European Speedster Assembly 2014

2014-08-02 05:49:36 pm

We'd appreciate your feedback right now from this moment on. We're aware that there's usually a two week rule, but let's stray away from that because we know that some of the really important feedback is going to gets forgotten as time passes. So let's get started right away.

We will be reviewing the event ourselves and get our analysis out within a few weeks time.

Shoot!

- The #ESA2014 team

Thread title:

PJ

2014-08-02 06:18:50 pm

Is PJ

Whatever disaster of a song was played during the finale needs to absolutely never happen again anywhere.

More feedback to come as I feel like writing it.

MrLonghair

Edit history:

MrLonghair: 2014-08-03 05:41:58 am

MrLonghair: 2014-08-02 06:26:03 pm

MrLonghair: 2014-08-02 06:24:25 pm

MrLonghair: 2014-08-02 06:23:44 pm

2014-08-02 06:22:56 pm

Audio-guy. twitchtv:ohgoddamnit

1) Having two streams worked better (as a viewer) than I expected. Even though the Yellow stream got the scheduling it did, it provided a great alternative and became a favourite for many. Having this choice got very important, and I will have a hard time to stomach a sizable full-coverage speedrun marathon using only a single stream from now. (Yes, some people should really think hard about it)
2) Audio management was basically 95% perfect, some misses I would have taught out on the spot had I been able to attend and teach out. (Mainly EQing, soundchecking before going live)
3) Layouts were 99.9% perfect. There were readable even on a far away monitor, but could have had some text and numbers made a tiny tiny bit larger, and jamming four game windows in along with everything else for something like the L4D running made it a little cramped, until I went fullscreen. People need to learn from this stream layout. (like that white on bright blue = NO)

4) Donations - WTF kept people from donating? I approve of the focus on what is ":D" and ":)" over constant donation talking but jesus christ, raising the bar all the way into a galaxy 4.2 lightyears away and getting just a tiny bit extra for it.
5) Empty audience seats - worst heatwave in over 60 years hitting Sweden + great practice room activities + extra rooms to view the stream in and socialize = Don't feel too bad about it. Maybe keep chairs off-camera for assembly if it starts filling up?
6) The french - Love you guys. If money was no object I am quite sure we would take a bunch of Swedes down and help you all out arranging a speedrun marathon, the home of SECAM, we're thankful for you.

7) Keep up the great work goddamnit. If a winter ESA can happen and the government gets off my back so I can attend, I will. If I have to wait until next summer, I will. If I find a fresh game to speedrun for whatever next ESA and its a worthy run, I will.
8) And oh my god the production quality of everything how do you do it. AV quality was absolutely amazing also. Setuptimes? Could have been better I'm sure, but with two streams, what gives!
9) I already miss this, the most entertaining, warm and kind speedrun marathon that I have seen. The viewers felt part of everybody over there rather than part of an audience. My Japanese friends I got into this loved it, all over the internet even on the more bitter forums I see love.

(Never thought about the Schedule page. It could need some dynamic forms to auto-scroll, auto-adjust, include estimates?)
(Oh and absolutely freaking fantastic selection of runs. Especially great for those of us a bit tired of 8/16bit consoles and lengthy RPG runs. Variety is the spice of life, 3D to PS360 to PC runs are so appreciated. And just flat out rare console runs, and handheld runs!)

1) [b]Having two streams worked better (as a viewer) than I expected[/b]. Even though the Yellow stream got the scheduling it did, it provided a great alternative and became a favourite for many. Having this choice got very important, and I will have a hard time to stomach a sizable full-coverage speedrun marathon using only a single stream from now. (Yes, some people should really think hard about it)
2) [b]Audio management was basically 95% perfect[/b], some misses I would have taught out on the spot had I been able to attend and teach out. (Mainly EQing, soundchecking before going live)
3) [b]Layouts were 99.9% perfect[/b]. There were readable even on a far away monitor, but could have had some text and numbers made a tiny tiny bit larger, and jamming four game windows in along with everything else for something like the L4D running made it a little cramped, until I went fullscreen. [b]People need to learn from this stream layout[/b]. (like that [b]white on bright blue = NO[/b])

4) [b]Donations [/b]- WTF kept people from donating? I approve of the focus on what is ":D" and ":)" over constant donation talking but jesus christ, raising the bar all the way into a galaxy 4.2 lightyears away and getting just a tiny bit extra for it.
5) [b]Empty audience seats[/b] - worst heatwave in over 60 years hitting Sweden + great practice room activities + extra rooms to view the stream in and socialize = Don't feel too bad about it. Maybe keep chairs off-camera for assembly if it starts filling up?
6) [b]The french[/b] - Love you guys. If money was no object I am quite sure we would take a bunch of Swedes down and help you all out arranging a speedrun marathon, the home of SECAM, we're thankful for you.

7) [b]Keep up the great work[/b] goddamnit. If a winter ESA can happen and the government gets off my back so I can attend, I will. If I have to wait until next summer, I will. If I find a fresh game to speedrun for whatever next ESA and its a worthy run, I will.
8) And [b]oh my god the production quality of everything[/b] how do you do it.  AV quality was absolutely amazing also. Setuptimes? Could have been better I'm sure, but with two streams, what gives!
9) I already miss this, [b]the most entertaining, warm and kind speedrun marathon that I have seen[/b]. The viewers felt part of everybody over there rather than part of an audience. My Japanese friends I got into this loved it, all over the internet even on the more bitter forums I see love.

(Never thought about the Schedule page. It could need some dynamic forms to auto-scroll, auto-adjust, include estimates?)
(Oh and absolutely freaking fantastic selection of runs. Especially great for those of us a bit tired of 8/16bit consoles and lengthy RPG runs. Variety is the spice of life, 3D to PS360 to PC runs are so appreciated. And just flat out rare console runs, and handheld runs!)

Lanayru

Edit history:

Lanayru: 2014-08-02 06:31:29 pm

2014-08-02 06:24:32 pm

Techno is life

Alright so I'll make my feedback as a viewer from Canada with a European background

Overall this event was very entertaining, alot of people I race with on SRL and talk to on IRC attended this event as they were European so that was obviously quite nice.

I'll just make a list of things that I liked about this year

The quality was just superb , things were looking very pretty
Layout was just amazing
Audio was real good
Great linueup of games
having 2 streams was real good and I liked that

the one thing that I really liked alot and love you guys for is how fast you guys react to an issue, when someone in chat types out "mic is too low" "mic is broken" "game is too low" you guys react fast and in about 1 minute it is fixed , I know things can fuck up sometimes but 24/7 there was always someone on the tech and if something went wrong right away it was fixed, for SGDQ I needed my audio up to about 80%, for ESA it was only at 30% and the quality was real good

Swat, that was just amazing as I tweeted, shwoing what people tweet to the event for waiting for next game was also nice

4 player layout, I really liked it, the game captures were a bit too small but I was able to watch the Swat (which was 5 screen) and VC Bungo fine on my phone and I really liked the Colour Coding that was a smart idea

now for criticism, I honestly can't think of anything except for the schedule, the website done by Pac was superb but now the people incharge of the schedule should have monitored it, there was moments where the hosts were confused on what was next, example on yellow stream Alko thought MDK was on but it was actually Nitronic Rush, and people on Blue still thought it was still on blue after Hitman, so communication and updating there needs improving, I woke up excited to see Twilight Princess (where I get my name from fyi) and only learnt last minute of the issue Zaf1re had (which I know was not his fault etc), but people came on the stream expecting TP because they read the schedule but yet it wasn't updated, and Ic an't recall a tweet saying "TP has been cancelled due to problems with runner " (maybe there was, if there is then I'll le that slide).

