONSOR for the event where they can educate 100k+ people while the actual donations go towards an international charity that focuses on researching a cure for various cancers. To me this seems like a much more EFFICIENT use of donations.
Also, why is there this two week waiting period for feedback thread? I read the post in the marathon forum but what I don't understand is that no one is forcing the organizers to read the feedback until they are settled back in. Instead of a "no feedback for two weeks" rule could it change to something like "No responses to feedback by the organizers for two weeks"?
As for the feedback for the marathon itself, AMVX's posts (and other's) pinpoint exactly my sentiments towards the tech issues. I think what is really bothersome is that since GDQs decided to become professional, that everyone is expecting the event to be professional quality, and in some cases they are being let down in that aspect. There are standards to live up to.
Also, can someone clarify some facts for me. I am under the impression that AGDQ has a large budget (1:7 ratio of the $1,000,000 from last year, sponsorship funds, attendance fees, ad revenue, etc.), the organizers do this as their main job, and the community is full of people offering to help (the 40+ tech volunteers). How come every year the same mistakes seem to occur? The cord jungle, the layout issues, camera issues, prize issues, etc. It just seems like there is more than enough time, money, and manpower to handle these issues.
In my opinion, many issues can easily be PREVENTED if the community was actually allowed to discuss and provide feedback PRIOR to the marathon. A good example is last years AGDQ layout thread.
Finally, I just don't understand why all the secrescy. Secrecy leads to rumors like $200k+ salaries of the staff. It shouldn't be taboo to talk about finances with the community that is essentially doing all the entertainment for the marathon. I can even imagine some people actually helping out and finding ways to more efficiently spend money on better quality equipment. The community has a ton of skills in all areas. Keeping people out of the loop seems to be hurting the event more than helping.
This quote was from the ESA feedback thread but it very much applies to AGDQ. Pick one and focus on that.
Also, why is there this two week waiting period for feedback thread? I read the post in the marathon forum but what I don't understand is that no one is forcing the organizers to read the feedback until they are settled back in. Instead of a "no feedback for two weeks" rule could it change to something like "No responses to feedback by the organizers for two weeks"?
As for the feedback for the marathon itself, AMVX's posts (and other's) pinpoint exactly my sentiments towards the tech issues. I think what is really bothersome is that since GDQs decided to become professional, that everyone is expecting the event to be professional quality, and in some cases they are being let down in that aspect. There are standards to live up to.
Also, can someone clarify some facts for me. I am under the impression that AGDQ has a large budget (1:7 ratio of the $1,000,000 from last year, sponsorship funds, attendance fees, ad revenue, etc.), the organizers do this as their main job, and the community is full of people offering to help (the 40+ tech volunteers). How come every year the same mistakes seem to occur? The cord jungle, the layout issues, camera issues, prize issues, etc. It just seems like there is more than enough time, money, and manpower to handle these issues.
In my opinion, many issues can easily be PREVENTED if the community was actually allowed to discuss and provide feedback PRIOR to the marathon. A good example is last years AGDQ layout thread.
Finally, I just don't understand why all the secrescy. Secrecy leads to rumors like $200k+ salaries of the staff. It shouldn't be taboo to talk about finances with the community that is essentially doing all the entertainment for the marathon. I can even imagine some people actually helping out and finding ways to more efficiently spend money on better quality equipment. The community has a ton of skills in all areas. Keeping people out of the loop seems to be hurting the event more than helping.
Quote:
-Pick the charity, or the community. Trying to balance both is ruining it for everyone.
This quote was from the ESA feedback thread but it very much applies to AGDQ. Pick one and focus on that.
I believe you may be a little misinformed on how GDQs are run and how the staff operates. All of the staff who worked at AGDQ have full time jobs as workers or students outside of their efforts for the marathon, and we do not make enough from organizing the events to live comfortably from that alone. We are not a huge corporate entity, and I would not expect the on-site or online experience of the events to convey that. Also, conference space costs a lot as the marathons grow, and that actually makes up a huge portion of the expenses. If the charity did not cover this, the registration fees would be too high for most people in the community to consider attending (including staff).
There are new tech issues that come up for almost all big gaming events, especially ones where the setup changes constantly due to growth. Even The International last year had some serious sound issues that they took a long time to fix, and the people producing that make a full living from making streams look and sound good. That being said, this is not an excuse for the mistakes that happen during our events, although you almost have to accept that something will go wrong when you attempt to stream for 150+ straight hours. A few production professionals have reached out to me since AGDQ ended, and we are definitely open to having them be volunteers or staff members if they are a good fit. One of the reasons our layouts improved so much is because someone reached out to us after SGDQ, and we hired him to work for us. We know there are always improvements to make, and sometimes we need extra help to make it happen.
As far as secrecy, Mike has publicly posted the budget for each of the last two events and has had open discussions with the community about it. Perhaps you missed it, but even if you did, the same thing will be done for the next SGDQ and there should be no issues there. We do not release the amount of pay for staff members because that is a personal privacy issue.
The two week period before posting the feedback thread was actually a soft rule added by Mike a couple years ago because of a few posts that were bashing the marathon within five minutes of it ending. I think we're pretty chill about posting it as soon as we feel ready, now. The only issue this time was that all of the staff went right back to work after the event, and we actually did not have time to post the thread until we did. Even so, the thread was put up less than two weeks after the marathon finale.
Your final statement about having to choose the charity or the community is a bit bothersome, though a few others have brought this up before. I don't know who exactly made that post in the ESA feedback thread, but I have made it clear to Edenal that I support ESA's efforts to raise money for charity while also bringing together the community. It is no different for GDQs. The community comes together and collaborates to support a great cause, and everyone benefits from it. There is no battle between the charity and the community that needs to be created, and I'm sad that concept exists to some people.
Quote from TruthBomber:
-dead air. There was a considerable amount of dead air, and the time between runs was underutilised. You could have sizzle reels that aren't purely for advertising. In touching on the point I raised above, AGDQ does not exist without the runners who travel there, pay to attend, and give their time to not only run & commentate at the event, but also the time given to practicing their runs to be able to attend. Interviews with runners, glitch showoffs (prerecorded or live), things like the Track & Field 100m competition, previews of runs that have donation incentives. I understand that GDQ is essentially a business now and so it is run with profits (for charity) and the sponsors in mind, but the way that was handled this year lost viewer interest and I think left a lot of people disillusioned with the spirit of this years AGDQ.
