AGDQ 2015 Feedback

mike89

Edit history:

mike89: 2015-01-23 04:55:38 pm

mike89: 2015-01-23 04:55:16 pm

2015-01-23 04:36:23 pm

SEGA Junkie

Only got a couple of things to say, but here we go:

Social Media: You guys were great to work with again, thanks to sumichu, Studio and rom for having me on board! I have to admit there was quite a bit different this year due to the sponsorship arrangements (which I didn't know about til two days prior because I'd been away for a couple of weeks with very sporadic internet access) but we made it work fine.

That being said, I found it funny that most of the vitriol towards sponsors was directed at Turtle Beach. At the slightest mention of their name, either on social media or on the stream, there were invariably multiple mentions on Twitter or the Quakenet chat saying how awful a brand they were. Tongue

Contact between on- and off-site volunteers: I cannot stress how much better this was this year, thank you so so so much BobTGoldfish for making this happen! I've been saying for a while we need someone dedicated on site to handle this role and Bob made it happen, so massive props! We were able to get issues resolved way, way quicker than past years.

One miscellaneous thing I wrote down: for some reason there were loads of people on Twitter/Quakenet asking if you were guaranteed a prize if you donated the requisite amount. Has any of the language around prizes changed? I don't remember this being a problem before, but suddenly everyone thought it was a free-for-all this time.

Anything else I could say has already been said by people who gave it more thought than me. Thanks for putting on this event again!

Only got a couple of things to say, but here we go:

[b]Social Media[/b]: You guys were great to work with again, thanks to sumichu, Studio and rom for having me on board! I have to admit there was quite a bit different this year due to the sponsorship arrangements (which I didn't know about til two days prior because I'd been away for a couple of weeks with very sporadic internet access) but we made it work fine.

That being said, I found it funny that most of the vitriol towards sponsors was directed at Turtle Beach. At the slightest mention of their name, either on social media or on the stream, there were invariably multiple mentions on Twitter or the Quakenet chat saying how awful a brand they were. :P

[b]Contact between on- and off-site volunteers[/b]: I cannot stress how much better this was this year, thank you so so so much BobTGoldfish for making this happen! I've been saying for a while we need someone dedicated on site to handle this role and Bob made it happen, so massive props! We were able to get issues resolved way, way quicker than past years.

One miscellaneous thing I wrote down: for some reason there were loads of people on Twitter/Quakenet asking if you were guaranteed a prize if you donated the requisite amount. Has any of the language around prizes changed? I don't remember this being a problem before, but suddenly everyone thought it was a free-for-all this time.

Anything else I could say has already been said by people who gave it more thought than me. Thanks for putting on this event again!

btrim

2015-01-23 05:08:50 pm

Venue: Food could be closer. King room was nice and had a real bathroom door. Hotel Bar was expensive but with a 15% food discount I was happy enough having dinner there for a few nights.

Attending the event: Registration being closed when I arrived on Sunday morning was awkward. Event Rooms were ok. Shame about the AC crapping out or whatever went wrong in the casual room. I kind of preferred the giant self-policed free-for-all room at SGDQ2014 but obviously that was a special case.

Tech: [I'm making some assumptions here] I think the primary NES had its palette set to "improved." If so, this was fine during solo runs, but annoying during races, when it should have been set to natural to look more like secondary and tertiary consoles.

It seemed like you were well-prepared for solo runs and just needed to start yelling at people to get moving when the run was over. Having a distinct ingress and egress for the runners/couch/etc might have helped some of that. Races are a pain and I'm sure many crazy things happened during their setup, so I don't have much to say about that.

For the runners who are going to use CRTs (I think still the majority), can you try to source N identical (or nearly so) TVs/monitors, where N is 1.5 or 2 times the minimum required for the largest race? It seems like the amount of money spent on audio and camera equipment greatly trumps the amount needed for decent CRTs, even assuming they all stop working after each marathon.

For an example of why this is important, the setup for World of Illusion where you changed TVs because setting the input back to S-video wasn't practical at the time (for whatever reason).

Pinball: Thanks for letting them set up in the venue space. That was really awesome of them to do it and awesome of the staff to allow it.

Venue: Food could be closer.  King room was nice and had a real bathroom door.  Hotel Bar was expensive but with a 15% food discount I was happy enough having dinner there for a few nights.

Attending the event:  Registration being closed when I arrived on Sunday morning was awkward.  Event Rooms were ok.  Shame about the AC crapping out or whatever went wrong in the casual room. I kind of preferred the giant self-policed free-for-all room at SGDQ2014 but obviously that was a special case.