Overall this was a great event and I had a great time watching it all this week while waiting for my computer to arrive.
Speaking of computers your PC blocks were real good and also one last thing for me to mention, I defintley liked that you guys took out the black bars on the console games also, those intro videos for introdutcing the runner and game were real awesome.

Nice work guys, I hope I can one year attend this event just to give you all a big hug and some Polski Kielbasa

I probably have some grammatical errors so I will edit that eventually

Alright so I'll make my feedback as a viewer from Canada with a European background

Overall this event was very entertaining, alot of people I race with on SRL and talk to on IRC attended this event as they were European so that was obviously quite nice.

I'll just make a list of things that I liked about this year

The quality was just superb , things were looking very pretty
Layout was just amazing
Audio was real good 
Great linueup of games
having 2 streams was real good and I liked that

the one thing that I really liked alot and love you guys for is how fast you guys react to an issue, when someone in chat types out "mic is too low" "mic is broken" "game is too low" you guys react fast and in about 1 minute it is fixed , I know things can fuck up sometimes but 24/7 there was always someone on the tech and if something went wrong right away it was fixed, for SGDQ I needed my audio up to about 80%, for ESA it was only at 30% and the quality was real good

Swat, that was just amazing as I tweeted, shwoing what people tweet to the event for waiting for next game was also nice

4 player layout, I really liked it, the game captures were a bit too small but I was able to watch the Swat (which was 5 screen) and VC Bungo fine on my phone and I really liked the Colour Coding that was a smart idea

now for criticism, I honestly can't think of anything except for the schedule, the website done by Pac was superb but now the people incharge of the schedule should have monitored it, there was moments where the hosts were confused on what was next, example on yellow stream Alko thought MDK was on but it was actually Nitronic Rush, and people on Blue still thought it was still on blue after Hitman, so communication and updating there needs improving, I woke up excited to see Twilight Princess (where I get my name from fyi) and only learnt last minute of the issue Zaf1re had (which I know was not his fault etc), but people came on the stream expecting TP because they read the schedule but yet it wasn't updated, and Ic an't recall a tweet saying "TP has been cancelled due to problems with runner " (maybe there was, if there is then I'll le that slide).

Overall this was a great event and I had a great time watching it all this week while waiting for my computer to arrive. 
 Speaking of computers your PC blocks were real good and also one last thing for me to mention, I defintley liked that you guys took out the black bars on the console games also, those intro videos for introdutcing the runner and game were real awesome.

Nice work guys, I hope I can one year attend this event just to give you all a big hug and some Polski Kielbasa

I probably have some grammatical errors so I will edit that eventually

tdawg

Edit history:

tdawg: 2014-08-02 09:22:52 pm

tdawg: 2014-08-02 09:21:41 pm

tdawg: 2014-08-02 09:11:34 pm

tdawg: 2014-08-02 09:09:34 pm

2014-08-02 09:08:14 pm

As a person who attended the event, I don't really have that much to complain about. Most of my experiences were great including hanging out with other speedruners, doing the run (Silent Hill 2) on stream, participating in tourneys, etc.

A few things I think could be improved include:

Air conditioning:
I know there was a problem with the venue's air conditioning system, but because of the heatwave that struck during the event, some of the rooms for the first couple of days were not pleasant to be in (particularly the practice room)

Lack of signs / maps
I didn't have a problem with this myself, but a couple of people who were attending ESA for the very first time mentioned that they found it incredibly difficult to find where the mass housing was when they initially arrived in the town.

4 man race layout
A few people were complaining in chat about the layout when 4 people were racing. The viewer got indication of which players screen by means of colour however it wasn't really that intuitive, plus it wouldn't work for colour blind viewers Smiley

All in all though, these are very small complaints. The whole event was incredibly well managed. Major props to all of the tech team who were working around thee clock to keep things going smoothly. I really did enjoy the whole experience and here's to ESA 2015 :-)

Also, the song that was played at the end needs to be kept #keeponsaxing

As a person who attended the event, I don't really have that much to complain about.  Most of my experiences were great including hanging out with other speedruners, doing the run (Silent Hill 2) on stream, participating in tourneys, etc.

A few things I think could be improved include:

[b]Air conditioning: [/b]
I know there was a problem with the venue's air conditioning system, but because of the heatwave that struck during the event, some of the rooms for the first couple of days were not pleasant to be in (particularly the practice room)

[b] Lack of signs / maps [/b]
I didn't have a problem with this myself, but a couple of people who were attending ESA for the very first time mentioned that they found it incredibly difficult to find where the mass housing was when they initially arrived in the town.

[b] 4 man race layout[/b]
A few people were complaining in chat about the layout when 4 people were racing. The viewer got indication of which players screen  by means of colour however it wasn't really that intuitive, plus it wouldn't work for colour blind viewers :)

All in all though, these are very small complaints. The whole event was incredibly well managed. Major props to all of the tech team who were working around thee clock to keep things going smoothly. I really did enjoy the whole experience and here's to ESA 2015  :-)

Also, the song that was played at the end needs to be kept #keeponsaxing

Billnye_Fan

2014-08-02 09:52:03 pm

I'll try to be brief.

The Good
1.) Layouts.
Very well made. Nice color mixing. Nice fonts. Filled space well.

2.) Two Streams.
Amazing job on hosting two streams. I had both streams up as much as possible. Great job at staggering different types of runs between the two streams. Also great job on incorporating nonspeed running content (recaps,demos, etc). I firmly believe that if somone wasn't interested in a run on one stream, they more than likely would have enjoyed the other stream's run. This sets a great precedent, and I feel it shouldn't be overlooked by other larger live marathons (GDQs).

3.) Audio.
For GDQs i have to turn my volume to max to just hear normally. For ESA i could have it at the same volume as other streams that I listen to. Microphones worked great. Could hear everyone well on both streams.

4.) Lighting.
Great lighting throughout most of the marathon. Wasn't too dark and dull looking. The only issue was early on when sun would be in the runners eyes.

5.) Video.
Crisp clear capture of all the games. Great cropping job on most games. Very few if any frame drops. (outside of power failures)

6.) Atmosphere.
I for one enjoyed the fun and friendly atmosphere that ESA had. Most runners looked to have enjoyed themselves. All the pictures of behind the scenes on twitter and such made ESA look like a blast to be at. It felt like the focus was about having fun and going fast rather than trying to maximize donations.

7.) SWAT.
Amazing job at being able to stream the SWAT run. Made the impossible possible.

8.) Introduction Videos.
All those 10-15 second videos ran before some games were very enjoyable. Great way to transition from run to run.

The Bad
1.) Placement of runners names during races.
The color coding helped and was nice, but there was enough room to place the names next to the corresponding game captures to make it less confusing for people who didn't realize the color code / are colorblind.

The Ugly
1.) Filling seats during late night hours.
Like all live marathons, filling seats during late hours is hard. ESA had its fair share of dead rooms. Hard to improve on this.

2.) Viewer Count.
ESA viewer count was shockingly low. The average viewer count should have been at least 3-4 times higher. Such a shame so many missed it live.

Anyways, my 2 cents. Great Job. Hope to see more (2x a year???) in the future.

I'll try to be brief.

[b][u]The Good[/u][/b]
1.) Layouts. 
Very well made. Nice color mixing. Nice fonts. Filled space well.

2.) Two Streams.
Amazing job on hosting two streams. I had both streams up as much as possible. Great job at staggering different types of runs between the two streams. Also great job on incorporating nonspeed running content (recaps,demos, etc). I firmly believe that if somone wasn't interested in a run on one stream, they more than likely would have enjoyed the other stream's run. This sets a great precedent, and I feel it shouldn't be overlooked by other larger live marathons (GDQs).