While it is doubtful that we will have a full second stream that is equipped to travel around all areas of the venue this year, we have already started exploring options for having an area set aside in the main marathon room for extra content to be specifically shown during setup time or other downtime. We realize that the "dead air" feeling inevitably happens with our current setup blocks and believe we have the means to improve this. We will have more details on this as SGDQ gets closer.
Quote from ”Linkinito”:
The prizes
I think it was a big letdown this year. The only prize that really deserved to be considered as "grand prize" was the PS4, and, without a clear explanation, it was only up to Mega Man X3, because "Romscout wanted it".
(And check on agdq.ma.pe or alligatr.co.uk how the donations slowed down hard after Mega Man X3... Thursday and Friday were abysmal days in terms of donations. Even though some runs were great - look at GTA Vice City, praised by everyone, but very few donations throughout the whole run! And it was in graveyard shift)
Because honestly, I don't think getting a banner or Twitch swag was that interesting to motivate donations solely for that. Remember the Tychus Findlay statue? Donations during the Starcraft 2 run last year went through the roof. Even though the run was considered bad by Twitch Chat (I'll come back to it later), the amount of donations skyrocketed thanks to this goodie. A good prize can be a game changer. And I don't think the Pinball machine was attractive enough for a gamer audience as a grand prize. The best prizes? Consoles, games, artworks. I think the GDQ Staff should ask some help from Loading Ready Run. The Desert Bus marathons are awesome in terms of prizes because they get in touch with devs and publishers. Next GDQ should get more prizes, both official and handmade.
I think it was a big letdown this year. The only prize that really deserved to be considered as "grand prize" was the PS4, and, without a clear explanation, it was only up to Mega Man X3, because "Romscout wanted it".
(And check on agdq.ma.pe or alligatr.co.uk how the donations slowed down hard after Mega Man X3... Thursday and Friday were abysmal days in terms of donations. Even though some runs were great - look at GTA Vice City, praised by everyone, but very few donations throughout the whole run! And it was in graveyard shift)
Because honestly, I don't think getting a banner or Twitch swag was that interesting to motivate donations solely for that. Remember the Tychus Findlay statue? Donations during the Starcraft 2 run last year went through the roof. Even though the run was considered bad by Twitch Chat (I'll come back to it later), the amount of donations skyrocketed thanks to this goodie. A good prize can be a game changer. And I don't think the Pinball machine was attractive enough for a gamer audience as a grand prize. The best prizes? Consoles, games, artworks. I think the GDQ Staff should ask some help from Loading Ready Run. The Desert Bus marathons are awesome in terms of prizes because they get in touch with devs and publishers. Next GDQ should get more prizes, both official and handmade.
The PS4 was chosen as a prize for the halfway point in the marathon because it is not necessarily something desired by everyone, but is still valuable and is a big draw to a decent crowd. This was the same logic for it being the "halfway prize" for SGDQ. The grand prizes chosen for the end of the marathon were much more neutral to a general gaming audience. You are right about special prizes being donated by developers usually being a huge draw, though. As the events grow, it becomes easier for the staff to start conversations with bigger companies, so this is something we will be looking to have more of in future events.
Quote from Overfiendvip:
I'll try to take up as little space as possible for this (perhaps wildly unpopular and mildly off-topic) opinion - as an attendee that enjoys speedrunning to the point where I probably spend the most time out of the vast majority of people there practicing games and actually speedrunning, I sincerely hope you have more events like SGDQ 2014 in terms of the event's physical layout, if that's at all possible. Thank you.
We had issues at SGDQ with that for several reasons, including but not limited to sound problems and people unknowingly bringing food into the wrong areas often. We will tend to prefer having the event spaces broken up a bit in the future, like at AGDQ.
Quote from dangodofthunder:
4. As a donor of a prize, I was tremendously disappointed with the amount of mention and hype that was made for my prize. At no point at all during the designated block was my prize ever mentioned or shown, despite many other prizes being shown. The prize I donated was only shown the following day, about 24 hours after the donations window had already closed. It was never announced at any point. Understand that this is a prize with a retail value of roughly $85.00, and I am extremely reluctant to donate a similar or even larger prize for future GDQs if there is no promotion, hype, or even outward signs of appreciation. It's disappointing to me that no one from the GDQ community has really reached out or thanked me for my donation, and the prize donors were one of the only groups not mentioned for thanks during the finale. I've noted a few people here say they were extremely disappointed with the prizes available in this year's event, but as a donor, I would have serious reservations about repeating this commitment.
Mike and I have been primarily in charge of all prize-related tasks for the last couple of years, but we recognize that we have not been putting the amount of effort and passion that all of the prize donors and winners deserve into this because we have to focus on so much else. We made the decision to have a dedicated prize team on staff because of this, and we will do our best to ensure that prize submissions, showcases during the marathon, and shipments after the marathon will be much smoother from now on.
We know the events would not be anywhere near as successful as they are today without the awesome prizes made and donated by the community, so we are making sure to give you the attention you deserve from now on. I apologize for how lackluster we may have been with handling some of the prizes before, but the prize coordinators will definitely make sure that this won't be an issue again. The current prize coordinators are EvenSteven02 and Sent, but we may add more people to the team should the need arise.
Quote from Stingrayy:
-I don't know how others felt but I absolutely LOATHED the spectator set up. The crowd really needs to be behind the couch IMO. It adds to the feel of a community event over a corporate event which gdqs seem to be becoming.
Aside from the issues that Matt brought up, one of the primary problems with our old approach of having the entire crowd shown behind the couch as we grow is that when the room is empty, it looks REALLY EMPTY! We ran into this problem at SGDQ, even though we tried our best to take a neutral approach with being able to shift focus primarily to the couch or capture a big portion of the audience when needed.
It is inevitable that this issue will become more problematic as we grow if we take that approach again, and it will become even worse with the increased need for visibility to the entire audience when the room is full. It is impractical to move around projector screens much during the event, and they are a necessity at this point. This would make camera angles that capture everything perfectly almost impossible, even during the peak hours when the room is booming. It is a little easier moving forward to have some separation and focus on how to capture both portions of the audience better when needed.