Tech:  [I'm making some assumptions here] I think the primary NES had its palette set to "improved."  If so, this was fine during solo runs, but annoying during races, when it should have been set to natural to look more like secondary  and tertiary consoles.

It seemed like you were well-prepared for solo runs and just needed to start yelling at people to get moving when the run was over.  Having a distinct ingress and egress for the runners/couch/etc might have helped some of that. Races are a pain and I'm sure many crazy things happened during their setup, so I don't have much to say about that.

For the runners who are going to use CRTs (I think still the majority), can you try to source N identical (or nearly so) TVs/monitors, where N is 1.5 or 2 times the minimum required for the largest race?  It seems like the amount of money spent on audio and camera equipment greatly trumps the amount needed for decent CRTs, even assuming they all stop working after each marathon.

For an example of why this is important, the setup for World of Illusion where you changed TVs because setting the input back to S-video wasn't practical at the time (for whatever reason).

Pinball:  Thanks for letting them set up in the venue space.  That was really awesome of them to do it and awesome of the staff to allow it.

Radix

2015-01-23 05:11:51 pm

I'm addicted to games

Quote from Miles:

The NO SMASH IN THE CASUAL ROOM rule was too heavy-handed, forcing people to stop their casual 8-player Smash and move the 60 inch TV they were playing it on to the tournament room was... Who exactly thought that was a good idea?

Quote from NotSoNewby:

We were playing 8-player smash on Palutena's Temple and were told to leave the Casual Room. Nuff Said

I don't know who came up with the rule, but it was clearly stated in the forum rules thread and at the event. Maybe not a direct quote, by my memory is MURPH saying in the intro session "we don't want to see any smash in the casual room". Therefore, the rule got enforced.

esi

Edit history:

esi: 2015-01-23 05:18:28 pm

2015-01-23 05:17:11 pm

Quote from Radix:

don't know who came up with the rule, but it was clearly stated in the forum rules thread and at the event. Maybe not a direct quote, by my memory is MURPH saying in the intro session "we don't want to see any smash in the casual room". Therefore, the rule got enforced.

I took a look back at the rules thread and this appears to be the only thing that was said about smash in the casual room, which doesn't appear clear to me at all:

Quote from MURPHAGATOR!:

Edit: if the casual room becomes overridden by only smash, or just generally starts to smell bad, let staff know and we'll do what we have to in order to make it a usable space for everyone.

Nothing in the main post at all regarding smash in the casual room or even mentioning restrictions in what's allowed in the casual room at all. Again, this should have been made much more clear than it was.

BobTGoldfish

2015-01-23 05:37:19 pm

Quote from Onin:

Quote from theboyks:

Quote from Onin:

This is still, despite all the work to increase the audience and widen the appeal every year, a speedrunning marathon. I do not understand why things related to speedrunning are being ignored, not just in favour of cancer-related stuff, but just ignored on the off-set.

I don't want to blame whoever ran the tracker during the Transistor run, or whenever else. Because no doubt that person got instructed. And if said instructions even implied, remotely, that cancer is more important than speedrunning, the entire system is fucked up.

I wasn't on donation station during that run, but I did a shift on the station and a hosting bit during the marathon. We did not get any such instruction and it's absurd to think that we would. My mom made a donation while I was hosting and that never got sent up to me as well (I found out hours later when I was able to charge my phone.) Best I can guess is that the person(s) on the donation station at the time didn't know who was making the donation or may have overlooked it.

If the forwarding of donation comments by the station is really just up to personal judgement, then either some of the people on duty chad the wrong state of mind (which could be influenced by any number of factors, really), or perhaps just weren't up to the task (overwhelmed with the sheer numbers, I could imagine really).
There was mention of some actual training, which may help alleviate this issue. Perhaps some improvements to the system could be looked at as well, to make it easier to keep an overview, or perhaps just allowing more sets of eyes on the same list.

Because I do, in fact, donate to send messages to my speedfriends. That used to be actually possible during GDQs. If it stops being possible, for any reason, I'll likely stop donating, and I'm not going to be the only one.

I'll step in on this one. since I was the host during that run.

The reason I didn't have any donations to read is that the tracker was down showing both myself and the donation processors an error; no one on our end of things could access the donations. it is likely that when the tracker came back up, it got pushed to the host in the middle of another game. Since we clear each game's comments at the end of that game, that may be why it was "ignored."

