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Keeper of TASBot
Quote from Hyphen-ated:
Quote from dwangoAC:
I've worn a geeky but sneakily Christian T-Shirt during the TASBot block at nearly every event
Here is the relevant clause in the rules document:
Quote:
Avoid topics of conversation that are polarizing or controversial in nature. This includes but is not limited to things such as politics, religion, or other “hot button” topics that are innately divisive.
Solely judging by the words currently written in the rules, a Christian T-shirt should be just as forbidden as a Trump hat. If Christian T-shirts are supposed to be okay, the rules should specify that and clarify how they're different from Trump hats.

Right, I read that as "don't start talking about or overtly draw attention to your religious or political viewpoints while on stream". There's obviously a line between being true to who you are and deliberately trying to stir up a controversy. If someone came on stream with a shirt with a cross on it or came in wearing a hijab (i.e. obviously recognizable religious symbols) it would be inappropriate to ask them to remove it, it's part of who they are and what they believe.  As long as they aren't deliberately making it a topic of conversation I don't see it as violating the spirit of the existing rules.
NowOwnsAFreaking Plane
Quote from LotBlind:
Fantastic quality in overlays etc. this year! I'm truly amazed.

I feel the way runs are listed in the schedule should be improved on: it's difficult to quickly scan what games are being played (or who's running them) because all the text is too homogenous. Maybe just offsetting the game names by one indent would help. I can't exactly remember what it looks like now, but I don't think it gave the run's category either? I know something was missing.

I noticed one perhaps slightly poor choice of game this year: Speedrunners From Hell looked incredibly dull (and you know I'm happy to watch almost anything) and I suspect it was chosen because it says "speedrunner" in the title? Tongue I know the committee can't spend forever on each game... To be exact about what I mean: the game has super-cheap mechanics letting you spawn endless platforms underneath you and many levels abuse this like, well, hell. It has completely trivial movement (hold a button down), super-easy platforming for a large part, one arcing projectile you can use to do some trick shots, and I generally felt the devs didn't have a clue what makes a game good for speedrunning. The great majority of FPS games I've seen (with the possible exception of realistic shooters) are more interesting. Not a comment on the runner though, or on the game as a casual 1st person puzzler.

I just wanted to say that I felt Speedrunners From Hell was a very interesting run.  Sure, some mechanics were spammed a lot, but the game itself seemed fairly difficult and had some cool little skips.  I did enjoy just seeing the fact they moved away from a traditional FPS on one choice, and I feel like the past few years GDQs have had more odd choices in games, and it was refreshing to see it again this year, even if not not unique choice will have a lot of fans, just the air of experimentation in the games list has been great.  Only thing I really have to say about AGDQ 2017, I didn't see any major faults in game choices.
Edit history:
BroBuzz: 2017-02-18 02:25:00 pm
BroBuzz: 2017-02-18 02:22:47 pm
Quote from Hyphen-ated:
Quote from Cool Matty:
We very carefully thought out what is contained in the rules page, so that it would leave as little up to interpretation as possible. We don't want runners to feel like they're second-guessing themselves

Hi, I think it would be a good idea for the rules to explicitly ban all political/religious/etc expression. Currently they ban "topics of conversation", but I don't think wearing a piece of clothing with a divisive message is usually considered "conversation".

That's why I've been confused about. I brought Trump hats to AGDQ16, wore them on stream, and even said "Can't Stump the Trump" (which would easily fall under the "topics of conversation" part) and no staff talked to me afterwards. Then for AGDQ17 I planned on bringing the hats again. I read the rules beforehand and thought it would still be fine because the specific rule mentioned nothing about clothing or memorabilia. And unlike last AGDQ, nobody said anything remotely political, but this time around everyone who even touched a hat (or didn't in the case of pvtcb) got either banned or a hole-punched.  Very inconsistent.
Formerly known as Skullboy
Though I wasn't at AGDQ this year, I've always worn openly worn a cross at prior AGDQs and no one has ever said anything. I wonder if the concerns this year are still fallout from the election.
Edit history:
Cool Matty: 2017-02-18 06:46:53 pm
Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.
We're going to expand the rule's explanation to be even more explicitly clear about the issues involved.

The main concern with religious content is anything that could be considered proselytizing. This is a major concern for some charities like DWB. Wearing a cross, hijab, etc., is fine.