Quote from andypanther:
- You really went too far with all the "stop having fun!" -rules. Who cares if people dress up funny or bring plushies, or if people dare to come too close to the sacred couch (now we're back at the previous topic), just take it easy. These new policies probably killed a lot of the classic GDQ atmosphere and memorable moments.
I don't believe our rules really changed much from last year's AGDQ, but were instead focused on fixing issues that runners brought to our attention. One of our missions, since we started these marathons in 2010, was to have the focus be on the game, but it is definitely important to let the runners and audience have fun in their own way outside of that. When FiFi asked me if he could bring his mascot plushie with him for his run at SGDQ, I approved, and would do the same for almost any other similar request brought to me (unless it was lewd, of course).
I feel that something that's been happening ever since we started growing massively is that people take a couple of days to settle in, calm their nerves, and feel comfortable. It is not really the fault of anyone in particular, it's just something that happens when the stage and audience become bigger and the feeling of intimidation is stronger. I suppose I don't have any particular advice for this other than to remember we’re all just people playing video games on a couch for fun and a good cause. Perhaps this is something we could be presenting in the rules and orientation better, and I will definitely keep this in mind for the future. Personally, there were still a ton of memorable moments for me during this marathon. I hope that there were still some memorable moments for you, too.
Quote from ButtersBB:
Lastly, this really confused me and I have to ask: Why were Kid Chameleon and Big Rigs in the marathon? I was keeping track of the submission process and never saw them anywhere near the schedule, so I was surprised that they were somehow added in. This was even more surprising to me considering that we were way behind schedule. So why were they there?
We had a bit of miscommunication behind the scenes with the schedule due to the Tetris runner’s arrival time being delayed. When we had moved the Tetris run a couple of hours ahead, some staff mistakenly thought that the game had been cut completely at the same time that we were informed of Peaches_’ availability to run Kid Chameleon (when a scheduled game is unexpectedly cut or we end up ahead of schedule, we sometimes insert games into the schedule in this manner).
For Big Rigs, we encountered an error with Alex Navarro’s attempts to submit his game during the submission period that we were unable to figure out. We discussed internally and decided it would be alright to add it as an incentive to the AwfulGDQ block. We had it in the bonus list for a while, but a copy error ended with it being left out of the spreadsheet’s final draft.
We learned a lot from these two incidents and will work on improving both game submissions and communicating schedule changes internally.
Cool Matty - Tech, Setup
Quote from Cool Matty:
I am cherry-picking things that I can answer now, directly, as tech staff. Others will reply in due time, this thread is moving really fast.
#2: It will always be video game music, particularly chiptune because it's less likely (although I acknowledge it still happens) to get flagged for VODs. For the same reason, I will not give people the option to choose their own music. Finally, managing song plays for each runner would be a tremendous amount of effort required for our tech staff and that's not fair to them. It's best to have something that is automatic and requires extremely little fiddling, so tech can focus on getting the next game up.
#4: Agreed, but we don't want to simply just push Twitch VODs over to YouTube. We want to maintain a level of quality that is high, so we want to use local recordings. I want to make this happen for SGDQ. That said, we have a LOT of planning, research and preparation to figure out the best way to do this with the least amount of volunteer effort.
I believe there should have been an experienced tech person on station at all times in addition to newbie tech. Honestly, sometimes mistakes happen (no one was actually listening when they should have been during Transistor), but I do know newbie techs felt they weren't being allowed enough control. I do want to work on that so that it's not effectively one person running the show up there.
The crowd mic always existed, but the issue was it was turned extremely low at the beginning of the marathon due to fear of feedback. I personally worked on this mid-marathon, but we were running out of time to fix less important things like that before the event. It'll definitely come back next GDQ.
SETUP ISSUES:
Many of the issues with setup were trying to accommodate special-case setups for games. And worse still, is these setups would be made and then left for future staff to discover and undo during graveyard. Overall, surprisingly, communication was the biggest downfall this GDQ.
For SGDQ, we are going to have a schematic for ALL hardware and cabling, and we will stick to that as closely as possible. Any revisions will be noted so staff later in the day can catch up on anything that went wrong.
Finally, some of the setup time was due to runners not communicating, or not taking care of their particular setups. In the future, we will be less willing to accommodate special setup changes that we are not informed of prior to the event. If you know you need a particular type of TV for instance, and you're waiting until your run is being set up, that is unacceptable. That creates delays in the marathon, and impacts other runners.
To help curb some of that, the game submission form for SGDQ will include a field to describe anything special you need to perform your run. We can't guarantee we can provide everything, but at least we can let you know if it will be a problem.
To be clear, for unforeseen issues, bugs and things that the runners aren't aware of, we'll always do what we can. I just want runners to take charge in other situations, such as needing specific TVs, or a PAL game. It hurts the marathon and other runners when a runner arrives unprepared.
This isn't a logistical possibility. It would require significantly more equipment, more staff, and there is only one streaming computer. We couldn't check if they were set up beforehand, so time saved would be minimal.
There was supposed to be a nice mute button and setup for host, but I ran out of time to prepare that due to the extra workload with Mike being out of commission. That's on me, will be there for SGDQ. The host controller will probably have a way to flag down tech staff too.
Tinybuild made the ad. I'd ask them.
The category issue was entirely an oversight on Mike and myself. During development we didn't really realize the need for this. This system will be dramatically improved, particularly with how it is presented. Categories will be selected when approved immediately as well. We won't be using your suggestions here, because I am overhauling it entirely to work better with categories in mind.
audio issues (AGDQ 2015 Contra TMR was audible, everyone else was quiet. everytime someone scratched their ear/moved their hair/removed the mic, there was a loud screech)
(AGDQ 2013 Contra blue yeti didnt have these issues, I know I'm in the minority here, but I really prefer having one mic that picks up everything over a bunch of mics that pick up some things. Also, the field of view of the cameras is great in the AGDQ 2013 Contra video)
I don't know what was with that contra run. The reason the two guys weren't audible is because they're "sharing" a mic by holding it between them. There is no reason for this to be happening. There was 4 mics and that's all the commentators there should be. We have that rule for exactly this reason.