[quote="Onin"][quote="theboyks"][quote="Onin"]
This is still, despite all the work to increase the audience and widen the appeal every year, a [b]speedrunning [/b]marathon. I do not understand why things [b]related to speedrunning[/b] are being ignored, not just in favour of cancer-related stuff, [b]but just ignored on the off-set.[/b]

I don't want to blame whoever ran the tracker during the Transistor run, or whenever else. Because no doubt that person got instructed. And if said instructions even [b]implied, remotely,[/b] that cancer is more important than speedrunning, [b]the entire system is fucked up.[/b][/quote]

I wasn't on donation station during that run, but I did a shift on the station and a hosting bit during the marathon. We did not get any such instruction and it's absurd to think that we would. My mom made a donation while I was hosting and that never got sent up to me as well (I found out hours later when I was able to charge my phone.) Best I can guess is that the person(s) on the donation station at the time didn't know who was making the donation or may have overlooked it.
[/quote]
If the forwarding of donation comments by the station is really just up to personal judgement, then either some of the people on duty chad the wrong state of mind (which could be influenced by any number of factors, really), or perhaps just weren't up to the task (overwhelmed with the sheer numbers, I could imagine really).
There was mention of some actual training, which may help alleviate this issue. Perhaps some improvements to the system could be looked at as well, to make it easier to keep an overview, or perhaps just allowing more sets of eyes on the same list.

Because I do, in fact, donate to send messages to my speedfriends. That used to be actually possible during GDQs. If it stops being possible, for any reason, I'll likely stop donating, and I'm not going to be the only one.[/quote]

I'll step in on this one. since I was the host during that run.

The reason I didn't have any donations to read is that the tracker was down showing both myself and the donation processors an error; no one on our end of things could access the donations. it is likely that when the tracker came back up, it got pushed to the host in the middle of another game. Since we clear each game's comments at the end of that game, that may be why it was "ignored."

PEACHES_

2015-01-23 05:37:29 pm

I'm just trying to impress you.

I'm wondering if there is any consideration towards taking a step back on the complexity of the audio setup. Old GDQ's were just fine plopping a blue yeti in front of the TV and outside of PC games, the only setup back then was just plugging consoles into the tv(s). The only big con to this mic setup I can think of is crowd chatter but considering the tighter control over the couch/general atmosphere and the majority of the viewing audience sitting on the other side of a ballroom I don't see this being such a problem anymore.

Besides special cases like races, pc games, and the tetris block, it looked like most of the extra setup time on an average AGDQ 2015 run was getting people mic'ed up for several minutes at a time (my Kid Chameleon run had over 10 minutes of nothing but mic setup). These mics do sound a little better but I would be surprised if a single viewer or attendee thinks the increase in quality is worth waiting several minutes between runs (and seeing several fewer hours worth of games by the end of the marathon).

Unless the schematics system discussed earlier is confidently expected to clear up all of the mic woes my feedback would be that the audio setup is too bloated for the benefit it provides.

I'm wondering if there is any consideration towards taking a step back on the complexity of the audio setup. Old GDQ's were just fine plopping a blue yeti in front of the TV and outside of PC games, the only setup back then was just plugging consoles into the tv(s). The only big con to this mic setup I can think of is crowd chatter but considering the tighter control over the couch/general atmosphere and the majority of the viewing audience sitting on the other side of a ballroom I don't see this being such a problem anymore.

Besides special cases like races, pc games, and the tetris block, it looked like most of the extra setup time on an average AGDQ 2015 run was getting people mic'ed up for several minutes at a time (my Kid Chameleon run had over 10 minutes of nothing but mic setup). These mics do sound a little better but I would be surprised if a single viewer or attendee thinks the increase in quality is worth waiting several minutes between runs (and seeing several fewer hours worth of games by the end of the marathon).

Unless the schematics system discussed earlier is confidently expected to clear up all of the mic woes my feedback would be that the audio setup is too bloated for the benefit it provides.

frobar

2015-01-23 05:39:56 pm

Great event overall. Here's some viewer feedback with possible improvements that jumped out at me:

- It was sometimes hard to know who was who on the couch during races (and generally during games with many players). Putting "(third from left)" next to the nick/handle would help.

- It's difficult to know who's in the lead, second place, etc., when you're watching a game you're not very familiar with. Some graphical indication of would be nice. Wouldn't have to be perfectly accurate at all times.

- Some screens were much darker than others. Brightness could be normalized.