The main concern with politics is showing political affiliation on stream or campaigning for politics. Charities have endless restrictions on this, so the only real way to deal with it is to avoid it altogether.

As for why things may have not been touched on in the past, there's a lot of possible reasons, but primarily it's because we didn't have to deal with it before. It didn't come up with the charities. But once it did, charity discussions about these issues took place and we had to be clear it's not okay.
I saw some of the hotel vendors outside the practice room selling Trump hats. What if someone just bought some and wore them on stream not knowing it wasn't allowed? Can anything even be done about vendors selling questionable material on-site? I don't know if anything can be done about this, but it's worth mentioning, as anyone could have gotten their hands on a hat at the event and get in trouble.
Quote from CosmykTheDolfyn:
I just wanted to say that I felt Speedrunners From Hell was a very interesting run.


If you had seen any Quake III defragging (have you, or some equivalent thereof?), you'd understand why SFH looks a very pale comparison to those, although in pure defragging maps, it might be difficult to appreciate the runs if you haven't played the games themselves. To me, SFH specifically didn't look very difficult at all, as a game. There was a large part of it that looked incredibly trivial, following intended childishly easy paths with the only time shaved off by tightening corners - and I guess shooting at some target a bit faster. There was that one part where he couldn't do anything but wait for the next cycle of those rotating walls, or even waiting at the start to make sure it was the right phase of the cycle. None of the mechanics looked like they hadn't been seen before (time reverse and whatnot). I don't know if you've watched a lot of FPS runs but this is a far far cry from almost any of them. I have nothing against more puzzley FPS games, Portal instantly coming to mind with its incredibly varied runs across different categories. There was another someone (who said they did Team Fortress II equivalent of defragging) who agreed with this assessment in the YT upload comments, and any run chosen is another run not chosen, but ofc I don't know if there were a lot of games in this kind of genre to choose from.

I think the game's main problem is it markets itself specifically for speedrunning but has next to nothing that makes it particularly interesting for it.

I recommend ZLiveGaming's coverage of the 2014 Defrag World Cup because the commentary does (at least in the early maps) contain a lot of info about how it works. I don't know if this kinda stuff directly converts into a GDQ run (it really helps to see every runner's runs back to back to understand the nuances, which is a little bit time-consuming) but yeah defragging is not terribly interesting to watch (it wasn't designed as a spectator thing) in any other sense than if you get how absolutely ridiculous the tricks and movement are the runners are capable of, and the clever subtleties in routing. In that way something like SFH could be seen as a good choice for an event. I just wish it wasn't so hollow.
Quote from Z-Saber:
I saw some of the hotel vendors outside the practice room selling Trump hats. What if someone just bought some and wore them on stream not knowing it wasn't allowed? Can anything even be done about vendors selling questionable material on-site? I don't know if anything can be done about this, but it's worth mentioning, as anyone could have gotten their hands on a hat at the event and get in trouble.


On stream like in the crowd? I fail to see the issue there. On stream running a game? I could see how that would be an issue, and the runner should know to refrain from wearing anything political.
Formerly known as Skullboy
I think that specifying in the future that the "no politics/religion/etc" is primarily at the request of the charity will cut down on these concerns in the future. I should probably watch some of the marathon now so I can give actual feedback...
NowOwnsAFreaking Plane
Quote from LotBlind:
Quote from CosmykTheDolfyn:
I just wanted to say that I felt Speedrunners From Hell was a very interesting run.


If you had seen any Quake III defragging (have you, or some equivalent thereof?)

I've watched a lot of Quake speedruns.  My introduction to speedrunning was through SDA, how could I not?
I still enjoyed them going out on a limb with some choices occasionally, and I just don't personally feel like calling out SFH as a bad choice becuase it's different from other FPS games will help keep a varied schedule in the future.  I would have LOVED to see some classic Quake III defragging, but a change of pace that shows something a little different is never bad.  There were games that were on the schedule that I am 99% sure are even easier to speedrun than SFH, does that make them bad runs also?
Personal preferences will always prevail, but more variance will always be better; even if that means there is an occasional game we don't agree with.
CosmykTheDolfyn:

This is the first time it's even occurred to me to single out a game like this. I'm going to emphasize that I ALSO appreciate the variety, a lot! In fact, in many other marathons I felt like "my kind" of games have been missing, and indeed this seemed less so this time around. It doesn't alter the argument about its quality as a speedrun game, whether or not the game fills the right "quota", and I think you have no reason to think someone's going to read what I've said as "we don't want variety". I'm sure you see that's kinda absurd. And I don't know how you can read what I wrote and see " calling out SFH as a bad choice becuase it's different from other FPS games". Which post were you reading exactly? I even named another game in the same genre (Portal) that I felt served as a counter-example to SFH. I wouldn't have been able to name a third game in the same vein, but it's the runners' job to suggest truly worthy ones anyway. At least I don't imagine anyone's recruiting runners outside the normal sign-ups.

