AGDQ 2015 Feedback

dangodofthunder

Edit history:

dangodofthunder: 2015-01-27 11:43:02 pm

2015-01-27 11:40:45 pm

Quote from Reiska:

I think I more or less agree with dangodofthunder that AGDQ should focus solely on the charity fundraising aspect of its portfolio, even perhaps to the exclusion of all other elements, for the sake of efficiency.

I think there's a place for a SpeedGamesCon or something of that nature, for sure - perhaps that's not an ideal name, but the idea would be an actual convention dedicated to the art of playing games at their skill peak, whether that peak is time-based or score-based (for games where speed isn't applicable e.g. shmups) or whatever - but I don't think AGDQ is necessarily the place for that event, for a number of reasons (proximity to MAGFest being a big one, as well as the greater internet community's concerns about the cost efficiency of marathons).

I never said that, I simply said that there's a segment of the community that feels that way. I simply think that in lieu of an event that focuses on the social element of it, convention or not, GDQ's will default to it. Whether or not we see Cosmo teach Speedrunning 101, or Caleb teaching how to grow your channel or whatever, AGDQ and SGDQ are the two biggest locations for runners to meet each other and their fans. Trying to ignore or shutter this is counterproductive without something to fill that void.

Edited Clarification: I think organized events like what I mentioned Cosmo and Caleb are doing are stupid, but would be the closest parallel to what we see in other cons

[quote="Reiska"]I think I more or less agree with dangodofthunder that AGDQ should focus solely on the charity fundraising aspect of its portfolio, even perhaps to the exclusion of all other elements, for the sake of efficiency.

I think there's a place for a SpeedGamesCon or something of that nature, for sure - perhaps that's not an ideal name, but the idea would be an actual convention dedicated to the art of playing games at their skill peak, whether that peak is time-based or score-based (for games where speed isn't applicable e.g. shmups) or whatever - but I don't think AGDQ is necessarily the place for that event, for a number of reasons (proximity to MAGFest being a big one, as well as the greater internet community's concerns about the cost efficiency of marathons).[/quote]

I never said that, I simply said that there's a segment of the community that feels that way. I simply think that in lieu of an event that focuses on the social element of it, convention or not, GDQ's will default to it. Whether or not we see Cosmo teach Speedrunning 101, or Caleb teaching how to grow your channel or whatever, AGDQ and SGDQ are the two biggest locations for runners to meet each other and their fans. Trying to ignore or shutter this is counterproductive without something to fill that void.

Edited Clarification: I think organized events like what I mentioned Cosmo and Caleb are doing are stupid, but would be the closest parallel to what we see in other cons

Elipsis

Edit history:

Elipsis: 2015-01-28 02:17:49 am

2015-01-28 02:14:28 am

Well this thread is bumpin'. Shocked

AGDQ 2015 was my very first live GDQ - first and foremost I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who invested their time and effort into this event. It was honestly one of the most fun and amazing weeks of my life. Full stop. You guys did a mind-blowing job with this event and I am fully sold on coming back next year. I feel like a douche being critical of really anything at all when I know some folks in the staff and volunteers were practically killing themselves trying to make this thing a success. I have enormous respect for all of your efforts, so as I'm doing this write-up please don't think everything you all put into this event is unappreciated.

Hotel Things

So I drove here from Pittsburgh - and I was absolutely sure that my GPS had fucked up as I was being routed around loading trucks and around the back-side of what looked to be an industrial park. But lo and behold suddenly I'm at what must obviously be the back entrance to the Hilton. After a bit of senseless circling I finally found a parking spot waaaaay away from the main lobby thinking I must surely be one of the last ones to arrive (it was Saturday). And so marked my slightly comical arrival at a hotel that, as it turns out, I rather liked quite a bit.

The room was, simply put, pretty nice. I had one bout of terror for about 45 seconds as I first scoped out the place when I couldn't find the blackout curtains... dread creeping into my mind as the fear went off in my head "Oh god, I might have to see the sun this week." But thank goodness, I found them hiding in the back of the fancy looking drapes - and so successfully embarked on one of the most disastrous and irresponsible sleep schedules of my adult life.

I had one minor issue partway through the week which hotel maintenance fixed for me pretty much immediately, and beyond that everything about the room was satisfactory. King bed was super comfortable, TV supported HDMI which was awesome because I brought my Xbox 360, and the sun was not let in. One other weird praise if I may... I was rather worried when I saw that my room was directly in front of the elevator. Having this spot before in hotels has been rather deleterious to sleep. Not so at the Hilton. Didn't hear the elevator for shit, and for all the hype that I'm sure must have been going on in the hallway intermittently at random hours, nothing woke me up. I suspect the Hilton has above average acoustic isolation and that's not something to be scoffed at.