Molotov

2015-01-23 05:48:26 pm

Probably missed this somewhere, but I'd like to note that I found it incredibly difficult to hear the host when I was on the couch. My hearing isn't an issue, so I think this was mostly because of the huge echo effect. I'm not up on the audio technical stuff, so I don't know if that's fixable. All I know is that it was frustrating, because if a run/series-related comment came in, I knew I couldn't react to it at all. I think I missed at least one because I couldn't understand more than a few words of the comment, and I barely heard the one that wanted me to put the donation toward something.

Maybe the issue was temporary?

Cool Matty

Edit history:

Cool Matty: 2015-01-23 05:53:16 pm

2015-01-23 05:52:09 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Quote from PEACHES_:

I'm wondering if there is any consideration towards taking a step back on the complexity of the audio setup. Old GDQ's were just fine plopping a blue yeti in front of the TV and outside of PC games, the only setup back then was just plugging consoles into the tv(s). The only big con to this mic setup I can think of is crowd chatter but considering the tighter control over the couch/general atmosphere and the majority of the viewing audience sitting on the other side of a ballroom I don't see this being such a problem anymore.

I already touched on this in my mega-post, but I'll summarize: using anything like a Yeti would be unlistenable in that environment. It has to do with how condenser mics work (they are extremely sensitive, and will pick up everything, even across the room). They work best either very close, or in a tightly controlled studio (or your bedroom, which is where most Yetis are).

Quote from Molotov:

Probably missed this somewhere, but I'd like to note that I found it incredibly difficult to hear the host when I was on the couch. My hearing isn't an issue, so I think this was mostly because of the huge echo effect. I'm not up on the audio technical stuff, so I don't know if that's fixable. All I know is that it was frustrating, because if a run/series-related comment came in, I knew I couldn't react to it at all. I think I missed at least one because I couldn't understand more than a few words of the comment, and I barely heard the one that wanted me to put the donation toward something.

Maybe the issue was temporary?

Yes, already mentioned. Tech had no idea, it's an easy fix! This is why I am really pushing for more communication for everyone at the event.

[quote="PEACHES_"]I'm wondering if there is any consideration towards taking a step back on the complexity of the audio setup. Old GDQ's were just fine plopping a blue yeti in front of the TV and outside of PC games, the only setup back then was just plugging consoles into the tv(s). The only big con to this mic setup I can think of is crowd chatter but considering the tighter control over the couch/general atmosphere and the majority of the viewing audience sitting on the other side of a ballroom I don't see this being such a problem anymore.  [/quote]

I already touched on this in my mega-post, but I'll summarize: using anything like a Yeti would be unlistenable in that environment. It has to do with how condenser mics work (they are extremely sensitive, and will pick up everything, even across the room). They work best either very close, or in a tightly controlled studio (or your bedroom, which is where most Yetis are).

[quote="Molotov"]Probably missed this somewhere, but I'd like to note that I found it [i]incredibly[/i] difficult to hear the host when I was on the couch. My hearing isn't an issue, so I think this was mostly because of the huge echo effect. I'm not up on the audio technical stuff, so I don't know if that's fixable. All I know is that it was frustrating, because if a run/series-related comment came in, I knew I couldn't react to it at all. I think I missed at least one because I couldn't understand more than a few words of the comment, and I barely heard the one that wanted me to put the donation toward something.

Maybe the issue was temporary?[/quote]

Yes, already mentioned. Tech had no idea, it's an easy fix! This is why I am really pushing for more communication for everyone at the event.

StingerPA

2015-01-23 05:56:26 pm

For audio issues, I'd really like to bring back the idea of at least the runner(s) having headsets. Everybody knows how to put a headset on, and the audio can be mixed perfectly so that there won't be any issues of not knowing the host is talking, hearing game audio, etc. People have said it looks "unprofessional," but that's a pretty lame excuse. ESPN broadcasters use headsets, pretty much every e-sports cast you'll find uses headsets, so why aren't we?

your_name_here

2015-01-23 05:57:25 pm

Quote from mike89:

One miscellaneous thing I wrote down: for some reason there were loads of people on Twitter/Quakenet asking if you were guaranteed a prize if you donated the requisite amount. Has any of the language around prizes changed? I don't remember this being a problem before, but suddenly everyone thought it was a free-for-all this time.

That's probably just because it was visually on stream, so there's going to be more people even aware that there are prizes.

Also re: what cool matty said, I think it was kind of an issue throughout. Nobody should be afraid to ask questions or tell people about issues. Maybe that should be part of orientation.

Onin

2015-01-23 06:07:25 pm

Quote from BobTGoldfish:

I'll step in on this one. since I was the host during that run.