Yes, e.g. some of the awful games probably were more easy, but then everyone understands that's never the point with those. Okay, we don't have to agree on if SFH has some merits or not.
...
I feel like GDQ has lost its soul. It may have started as something very nice, but currently it feels more like one of those money grabbing churches.

When it happened? I can tell you exactly when it happened: GDQ soul started going away when the 1.000.000 barrier was broken for the first time. Do you remember what happened? I tell you what happened. When the 1.000.000 barrier was broken, a bunch of "staff" jumped on the screen and started patting themselves on the back while giving speeches telling how awesome the members of this "staff" were.

It may not have been the intention, but I was really shocked. Two entities should have been thanked for that achievement and they are the donors and the runners.

Yes, an event like that does not happen by itself but I am sure people who donated were not donating because of how organized and how much effort this"staff" entity put on the event. They were donating because there were some awesome people running games they liked for charity.

That was when GDQ lost part of its soul. The rest of its soul it loses each time you do not state the WHOLE truth about where the money people are donating is going to. You guys are really looking more and more like politicians, because you are not really lying, but you certainly are not telling the whole truth. The problem? I believe that when someone donates money for, let's say PCF, they think that 100% of their money is going to be used to help prevent cancer. But that is not exactly true. Only part of the money is used for that. The bigger part? Certainly (hopefully), but still, is just a part. The foundation has its operational costs (which GDQ is now part of) and some of the money is used to pay for that cost.

So, I for one would start feeling way better if you guys started being very specific about that fact. I would feel way better if every time an announcer stopped to tell about where the donated money is going to he also mentioned those little facts. Because maybe some people may not feel comfortable knowing that not 100% of their money is actually used like they think it is. Then again, maybe most of them will not mind that little detail. BUT, when that is not mentioned, it passes the impression that you guys are also not comfortable about that and are afraid of what people may think.

That whole Youtube witch hunt I saw in the other thread also sounded very strange. You guys tried to give some arguments explaining why you were doing it, why you were removing re-uploads of GDQ videos, but in the end you were able to convince absolutely nobody.

The whole political correctness debate is also not helping at all. I thought we were better than that, but it is clear that some of us still have long way to go. Here is a hint: if someone call you a "..." in order to offend you, that person is an idiot. If you get offended by something an idiot said, I am really sorry to inform you, but you are also an idiot.

In the end, it feels that the only ones really doing charity are the donors and the "non-staff" runners. The rest are either in for the money or for some attention. Not cool. Not cool at all.

So, please, start telling truth to people so we can bring back that "basement full of gamers, including a semi-nude one playing Contra, for charity" feeling.
If you want to save time: PCF gives $0 to finding a cure and many donations talk about "finding a cure" and are being misled.
Also, if you take the time to read this and know that I'm wrong or have a different viewpoint, please tell me. I don't want to just rant.

I understand steps have been made to improve opinions of PCF and to try to get them to direct some of their funds elsewhere and to broaden their horizons, so to speak.

https://preventcancer.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Prevent-Cancer-Foundation-2015-Exempt-Tax-Return-Public-Copy-Signed.pdf

This is their 990 from 2016 and it basically details what their goals are and where the money goes. Not new information or hard to find. On the first page under section 4 they explain what they do and want to do. 4b starts with "Research." Basically, they fund research that aims to learn what cancer is and how to prevent it. This has already been done. It's common knowledge. Just flush that $1.3m down the toilet. No this probably isn't all from this community's charity events, but still.

It's an issue when people donate under the impression that their money may be going to curing cancer. When donations are read and you hear "let's kick cancers butt and find a cure" it's wrong. There's no 2 ways about it. People think they are donating to find a cure for cancer, but they are funding research that's been done hundreds of times already.