Moving out of my room - although I'm pretty sure this was the largest GDQ the thing never felt totally cramped for space. The main stream room was large, the breakfast had ample seating, and between the tournament room, the practice room, and the casual room, there was always somewhere to relax and socialize without feeling like a sardine. Having a bar and some food available on site was clutch a couple of times. It wasn't the best eats, but it got me through a few nights. That said, I had a car... and went off-site a number of times on the days that I actually remembered to eat. If you didn't have your own transportation I would imagine it would have been really rough. I would not want to eat 7 days in a row from the hotel's food options. I found a couple of 24/7 options available within 15 minutes from the hotel and gathered up those who wanted to come out, but for a lot of people who flew in that's just not an option. Sometimes I was just sooooo glad that the first floor never ran out of cups of water. They did a good job being attentive with that.

Random thought, if the event is 24/7, could we by any chance negotiate for the pool to be open 24/7? Pool hours were meh.

Overall though - if you told me that AGDQ 2016 was in the same hotel and I was staying in the same room, I wouldn't hesitate for one second to say "I'm definitely in." My best constructive advise on the food matter would be to have something like a poster board for people to car pool maybe. For example, "Driving to Indian Food - Leaving at 7pm - Max seating 6" and then have people meet there who were interested or something. I would definitely volunteer as driver for that sort of thing and it would be a great way to meet random folks while simultaneously getting people without transportation something to eat away from the hotel.

AGDQ Things

The Dead horse criticism - one of my biggest criticisms with how the stream was presented was handled early into the GDQ. I'm not going to be the Nth person to belabor the dead silence during setup stuff. You guys know, and adjusted, and I felt like there was good energy on the air afterwards.

Twitch Stream Layout - looked fine to me I'm not a fuss.

Twitch Chat - Fucking toxic. Not sure what to do about it either. Sub-only mode has some serious drawbacks that others pointed out... but so does a constant stream of vitriol. There's not enough moderators in the world to actually clean that up really. Actually... new idea... if you made EVERYONE a moderator they might all time each other out and then the whole thing would just kind of sort itself out.

About Blocks - so I've seen a lot of criticism about "huge blocks of samey games" (mario stuff, mega man stuff, etc...) and ya know what... I disagree with all of it. I actually like those big blocks and I want to explain why. Coming to AGDQ I had about 35 runs highlighted that I was intending to see in person, and I was absolutely unprepared for how much fun stuff is going on all the time off-stream in the other AGDQ rooms, in people's hotel rooms, and occasionally off-site entirely. Everyone's advise to me was "you really really shouldn't try to do it all" - they were right. I ended up seeing maybe 14 of the runs I had planned on, and I would have missed a lot more of them were they not in a row. From my perspective, it was most convenient to set aside that block of time for the runs and plan other things like food and sleep around it. The shit I ended up missing was mostly the stuff not in blocks where I was saying to myself "Okay... so if I want to catch these runs I have to sleep for 3 hours, wake up and run to the stream room, have breakfast, sleep for 3 more hours, wake up again..." - lining up the same type runs makes it so that it's much easier to plan for, and personally I like it that way. A lot of people watching Mega Man 1 also want to see Mega Man 5, I argue it's the most convenient thing for everyone to leave such things together. Conversely, the large blocks of games that I didn't care about were great to catch up on sleep, or relax and enjoy a meal off-site. So I actually really liked the way the schedule was arranged.

Donations / Atmosphere - Maybe almost a dead horse criticism but I felt awkward a couple of times when I was having a great time watching and enjoying a run and then I hear "I'm donating because my wife just lost her battle with brain cancer, then 6 months later I lost our only daughter to leukemia, then 3 months later cancer killed my puppy. Here's $25." Like yeah the cause is important, and we shouldn't forget that we're trying to raise money for charity... but my goodness it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster at times between family members dying and then insanely difficult frame-perfect tricks. At the same time it seems ice-cold to sensor people who have lost so much and just want to express what the GDQ means to them. It's a difficult balance and I wish I had a suggestion - maybe try to mix in more fun and silly donations than we did this time and save the heavy stuff for in between runs?

Casual / Tournament Rooms - Fucking loved it. Had some great times here. It's really good that this space exists and big thanks to anyone who donated their hardware. I mean, it'd be wonderful to expand on it and have massive libraries of games and controllers waiting to be used, but as is it is awesomely done. I guess I got away with playing Smash (n64) on Saturday in the casual room?... I didn't actually know about that rule and never ran into anyone enforcing it. When I wanted to play smash after that it was in the tournament.