The reason I didn't have any donations to read is that the tracker was down showing both myself and the donation processors an error; no one on our end of things could access the donations. it is likely that when the tracker came back up, it got pushed to the host in the middle of another game. Since we clear each game's comments at the end of that game, that may be why it was "ignored."

Awh. That really sucks to hear.

MURPHAGATOR!

2015-01-23 06:13:11 pm

Terraffirmative!

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.

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.

jape

2015-01-23 06:20:25 pm

Hey guysh. My feedback is that, I had a really good time. Before the event I was worried it may be less of a get-together and more of a "Corporate" feeling event, for lack of better terms. But instead of it being like that, it was just as relaxed and cool, from an attendee's point of view. I think all the times I got scolded (And there were not many -- I am a good rule follower) were for good reasons.

I guess I didn't really like the hotel staff, especially the guy with the shaved sides and back of head, but the hair on top. He was not nice. This is not really GDQ feedback, though. Sorry.

Hotel location, bla bla bla, etc, yea it's bad. Do better for next hotel. You will do better, I know it! Thanks.

I'm a little upset that my speedrun got pushed back like 4 hours. It's probably also been talked about. Setup times...yeeouch!! Always something to improve. Never good to take a step backwards, with that stuff.

There's probably more stuff, but I had a rly good time, and I love to hang out. Bye.

Hey guysh. My feedback is that, I had a really good time. Before the event I was worried it may be less of a get-together and more of a "Corporate" feeling event, for lack of better terms. But instead of it being like that, it was just as relaxed and cool, from an attendee's point of view. I think all the times I got scolded (And there were not many -- I am a good rule follower) were for good reasons.

I guess I didn't really like the hotel staff, especially the guy with the shaved sides and back of head, but the hair on top. He was not nice. This is not really GDQ feedback, though. Sorry.

Hotel location, bla bla bla, etc, yea it's bad. Do better for next hotel. You will do better, I know it! Thanks.

I'm a little upset that my speedrun got pushed back like 4 hours. It's probably also been talked about. Setup times...yeeouch!! Always something to improve. Never good to take a step backwards, with that stuff.

There's probably more stuff, but I had a rly good time, and I love to hang out. Bye.

sumichu

2015-01-23 06:24:09 pm

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Quote from AlteisenRiese:

Twitch chat was a gigantic pile of shit like always and I am utterly baffled why isn't sub only, I guarantee you that if it was sub only the money from subs would like quadruple, everytime it went sub only during SGDQ I saw tons of people sub, there are streams that don't get even 1/4 of what you guys get and they went sub only because well, twitch, a 130k viewer stream cannot have an open chat, period, its just not possible, if people want poverty chats to spam their garbage that's what hosting is for.

We totally understand that sometimes, the chat isn't the most "tame" place to hang out in. Despite that, we aren't considering sub-only chats at the moment because sub-only would ultimately lead to decreased viewership.

Tamloo

Edit history:

Tamloo: 2015-01-23 06:39:12 pm

Tamloo: 2015-01-23 06:39:09 pm

Tamloo: 2015-01-23 06:29:54 pm

2015-01-23 06:27:26 pm

I've watched ADGQ VODs, SGDQ 2013 live and AGDQ 2014 and was an attendee at SGDQ 2014. I was going to watch AGDQ 2015 live this year... but I just wasn't feeling it. It lost it's "wow" factor. It could be because I've watched so many and I've gotten tired of it... but the main reasons that detracted me from watching were...

1) The audience shouldn't be basically in another room. It made the event feel empty on the stream. I know it may be more professional because there are less people on their phone, making sure they are seen on the camera, talking, making signs, stuffed animals, etc... In other words, it added personality. This year's AGDQ was so dull I refused to watch... it was soooo boring. It made for a lot of great moments in the past that just aren't there now. It really made the event feel empty... if you told me that this event had the most attendance I would (and still) don't believe it. I saw 30 people max on the stream during a run.... I assume that's how many people where there. I personally don't care if they are on their phone or holding a sign. I would like to see it go back to the style it was in the past. I know the event is getting bigger and bigger every year, but why get rid of the audience and completely separate them from the runners? To be honest, when this was done at SGDQ 2014, I felt like it was just watching the stream so why come in person?

2) I've heard of this "No Fun Allowed" in the stream room. This kind of goes with the first thing I said but come'on. Relax it in the stream room. Again, personality.

3) The 4-way races where my personal favorite part... oops, never mind that.