Also, AGDQ2013 did not have a Yeti, we were using my MXL mics (now the crowd mic), which would be completely unusable with the size of the event these days. Keep in mind the event is completely different scale now. It would pick up every footstep in a 10 meter area if we used that same setup this year.
With the amount of money that goes into this event, and the viewership and profile it has, I think it is high time there are some A/V and event management professionals to keep things running smoothly, and get the details right. Ignoring setup times, Details like:
-Mic levels being atrociously varied. Given that GDQ events have the luxury of still being an event with a somewhat casual air, I think it would be worth having people do a quick mic level test (if they're running clipons) or getting a boom mic to mic up the couch. Especially given that the couch was seperated from the main viewing area by big screens that help to inhibit noise, I think it is worth having someone vetting mic volume actively (label the EQ) or to have the boom mic running to avoid having to mic up every commentator.
-Colour temperature on different screens/capture sources being varied. This is probably not as pressing an issue for many people as it is to me, but its a production & polish issue that would only take a small amount of time to resolve.
-Donation reader needs to be able to mute themselves, as you touched on.
We can't afford professionals for the length of our event, and unfortunately the few volunteer people with any audio/video experience are generally from theater backgrounds.
I have been told by various talented A/V people that a shotgun mic (such as a boom) would not work at all. Keep in mind the runners are having game audio blasted in their face, which is a problem no traditional broadcast station has.
UraniumAnchor says that the color temperature issue varies by source type and capture card. I know personally that these issues can break themselves on their own, even after they've been fixed. We have to simplify our setup for volunteers, and adjusting this for every run where it is necessary would increase the probability of something going wrong. Particularly since the area where those settings exist involves other dangerous options that can break the stream layout or crash a capture card entirely.
We don't provide the equipment for any other rooms other than TVs. World9 Gaming provided the vast majority of consoles (and TVs) in the practice room. Runners should expect to bring their own equipment for cases such as these, because we can't realistically manage that much equipment on top of what we already have. We'll make this more obvious on the submission form.
Overly long "setup" times
When you look at the schedule, it was really clear, some games really had a very, very, very long setup time. Sometimes exceeding the actual duration of the run. It was the main cause of delay this year and led to cancel some runs in setup slots to catch up (like MGS Ground Zeroes). Also, if most of the time it was setup, sometimes, it was an addition to the run like an any% glitched run, or a glitch showcase, etc. And even though it was entertaining, it added even more delay to the schedule.
Just want to point out that setup times on the schedule included bonus incentives, so not all runs were as bad as the setup may imply.
The data you were looking at was not updated with the revised tracker donations. Those days were a significant chunk of the $400k that was missing in the tracker.
The number of chairs were intentional. It's not intended to be a second crowd, just a group that is supporting the runner directly. You may notice later in the event, more chairs found their way over (much to my chagrin), and setup time increased because of the number of people loitering around. In addition, it increases the likelihood of people talking, interfering with the runner, and trying to commentate when they shouldn't be.
Wario Land 4: Yeah, that was fixed. Except during bonus stream, because it was bonus stream.
Quote from BubblesDelFuego:
2. After submissions and during the scheduling process there should be a thread on here asking runners what they would like to have as their music which will be played during the setup for their game. It would probably be video game music related to the game. For example: TMR may suggest having Clock Tower play before he does a run of Castlevania IV.
4. Videos of the runs should be uploaded to the YouTube page much, much faster. I understand completely that this is being worked on as much as it can, but maybe if during the volunteer forum there can be a spot for people to offer their services as dedicated uploaders. During the marathons there are multiple rouge YouTube accounts that upload and monetize the GDQ's content, and kicking their video off the internet is a hassle. There are also online news cites that contact the runners and ask when the videos will be uploaded, and for the purposes of "fresh news" the runs should be uploaded within a few days of happening. Also, the sooner the videos are uploaded to the SDA channel means more views on the SDA channel, and then the SDA channel can monetize the videos and raise even more money for charity.
But that's all that I can think of besides some obvious stuff that will probably get posted anyway. Thanks again for the great event.
4. Videos of the runs should be uploaded to the YouTube page much, much faster. I understand completely that this is being worked on as much as it can, but maybe if during the volunteer forum there can be a spot for people to offer their services as dedicated uploaders. During the marathons there are multiple rouge YouTube accounts that upload and monetize the GDQ's content, and kicking their video off the internet is a hassle. There are also online news cites that contact the runners and ask when the videos will be uploaded, and for the purposes of "fresh news" the runs should be uploaded within a few days of happening. Also, the sooner the videos are uploaded to the SDA channel means more views on the SDA channel, and then the SDA channel can monetize the videos and raise even more money for charity.
But that's all that I can think of besides some obvious stuff that will probably get posted anyway. Thanks again for the great event.
#2: It will always be video game music, particularly chiptune because it's less likely (although I acknowledge it still happens) to get flagged for VODs. For the same reason, I will not give people the option to choose their own music. Finally, managing song plays for each runner would be a tremendous amount of effort required for our tech staff and that's not fair to them. It's best to have something that is automatic and requires extremely little fiddling, so tech can focus on getting the next game up.
#4: Agreed, but we don't want to simply just push Twitch VODs over to YouTube. We want to maintain a level of quality that is high, so we want to use local recordings. I want to make this happen for SGDQ. That said, we have a LOT of planning, research and preparation to figure out the best way to do this with the least amount of volunteer effort.
Quote from flatluigi:
Apologies if this is off-base, but I feel there should be at least one more competent tech person there so UA can actually sleep at some point - or at least a dedicated person or two who can be super focused on monitoring how things are coming across on stream. Those issues were fairly few and far between, but stuff like the Transistor run being muted for the first 10 minutes just shouldn't have happened and the Risk of Rain run should've had some allowances made for how unreadable the gameplay was on stream. I was also really surprised to see that the computer setups were still on Windows 8, as I thought that was the cause of a lot of issues in previous marathons.
Finally something super subjective: not having a crowd mic was a mistake and (for the first day at least) the marathon just didn't have the feel of being a big thing despite it being the biggest GDQ yet! Music interludes were a good (if late) addition, as was messing around with the crowd cam. There was also super harsh gating on the mics, leaving the setup times in dead silence (instead of hearing minor crowd noise).