Practice Room - This was really well done, and smart to prioritize the runners for obvious reasons. At first I was anxious about even walking in here as I wasn't running anything at AGDQ, but when I realized there was a separate runner only practice room, and people were mostly relaxed in the main practice room - I went in, watched some great runs, and even had a chance to learn some games from others while in there. It was a great setup and everyone did a good job with it.

Bonus Stream - As an attendee, Saturday through Sunday was quite sufficient enough of a strain on my finances and vacation days that I was quite okay with driving back Sunday morning. I imagine a lot of people are in a similar situation, and while I think the bonus stream is "nice" - I don't think it's critical to the GDQ and don't fault anyone for wanting to be rid of it if it's not logistically feasible anymore.

Main Stream Room / Couch / Chair Things - I'm going to be honest, when I first walked in and saw the setup I felt pretty disappointed. This was because I felt like I had come all of this way and was totally disconnected from the run just kind of watching twitch except on a bigger screen. I had a great view of the screen in the front row by the door, and as such it took me a few minutes to even identify where the actual run was taking place. As I had not negotiated to be on anyone's couch or overflow chairs - I was worried this was going to be my AGDQ experience and it really didn't feel like I was there "in person" to me. (It didn't help that feeling that the first run I walked in on was the run where the output was dropping frames. Mario Kart I believe.) I watched a couple runs that clearly had empty chairs in the back and I finally got brave and asked the one person on staff who I sort of knew if I was welcome to come sit behind the couch for his run (remember that I got to AGDQ not knowing anybody at all in person, so the awkward internal monolog was real). The response was a very friendly assurance (thanks so much!!) that it was okay to join in behind the couch as long as everyone who the runner wanted there had a space too. Maybe I'm daft - but I feel like this was not clear at all from reading the rules - which I did multiple times. This just isn't the most clear or inviting line:

Quote:

-The couch area is off limits to anyone who is not approved by the runner. This includes the rows immediately behind the couch as well if the runner has extra people he or she wants to have there.

The seats behind the couch were also so separated visually and by physical obstructions that I honestly got the impression I had no business back there unless specifically invited. I am pretty sure that I overheard others puzzling this out as well during the first couple of days and I imagine that someone not as... outgoing... as myself might have really missed out by never feeling comfortable engaging anyone to figure out what the rules actually were regarding this.

Anyway, once I understood that I was allowed to come see the runs in person in person - it was fucking awesome. I don't know why it was so important to me but I really felt much more connected to AGDQ watching the real television with my own eyes, and hearing the runners and commentary not through a speaker. That's kind of what I came out there to do, after all. I saw the runs that I really wanted to see from right behind the couch and it was so hype to be right there for these amazing moments.

There was one other point of confusion - and I'm positive that for this one I wasn't the only one. This was later into the week and by then enough people had figured out it was okay to go behind the projector. However, there were more people than chairs and a good deal of confusion surrounding how to handle it. The first time, a few of us stood behind the last row of chairs - I asked someone (a non-staff member who had been to GDQs before) if this was okay and they said "I think so." And in fact it went pretty okay. Lots of staff members were around and nobody said anything about it, we could see the TV and weren't in anybody's way. So awesome.

But then the second time I ran into this situation it was handled confusingly. People had added chairs I guess, but they were removed so they ended up standing (after being re-added and re-removed again), then I thought I heard someone say that there couldn't be standing (so I left), but then the run was about to start and people were clearly being allowed to stand (so I came back). It was all a bit confusing as to what was okay and what wasn't.

My suggestion here is of course to be more explicit in two ways. The first is to try to be more inviting, avoid obstructing the path to the couch / chairs, and make it clear that it's totally okay to sit in on a run without an explicit invitation so long as runner's selected friends get first dibs. Maybe even have the announcer say "Hey we still have some chairs open if anyone else would like to come up." Two, figure out the standing thing conclusively one way or the other so as to avoid confusion. (Personally I think it just makes the run look more hype - and is totally non-disruptive as long as we don't have a mosh pit going back there.)

Conclusion

Sooooooo yeah. A few minor suggestions and my biggest meanest criticism is that the rules for the space behind the couch were communicated poorly. You can contrast that with the praise that this was one of the most fantastic times I've had in my life.

It's worth repeating that what you guys pulled off was fucking amazing. And while there may be some small ways to make it even better, if you did it all again exactly the same I would be absolutely thrilled to come year after year.