3.) Audio.
For GDQs i have to turn my volume to max to just hear normally. For ESA i could have it at the same volume as other streams that I listen to. Microphones worked great. Could hear everyone well on both streams.

4.) Lighting.
Great lighting throughout most of the marathon. Wasn't too dark and dull looking. The only issue was early on when sun would be in the runners eyes.

5.) Video.
Crisp clear capture of all the games. Great cropping job on most games. Very few if any frame drops. (outside of power failures)

6.) Atmosphere.
I for one enjoyed the fun and friendly atmosphere that ESA had. Most runners looked to have enjoyed themselves. All the pictures of behind the scenes on twitter and such made ESA look like a blast to be at. It felt like the focus was about having fun and going fast rather than trying to maximize donations.

7.) SWAT.
Amazing job at being able to stream the SWAT run. Made the impossible possible.

8.) Introduction Videos.
All those 10-15 second videos ran before some games were very enjoyable. Great way to transition from run to run.

[b][u]The Bad[/u][/b]
1.) Placement of runners names during races.
The color coding helped and was nice, but there was enough room to place the names next to the corresponding game captures to make it less confusing for people who didn't realize the color code / are colorblind.

[b][u]The Ugly[/u][/b]
1.) Filling seats during late night hours.
Like all live marathons, filling seats during late hours is hard. ESA had its fair share of dead rooms. Hard to improve on this.

2.) Viewer Count.
ESA viewer count was shockingly low. The average viewer count should have been at least 3-4 times higher. Such a shame so many missed it live.

Anyways, my 2 cents. Great Job. Hope to see more (2x a year???) in the future.

Gyoo

2014-08-03 02:02:18 am

The cake is a lie

I lived this from the inside too, also I will focus on (tiny) bad points because after reading all the previous posts, all the good points I had in mind have already been said :

1) Fix the WiFi

I know it might not be your fault, but we had terrible problems with the wifi. I needed to work for the french restream, by commentating some runs. The blue stream was directly on a PC with an ethernet cable, so we didn't have any problem. But I couldn't do anything on the yellow stream since we couldn't put it on the same computer as the blue stream, thus use WiFi on our laptops. Problem is, it was really unstable and slow because saturated :/

2) Small layout fixes

The layout was indeed 10/10, except for the 3 and 4 players races where I often saw people ranting that they couldn't understand which player had which screen. Color cues were a good idea, but maybe they were too discreet.

3) Empty seats

It has been said already, but yeah, it can be annoying for some runners. Personally, I didn't care if there was someone or not behind me during my run, also big shoutouts to Curseddolls and her crew for filling some seats during my Leaf Me Alone run <3 But anyway, we had a lot of people around, but most of them were crowded in the main room, ohwell.

Once again, these are small details. The overall was over the top, everything looked very professional even if we all know that we are amateurs that just want to make good work.

I lived this from the inside too, also I will focus on (tiny) bad points because after reading all the previous posts, all the good points I had in mind have already been said :

1) Fix the WiFi

I know it might not be your fault, but we had terrible problems with the wifi. I needed to work for the french restream, by commentating some runs. The blue stream was directly on a PC with an ethernet cable, so we didn't have any problem. But I couldn't do anything on the yellow stream since we couldn't put it on the same computer as the blue stream, thus use WiFi on our laptops. Problem is, it was really unstable and slow because saturated :/

2) Small layout fixes

The layout was indeed 10/10, except for the 3 and 4 players races where I often saw people ranting that they couldn't understand which player had which screen. Color cues were a good idea, but maybe they were too discreet.

3) Empty seats

It has been said already, but yeah, it can be annoying for some runners. Personally, I didn't care if there was someone or not behind me during my run, also big shoutouts to Curseddolls and her crew for filling some seats during my Leaf Me Alone run <3 But anyway, we had a lot of people around, but most of them were crowded in the main room, ohwell.

Once again, these are small details. The overall was over the top, everything looked very professional even if we all know that we are amateurs that just want to make good work.

Mobiusman

2014-08-03 03:25:51 am

this isn't a complaint from me, but I've heard others say the bitrate was unnecessarily high and made it difficult to watch on weaker internet connections

presjpolk

2014-08-03 03:55:31 am

HELLO!

Both streams had partner so that shouldn't have been an issue..

RoboSparkle

2014-08-03 07:00:10 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

I'll add more later, but I'm still at ESA so I haven't really finished gathering information yet, but here are a couple of things that stand out.

Two streams was a brilliant idea and we got a great reception from the concept and execution, so I'd definitely like to see that again next year as overall people really enjoyed the ability to see some more non-speedrunning stuff or a bit of variety if the other stream wasn't to their liking. The recaps in particular were brilliant and their flexibility meant that if needed they could be a little shorter and still keep the stream on time. However, we did keep falling behind and I believe one of the key things with this is that we did not have enough tech experts for two streams and next year if you could have 2 Edenals, 2 Oasizes (Oaseez? Oasi?), 2 Grukks etc then that would be great, but because of this the tech guys we had were either overworked or uncertain of what to do and a lot of times setup was slow because of a lack of urgency or certainty.

I'm not a tech expert so I don't know how possible this is to achieve but there should ideally be some way of making the tech stuff much more automated so that for a "simple" game change like changing from a single console to a different console only requires the runner to plug his or her gear into the labeled adapters, the tech person changes the pre-programmed layout, plays the intro video (which also looked brilliant btw), and starts the timer. Then for more complicated setups like PC or races, one of the head tech guys would sort that out directly.

On that note, if there is a way for you guys to get dedicated consoles of all the most common setups like NES, SNES, PS2, Mega Drive etc, that never leave the streaming room, then that would help too.

The layout was brilliant and the viewers were very outspoken about how great it was so that's a fantastic achievement, but I'm going to echo the feedback on the runner info for 4 player races / co-op. Some people were pretty confused about which stream corresponded to which runner and I think that would have worked better if you put the names and twitch info next to the relevant stream as well as using the colour coordination. This really stood out for us at the event when watching on the projector as the colours were very pale and I had to explain to multiple people what the system was. On that note there were a few instances where chat or audience had to get tech to correct the displayed twitch channel of the runner - a minor improvement but one worth looking at when gathering runner information before the event.

Food and breakfasts were brilliant, although I think for those of us attending the fact that the rules about where you can keep your stuff changed several times were a bit confusing or annoying. I think this was a by-product of the fact that we had triple attendance from last year but next time it would be good to have a set of rules and stick to them.

Finally, we need to get William Shatner back next year as his attendance was an unexpected delight.

I'll add more when I think of it, but I've had the best time so far and I'm still loving every minute of it!

I'll add more later, but I'm still at ESA so I haven't really finished gathering information yet, but here are a couple of things that stand out.

Two streams was a brilliant idea and we got a great reception from the concept and execution, so I'd definitely like to see that again next year as overall people really enjoyed the ability to see some more non-speedrunning stuff or a bit of variety if the other stream wasn't to their liking.  The recaps in particular were brilliant and their flexibility meant that if needed they could be a little shorter and still keep the stream on time.  However, we did keep falling behind and I believe one of the key things with this is that we did not have enough tech experts for two streams and next year if you could have 2 Edenals, 2 Oasizes (Oaseez? Oasi?), 2 Grukks etc then that would be great, but because of this the tech guys we had were either overworked or uncertain of what to do and a lot of times setup was slow because of a lack of urgency or certainty.