I know it's late to change things or dump whatever, but these things are important. It needs to at the very least be extremely clear what people are donating to. Yes, people should do their research before spending their money, but the responsible thing is to tell people that they aren't donating to a cure, but to something else.

Don't get me wrong, I love the event, I love the runs, its a good thing that this community is doing. This just needs to be addressed in my opinion.
Balls jerky
The charity is called the "Prevent Cancer Foundation" not the "Cure Cancer Foundation." It's in the name... https://imgur.com/6dqtJHi Furthermore. a description of the charity is provided during the event. How else would you like the information to be portrayed? If people are donating because they believe it's for a cure they're ignoring a lot of cues that AGDQ is providing.

The basement full of gamers thing has been missing since 2013 which was the last year that AGDQ was actually a basement full of gamers. Go figure. The 4H center had a good set of basements. I did enjoy them from 2011-13 and the feeling of only having 100 people or less in that space. There were a bunch of great Chu Chu Rocket rounds, Saturn Bomberman rounds, Bango Kazooie races (<3 mike89 and Trek), and Mario Party money matches in those days. I was there when the first 1 mil goal was met (at a hotel and not a basement) and if you watch the 2014 Chrono Trigger vods you can tell the second it updated on the tracker by my americlap on stream right behind the couch which was immediately shushed. Now there are 1,000+ people attending and 1 mil seems to just happen so yeah it's going to lose some charm. Even in 2014, I was seeing people I knew from previous events for the first time 20 minutes before I left the venue. As an attendee of the first 4 events (CGDQ exclusive) and an outside observer since 2015, I don't see all the fuss. I haven't always agreed with SDA policy (especially runner discounts since so many games are cut; also game choices), but the GDQs are basically the best that they can be IMO. I trust the staff. I doubt the paid staff are making millions off this event...

Maybe I just haven't been t/here in a while? Maybe it's terrible now? I don't know. Back to lurking.
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
that's been my main..."perturbment" for...ever many years.  8?

the charity is for preventing cancer, not for curing cancer, but just about every donation read on air thinks it's for curing cancer.  it's kind of false advertising right up front if most doners think it's for something else.  pcf tells people to stop smoking and funds pre-screens (maybe?) and so forth, they don't fund labs trying to modify virii to deliver cancer-killing pieces to cancer cells.  don't get me wrong, what they do is important, but it's absolutely not what most viewers think they're donating to.  it's always irked me.  of course gdq is the biggest contributor to pcf, because no one would care about pcf otherwise.  if people looked at the options, they'd donate to something trying to KILL cancer rather than something telling people how to eat salads.  if you think i'm being obtuse, go to their site right now, it's telling me to eat a salad.

"Research suggests that only five to ten percent of cancers are hereditary. That means the non-inherited causes of cancer — the lifestyle choices we make, the foods we eat, and our physical activity levels — have a direct impact on our overall cancer risk. The Foundation encourages people of all ages to take charge of their health by making smart lifestyle and nutrition choices, seeing their doctor regularly for checkups and health screenings, and monitoring their bodies for any changes that should be brought to the attention of medical professionals"

that's fine, i applaud the effort.  9/10 donations are not what they think they are for.

anyway, whatever.

i actually came on here to talk about ori but the last couple posts have raised a topic that's far more important.
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
i've personally never donated to agdq, but have to sgdq often, because of this alone.
most viewers don't research to understand this difference tho.
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
also when you're reading donation messages on air about "destroying cancer" and "killing cancer" and yes, "curing cancer", that reinforces a viewer attitude that what you're doing is to cure cancer.  which is not actually the focus at all.  i'm not going to sue anyone, but i'm kinda surprised no one has yet.
NowOwnsAFreaking Plane
Quote from p:
also when you're reading donation messages on air about "destroying cancer" and "killing cancer" and yes, "curing cancer", that reinforces a viewer attitude that what you're doing is to cure cancer.  which is not actually the focus at all.  i'm not going to sue anyone, but i'm kinda surprised no one has yet.


First off: this is the response thread to AGDQ 2017, not AGDQ 2018.  ALSO, the Prevent Cancer spokeswoman literally talked about how the Prevent Cancer foundation is funding a grant for the treatment of lung cancer alongside funding prevention measures during the event.  Wait for the right thread and do your research a little bit better.