Well this thread is bumpin'.  :o

AGDQ 2015 was my very first live GDQ - first and foremost I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who invested their time and effort into this event.  It was honestly one of the most fun and amazing weeks of my life.  Full stop.  You guys did a mind-blowing job with this event and I am fully sold on coming back next year.  I feel like a douche being critical of really anything at all when I know some folks in the staff and volunteers were practically killing themselves trying to make this thing a success.  I have enormous respect for all of your efforts, so as I'm doing this write-up please don't think everything you all put into this event is unappreciated.

[b]Hotel Things[/b]

So I drove here from Pittsburgh - and I was absolutely [i]sure[/i] that my GPS had fucked up as I was being routed around loading trucks and around the back-side of what looked to be an industrial park.  But lo and behold suddenly I'm at what must obviously be the back entrance to the Hilton.  After a bit of senseless circling I finally found a parking spot waaaaay away from the main lobby thinking I must surely be one of the last ones to arrive (it was Saturday).  And so marked my slightly comical arrival at a hotel that, as it turns out, I rather liked quite a bit.

The room was, simply put, pretty nice.  I had one bout of terror for about 45 seconds as I first scoped out the place when I couldn't find the blackout curtains... dread creeping into my mind as the fear went off in my head "Oh god, I might have to see the sun this week."  But thank goodness, I found them hiding in the back of the fancy looking drapes - and so successfully embarked on one of the most disastrous and irresponsible sleep schedules of my adult life.

I had one minor issue partway through the week which hotel maintenance fixed for me pretty much immediately, and beyond that everything about the room was satisfactory.  King bed was super comfortable, TV supported HDMI which was awesome because I brought my Xbox 360, and the sun was not let in.  One other weird praise if I may... I was rather worried when I saw that my room was [i]directly in front of the elevator[/i].  Having this spot before in hotels has been rather deleterious to sleep.  Not so at the Hilton.  Didn't hear the elevator for shit, and for all the hype that I'm sure must have been going on in the hallway intermittently at random hours, nothing woke me up.  I suspect the Hilton has above average acoustic isolation and that's not something to be scoffed at.

Moving out of my room - although I'm pretty sure this was the largest GDQ the thing never felt totally cramped for space.  The main stream room was large, the breakfast had ample seating, and between the tournament room, the practice room, and the casual room, there was always somewhere to relax and socialize without feeling like a sardine.  Having a bar and some food available on site was clutch a couple of times.  It wasn't the best eats, but it got me through a few nights.  That said, I had a car... and went off-site a number of times on the days that I actually remembered to eat.  If you didn't have your own transportation I would imagine it would have been really rough.  I would [i]not[/i] want to eat 7 days in a row from the hotel's food options.  I found a couple of 24/7 options available within 15 minutes from the hotel and gathered up those who wanted to come out, but for a lot of people who flew in that's just not an option.  Sometimes I was just sooooo glad that the first floor never ran out of cups of water.  They did a good job being attentive with that.

Random thought, if the event is 24/7, could we by any chance negotiate for the pool to be open 24/7?  Pool hours were meh.

Overall though - if you told me that AGDQ 2016 was in the same hotel and I was staying in the same room, I wouldn't hesitate for one second to say "I'm definitely in."  My best constructive advise on the food matter would be to have something like a poster board for people to car pool maybe.  For example, "Driving to Indian Food - Leaving at 7pm - Max seating 6" and then have people meet there who were interested or something.  I would definitely volunteer as driver for that sort of thing and it would be a great way to meet random folks while simultaneously getting people without transportation something to eat away from the hotel.

[b]AGDQ Things[/b]

[i]The Dead horse criticism[/i] - one of my biggest criticisms with how the stream was presented was handled early into the GDQ.  I'm not going to be the Nth person to belabor the dead silence during setup stuff.  You guys know, and adjusted, and I felt like there was good energy on the air afterwards.

[i]Twitch Stream Layout[/i] - looked fine to me I'm not a fuss.

[i]Twitch Chat[/i] - Fucking toxic.  Not sure what to do about it either.  Sub-only mode has some serious drawbacks that others pointed out... but so does a constant stream of vitriol.  There's not enough moderators in the world to actually clean that up really.  Actually... new idea... if you made EVERYONE a moderator they might all time each other out and then the whole thing would just kind of sort itself out.