I'm not a tech expert so I don't know how possible this is to achieve but there should ideally be some way of making the tech stuff much more automated so that for a "simple" game change like changing from a single console to a different console only requires the runner to plug his or her gear into the labeled adapters, the tech person changes the pre-programmed layout, plays the intro video (which also looked brilliant btw), and starts the timer.  Then for more complicated setups like PC or races, one of the head tech guys would sort that out directly.

On that note, if there is a way for you guys to get dedicated consoles of all the most common setups like NES, SNES, PS2, Mega Drive etc, that never leave the streaming room, then that would help too.

The layout was brilliant and the viewers were very outspoken about how great it was so that's a fantastic achievement, but I'm going to echo the feedback on the runner info for 4 player races / co-op.  Some people were pretty confused about which stream corresponded to which runner and I think that would have worked better if you put the names and twitch info next to the relevant stream as well as using the colour coordination.  This really stood out for us at the event when watching on the projector as the colours were very pale and I had to explain to multiple people what the system was.  On that note there were a few instances where chat or audience had to get tech to correct the displayed twitch channel of the runner - a minor improvement but one worth looking at when gathering runner information before the event.

Food and breakfasts were brilliant, although I think for those of us attending the fact that the rules about where you can keep your stuff changed several times were a bit confusing or annoying.  I think this was a by-product of the fact that we had triple attendance from last year but next time it would be good to have a set of rules and stick to them.

Finally, we need to get William Shatner back next year as his attendance was an unexpected delight.

I'll add more when I think of it, but I've had the best time so far and I'm still loving every minute of it!

oasiz

2014-08-03 07:01:13 am

Quote from PJ:

Whatever disaster of a song was played during the finale needs to absolutely never happen again anywhere.

Good luck with that !

Gonna post more later on but I was really happy overall on how things went.
SWAT was a pain to get working and took a lot of time (even though it worked perfectly during tests before the run itself).
It was still totally worth it.

Aside from occasional tech issues with the streaming PC that we had to work around, things went fine.
Actually a lot of the tech issues should have never happened as things got tested a lot beforehand, devices just decided to give up randomly, oh well :p

j4sp3rr

Edit history:

j4sp3rr: 2014-08-04 08:01:38 am

2014-08-03 07:03:49 am

Quote from Mobiusman:

this isn't a complaint from me, but I've heard others say the bitrate was unnecessarily high and made it difficult to watch on weaker internet connections

encoding options make this a non issue, if you cant watch on source then don't, its not meant for you..

anyways about the feedback, note that this is coming from someone that is/was on tech, so i'll try not to be biased or dumb Tongue

lets run through the positives really fast because everyone is mentioning it.

1) Audio, obviously was fine, i'm glad we got as much compliments as we did, brightend up my day quite a bit.
2) layout was mostly fine, need a little bit of tweaking but we are internally discussing that.
3) LOADS OF FUCKING FUN Cheesy

BAD:
1) Heat, it was just too much in most cases, we were told more fans were going to get picked up, but it just never happened.
2) the low ass viewer count, really not sure where that is coming from, in my opinion we are technically not far behind any other marathon, nor in terms of runs or runners.
3) dead rooms, this links into tech as well, the onsite marathon basically died at night.

i dont regret my decisions or staying up to do insanely long shifts to pass out after, and i've certainly enjoyed my stay, its just the little things.

Quote from RoboSparkle:

I'm not a tech expert so I don't know how possible this is to achieve but there should ideally be some way of making the tech stuff much more automated so that for a "simple" game change like changing from a single console to a different console only requires the runner to plug his or her gear into the labeled adapters, the tech person changes the pre-programmed layout, plays the intro video (which also looked brilliant btw), and starts the timer. Then for more complicated setups like PC or races, one of the head tech guys would sort that out directly.

On that note, if there is a way for you guys to get dedicated consoles of all the most common setups like NES, SNES, PS2, Mega Drive etc, that never leave the streaming room, then that would help too.

i would love to get into this, but not now... lets just keep it at we will work on this, but it's not that simple because we have a limited number of scenes, having a million scenes would just make it really annoying and confusing, and we dont have an infinite supply of capturecards, we just have 3 so we'll have to keep changing settings on those and pray they dont crash for shit to work basically.

[quote="Mobiusman"]this isn't a complaint from me, but I've heard others say the bitrate was unnecessarily high and made it difficult to watch on weaker internet connections[/quote]

encoding options make this a non issue, if you cant watch on source then don't, its not meant for you..

anyways about the feedback, note that this is coming from someone that is/was on tech, so i'll try not to be biased or dumb :P

lets run through the positives really fast because everyone is mentioning it.

1) Audio, obviously was fine, i'm glad we got as much compliments as we did, brightend up my day quite a bit.
2) layout was mostly fine, need a little bit of tweaking but we are internally discussing that.
3) LOADS OF FUCKING FUN :D

BAD:
1) Heat, it was just too much in most cases, we were told more fans were going to get picked up, but it just never happened.
2) the low ass viewer count, really not sure where that is coming from, in my opinion we are technically not far behind any other marathon, nor in terms of runs or runners.
3) dead rooms, this links into tech as well, the onsite marathon basically died at night.

i dont regret my decisions or staying up to do insanely long shifts to pass out after, and i've certainly enjoyed my stay, its just the little things.

[quote="RoboSparkle"]
I'm not a tech expert so I don't know how possible this is to achieve but there should ideally be some way of making the tech stuff much more automated so that for a "simple" game change like changing from a single console to a different console only requires the runner to plug his or her gear into the labeled adapters, the tech person changes the pre-programmed layout, plays the intro video (which also looked brilliant btw), and starts the timer.  Then for more complicated setups like PC or races, one of the head tech guys would sort that out directly.

On that note, if there is a way for you guys to get dedicated consoles of all the most common setups like NES, SNES, PS2, Mega Drive etc, that never leave the streaming room, then that would help too.
[/quote]

i would love to get into this, but not now... lets just keep it at we will work on this, but it's not that simple because we have a limited number of scenes, having a million scenes would just make it really annoying and confusing, and we dont have an infinite supply of capturecards, we just have 3 so we'll have to keep changing settings on those and pray they dont crash for shit to work basically.

tdawg

2014-08-03 08:34:59 am

I think maybe why the marathon had low veiwership was perhaps the lack of press attention. If I recall correctly, the only media coverage the event was from Kotaku (ugh) . Maybe for future events, press releases could be organised. I think also twitch only gave front page promotion for only the first couple of days, rather than for the whole marathon.

MrLonghair

2014-08-03 08:43:04 am

Audio-guy. twitchtv:ohgoddamnit

Regarding heat, all over Sweden, fans are sold out, nothing is left in stock unless you get lucky in a small city, customers cuss out workers in frustration. Hospitals are one of many customers of fans and emergency-AC units this record hot summer with sickbed-rooms reaching the temperatures of human bodies. Might be the hottest summer in more than 60 years actually, Denmark broke a 140 year record.

With numbers of people on-site and tech, it was better last year right? Just one stream but I swear there were more people out and about, and not dying in the heat or actually chilling, cooling off somewhere. I'm happy the PCs survived the heat, like I begged the builders to ensure.

Eidgod

2014-08-03 11:24:11 am

Huge respect to all the organizers and tech people. You are the main reason this event did not end in a disaster. Besides the heat and the lack of AC i do not really have any complaints. Generally i got to say the venue is really nice but if the event keeps on growing in its attendance there will be a space problem soon.
The breakfast was very much appreciated and the communal cooking is a really good idea as well.
I am glad i was able to meet so many people for the first time and i hope that ESA will continue to stay as awesome as it is and keep its "casual" approach to the whole thing of speedrun marathons which makes ESA a truly unique event.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2014-08-03 02:41:00 pm

2014-08-03 12:40:50 pm

All the things

Full Disclosure: I was on vacation for the latter part of last week, so I did not watch a lot of the event. That said, I have some comments from what I did see.