Finally something super subjective: not having a crowd mic was a mistake and (for the first day at least) the marathon just didn't have the feel of being a big thing despite it being the biggest GDQ yet! Music interludes were a good (if late) addition, as was messing around with the crowd cam. There was also super harsh gating on the mics, leaving the setup times in dead silence (instead of hearing minor crowd noise).
I believe there should have been an experienced tech person on station at all times in addition to newbie tech. Honestly, sometimes mistakes happen (no one was actually listening when they should have been during Transistor), but I do know newbie techs felt they weren't being allowed enough control. I do want to work on that so that it's not effectively one person running the show up there.
The crowd mic always existed, but the issue was it was turned extremely low at the beginning of the marathon due to fear of feedback. I personally worked on this mid-marathon, but we were running out of time to fix less important things like that before the event. It'll definitely come back next GDQ.
SETUP ISSUES:
Many of the issues with setup were trying to accommodate special-case setups for games. And worse still, is these setups would be made and then left for future staff to discover and undo during graveyard. Overall, surprisingly, communication was the biggest downfall this GDQ.
For SGDQ, we are going to have a schematic for ALL hardware and cabling, and we will stick to that as closely as possible. Any revisions will be noted so staff later in the day can catch up on anything that went wrong.
Finally, some of the setup time was due to runners not communicating, or not taking care of their particular setups. In the future, we will be less willing to accommodate special setup changes that we are not informed of prior to the event. If you know you need a particular type of TV for instance, and you're waiting until your run is being set up, that is unacceptable. That creates delays in the marathon, and impacts other runners.
To help curb some of that, the game submission form for SGDQ will include a field to describe anything special you need to perform your run. We can't guarantee we can provide everything, but at least we can let you know if it will be a problem.
To be clear, for unforeseen issues, bugs and things that the runners aren't aware of, we'll always do what we can. I just want runners to take charge in other situations, such as needing specific TVs, or a PAL game. It hurts the marathon and other runners when a runner arrives unprepared.
Quote from final fight cd:
why can't there be TWO dedicated "couches?" as one is running a game, the other is getting setup for the next. that way, there actually might be a seamless transition between runs. it seemed the viewer count dropped by 20-30K when a run finished, which i'm sure can be mainly attributed to the expected LLOONNGG setup for the next run.
This isn't a logistical possibility. It would require significantly more equipment, more staff, and there is only one streaming computer. We couldn't check if they were set up beforehand, so time saved would be minimal.
Quote from boredeathly:
For hosting, a mute button or a push to talk key would have been nice. The noise gate was very harsh and would cut out the host's voice mid sentence.
Also this sounds silly but could the host get some sort of colored sign to wave to get the audio tech's attention? Like wave red side at them to get muted and green side to be unmuted. It was sometimes hard to get their attention with just a waving hand.
Also this sounds silly but could the host get some sort of colored sign to wave to get the audio tech's attention? Like wave red side at them to get muted and green side to be unmuted. It was sometimes hard to get their attention with just a waving hand.
There was supposed to be a nice mute button and setup for host, but I ran out of time to prepare that due to the extra workload with Mike being out of commission. That's on me, will be there for SGDQ. The host controller will probably have a way to flag down tech staff too.
Quote from KennyMan666:
Also, that Tinybuild commerical. Who the hell makes a commercial showcasing a bunch of different games without including the game names? That made that commercial completely pointless for a viewer.
Tinybuild made the ad. I'd ask them.
Quote from StingerPA:
Submission Process
This was definitely an improvement over last year. I felt that SDA thread was well handled, especially with all the salt that came through (FFT), and I appreciated the forums not being completely obliterated this time around. The Salt-o-meter was good to see how far along the staff was in processing the submissions.
However, it wasn't perfect. Submitting 2 categories for a game was a pain in the ass, especially since you were expected to cram pitches for both categories into the already very limited space for a single category. This also cluttered the submissions after being processed as both categories would look to be accepted, and it wasn't clear which one until well after the fact when Mike was able to put comments in.
Suggestion: Make it so that we can have 10 submissions, like the rules imply (5 games, 2 categories each means up to 10), or change the policy regarding that. You can simply have the system auto-reject a person's submissions if more than 5 distinct games are entered. People might try to get around that, but it shouldn't be so many that they can't be manually handled. This would also clear up the other issue of which categories are/are not accepted through the first round. For example, Escape Goat 2 had any% and 100% submitted together, but 100% was never really considered. Making them separate submissions would eliminate any confusion.
This was definitely an improvement over last year. I felt that SDA thread was well handled, especially with all the salt that came through (FFT), and I appreciated the forums not being completely obliterated this time around. The Salt-o-meter was good to see how far along the staff was in processing the submissions.
However, it wasn't perfect. Submitting 2 categories for a game was a pain in the ass, especially since you were expected to cram pitches for both categories into the already very limited space for a single category. This also cluttered the submissions after being processed as both categories would look to be accepted, and it wasn't clear which one until well after the fact when Mike was able to put comments in.
Suggestion: Make it so that we can have 10 submissions, like the rules imply (5 games, 2 categories each means up to 10), or change the policy regarding that. You can simply have the system auto-reject a person's submissions if more than 5 distinct games are entered. People might try to get around that, but it shouldn't be so many that they can't be manually handled. This would also clear up the other issue of which categories are/are not accepted through the first round. For example, Escape Goat 2 had any% and 100% submitted together, but 100% was never really considered. Making them separate submissions would eliminate any confusion.
The category issue was entirely an oversight on Mike and myself. During development we didn't really realize the need for this. This system will be dramatically improved, particularly with how it is presented. Categories will be selected when approved immediately as well. We won't be using your suggestions here, because I am overhauling it entirely to work better with categories in mind.
Quote from Naegleria:
audio issues (AGDQ 2015 Contra TMR was audible, everyone else was quiet. everytime someone scratched their ear/moved their hair/removed the mic, there was a loud screech)
(AGDQ 2013 Contra blue yeti didnt have these issues, I know I'm in the minority here, but I really prefer having one mic that picks up everything over a bunch of mics that pick up some things. Also, the field of view of the cameras is great in the AGDQ 2013 Contra video)
I don't know what was with that contra run. The reason the two guys weren't audible is because they're "sharing" a mic by holding it between them. There is no reason for this to be happening. There was 4 mics and that's all the commentators there should be. We have that rule for exactly this reason.