[i]About Blocks[/i] - so I've seen a lot of criticism about "huge blocks of samey games" (mario stuff, mega man stuff, etc...) and ya know what... I disagree with all of it.  I actually [i]like[/i] those big blocks and I want to explain why.  Coming to AGDQ I had about 35 runs highlighted that I was intending to see in person, and I was absolutely unprepared for how much fun stuff is going on all the time off-stream in the other AGDQ rooms, in people's hotel rooms, and occasionally off-site entirely.  Everyone's advise to me was "you really really shouldn't try to do it all" - they were right.  I ended up seeing maybe 14 of the runs I had planned on, and I would have missed a lot more of them were they not in a row.  From my perspective, it was most convenient to set aside that block of time for the runs and plan other things like food and sleep around it.  The shit I ended up missing was mostly the stuff [i]not[/i] in blocks where I was saying to myself "Okay... so if I want to catch these runs I have to sleep for 3 hours, wake up and run to the stream room, have breakfast, sleep for 3 more hours, wake up again..." - lining up the same type runs makes it so that it's much easier to plan for, and personally I like it that way.  A lot of people watching Mega Man 1 also want to see Mega Man 5, I argue it's the most convenient thing for everyone to leave such things together.  Conversely, the large blocks of games that I [i]didn't[/i] care about were great to catch up on sleep, or relax and enjoy a meal off-site.  So I actually really liked the way the schedule was arranged.

[i]Donations / Atmosphere[/i] - Maybe almost a dead horse criticism but I felt awkward a couple of times when I was having a great time watching and enjoying a run and then I hear "I'm donating because my wife just lost her battle with brain cancer, then 6 months later I lost our only daughter to leukemia, then 3 months later cancer killed my puppy.  Here's $25."  Like yeah the cause is important, and we shouldn't forget that we're trying to raise money for charity... but my goodness it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster at times between family members dying and then insanely difficult frame-perfect tricks.  At the same time it seems ice-cold to sensor people who have lost so much and just want to express what the GDQ means to them.  It's a difficult balance and I wish I had a suggestion - maybe try to mix in more fun and silly donations than we did this time and save the [i]heavy[/i] stuff for in between runs?

[i]Casual / Tournament Rooms[/i] - Fucking loved it.  Had some great times here.  It's really good that this space exists and big thanks to anyone who donated their hardware.  I mean, it'd be wonderful to expand on it and have massive libraries of games and controllers waiting to be used, but as is it is awesomely done.  I guess I got away with playing Smash (n64) on Saturday in the casual room?... I didn't actually know about that rule and never ran into anyone enforcing it.  When I wanted to play smash after that it was in the tournament.

[i]Practice Room[/i] - This was really well done, and smart to prioritize the runners for obvious reasons.  At first I was anxious about even walking in here as I wasn't running anything at AGDQ, but when I realized there was a separate runner only practice room, and people were mostly relaxed in the main practice room - I went in, watched some great runs, and even had a chance to learn some games from others while in there.  It was a great setup and everyone did a good job with it.

[i]Bonus Stream[/i] - As an attendee, Saturday through Sunday was quite sufficient enough of a strain on my finances and vacation days that I was quite okay with driving back Sunday morning.  I imagine a lot of people are in a similar situation, and while I think the bonus stream is "nice" - I don't think it's critical to the GDQ and don't fault anyone for wanting to be rid of it if it's not logistically feasible anymore.

[i]Main Stream Room / Couch / Chair Things[/i] - I'm going to be honest, when I first walked in and saw the setup I felt pretty disappointed.  This was because I felt like I had come all of this way and was totally disconnected from the run just kind of watching twitch except on a bigger screen.  I had a great view of the screen in the front row by the door, and as such it took me a few minutes to even identify where the actual run was taking place.  As I had not negotiated to be on anyone's couch or overflow chairs - I was worried this was going to be my AGDQ experience and it really didn't feel like I was there "in person" to me.  (It didn't help that feeling that the first run I walked in on was the run where the output was dropping frames.  Mario Kart I believe.)  I watched a couple runs that [i]clearly[/i] had empty chairs in the back and I finally got brave and asked the one person on staff who I sort of knew if I was welcome to come sit behind the couch for his run (remember that I got to AGDQ not knowing anybody at all in person, so the awkward internal monolog was [i]real[/i]).  The response was a very friendly assurance (thanks so much!!) that it was okay to join in behind the couch as long as everyone who the runner wanted there had a space too.  Maybe I'm daft - but I feel like this was not clear at all from reading the rules - which I did multiple times.  This just isn't the most clear or inviting line:

[quote]-The couch area is off limits to anyone who is not approved by the runner. This includes the rows immediately behind the couch as well if the runner has extra people he or she wants to have there.[/quote]

The seats behind the couch were also so separated visually and by physical obstructions that I honestly got the impression I had no business back there unless specifically invited.  I am pretty sure that I overheard others puzzling this out as well during the first couple of days and I imagine that someone not as... outgoing... as myself might have really missed out by never feeling comfortable engaging anyone to figure out what the rules actually were regarding this.