4) ..so was the bonus stream... oh wait. Does it matter if someone runs a game as a speed run on the bonus stream?

5) I never watched the live stream after the first day... I've watched some VODs now but not the stream. I never knew what the donation bonus incentives where when going on and still don't. All I know is that runnerguy did a blindfolded OOT run and that's it. That could have been made more easier to find.

All in all, I feel as if the event has lost it's value. To me it looked like no one was having fun in the stream room. All 100% of the people I could see looked bored.... it looked like they were being restricted. I would say lay off the rules a little bit... if it's the sponsors that are saying so... well... I don't support those sponsors then. This year's AGDQ I wasn't feeling it... I could have watched almost the entire thing but didn't really care. It didn't appear they were having fun so I wasn't either.

EDIT: This is just my 2 cents as a viewer and my personal reason I did not watch live. I've watched a few VODs from the event but still feel as if the older GDQ's were better.

I've watched ADGQ VODs, SGDQ 2013 live and AGDQ 2014 and was an attendee at SGDQ 2014. I was going to watch AGDQ 2015 live this year... but I just wasn't feeling it. It lost it's "wow" factor. It could be because I've watched so many and I've gotten tired of it... but the main reasons that detracted me from watching were...

1) The audience shouldn't be basically in another room. It made the event feel empty on the stream. I know it may be more professional because there are less people on their phone, making sure they are seen on the camera, talking, making signs, stuffed animals, etc... In other words, it added personality. This year's AGDQ was so dull I refused to watch... it was soooo boring. It made for a lot of great moments in the past that just aren't there now. It really made the event feel empty... if you told me that this event had the most attendance I would (and still) don't believe it. I saw 30 people max on the stream during a run.... I assume that's how many people where there. I personally don't care if they are on their phone or holding a sign. I would like to see it go back to the style it was in the past. I know the event is getting bigger and bigger every year, but why get rid of the audience and completely separate them from the runners? To be honest, when this was done at SGDQ 2014, I felt like it was just watching the stream so why come in person?

2) I've heard of this "No Fun Allowed" in the stream room. This kind of goes with the first thing I said but come'on. Relax it in the stream room. Again, personality.

3) The 4-way races where my personal favorite part... oops, never mind that.

4) ..so was the bonus stream... oh wait. Does it matter if someone runs a game as a speed run on the bonus stream?

5) I never watched the live stream after the first day... I've watched some VODs now but not the stream. I never knew what the donation bonus incentives where when going on and still don't. All I know is that runnerguy did a blindfolded OOT run and that's it. That could have been made more easier to find.

All in all, I feel as if the event has lost it's value. To me it looked like no one was having fun in the stream room. All 100% of the people I could see looked bored.... it looked like they were being restricted. I would say lay off the rules a little bit... if it's the sponsors that are saying so... well... I don't support those sponsors then. This year's AGDQ I wasn't feeling it... I could have watched almost the entire thing but didn't really care. It didn't appear they were having fun so I wasn't either.

EDIT: This is just my 2 cents as a viewer and my personal reason I did not watch live. I've watched a few VODs from the event but still feel as if the older GDQ's were better.

TheMG2

2015-01-23 06:30:56 pm

Quote:

2) I've heard of this "No Fun Allowed" in the stream room. This kind of goes with the first thing I said but come'on. Relax it in the stream room. Again, personality.

This is false.

Quote:

4) ..so was the bonus stream... oh wait. Does it matter if someone runs a game as a speed run on the bonus stream?

Yes it does, because there was apparently starting to be drama over who gets to run in bonus stream.

You are completely misinformed.

Tamloo

2015-01-23 06:36:29 pm

@TheMG2. Just my 2 cents. I'm just a viewer and this is what I saw. But I could see there being drama... I forgot that I saw it at SGDQ last summer. I guess that's why there is a strict (and every right to be) submission picking to be in the event in the first place.

flatluigi

Edit history:

flatluigi: 2015-01-23 06:42:03 pm

2015-01-23 06:37:38 pm

Tamloo: if you admittedly 'refused to watch' the marathon you probably shouldn't be leaving feedback.

edit: for reference, this is how the stream room was set up - the audience was not separated from the runners at all (the couch is between the two projectors at the back of the room iirc)

Melodia

2015-01-23 06:43:35 pm

Only one person mentioned this so far, but Marisa Land had audio at half pitch -- not only did this make it EXCRUTIATING to listen to (I certainly turned it off after not too long) but multiple people in Quakenet chat knew exactly what was wrong and mentioned the fix. Did no one read the chat at all?