Audio: It feels like every time I tuned in, host voice was completely overpowering anything the runner was saying.
Video: Smooth 60 fps was on most things, certainly. Good work there. I can't say I was a fan of the transitions though.
Layout: The main layout was either fine or completely not visible. I primarily watched on two separate monitors, one of which is significantly more color-tuned. On the not-tuned monitor, everything looked fine. On the tuned monitor, however, I couldn't even tell there was a layout other than the words. It just looked almost completely black. The actual arrangement of text and things was decent, but the empty space in the upper left was pretty glaring. Could have used either a charity or sponsor logo.
Second stream: As a viewer, I didn't see much point to the second stream. I checked it every now and then, but it never seemed like anything at all was happening on it. A couple of the times it was somebody talking at the camera for a while. I don't know about anybody else, but this just was not interesting for me. It was like watching LiveStream or something. Even when a game was going on, nobody seemed to be that into it either, so it just wasn't pleasant to watch.
Energy: I don't know if this was by design to meet the "casual" end of things or what, but on either stream I noticed a distinct lack of excitement. Several times during various runs, the runner pulled off an amazing trick and the room was just completely silent and disinterested. This killed it for me. Everybody either having side conversations, checking phones, or just being too shy to react made even hype moments feel dull.
Charity: It feels like there's a problem with the event in that it states it is for a charity, yet wants to put that in the background and instead push for community representation. I'm fine with pumping up the community, but if that's going to be the focus then the charity aspect should be dropped. Donations are lovely, but it definitely felt like pulling teeth on several situations when the host would call out "haven't had a donation in a while, keep up the donations!" I thought I heard there were some second stream comments that "this event is really for us, we're not representing the charity, we're just giving them some money." That just seems a little crazy. If you want to go all out, by all means do it. But by trying to play both sides, I don't feel like it succeeded at either. I didn't even know what charity the event was being represented a few days before the event, and even during the event the support or pumping for it was pretty woeful. In any case, my advice is to pick either the all-out community funtime approach or the charity fundraising approach, but not both.

Full Disclosure: I was on vacation for the latter part of last week, so I did not watch a lot of the event. That said, I have some comments from what I did see.

[b]Audio:[/b] It feels like every time I tuned in, host voice was completely overpowering anything the runner was saying.
[b]Video:[/b] Smooth 60 fps was on most things, certainly. Good work there. I can't say I was a fan of the transitions though.
[b]Layout:[/b] The main layout was either fine or completely not visible. I primarily watched on two separate monitors, one of which is significantly more color-tuned. On the not-tuned monitor, everything looked fine. On the tuned monitor, however, I couldn't even tell there was a layout other than the words. It just looked almost completely black. The actual arrangement of text and things was decent, but the empty space in the upper left was pretty glaring. Could have used either a charity or sponsor logo.
[b]Second stream:[/b] As a viewer, I didn't see much point to the second stream. I checked it every now and then, but it never seemed like anything at all was happening on it. A couple of the times it was somebody talking at the camera for a while. I don't know about anybody else, but this just was not interesting for me. It was like watching LiveStream or something. Even when a game was going on, nobody seemed to be that into it either, so it just wasn't pleasant to watch.
[b]Energy:[/b] I don't know if this was by design to meet the "casual" end of things or what, but on either stream I noticed a distinct lack of excitement. Several times during various runs, the runner pulled off an amazing trick and the room was just completely silent and disinterested. This killed it for me. Everybody either having side conversations, checking phones, or just being too shy to react made even hype moments feel dull.
[b]Charity:[/b] It feels like there's a problem with the event in that it states it is for a charity, yet wants to put that in the background and instead push for community representation. I'm fine with pumping up the community, but if that's going to be the focus then the charity aspect should be dropped. Donations are lovely, but it definitely felt like pulling teeth on several situations when the host would call out "haven't had a donation in a while, keep up the donations!" I thought I heard there were some second stream comments that "this event is really for us, we're not representing the charity, we're just giving them some money." That just seems a little crazy. If you want to go all out, by all means do it. But by trying to play both sides, I don't feel like it succeeded at either. I didn't even know what charity the event was being represented a few days before the event, and even during the event the support or pumping for it was pretty woeful. In any case, my advice is to pick either the all-out community funtime approach or the charity fundraising approach, but not both.

Chrno

2014-08-03 02:38:25 pm

WOW.

TRAILERS.

romscout

2014-08-03 02:47:14 pm

that Metroidvania guy

Quote from tdawg:

I think also twitch only gave front page promotion for only the first couple of days, rather than for the whole marathon.

As the person who set that up, I can tell you this is false. The blue stream was in the prime front page slot often, especially in the morning (Pacific time) on weekdays, and somewhere among the front page slots for the vast majority of the event. Only on the final day do I remember it being off the front page for any substantial amount of time, and that was due to a lot of other weekend events going on that had already secured slots. Twitch did not want to push promoting two streams due to the large number of partners who already compete to be on there during the week, so the yellow stream was never on there.

I do not recall there being much of a promotional effort outside of stuff we did in the final week before the event with Twitch Weekly/Newsletter/etc. though. Obviously that's on the event organizers to push for stuff like that, not Twitch.

[quote="tdawg"]I think also twitch only gave front page promotion for only the first couple of days, rather than for the whole marathon. [/quote]
As the person who set that up, I can tell you this is false. The blue stream was in the prime front page slot often, especially in the morning (Pacific time) on weekdays, and somewhere among the front page slots for the vast majority of the event. Only on the final day do I remember it being off the front page for any substantial amount of time, and that was due to a lot of other weekend events going on that had already secured slots. Twitch did not want to push promoting two streams due to the large number of partners who already compete to be on there during the week, so the yellow stream was never on there.

I do not recall there being much of a promotional effort outside of stuff we did in the final week before the event with Twitch Weekly/Newsletter/etc. though. Obviously that's on the event organizers to push for stuff like that, not Twitch.

Greenalink

2014-08-03 04:54:01 pm

DS Dictator

I'll point out the bad things for now, good stuff later.

Quote:

Lack of signs / maps
I didn't have a problem with this myself, but a couple of people who were attending ESA for the very first time mentioned that they found it incredibly difficult to find where the mass housing was when they initially arrived in the town.

This, fortunately KrazyRasmus was going to the place the same time as me like around 12am in Sweden.
The second criticism: I didn't get told where you get the air mattresses from, I originally expected to be in the mass housing. Turns out that sleeping on a hard floor with only a sleeping bag and a travel pillow isn't comfy at all.
Last one: Heat (due to heatwave iirc). Staying in the practice room for more than 2 minutes makes you feel hot and sweaty so easily, even without having to play Super Smash B.O Bros Melee 20XX.

Any people trying to do a 3/DS Stream via HDMI method.
PLEASE TURN OFF SCREEN SAVER. I had to waste nearly 10 minutes during Phantom Hourglass because the screen saver cut off the HDMI footage = run paused.

I'll point out the bad things for now, good stuff later.