Anyway, once I understood that I was allowed to come see the runs [i]in person[/i] in person - it was fucking awesome.  I don't know why it was so important to me but I really felt much more connected to AGDQ watching the real television with my own eyes, and hearing the runners and commentary not through a speaker.  That's kind of what I came out there to do, after all.  I saw the runs that I really wanted to see from right behind the couch and it was so hype to be [i]right there[/i] for these amazing moments.

There was one other point of confusion - and I'm positive that for this one I wasn't the only one.  This was later into the week and by then enough people had figured out it was okay to go behind the projector.  However, there were more people than chairs and a good deal of confusion surrounding how to handle it.  The first time, a few of us stood behind the last row of chairs - I asked someone (a non-staff member who had been to GDQs before) if this was okay and they said "I think so."  And in fact it went pretty okay.  Lots of staff members were around and nobody said anything about it, we could see the TV and weren't in anybody's way.  So awesome.

But then the second time I ran into this situation it was handled confusingly.  People had added chairs I guess, but they were removed so they ended up standing (after being re-added and re-removed again), then I thought I heard someone say that there couldn't be standing (so I left), but then the run was about to start and people were clearly being allowed to stand (so I came back).  It was all a bit confusing as to what was okay and what wasn't.

My suggestion here is of course to be more explicit in two ways.  The first is to try to be more inviting, avoid obstructing the path to the couch / chairs, and make it clear that it's totally okay to sit in on a run without an explicit invitation so long as runner's selected friends get first dibs.  Maybe even have the announcer say "Hey we still have some chairs open if anyone else would like to come up."  Two, figure out the standing thing conclusively one way or the other so as to avoid confusion.  (Personally I think it just makes the run look more hype - and is totally non-disruptive as long as we don't have a mosh pit going back there.)

[b]Conclusion[/b]

Sooooooo yeah.  A few minor suggestions and my biggest meanest criticism is that the rules for the space behind the couch were communicated poorly.  You can contrast that with the praise that this was one of the most fantastic times I've had in my life.

It's worth repeating that what you guys pulled off was [i]fucking amazing[/i].  And while there may be some small ways to make it even better, if you did it all again exactly the same I would be absolutely thrilled to come year after year.

Naegleria

(user is banned)

2015-01-28 02:45:42 am

Require email verification. Use r9k mode and slowmode; have a bot give a 24 hour timeout to anyone that posts phrases like "YSG" "RalpherZ" etc (maybe even "Kappa" at 100k+ viewers). have several more mods and encourage them to give 24 hour timeouts to anyone that says something stupid (either trolling or excessive misspelling of words, any sort of low-quality/anti-quality content). Essentially mod that crap like a Nazi.

Use different length slowmodes depending on amount of viewers/chatters, sub-only mode for when it gets really busy.

Mention on stream that if anyone watching has a question they can pm a moderator, that way genuine questions can actually get answers.

Wawlconut

2015-01-28 03:04:11 am

Quote from Elipsis:

Well this thread is bumpin'. Shocked

AGDQ 2015 was my very first live GDQ - first and foremost I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who invested their time and effort into this event. It was honestly one of the most fun and amazing weeks of my life. Full stop. You guys did a mind-blowing job with this event and I am fully sold on coming back next year. I feel like a douche being critical of really anything at all when I know some folks in the staff and volunteers were practically killing themselves trying to make this thing a success. I have enormous respect for all of your efforts, so as I'm doing this write-up please don't think everything you all put into this event is unappreciated.

Hotel Things

So I drove here from Pittsburgh - and I was absolutely sure that my GPS had fucked up as I was being routed around loading trucks and around the back-side of what looked to be an industrial park. But lo and behold suddenly I'm at what must obviously be the back entrance to the Hilton. After a bit of senseless circling I finally found a parking spot waaaaay away from the main lobby thinking I must surely be one of the last ones to arrive (it was Saturday). And so marked my slightly comical arrival at a hotel that, as it turns out, I rather liked quite a bit.

The room was, simply put, pretty nice. I had one bout of terror for about 45 seconds as I first scoped out the place when I couldn't find the blackout curtains... dread creeping into my mind as the fear went off in my head "Oh god, I might have to see the sun this week." But thank goodness, I found them hiding in the back of the fancy looking drapes - and so successfully embarked on one of the most disastrous and irresponsible sleep schedules of my adult life.

I had one minor issue partway through the week which hotel maintenance fixed for me pretty much immediately, and beyond that everything about the room was satisfactory. King bed was super comfortable, TV supported HDMI which was awesome because I brought my Xbox 360, and the sun was not let in. One other weird praise if I may... I was rather worried when I saw that my room was directly in front of the elevator. Having this spot before in hotels has been rather deleterious to sleep. Not so at the Hilton. Didn't hear the elevator for shit, and for all the hype that I'm sure must have been going on in the hallway intermittently at random hours, nothing woke me up. I suspect the Hilton has above average acoustic isolation and that's not something to be scoffed at.

