Title : Dragon Quest RTA Marathon
Date : April 9th - 12th, 2015
Type : Online marathon, no-donations
Schedule : http://bombch.us/xGc
Channel : http://twitch.tv/cleartonic
Overview
This is the official announcement of the Dragon Quest RTA Marathon! Over 10 runners have been identified to perform Dragon Quest 1 through 9, and potentially some of the Monster series may make appearances as well. We have chosen a date in April that works for our runners, so this marathon will take place from Thursday, April 9th in the morning to Sunday, April 12th late night.
Dragon Quest RTA ("real time attack") is a very classic community in Japan, where each original game's entries (and some of their remakes) are very competitive and have had numerous individuals work on their routes. Although one may think that the games would be "very long and tend to drag on", I personally believe it is quite the opposite. Many of the games have high risk/reward factors, and defeating bosses and leveling up characters is often faster than one might imagine. Another large benefit, especially to the earlier DQ games, is that cutscenes are not nearly as prevalent as other RPG series'. With good commentary and additional entertainment (which I will cover later), I believe this marathon will be a low-key, fun stream showcasing these games' RTAs.
A quick side note: Some entries will be "Dragon Warrior" depending on the version, for NES/PSX titles.
Purpose
The Dragon Quest RTA community is an enormous community in the east. Those of us in the marathon feel strongly about these games as both fun RTAs and fantastic standalone titles, and we want to spread the word. Tradition in Japan has always been to share information and help others regarding the RTAs of these games, and we feel the same.
This marathon will be online, and it will not be handling any donations. Many other marathons handle donations, and our goal is to simply provide entertainment and showcase our hard work.
Schedule
Our runners have been previously identified, so for the first marathon, this is a closed process. Scheduling took some effort due to the length of these games, however a relatively low amount of runners made the effort somewhat easier. The schedule is posted at the top of the post here, and features DQ1-9. Currently, we will attempt to have the DQ Monsters 3DS remake in the marathon, and depending on how our schedule goes, we may include DQ Monsters 2.
Keep in mind that our estimates are very laxed for this marathon due to the nature of these games. We do not expect to go over estimates, and if we get too far ahead of schedule, we have additional content to be able to get back on track. The schedule is by no means set in stone, so please be aware of changes in the future. However, the weekend of April 9th - 12th is set.
If you do feel that you can help provide commentary during any of the RTAs, please feel free to message me and I will consider your request. Additionally, if you do feel like you would want to contend for a spot or be available as a backup runner, consider messaging me as well.
Entertainment
Our goal is to provide an entertaining stream that simultaneously focuses on 1) the actual content of the RTA and 2) engaging the viewer.
For 1), various people will help provide commentary about the RTA. Our stream layout will be relatively simple, highlighting the importance of focusing on the RTA.
For 2), we have a few ideas. Although the RTAs are sophisticated at times, there are certainly points where there is "down-time", such as Metal Slime grinding or having to revisit a dungeon after dying to a boss. During these types of down-times, we will attempt to keep the viewers/chat entertained. Our current ideas include holding Dragon Quest trivia (potentially with small perler prizes), and a chat-driven Casino/Pachisi board in the corner of the stream (more on this soon.)
Again, our primary focus is on the actual RTA, but our overall goal is for people to be engaged during the entire marathon.
Advertising
And for the runners or anyone else, here are various images to help advertise the event:
http://bombch.us/xGf
Contact
If you have any questions about the marathon, you can join our small community at SRL IRC in the #dragonquest channel. My specific handle is "tonic", or you can message my twitch channel listed above.
Additionally, if you have any interest in having routes, notes and videos for Dragon Quest RTAs, check out Dreamboum's guide to DQ RTAs at http://bombch.us/u8b
See you in April!
- Tonic
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