Also, AGDQ2013 did not have a Yeti, we were using my MXL mics (now the crowd mic), which would be completely unusable with the size of the event these days. Keep in mind the event is completely different scale now. It would pick up every footstep in a 10 meter area if we used that same setup this year.
Quote from TruthBomber:
With the amount of money that goes into this event, and the viewership and profile it has, I think it is high time there are some A/V and event management professionals to keep things running smoothly, and get the details right. Ignoring setup times, Details like:
-Mic levels being atrociously varied. Given that GDQ events have the luxury of still being an event with a somewhat casual air, I think it would be worth having people do a quick mic level test (if they're running clipons) or getting a boom mic to mic up the couch. Especially given that the couch was seperated from the main viewing area by big screens that help to inhibit noise, I think it is worth having someone vetting mic volume actively (label the EQ) or to have the boom mic running to avoid having to mic up every commentator.
-Colour temperature on different screens/capture sources being varied. This is probably not as pressing an issue for many people as it is to me, but its a production & polish issue that would only take a small amount of time to resolve.
-Donation reader needs to be able to mute themselves, as you touched on.
We can't afford professionals for the length of our event, and unfortunately the few volunteer people with any audio/video experience are generally from theater backgrounds.
I have been told by various talented A/V people that a shotgun mic (such as a boom) would not work at all. Keep in mind the runners are having game audio blasted in their face, which is a problem no traditional broadcast station has.
UraniumAnchor says that the color temperature issue varies by source type and capture card. I know personally that these issues can break themselves on their own, even after they've been fixed. We have to simplify our setup for volunteers, and adjusting this for every run where it is necessary would increase the probability of something going wrong. Particularly since the area where those settings exist involves other dangerous options that can break the stream layout or crash a capture card entirely.
Quote from Claude:
2. Not all of the Super Nintendos in the practice room were modded to play SFC games. Considering what an easy mod this is, I was pretty surprised by this, and made finding a good SNES + TV combo a bit of a hassle. Fortunately I brought my own SNES anyways, so this wasn't a huge deal to me - but in the future, this should definitely be addressed.
We don't provide the equipment for any other rooms other than TVs. World9 Gaming provided the vast majority of consoles (and TVs) in the practice room. Runners should expect to bring their own equipment for cases such as these, because we can't realistically manage that much equipment on top of what we already have. We'll make this more obvious on the submission form.
Quote from Linkinito:
Overly long "setup" times
When you look at the schedule, it was really clear, some games really had a very, very, very long setup time. Sometimes exceeding the actual duration of the run. It was the main cause of delay this year and led to cancel some runs in setup slots to catch up (like MGS Ground Zeroes). Also, if most of the time it was setup, sometimes, it was an addition to the run like an any% glitched run, or a glitch showcase, etc. And even though it was entertaining, it added even more delay to the schedule.
Just want to point out that setup times on the schedule included bonus incentives, so not all runs were as bad as the setup may imply.
Quote:
(And check on agdq.ma.pe or alligatr.co.uk how the donations slowed down hard after Mega Man X3... Thursday and Friday were abysmal days in terms of donations. Even though some runs were great - look at GTA Vice City, praised by everyone, but very few donations throughout the whole run! And it was in graveyard shift)
The data you were looking at was not updated with the revised tracker donations. Those days were a significant chunk of the $400k that was missing in the tracker.
Quote:
With the streaming room, I wish there could've been more chairs behind the couch. I was supposed to sit in for a run on the first day (I'm friends with the runner and he said it was fine obviously), but a bunch of other people wanted to sit in as well, and it was like a mad dash to see who could get a seat first. It also happened during my own run to my knowledge, with some people not being able to get a seat, and I imagine it happened with a lot of other runs as well. Plus, with more chairs available to people, it'd help to make the stream feel less empty, which a lot of people were complaining about.
The number of chairs were intentional. It's not intended to be a second crowd, just a group that is supporting the runner directly. You may notice later in the event, more chairs found their way over (much to my chagrin), and setup time increased because of the number of people loitering around. In addition, it increases the likelihood of people talking, interfering with the runner, and trying to commentate when they shouldn't be.
Wario Land 4: Yeah, that was fixed. Except during bonus stream, because it was bonus stream.
Sumichu - General, Event Organization, Sponsors, Game Submissions
Quote from sumichu:
I'm here to answer inquiries not related to tech, and will answer questions that I can as time allows.
First of all, we sincerely apologize for offensive comments that made it on-stream.
We give the donation station people some guidelines about what comments are okay and what comments aren't, but because we are unable to detail what should be done for each comment (people can get really, really creative with what they choose to write sometimes), we leave final judgment to them. Since AGDQ is a long event that takes people out of their normal day-to-day, they can end up unaware of current events, which was one of the issues we had with vague comments.
In the future, we will reinforce the idea that it is better to be safe than sorry at future GDQs and consider additional training prior to the event.
Noted. We will consider having a "for registration inquiries, please head over to ______" during the hours where registration isn't open, and possibly consider having registration table hours available.
Sponsor mentions are different than having their logo displayed on the stream because of the way they are delivered (visually vs audibly), and also give different information. That being said, we got a lot of feedback about the sponsor mentions, and our biggest issue is finding a good balance between the requests of our sponsors and our viewers. We will take the feedback into consideration when we speak with our sponsors.
We understand that the hotel was a bit isolated (I myself had the luxury of someone offering to drive us every day lol). As stated in the OP, we're going to look into additional shuttle services and put a little more focus on the location/food when choosing the venue.
Thanks for the example. We'll look into doing more donation mentions.
This is something that has been brought up and discussed a couple of times. A lot of things are considered when game selection is done. It needs to fit into the schedule, it needs to reach a broad audience (including people both inside and outside of the speedrun community; AGDQ 2015 had 9.4 million unique viewers), among other things that go into consideration such as donation incentives, blocks, prizes, and logistics. Voting would only cover what a fraction of the viewers would like to see. Furthermore, a voting system like that runs the risk of becoming a popularity contest and/or being abused.
While the increased interaction would be something really cool, this isn't something that can consider at this time.
We will most likely be uploading videos during the event starting with the next GDQ.