Moving out of my room - although I'm pretty sure this was the largest GDQ the thing never felt totally cramped for space. The main stream room was large, the breakfast had ample seating, and between the tournament room, the practice room, and the casual room, there was always somewhere to relax and socialize without feeling like a sardine. Having a bar and some food available on site was clutch a couple of times. It wasn't the best eats, but it got me through a few nights. That said, I had a car... and went off-site a number of times on the days that I actually remembered to eat. If you didn't have your own transportation I would imagine it would have been really rough. I would not want to eat 7 days in a row from the hotel's food options. I found a couple of 24/7 options available within 15 minutes from the hotel and gathered up those who wanted to come out, but for a lot of people who flew in that's just not an option. Sometimes I was just sooooo glad that the first floor never ran out of cups of water. They did a good job being attentive with that.

Random thought, if the event is 24/7, could we by any chance negotiate for the pool to be open 24/7? Pool hours were meh.

Overall though - if you told me that AGDQ 2016 was in the same hotel and I was staying in the same room, I wouldn't hesitate for one second to say "I'm definitely in." My best constructive advise on the food matter would be to have something like a poster board for people to car pool maybe. For example, "Driving to Indian Food - Leaving at 7pm - Max seating 6" and then have people meet there who were interested or something. I would definitely volunteer as driver for that sort of thing and it would be a great way to meet random folks while simultaneously getting people without transportation something to eat away from the hotel.

AGDQ Things

The Dead horse criticism - one of my biggest criticisms with how the stream was presented was handled early into the GDQ. I'm not going to be the Nth person to belabor the dead silence during setup stuff. You guys know, and adjusted, and I felt like there was good energy on the air afterwards.

Twitch Stream Layout - looked fine to me I'm not a fuss.

Twitch Chat - Fucking toxic. Not sure what to do about it either. Sub-only mode has some serious drawbacks that others pointed out... but so does a constant stream of vitriol. There's not enough moderators in the world to actually clean that up really. Actually... new idea... if you made EVERYONE a moderator they might all time each other out and then the whole thing would just kind of sort itself out.

About Blocks - so I've seen a lot of criticism about "huge blocks of samey games" (mario stuff, mega man stuff, etc...) and ya know what... I disagree with all of it. I actually like those big blocks and I want to explain why. Coming to AGDQ I had about 35 runs highlighted that I was intending to see in person, and I was absolutely unprepared for how much fun stuff is going on all the time off-stream in the other AGDQ rooms, in people's hotel rooms, and occasionally off-site entirely. Everyone's advise to me was "you really really shouldn't try to do it all" - they were right. I ended up seeing maybe 14 of the runs I had planned on, and I would have missed a lot more of them were they not in a row. From my perspective, it was most convenient to set aside that block of time for the runs and plan other things like food and sleep around it. The shit I ended up missing was mostly the stuff not in blocks where I was saying to myself "Okay... so if I want to catch these runs I have to sleep for 3 hours, wake up and run to the stream room, have breakfast, sleep for 3 more hours, wake up again..." - lining up the same type runs makes it so that it's much easier to plan for, and personally I like it that way. A lot of people watching Mega Man 1 also want to see Mega Man 5, I argue it's the most convenient thing for everyone to leave such things together. Conversely, the large blocks of games that I didn't care about were great to catch up on sleep, or relax and enjoy a meal off-site. So I actually really liked the way the schedule was arranged.

Donations / Atmosphere - Maybe almost a dead horse criticism but I felt awkward a couple of times when I was having a great time watching and enjoying a run and then I hear "I'm donating because my wife just lost her battle with brain cancer, then 6 months later I lost our only daughter to leukemia, then 3 months later cancer killed my puppy. Here's $25." Like yeah the cause is important, and we shouldn't forget that we're trying to raise money for charity... but my goodness it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster at times between family members dying and then insanely difficult frame-perfect tricks. At the same time it seems ice-cold to sensor people who have lost so much and just want to express what the GDQ means to them. It's a difficult balance and I wish I had a suggestion - maybe try to mix in more fun and silly donations than we did this time and save the heavy stuff for in between runs?

Casual / Tournament Rooms - Fucking loved it. Had some great times here. It's really good that this space exists and big thanks to anyone who donated their hardware. I mean, it'd be wonderful to expand on it and have massive libraries of games and controllers waiting to be used, but as is it is awesomely done. I guess I got away with playing Smash (n64) on Saturday in the casual room?... I didn't actually know about that rule and never ran into anyone enforcing it. When I wanted to play smash after that it was in the tournament.