[quote]Lack of signs / maps 
I didn't have a problem with this myself, but a couple of people who were attending ESA for the very first time mentioned that they found it incredibly difficult to find where the mass housing was when they initially arrived in the town. 
[/quote]

[b]This,[/b] fortunately KrazyRasmus was going to the place the same time as me like around 12am in Sweden.
The second criticism: I didn't get told where you get the air mattresses from, I originally expected to be in the mass housing. Turns out that sleeping on a hard floor with only a sleeping bag and a travel pillow isn't comfy at all.
Last one: Heat (due to heatwave iirc).   Staying in the practice room for more than 2 minutes makes you feel hot and sweaty so easily, even without having to play Super Smash B.O Bros Melee 20XX.

Any people trying to do a 3/DS Stream via HDMI method.  
[b][b]PLEASE TURN OFF SCREEN SAVER[/b][/b]. I had to waste nearly 10 minutes during Phantom Hourglass because the screen saver cut off the HDMI footage = run paused.

Vulajin

Edit history:

Vulajin: 2014-08-03 06:03:36 pm

2014-08-03 05:54:11 pm

I viewed a fair few chunks of the event on both the blue and yellow streams, but obviously did not attend.

Production quality: Top notch. Great job! Between the layouts themselves, the interstitials, the fancy animated ESA logo, and the run intros, there was a very professional appearance. The run intros in particular were a great idea, and whoever made those happen deserves a pat on the back.

Layouts: I'm going to go layout by layout and provide some feedback, because these are often a hot topic.

SD single: This was, of course, the best layout. Identical to the one used at GDQs, except with a bit more trim. Like Omni, I would say that the borders and other visual elements were a bit too subtle, but in general fairly appealing.
HD single: I agree that this is a huge improvement over the layout used by GDQs thus far. Shrinking the game screen is unfortunate, but the visual parity with the SD single layout is a big improvement. I hope more events steal this layout. I think this would have been slightly improved if the second camera were replaced with something slightly different, but I'm not sure exactly what. Still, good show here.

SD double: Also good.
HD double: Still good.

SD triple/quadruple: Good, but here's where I started getting confused. The color-coding system for correlating runners to screens was overly subtle, to the point that I didn't notice it for a good half of the Mega Man race where I first saw it used. The runner+stream labels could be oriented vertically instead, and placed adjacent to the screen with which they're associated. This would greatly alleviate confusion for viewers, colorblind or not. Also, if possible it's always good (but, of course, challenging) if you have a two-way or three-way race to try to have the screens visually ordered in the same arrangement as the runners. An alternative suggestion for the SD triple in particular would have been to move the game+timer above the right screen, then move the individual player labels below the screens.

HD quad: Same problems as SD triple/quadruple, plus I'm really not a fan of compressing 16:9 games to 4:3 just to fit them in the same layout. The allotted screen area for the games was already quite small due to the size of the camera feed and the visual layout elements; shrinking the game to 4:3 just made it worse.

Interstitial (i.e. the Twitter layout): I liked this layout in theory but I have no idea how it was intended to be used and it didn't seem like the folks running the stream knew either. Early on it was shown while literally blank, and then eventually some tweets were added, but since they seemed to be manually populated (obviously I don't know how this worked, I'm just guessing), they frequently went without updates. Also, this. It would have been great for this screen to have had a longer list of upcoming games (i.e. list the next three runs, not just the next one).

Animated ESA logo: holy crap was this overused early on. This was very pretty and it's cool that you had it made and all, but I would really like to see less of this in the future. You could have filled 90% of the time spent on this by plugging the charity, sponsors, runners, almost anything. When you show something like this, people go away because they think nothing is happening.

Phone warriors on camera: At least one individual I'm aware of tended to be on their phone every time I saw them on camera. I find this to be extremely rude to the runner. On one occasion I commented on this in chat and was informed that the person in question was relaying chat comments/questions to the runner. Frankly, I don't find this to be a worthwhile thing to have on camera. This isn't your random personal stream, so chat interaction should not be the focus or even a focus. If the runner can't provide effective commentary him/herself, find someone else to provide commentary.

Chat moderation: I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what the intended goal of the chat moderation was. Spamming was okay, until it wasn't, but then it was okay again. There seemed to be no consistency from moderator to moderator. A raid on the first day by a member of the speedrunning community resulted in a huge number of people being banned/timed out (I don't use BTTV so I don't know which) for excessive spamming (that's what a raid is...), and one of the moderators described it as a "malevolent raid" (literally what?). The same moderator also insinuated on numerous occasions that people only there to participate in chat without donating to the event were not of any value to the event. I don't even usually care about event chat, but these things and the attitudes on display by some of the moderation crew really turned me off of the event.

On the other hand, I found there were numerous times when there was no moderation crew other than the person operating the stream account itself (usually the host). Those times usually turned out to be pretty okay. Event chat does not need to be moderated with a sledgehammer the vast majority of the time. The more obtrusive you get, the less people are going to enjoy themselves, and the less they'll enjoy the event. The fewer people present to enjoy the event, the fewer donations you get. Which dovetails into my last point...

Donations/charity: if I didn't already know that ESA was accepting donations for Doctors Without Borders, I may not have found out during the course of the event. The charity logo was nowhere to be found, neither on the Twitch streams, nor on the website's front page, nor on the stream layouts themselves. There was no indication of how much money had been collected on the website front page, and the donate option was shoved off to the nav bar at the top. Generally messaging during the marathon itself requesting donations was not very strong, and I don't think I heard a donation total read out loud a single time on either stream. I guess I still don't understand what you guys want out of your event exactly, but if the feedback is going to include comments that there weren't enough donations, it means at least someone thinks this should be a priority.

Two streams: mixed feelings. Yellow stream was very obviously the B stream, both in terms of scheduling and venue setup (the room honestly looked like stuff had been shoved in there as an afterthought). Several runs that took place on the yellow stream also seemed to get the shaft in terms of tech support (Hard Reset couldn't achieve max framerate on the provided PC; Bastion didn't get cropped properly through the entire race, and apparently one of the runners had a poor PC as well). Runs scheduled for the yellow stream were doomed to significantly lower viewer counts (as Rom mentioned, only yellow stream got Twitch front page), which seems rather unfair to runners participating in the same event as everyone else. I didn't really find that the two streams provided me alternatives (i.e. "I don't like what's on blue right now, so I'll go watch yellow and see something else cool), but that may just be because a huge amount of the game selection at this event didn't interest me.

Bingo race: As a note on the GTA bingo race...this actually would be a good idea if it were clearly explained, immediately at the start, what a bingo race is, and if the bingo card were shown on stream during the race. At one point during this race, the host read the bingo card out loud - this was not helpful at all and honestly just made things more confusing. Honestly, just having the rules on stream would probably be a good idea too. Unfortunately, the result was confusing, but I think it was a good thing to try and could work really well in the future with a few improvements.

Swearing: maybe this is more of a US thing, but I found the amount of swearing throughout the marathon to be rather off-putting. It didn't seem uncommon to me to tune in to a run with people spewing shit and fuck like it was nothing. I know this is a fun event for fun, where everybody has fun, but you're also trying to present your event to a large audience on the internet. Where the production quality presents a professional appearance, the constant swearing tears that down.

I viewed a fair few chunks of the event on both the blue and yellow streams, but obviously did not attend.

[b]Production quality:[/b] Top notch. Great job! Between the layouts themselves, the interstitials, the fancy animated ESA logo, and the run intros, there was a very professional appearance. The run intros in particular were a great idea, and whoever made those happen deserves a pat on the back.

[b]Layouts:[/b] I'm going to go layout by layout and provide some feedback, because these are often a hot topic.