PEACHES_

Edit history:

PEACHES_: 2015-01-23 06:54:02 pm

2015-01-23 06:48:14 pm

I'm just trying to impress you.

Quote from Cool Matty:

I already touched on this in my mega-post, but I'll summarize: using anything like a Yeti would be unlistenable in that environment. It has to do with how condenser mics work (they are extremely sensitive, and will pick up everything, even across the room). They work best either very close, or in a tightly controlled studio (or your bedroom, which is where most Yetis are).

are there any options besides condenser mics that could still work? It seems like the time it takes to setup the mics we have is just not worth the quality. Like a directional mic for the couch area?

kariohki

2015-01-23 06:59:31 pm

waifus are laifu

Quote from flatluigi:

edit: for reference, this is how the stream room was set up - the audience was not separated from the runners at all (the couch is between the two projectors at the back of the room iirc)

The couch was more behind the left projector screen, facing towards the right side of the room. Tech, donation, and host stations were around the couch area.

CBenni

Edit history:

CBenni: 2015-01-23 07:09:27 pm

2015-01-23 07:03:25 pm

Here we go. I will only comment on the stuff based on a chat mod perspective, everything else has been said over and over again.
Twitch chat
Ok so. Everyone says that twitch chat was bad. I however say twitch chat was alot better than in the last events. We managed to efficiently keep chat non-racist, non-sexist 90% of the time. To anyone here who has ever moderated a chat with 80k+ viewers, it is immediately clear that its impossible to keep that at 100%. We (and our bots) have timed out and banned over 60 thousand times (not counting duplicate bans/timeouts) - that is alot higher than at earlier events, while we were able to reduce the number of false positives by an extreme amount.

Why isnt chat sub only?
This is an event, by the community, for the community. It should be free and easy for anyone to join our community and grab his share of the "Kappa //" spam if he so desires. Trust me. Sub mode is a very bad idea, in any situation: alot of people (including myself) will leave a channel if they cannot talk in chat (either because of sub only mode or being permanently banned), regardless of if they are going to post in chat in the first place or not - twitch lives off of the community and the social aspect. If it didnt, we could upload the runs to youtube, edit them, apply instagram filters and provide flawless content... That isnt what GDQs are supposed to be.
We only need sub mode in case chat servers start dieing and we need to make sure chat remains moderatable. The amount of circlejerk that happens in chat during sub only is more of a pain to moderate than 130k people spamming "Kappa //". Ask me about it if youre interested.

So much for that - twitch chat will remain free. Thats it.

Communication
#1 complaint I (and everyone else) had at AGDQ 2014 and SGDQ 2014 was the lack of communication. As I mentioned in the Shout outs thread, we got an incredible amount of support for this this time, the senior donation station was manned 24/7, with immediate ways of communication. We are considering shortening the communication pipeline even further, but that is something to be worked on before SGDQ, not now. There were NO glaring issues that persisted over a long timespan because we werent able to contact anyone at the event - despite the increased amount of tech issues the tech volunteers+staff faced this time.

Offsite volunteer organisation
This year, most of the offsite volunteers (chat mods etc) showed up in the channels where they were supposed to, which was great, nothing bad here. A couple of minor issues will have to be discussed in private.

@Melodia (and all the others like you), we did read chat as much as humanly possible. But then again, were just humans and IRC was slightly underrepresented on mods - Our main IRC chat mods were Efreeti, Efreeti, Efreeti and Toothache... pretty much. (Shout out to QuakeNet staff for adding a few trusted users to help out)
Not every error or problem can be resolved immediately and asking if "no one read the chat at all?" is a pretty mean thing to say. Keep in mind we have over 170 hours of chat to read, at some point you get massively burnt out.

EDIT: one minor thing I need to add.
Professional vs. Casual
Primarily found on reddit and similar, we have seen hundreds of people complain about how professional the stream was this year, with all the sponsors and ads and sleek layouts and rules in the marathon room. If you complained about any of these, take a moment to think about what would happen if 1000 people were to attend an unorganized, casual and unprofessional event. The term which describes the result is generally referred to as "cringe", and while cringe moments can be hilarious, they get old soon - which then results in a drop of viewership. Twitch viewers are used to seeing all these professional esports events, with a production value matching or even exceeding that of proper TV shows, as an event that has similar viewercounts, they will expect a similar production value. I am not saying we should try to "go full esports", all im saying is that professional appearance pays off. If you take a look at the top 50 channels on twitch, especially in the non-LoL parts, you will note that all of these channels have a very professional look and feel.