Practice Room - This was really well done, and smart to prioritize the runners for obvious reasons. At first I was anxious about even walking in here as I wasn't running anything at AGDQ, but when I realized there was a separate runner only practice room, and people were mostly relaxed in the main practice room - I went in, watched some great runs, and even had a chance to learn some games from others while in there. It was a great setup and everyone did a good job with it.

Bonus Stream - As an attendee, Saturday through Sunday was quite sufficient enough of a strain on my finances and vacation days that I was quite okay with driving back Sunday morning. I imagine a lot of people are in a similar situation, and while I think the bonus stream is "nice" - I don't think it's critical to the GDQ and don't fault anyone for wanting to be rid of it if it's not logistically feasible anymore.

Main Stream Room / Couch / Chair Things - I'm going to be honest, when I first walked in and saw the setup I felt pretty disappointed. This was because I felt like I had come all of this way and was totally disconnected from the run just kind of watching twitch except on a bigger screen. I had a great view of the screen in the front row by the door, and as such it took me a few minutes to even identify where the actual run was taking place. As I had not negotiated to be on anyone's couch or overflow chairs - I was worried this was going to be my AGDQ experience and it really didn't feel like I was there "in person" to me. (It didn't help that feeling that the first run I walked in on was the run where the output was dropping frames. Mario Kart I believe.) I watched a couple runs that clearly had empty chairs in the back and I finally got brave and asked the one person on staff who I sort of knew if I was welcome to come sit behind the couch for his run (remember that I got to AGDQ not knowing anybody at all in person, so the awkward internal monolog was real). The response was a very friendly assurance (thanks so much!!) that it was okay to join in behind the couch as long as everyone who the runner wanted there had a space too. Maybe I'm daft - but I feel like this was not clear at all from reading the rules - which I did multiple times. This just isn't the most clear or inviting line:

Quote:

-The couch area is off limits to anyone who is not approved by the runner. This includes the rows immediately behind the couch as well if the runner has extra people he or she wants to have there.

The seats behind the couch were also so separated visually and by physical obstructions that I honestly got the impression I had no business back there unless specifically invited. I am pretty sure that I overheard others puzzling this out as well during the first couple of days and I imagine that someone not as... outgoing... as myself might have really missed out by never feeling comfortable engaging anyone to figure out what the rules actually were regarding this.

Anyway, once I understood that I was allowed to come see the runs in person in person - it was fucking awesome. I don't know why it was so important to me but I really felt much more connected to AGDQ watching the real television with my own eyes, and hearing the runners and commentary not through a speaker. That's kind of what I came out there to do, after all. I saw the runs that I really wanted to see from right behind the couch and it was so hype to be right there for these amazing moments.

There was one other point of confusion - and I'm positive that for this one I wasn't the only one. This was later into the week and by then enough people had figured out it was okay to go behind the projector. However, there were more people than chairs and a good deal of confusion surrounding how to handle it. The first time, a few of us stood behind the last row of chairs - I asked someone (a non-staff member who had been to GDQs before) if this was okay and they said "I think so." And in fact it went pretty okay. Lots of staff members were around and nobody said anything about it, we could see the TV and weren't in anybody's way. So awesome.

But then the second time I ran into this situation it was handled confusingly. People had added chairs I guess, but they were removed so they ended up standing (after being re-added and re-removed again), then I thought I heard someone say that there couldn't be standing (so I left), but then the run was about to start and people were clearly being allowed to stand (so I came back). It was all a bit confusing as to what was okay and what wasn't.

My suggestion here is of course to be more explicit in two ways. The first is to try to be more inviting, avoid obstructing the path to the couch / chairs, and make it clear that it's totally okay to sit in on a run without an explicit invitation so long as runner's selected friends get first dibs. Maybe even have the announcer say "Hey we still have some chairs open if anyone else would like to come up." Two, figure out the standing thing conclusively one way or the other so as to avoid confusion. (Personally I think it just makes the run look more hype - and is totally non-disruptive as long as we don't have a mosh pit going back there.)

Conclusion

Sooooooo yeah. A few minor suggestions and my biggest meanest criticism is that the rules for the space behind the couch were communicated poorly. You can contrast that with the praise that this was one of the most fantastic times I've had in my life.

It's worth repeating that what you guys pulled off was fucking amazing. And while there may be some small ways to make it even better, if you did it all again exactly the same I would be absolutely thrilled to come year after year.

elipsis is a moderator, and you are not the owner of this channel.

[quote="Elipsis"]Well this thread is bumpin'.  :o