SD single: This was, of course, the best layout. Identical to the one used at GDQs, except with a bit more trim. Like Omni, I would say that the borders and other visual elements were a bit [i]too[/i] subtle, but in general fairly appealing.
HD single: I agree that this is a huge improvement over the layout used by GDQs thus far. Shrinking the game screen is unfortunate, but the visual parity with the SD single layout is a big improvement. I hope more events steal this layout. I think this would have been slightly improved if the second camera were replaced with something slightly different, but I'm not sure exactly what. Still, good show here.

SD double: Also good.
HD double: Still good.

SD triple/quadruple: Good, but here's where I started getting confused. The color-coding system for correlating runners to screens was overly subtle, to the point that I didn't notice it for a good half of the Mega Man race where I first saw it used. The runner+stream labels could be oriented vertically instead, and placed adjacent to the screen with which they're associated. This would greatly alleviate confusion for viewers, colorblind or not. Also, if possible it's always good (but, of course, challenging) if you have a two-way or three-way race to try to have the screens visually ordered in the same arrangement as the runners. An alternative suggestion for the SD triple in particular would  have been to move the game+timer above the right screen, then move the individual player labels below the screens.

HD quad: Same problems as SD triple/quadruple, plus I'm [i]really[/i] not a fan of compressing 16:9 games to 4:3 just to fit them in the same layout. The allotted screen area for the games was already quite small due to the size of the camera feed and the visual layout elements; shrinking the game to 4:3 just made it worse.

Interstitial (i.e. the Twitter layout): I liked this layout in theory but I have no idea how it was intended to be used and it didn't seem like the folks running the stream knew either. Early on it was shown while literally blank, and then eventually some tweets were added, but since they seemed to be manually populated (obviously I don't know how this worked, I'm just guessing), they frequently went without updates. Also, [url=http://puu.sh/av34O/56cbea6281.jpg]this[/url]. It would have been great for this screen to have had a longer list of upcoming games (i.e. list the next three runs, not just the next one).

Animated ESA logo: holy crap was this overused early on. This was very pretty and it's cool that you had it made and all, but I would really like to see less of this in the future. You could have filled 90% of the time spent on this by plugging the charity, sponsors, runners, almost anything. When you show something like this, people go away because they think nothing is happening.

[b]Phone warriors on camera:[/b] At least one individual I'm aware of tended to be on their phone every time I saw them on camera. I find this to be extremely rude to the runner. On one occasion I commented on this in chat and was informed that the person in question was relaying chat comments/questions to the runner. Frankly, I don't find this to be a worthwhile thing to have on camera. This isn't your random personal stream, so chat interaction should not be the focus or even a focus. If the runner can't provide effective commentary him/herself, find someone else to provide commentary.

[b]Chat moderation:[/b] I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what the intended goal of the chat moderation was. Spamming was okay, until it wasn't, but then it was okay again. There seemed to be no consistency from moderator to moderator. A raid on the first day by a member of the speedrunning community resulted in a huge number of people being banned/timed out (I don't use BTTV so I don't know which) for excessive spamming (that's what a raid is...), and one of the moderators described it as a "malevolent raid" (literally what?). The same moderator also insinuated on numerous occasions that people only there to participate in chat without donating to the event were not of any value to the event. I don't even usually care about event chat, but these things and the attitudes on display by some of the moderation crew really turned me off of the event.

On the other hand, I found there were numerous times when there was [i]no[/i] moderation crew other than the person operating the stream account itself (usually the host). Those times usually turned out to be pretty okay. Event chat does not need to be moderated with a sledgehammer the vast majority of the time. The more obtrusive you get, the less people are going to enjoy themselves, and the less they'll enjoy the event. The fewer people present to enjoy the event, the fewer donations you get. Which dovetails into my last point...

[b]Donations/charity:[/b] if I didn't already know that ESA was accepting donations for Doctors Without Borders, I may not have found out during the course of the event. The charity logo was nowhere to be found, neither on the Twitch streams, nor on the website's front page, nor on the stream layouts themselves. There was no indication of how much money had been collected on the website front page, and the donate option was shoved off to the nav bar at the top. Generally messaging during the marathon itself requesting donations was not very strong, and I don't think I heard a donation total read out loud a single time on either stream. I guess I still don't understand what you guys want out of your event exactly, but if the feedback is going to include comments that there weren't enough donations, it means at least someone thinks this should be a priority.

[b]Two streams:[/b] mixed feelings. Yellow stream was very obviously the B stream, both in terms of scheduling and venue setup (the room honestly looked like stuff had been shoved in there as an afterthought). Several runs that took place on the yellow stream also seemed to get the shaft in terms of tech support (Hard Reset couldn't achieve max framerate on the provided PC; Bastion didn't get cropped properly through the entire race, and apparently one of the runners had a poor PC as well). Runs scheduled for the yellow stream were doomed to significantly lower viewer counts (as Rom mentioned, only yellow stream got Twitch front page), which seems rather unfair to runners participating in the same event as everyone else. I didn't really find that the two streams provided me alternatives (i.e. "I don't like what's on blue right now, so I'll go watch yellow and see something else cool), but that may just be because a huge amount of the game selection at this event didn't interest me.

[b]Bingo race:[/b] As a note on the GTA bingo race...this actually would be a good idea if it were clearly explained, immediately at the start, what a bingo race is, and if the bingo card were shown on stream during the race. At one point during this race, the host read the bingo card out loud - this was not helpful at all and honestly just made things more confusing. Honestly, just having the rules on stream would probably be a good idea too. Unfortunately, the result was confusing, but I think it was a good thing to try and could work really well in the future with a few improvements.

[b]Swearing:[/b] maybe this is more of a US thing, but I found the amount of swearing throughout the marathon to be rather off-putting. It didn't seem uncommon to me to tune in to a run with people spewing shit and fuck like it was nothing. I know this is a fun event for fun, where everybody has fun, but you're also trying to present your event to a large audience on the internet. Where the production quality presents a professional appearance, the constant swearing tears that down.

Efreeti

Edit history:

Efreeti: 2014-08-03 11:05:09 pm

Efreeti: 2014-08-03 11:05:06 pm

Efreeti: 2014-08-03 11:05:04 pm

Efreeti: 2014-08-03 10:58:14 pm

2014-08-03 10:53:39 pm

Clear as a crisp spring morning!

Quote from Vulajin:

Chat moderation: I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what the intended goal of the chat moderation was. Spamming was okay, until it wasn't, but then it was okay again. There seemed to be no consistency from moderator to moderator. A raid on the first day by a member of the speedrunning community resulted in a huge number of people being banned/timed out (I don't use BTTV so I don't know which) for excessive spamming (that's what a raid is...), and one of the moderators described it as a "malevolent raid" (literally what?). The same moderator also insinuated on numerous occasions that people only there to participate in chat without donating to the event were not of any value to the event. I don't even usually care about event chat, but these things and the attitudes on display by some of the moderation crew really turned me off of the event.

On the other hand, I found there were numerous times when there was no moderation crew other than the person operating the stream account itself (usually the host). Those times usually turned out to be pretty okay. Event chat does not need to be moderated with a sledgehammer the vast majority of the time. The more obtrusive you get, the less people are going to enjoy themselves, and the less they'll enjoy the event. The fewer people present to enjoy the event, the fewer donations you get. Which dovetails into my last point...

Firstly, you're misquoting me. I was saying those who came to spam raid messages were unlikely to donate. Also, regarding that raid, I didn't touch it at all at first. But it lasted 3-5 minutes and then actually picked up in intensity. That's a very long time for them to spam their raid message, effectively making the chat useless for conversation, henceforth me using the word malevolent. So, I started trying to do something about it.