Quote from AlbinoAlbatross:
Donation Screening: How tight is the moderation on donation screening, out of curiosity? There were some pretty bad donation comments that got read aloud that definitely should not have made it past any screening, one of which put one of my friends in a really bad spot.
First of all, we sincerely apologize for offensive comments that made it on-stream.
We give the donation station people some guidelines about what comments are okay and what comments aren't, but because we are unable to detail what should be done for each comment (people can get really, really creative with what they choose to write sometimes), we leave final judgment to them. Since AGDQ is a long event that takes people out of their normal day-to-day, they can end up unaware of current events, which was one of the issues we had with vague comments.
In the future, we will reinforce the idea that it is better to be safe than sorry at future GDQs and consider additional training prior to the event.
Quote from presjpolk:
When I got to the venue to do commentary it was really hard to find someone to get me a badge.
Not a huge thing since it's a one shot, but a posted sign of where to go if someone's not manning the station, would be nice.
Not a huge thing since it's a one shot, but a posted sign of where to go if someone's not manning the station, would be nice.
Noted. We will consider having a "for registration inquiries, please head over to ______" during the hours where registration isn't open, and possibly consider having registration table hours available.
Quote from Kirua:
+/- I can't believe i'm saying that but you should probably read more donations. I noticed that there was a great deal of effort to let the players & couch talk a lot, which was great. But at the same time, when the hosts were talking, I felt that the balance between the things that were being read wasn't necessarily the best. Like reading so many times about sponsors, and way less donations than before. The sponsors were already in the layout to begin with, reading so much about them felt overkill.
- Food. That was by far the main problem as an attendee: getting some food at night was nearly impossible. Not so many cars/drivers around (and even if there are, you're forced to bother them). Basically, having nothing available at a reasonable walking distance was a huge downside of this location. And the on-site restaurant had some really poor service.
- Food. That was by far the main problem as an attendee: getting some food at night was nearly impossible. Not so many cars/drivers around (and even if there are, you're forced to bother them). Basically, having nothing available at a reasonable walking distance was a huge downside of this location. And the on-site restaurant had some really poor service.
Sponsor mentions are different than having their logo displayed on the stream because of the way they are delivered (visually vs audibly), and also give different information. That being said, we got a lot of feedback about the sponsor mentions, and our biggest issue is finding a good balance between the requests of our sponsors and our viewers. We will take the feedback into consideration when we speak with our sponsors.
We understand that the hotel was a bit isolated (I myself had the luxury of someone offering to drive us every day lol). As stated in the OP, we're going to look into additional shuttle services and put a little more focus on the location/food when choosing the venue.
Quote from BubblesDelFuego:
1. Have the event organizers spend more time on camera reminding the audience to donate, announcing donation goals being met, and to really raise the level of excitement. I like how Brossentia says things like, "If everyone donated 1 dollar(and so on)...", and there should be more of that.
Thanks for the example. We'll look into doing more donation mentions.
Quote from BubblesDelFuego:
3. During game submissions there should be something like an upvote and downvote system available for those in the public. This way the ones in charge of choosing which games make the cut can get a good sense of what the community wants to see. Like, maybe you would need an account on the GamesDoneQuick website to vote. It sounds like it can easily be a broken system, but the point is that there should be a public rating system on submissions. The public rating doesn't ultimately decide if the run makes it or not, it just helps the staff out.
This is something that has been brought up and discussed a couple of times. A lot of things are considered when game selection is done. It needs to fit into the schedule, it needs to reach a broad audience (including people both inside and outside of the speedrun community; AGDQ 2015 had 9.4 million unique viewers), among other things that go into consideration such as donation incentives, blocks, prizes, and logistics. Voting would only cover what a fraction of the viewers would like to see. Furthermore, a voting system like that runs the risk of becoming a popularity contest and/or being abused.
While the increased interaction would be something really cool, this isn't something that can consider at this time.
Quote from BubblesDelFuego:
4. Videos of the runs should be uploaded to the YouTube page much, much faster. I understand completely that this is being worked on as much as it can, but maybe if during the volunteer forum there can be a spot for people to offer their services as dedicated uploaders. During the marathons there are multiple rouge YouTube accounts that upload and monetize the GDQ's content, and kicking their video off the internet is a hassle. There are also online news cites that contact the runners and ask when the videos will be uploaded, and for the purposes of "fresh news" the runs should be uploaded within a few days of happening. Also, the sooner the videos are uploaded to the SDA channel means more views on the SDA channel, and then the SDA channel can monetize the videos and raise even more moneyfor charity.
We will most likely be uploading videos during the event starting with the next GDQ.
Quote from sumichu:
Quote from Shaddex:
As someone who has has high hopes of being accepted to SGDQ, I have some small criticisms and improvements in regards to the Submission Process.
- In my opinion, the Character limit was too low. I struggled with trying to compress my run description into such a small space, and as a result my pitch came in as a shadow of what it should have been. I'd appreciate being able to describe my game in its best light, not in a vastly diminished sense.
- Instead of cluttering up the description with donation incentives and race proposals, it'd be nice to have a separate space designed specifically for these purposes. This could be accomplished through a simple check box indicating willingness to race, and a separate text box for describing donation incentives.
- One small thing I'd also like is a way to indicate past marathon experience. Not only does this demonstrate dedication, it also demonstrates advancements in routing and player skill.
- In my opinion, the Character limit was too low. I struggled with trying to compress my run description into such a small space, and as a result my pitch came in as a shadow of what it should have been. I'd appreciate being able to describe my game in its best light, not in a vastly diminished sense.
- Instead of cluttering up the description with donation incentives and race proposals, it'd be nice to have a separate space designed specifically for these purposes. This could be accomplished through a simple check box indicating willingness to race, and a separate text box for describing donation incentives.
- One small thing I'd also like is a way to indicate past marathon experience. Not only does this demonstrate dedication, it also demonstrates advancements in routing and player skill.
We are going to try to make the submission form request more information the next time around, though we're not sure if the character limit for your description will change (there's a high volume of submissions). These suggestions are definitely helpful in helping us identify things that we should be looking out for. Thanks!