Here we go. I will only comment on the stuff based on a chat mod perspective, everything else has been said over and over again.
[b]Twitch chat[/b]
Ok so. Everyone says that twitch chat was bad. I however say twitch chat was alot better than in the last events. We managed to efficiently keep chat non-racist, non-sexist 90% of the time. To anyone here who has ever moderated a chat with 80k+ viewers, it is immediately clear that its impossible to keep that at 100%. We (and our bots) have timed out and banned over 60 thousand times (not counting duplicate bans/timeouts) - that is alot higher than at earlier events, while we were able to reduce the number of false positives by an extreme amount.

[b]Why isnt chat sub only?[/b]
This is an event, by the community, for the community. It should be free and easy for anyone to join our community and grab his share of the "Kappa //" spam if he so desires. Trust me. Sub mode is a [u]very bad[/u] idea, in any situation: alot of people (including myself) will leave a channel if they cannot talk in chat (either because of sub only mode or being permanently banned), regardless of if they are going to post in chat in the first place or not - twitch lives off of the community and the social aspect. If it didnt, we could upload the runs to youtube, edit them, apply instagram filters and provide flawless content... That isnt what GDQs are supposed to be.
We only need sub mode in case chat servers start dieing and we need to make sure chat remains moderatable. The amount of circlejerk that happens in chat during sub only is more of a pain to moderate than 130k people spamming "Kappa //". Ask me about it if youre interested.

So much for that - twitch chat will remain free. Thats it.

[b]Communication[/b]
#1 complaint I (and everyone else) had at AGDQ 2014 and SGDQ 2014 was the lack of communication. As I mentioned in the Shout outs thread, we got an incredible amount of support for this this time, the senior donation station was manned 24/7, with immediate ways of communication. We are considering shortening the communication pipeline even further, but that is something to be worked on before SGDQ, not now. There were NO glaring issues that persisted over a long timespan because we werent able to contact anyone at the event - despite the increased amount of tech issues the tech volunteers+staff faced this time.

[b]Offsite volunteer organisation[/b]
This year, most of the offsite volunteers (chat mods etc) showed up in the channels where they were supposed to, which was great, nothing bad here. A couple of minor issues will have to be discussed in private.

@Melodia (and all the others like you), we did read chat as much as humanly possible. But then again, were just humans and IRC was slightly underrepresented on mods - Our main IRC chat mods were Efreeti, Efreeti, Efreeti and Toothache... pretty much. (Shout out to QuakeNet staff for adding a few trusted users to help out)
Not every error or problem can be resolved immediately and asking if "no one read the chat at all?" is a pretty mean thing to say. Keep in mind we have over 170 hours of chat to read, at some point you get massively burnt out.

EDIT: one minor thing I need to add.
[b]Professional vs. Casual[/b]
Primarily found on reddit and similar, we have seen hundreds of people complain about how professional the stream was this year, with all the sponsors and ads and sleek layouts and rules in the marathon room. If you complained about any of these, take a moment to think about what would happen if 1000 people were to attend an unorganized, casual and unprofessional event. The term which describes the result is generally referred to as "cringe", and while cringe moments can be hilarious, they get old soon - which then results in a drop of viewership. Twitch viewers are used to seeing all these professional esports events, with a production value matching or even exceeding that of proper TV shows, as an event that has similar viewercounts, they will expect a similar production value. I am not saying we should try to "go full esports", all im saying is that professional appearance pays off. If you take a look at the top 50 channels on twitch, especially in the non-LoL parts, you will note that all of these channels have a very professional look and feel.

Graviton

Edit history:

Graviton: 2015-01-23 07:05:44 pm

Graviton: 2015-01-23 07:05:27 pm

Graviton: 2015-01-23 07:04:05 pm

2015-01-23 07:03:45 pm

Anyone unfamiliar with what the venue was like, here's a video of all the gaming rooms for reference:

All of my criticisms have been mentioned already, so I'll leave it to them.

Cool Matty

Edit history:

Cool Matty: 2015-01-23 07:13:21 pm

2015-01-23 07:12:59 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Quote from PEACHES_:

are there any options besides condenser mics that could still work? It seems like the time it takes to setup the mics we have is just not worth the quality. Like a directional mic for the couch area?

The mics are only a small, small part of the setup time. Most of the time when people are putting on mics, other things are happening anyway (like plugging in the console).

Anyway, no, I've been told by multiple professionals that we're basically doing everything they would do in our situation as far as mic choice.