Secondly, I wasn't given any directions on moderation, though I asked for them. I suggested moderating Twitch chat as firmly as I'd moderate the GDQ IRC channel, and the people who let me moderate told me that was fine. I did this fully knowing I wasn't gonna be popular. Anyway, I kept that line up to the night with the Dark Souls and Splinter Cell:Blacklist runs (where a vocal couple of people actually blamed me for the viewer drop after Dark Souls ended). After that night, seeing as those silly reactions in chat were just as obnoxious as what I was timing out, and talking to another moderator about what she thought was okay and not, I eased up for the rest of the marathon. In return however, it seemed to me some of the other moderators started timing out some of what I had stopped timing out.

I don't disagree that moderator guidelines are useful. Not to put blame on organizers for my actions, but if I had any for ESA, I would follow them. That said, this was also my first time having a go at moderating Twitch chat for an entire marathon, so I guess I should take criticism in stride.

As for my own criticism: I have to say I agree on the points already brought up in regards to charity ambiguity, and the swearing on camera.

[quote="Vulajin"][b]Chat moderation:[/b] I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what the intended goal of the chat moderation was. Spamming was okay, until it wasn't, but then it was okay again. There seemed to be no consistency from moderator to moderator. A raid on the first day by a member of the speedrunning community resulted in a huge number of people being banned/timed out (I don't use BTTV so I don't know which) for excessive spamming (that's what a raid is...), and one of the moderators described it as a "malevolent raid" (literally what?). The same moderator also insinuated on numerous occasions that people only there to participate in chat without donating to the event were not of any value to the event. I don't even usually care about event chat, but these things and the attitudes on display by some of the moderation crew really turned me off of the event.

On the other hand, I found there were numerous times when there was [i]no[/i] moderation crew other than the person operating the stream account itself (usually the host). Those times usually turned out to be pretty okay. Event chat does not need to be moderated with a sledgehammer the vast majority of the time. The more obtrusive you get, the less people are going to enjoy themselves, and the less they'll enjoy the event. The fewer people present to enjoy the event, the fewer donations you get. Which dovetails into my last point...[/quote]
Firstly, you're misquoting me. I was saying those who came to spam raid messages were unlikely to donate. Also, regarding that raid, I didn't touch it at all at first. But it lasted 3-5 minutes and then actually picked up in intensity. That's a very long time for them to spam their raid message, effectively making the chat useless for conversation, henceforth me using the word malevolent. So, I started trying to do something about it.

Secondly, I wasn't given any directions on moderation, though I asked for them. I suggested moderating Twitch chat as firmly as I'd moderate the GDQ IRC channel, and the people who let me moderate told me that was fine. I did this fully knowing I wasn't gonna be popular. Anyway, I kept that line up to the night with the Dark Souls and Splinter Cell:Blacklist runs (where a vocal couple of people actually blamed me for the viewer drop after Dark Souls ended). After that night, seeing as those silly reactions in chat were just as obnoxious as what I was timing out, and talking to another moderator about what she thought was okay and not, I eased up for the rest of the marathon. In return however, it seemed to me some of the other moderators started timing out some of what I had stopped timing out.

I don't disagree that moderator guidelines are useful. Not to put blame on organizers for my actions, but if I had any for ESA, I would follow them. That said, this was also my first time having a go at moderating Twitch chat for an entire marathon, so I guess I should take criticism in stride.

[b]As for my own criticism:[/b] I have to say I agree on the points already brought up in regards to charity ambiguity, and the swearing on camera.

Dragondarch

2014-08-03 11:48:37 pm

Pudding%

I didn't watch much of ESA at all, primarily only tuning in for the Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission runs.
The thing I want to comment on comes from both of those though: GBA cropping. While it looked OK for the most part, whoever did the cropping stretched the image to be 4:3 when the GBA uses a 3:2 aspect ratio (240 x 160 IIRC), which made the screens look compressed horizontally.
For reference, here's 2 images, the first one is from my own stream, and the second is from ESA.

Chrno

Edit history:

Chrno: 2014-08-04 12:44:03 am

2014-08-04 12:43:45 am

WOW.

Oh no! Not swears!

Naegleria

(user is banned)

2014-08-04 01:00:55 am

I didn't get to see most of the marathon, but I still managed to watch a few choice runs. For the most part I really liked what I saw.

Lack of focus on charity. The hosts made sure to plug the charity and stuff like that, but the streams struck me as being focused on the runs and having fun; which certainly isn't a bad thing, but the fact that the charity was almost secondary seemed weird to me.

I really like the concept for the double stream. As a viewer I can't think of a genuine downside, but for the people running the event its double the equipment and manpower. I don't know if we can determine if the extra effort put into hosting the yellow stream was worth it in terms of viewercount/donations, but I really liked it nonetheless. Since the yellow stream wasn't on twitch front page and didn't have a concrete schedule, it got a lot less viewers; I know some people consider the disparity as a problem, but I think it at least gives the viewers who would have left the blue stream anyway some other content to go to. There's also people I've heard complain that a significant difference at all in the viewercount for the streams would mean that scheduling a run on the lesser viewed stream would be considered an insult to the game and the runner. While one stream may have less viewers (and even if its outright considered the B stream, or secondary stream), it still has a lot of viewers; I can't help but think of this as people who dislike the idea of a double stream just pulling straws.
Regardless if you liked the idea of a double stream or not, it was nice to see the organizers try something different.

All layouts should include the charity, and I prefer minimalist layouts. I really hate streams that have less screen space for content than they do for other shit. The layouts used seemed pretty good. That being said, there was a LOT of space dedicated to streaming empty chairs. The nightshifts have very few people and the camera was still focused on the audience, kind of an energy killer.

I didn't notice an issue with swearing, but I guess only people that have a major problem with it would notice it. Personally I don't see an issue with using any certain words over another, but some people reaaaaally disagree.

I didn't get to see most of the marathon, but I still managed to watch a few choice runs.  For the most part I really liked what I saw.

Lack of focus on charity.  The hosts made sure to plug the charity and stuff like that, but the streams struck me as being focused on the runs and having fun; which certainly isn't a bad thing, but the fact that the charity was almost secondary seemed weird to me.

I really like the concept for the double stream.  As a viewer I can't think of a genuine downside, but for the people running the event its double the equipment and manpower.  I don't know if we can determine if the extra effort put into hosting the yellow stream was worth it in terms of viewercount/donations, but I really liked it nonetheless.  Since the yellow stream wasn't on twitch front page and didn't have a concrete schedule, it got a lot less viewers;  I know some people consider the disparity as a problem, but I think it at least gives the viewers who would have left the blue stream anyway some other content to go to.  There's also people I've heard complain that a significant difference at all in the viewercount for the streams would mean that scheduling a run on the lesser viewed stream would be considered an insult to the game and the runner.  While one stream may have less viewers (and even if its outright considered the B stream, or secondary stream), it still has a lot of viewers; I can't help but think of this as people who dislike the idea of a double stream just pulling straws.
Regardless if you liked the idea of a double stream or not, it was nice to see the organizers try something different.

All layouts should include the charity, and I prefer minimalist layouts.  I really hate streams that have less screen space for content than they do for other shit.  The layouts used seemed pretty good.  That being said, there was a LOT of space dedicated to streaming empty chairs.  The nightshifts have very few people and the camera was still focused on the audience, kind of an energy killer.

I didn't notice an issue with swearing, but I guess only people that have a major problem with it would notice it.  Personally I don't see an issue with using any certain words over another, but some people reaaaaally disagree.

Gyoo

2014-08-04 01:16:48 am

Also for next year, please buy fly traps. The PC zone just looks like Binding of Isaac with all these flies

BibleThump