Quote from Gwimpage:
I'm not sure if anyone brought it up but was there no way to get your clothes washed? I had asked the front desk for options and they recommended a local dry cleaning (They delivered it to and back which was very nice) and the price to get laundry done was very expensive. I payed almost 40$ for a load of laundry I could have done at a laundromat for like 4$.
Laundry hasn't really been a priority in the venue search, but that will be one of the things we ask about and consider when we choose a venue (since our list of preferences is rather lengthy, we always end up sacrificing some, unfortunately).
MURPHAGATOR! - Enforcement
Quote from MURPHAGATOR!:
Regarding the smash situation: the tournament room was entirely created due to complaints from previous marathons about smash bros taking over the casual room entirely. In retrospect, I realize that the policy of not allowing smash in the casual room was not clearly outlined to all attendees. A part of the difficulty with enforcing the smash brothers rules is that it is very difficult to separate a casual match with more serious competition for someone who is not intimately familiar with the game. This is why we had set this up in a rigid way. I myself tried to be flexible when I did see people playing it in the casual room by allowing them to finish the match they were playing before sending them down, but I recognize this was not always how things were done by others.
As far as moving the 60" TV to accommodate, that was not really intended. That TV had been intended to not be moved at any point during the event, and shouldn't have been taken down when there were other, more accessible TV's available to move down. That said, I myself had put the TVs down in the tournament room and had completely overlooked the fact that smash 4 was an HD game and would require setups appropriate for that as a result of my previous experience with smash setups from fighting game tournaments, and I apologize for that oversight.
For future events, we may end up changing the room layouts to better accommodate attendees. We will also make sure to communicate between staff the steps that should be taken for enforcement for minor things like that, and to make clear the usage policies for each room with the general attendees.
As far as moving the 60" TV to accommodate, that was not really intended. That TV had been intended to not be moved at any point during the event, and shouldn't have been taken down when there were other, more accessible TV's available to move down. That said, I myself had put the TVs down in the tournament room and had completely overlooked the fact that smash 4 was an HD game and would require setups appropriate for that as a result of my previous experience with smash setups from fighting game tournaments, and I apologize for that oversight.
For future events, we may end up changing the room layouts to better accommodate attendees. We will also make sure to communicate between staff the steps that should be taken for enforcement for minor things like that, and to make clear the usage policies for each room with the general attendees.
Raelcun - Volunteers, Donation Comments
Quote from Raelcun:
Instead of trying to pick out specific posts to reply to, I’m going to address the donation reading situation in general since most of the complaints fall under the same couple recurring issues.
Too many of one type of donations being read:
This is a problem that’s harder than a lot of people seem to realize, partially because it requires some understanding of what’s going on from the marathon’s point of view. With that, let me try and address that in particular. We have always put some priority on reading donations that are personal stories about cancer and how it affects people’s lives because that’s the core of what the event is about. Hearing about these cases enforces how important it is to try and prevent as many of these as possible which leads back to the charity we’re supporting. This year, however, we had a much larger volume of donations about cancer than we’ve dealt with in the past. Part of this is because cancer is a growing problem that’s affecting more and more people, but it’s also because the event, as a whole, is getting more exposure.
We started advising the hosts to try and scale back on it part way through the week, but in some cases, we were only reading donations about cancer because they were the only ones making it through filtering. In the future, we will be pickier about which ones we read and try not to be so overbearing with reading large blocks of personal stories about cancer. Yes, this is an event to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation, and we will never completely exclude those comments, but it’s important that some of the fun still happens at the same time. More than anything else, be sure that we’re aware of the problem and are trying to find the right balance for the future.
Comments getting through that shouldn’t/Comments being filtered that shouldn’t be:
This is an ongoing issue that we’re always working to improve. This year we had over 39,000 donations being processed by a relatively small pool of hardworking volunteers using a two tiered system so that it’s never just one person approving comments. Mistakes happen, but that isn’t an excuse, we're working on it.
Part of dealing with the above problem means that in many cases if a donation volunteer is uncertain about something they will choose to not have it read. When dealing with this many donations, we have to play it safe when we’re uncertain if something is borderline or not. As a result, we may not read a fun comment because of a minor issue.
This is partially because of another policy where we do not edit comments. A comment that is mostly acceptable but has one problematic portion at the end won’t be read because we don’t want to only read part of the donation. We don’t even want to explore any of the gigantic problems that could start occurring if we edited donations to make them acceptable to read on air.
Too many of one type of donations being read:
This is a problem that’s harder than a lot of people seem to realize, partially because it requires some understanding of what’s going on from the marathon’s point of view. With that, let me try and address that in particular. We have always put some priority on reading donations that are personal stories about cancer and how it affects people’s lives because that’s the core of what the event is about. Hearing about these cases enforces how important it is to try and prevent as many of these as possible which leads back to the charity we’re supporting. This year, however, we had a much larger volume of donations about cancer than we’ve dealt with in the past. Part of this is because cancer is a growing problem that’s affecting more and more people, but it’s also because the event, as a whole, is getting more exposure.
We started advising the hosts to try and scale back on it part way through the week, but in some cases, we were only reading donations about cancer because they were the only ones making it through filtering. In the future, we will be pickier about which ones we read and try not to be so overbearing with reading large blocks of personal stories about cancer. Yes, this is an event to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation, and we will never completely exclude those comments, but it’s important that some of the fun still happens at the same time. More than anything else, be sure that we’re aware of the problem and are trying to find the right balance for the future.
Comments getting through that shouldn’t/Comments being filtered that shouldn’t be:
This is an ongoing issue that we’re always working to improve. This year we had over 39,000 donations being processed by a relatively small pool of hardworking volunteers using a two tiered system so that it’s never just one person approving comments. Mistakes happen, but that isn’t an excuse, we're working on it.
Part of dealing with the above problem means that in many cases if a donation volunteer is uncertain about something they will choose to not have it read. When dealing with this many donations, we have to play it safe when we’re uncertain if something is borderline or not. As a result, we may not read a fun comment because of a minor issue.
This is partially because of another policy where we do not edit comments. A comment that is mostly acceptable but has one problematic portion at the end won’t be read because we don’t want to only read part of the donation. We don’t even want to explore any of the gigantic problems that could start occurring if we edited donations to make them acceptable to read on air.
answers from thread added to OP by sumi.
Thread title: