European Speedster Assembly 2014

2014-08-06 04:03:16 am

Quote from KennyMan666:

ESA is a speedrunning event first and a charity event second, whereas *GDQ is the other way around. There's about as much reason for us to drop the charity aspect as there is for *GDQ to drop the speedrunning aspect.

I'm sorry, but I have to point out that this is a terrible argument.

"Speedrun event first and a charity event second, whereas GDQ is the other way around?" GDQ is basically pure speedrunning through and through with charity plugs and a bunch of donation reading sprinkled about. It didn't include a bunch of blind playthroughs, tutorials, shmups, and assorted gimmicks, to say nothing about the fact that the prerequisite speedrunning ability required to even get a game in is much higher. Not to attack the concept of ESA trying new things, but really, to say "WE ARE WAY MORE ABOUT SPEEDRUNNING" is a bald-faced lie.

If you want the event to be super casual, totally free to cursing and being unprofessional, not include charity plugs or even charity logo on-stream, etc. Fine. Then don't include a bloody charity. At that point, the only reason to have a charity included is "Oh hey, it makes the event look better and makes it easier to advertise and get front page if we say it's a charity event even though we don't care at all about it and won't actually treat it like a charity marathon."

[quote="KennyMan666"]
ESA is a speedrunning event first and a charity event second, whereas *GDQ is the other way around. There's about as much reason for us to drop the charity aspect as there is for *GDQ to drop the speedrunning aspect.[/quote]

I'm sorry, but I have to point out that this is a terrible argument.

"Speedrun event first and a charity event second, whereas GDQ is the other way around?" GDQ is basically pure speedrunning through and through with charity plugs and a bunch of donation reading sprinkled about. It didn't include a bunch of blind playthroughs, tutorials, shmups, and assorted gimmicks, to say nothing about the fact that the prerequisite speedrunning ability required to even get a game in is much higher. Not to attack the concept of ESA trying new things, but really, to say "WE ARE WAY MORE ABOUT SPEEDRUNNING" is a bald-faced lie.

If you want the event to be super casual, totally free to cursing and being unprofessional, not include charity plugs or even charity logo on-stream, etc. Fine. Then don't include a bloody charity. At that point, the only reason to have a charity included is "Oh hey, it makes the event look better and makes it easier to advertise and get front page if we say it's a charity event even though we don't care at all about it and won't actually treat it like a charity marathon."

liquidsnake

2014-08-06 05:18:00 am

Regarding Donation , i am sure i watched esa for at least 5-6 days i don't recall seeing plugs for it from the host , maybe the volume was low or it was done at the wrong time of the run.I can easily tell why anyone watching esa thought they were focusing on the donations and that too for just the goals in the game and not charity,cause if you look at chat records, almost every 10-15 mins one of the moderators or host would post in the chat(both streams) asking for donations. Some was borderline terrible to see "please donate something cause i can read it " "we have this xyz goal in the game donate for it" "i am bored cause there are no donations to read" very rarely charity was mentioned. Maybe you should plug the charity differently than posting in chat frequently and let a bot do the formal requests. Maybe play a promotional video of charity group during the setup time.

The only reason why the viewership was low i can say is the odd mixing of games some new ones were good to watch other ones were just meh. I ended being on yellow stream mostly because they were playing popular known games and doing awesome strange stuff like that vegetable controls. Adding a total slient setup block after a game that was long as say 10-20 mins was again distracting.

Another thing was the setup time of games people were annoyed with lack of voices during , i am sure the hosts at least could have mentioned something about whats coming next or what is being done but it was slience.

I did like the ineraction of the runners and people sitting in room with twitch chat ,maybe it was annoying for those who were not using the chat but those who were using the chat it was great fun for example when the Amiga was shown after the run on it because many in chat wanted to see it.

One thing about gdq i like is they position the games perfectly they know when the viewers will watch what game and how to carry those peak viewers to the next one which might be slightly more boring. Maybe esa should consider putting the popular runners and their games at good times.

Feeling a bit sad that there were way less viewers and extremely empty runs during the marathon, some of the runs was excellent. some went of the estimate so much that people would ask if that was a speedrun or casual one.

Regarding Donation , i am sure i watched esa for at least 5-6 days i don't recall seeing plugs for it from the host , maybe the volume was low or it was done at the wrong time of the run.I can easily tell why anyone watching esa thought they were focusing on the donations and that too for just the goals in the game and not charity,cause if you look at chat records, almost every 10-15 mins one of the moderators or host would post in the chat(both streams) asking for donations. Some was borderline terrible to see "please donate something cause i can read it " "we have this xyz goal in the game donate for it" "i am bored cause there are no donations to read" very rarely charity was mentioned. Maybe you should plug the charity differently than posting in chat frequently and let a bot do the formal requests. Maybe play a promotional video of  charity group during the setup time.

The only reason why the viewership was low i can say is the odd mixing of games some new ones were good to watch other ones were just meh. I ended being on yellow stream mostly because they were playing popular known games and doing awesome strange stuff like that vegetable controls. Adding a total slient setup block after a game that was long as say 10-20 mins was again distracting.

Another thing was the setup time of games people were annoyed with lack of voices during , i am sure the hosts at least could have mentioned something about whats coming next or what is being done but it was slience.

I did like the ineraction of the runners and people sitting in room with twitch chat ,maybe it was annoying for those who were not using the chat but those who were using the chat it was great fun for example when the Amiga was shown after the run on it because many in chat wanted to see it.

One thing about gdq i like is they position the games perfectly they know when the viewers will watch what game and how to carry those peak viewers to the next one which might be slightly more boring. Maybe esa should consider putting the popular runners and their games at good times.

Feeling a bit sad that there were way less viewers and extremely empty runs during the marathon, some of the runs was excellent. some went of the estimate so much that people would ask if that was a speedrun or casual one.

KVD

Edit history:

KVD: 2014-08-06 05:23:43 am

KVD: 2014-08-06 05:22:41 am

2014-08-06 05:19:46 am

Quote from ButtersBB:

"Speedrun event first and a charity event second, whereas GDQ is the other way around?" I'm sorry, but I have to point out that this is a terrible argument.

Replace the word 'Speedrun' with 'community focused' (event) and Kenny's argument works again. I agree that GDQ is actually more focused on speedrunning (and obviously charity), but the fact that ESA handles things differently is no argument to question its sustainability as a charity marathon. Charity marathons do not HAVE to be uptight and as professional as possible, ESA proves that*. There is room for each event to handle things according to their own philosophies, with neither approach obsoleting the other. That said I do agree that plugging the charity in the stream lay-out (donation totals, logos, etc.) would vastly improve that aspect of the event and it comes at virtually no costs.

*Though striving for the optimum would most likely require a higher level of professionalism. That's not necessarily the goal as such though (I think).

[quote="ButtersBB"]
"Speedrun event first and a charity event second, whereas GDQ is the other way around?" I'm sorry, but I have to point out that this is a terrible argument. 
[/quote]

Replace the word 'Speedrun' with 'community focused' (event) and Kenny's argument works again. I agree that GDQ is actually more focused on speedrunning (and obviously charity), but the fact that ESA handles things differently is no argument to question its sustainability as a charity marathon. Charity marathons do not HAVE to be uptight and as professional as possible, ESA proves that*. There is room for each event to handle things according to their own philosophies, with neither approach obsoleting the other. That said I do agree that plugging the charity in the stream lay-out (donation totals, logos, etc.) would vastly improve that aspect of the event and it comes at virtually no costs.

*Though striving for the optimum would most likely require a higher level of professionalism. That's not necessarily the goal as such though (I think).

KennyMan666

Edit history:

KennyMan666: 2014-08-06 05:38:10 am

2014-08-06 05:30:36 am

Precursor

It's about the focus and how involved the charity actually is. PCF straight up hires Mike, Matty and UA to organize AGDQ these days - it's first and foremost a PCF-sponsored charity event, there's no way to argue against that. The content just happens to be speedruns. DWB doesn't give us anything, which according to sources is why there was no DWB logo on the stream layout. We still do it because it's a good cause.

Whenever I was on the donation station I mentioned the charity at least once, and I heard Alko doing it on several occasions, no idea how it was handled by other hosts.

BaalNocturno

2014-08-06 08:10:00 am

There is no light to save you

Ok I'm finally back at home!

Basically I have absolutely no complaint to bring along (the heat thing is a twisted thing to discuss)
Overall i had an amazing time and all of you were/are fantastic!
But we should look into having more meetings (as allready discussed) since its a shame to see you guys only once a year

Omnigamer

2014-08-06 08:44:01 am

All the things

Quote from KennyMan666:

It's about the focus and how involved the charity actually is. PCF straight up hires Mike, Matty and UA to organize AGDQ these days - it's first and foremost a PCF-sponsored charity event, there's no way to argue against that. The content just happens to be speedruns. DWB doesn't give us anything, which according to sources is why there was no DWB logo on the stream layout. We still do it because it's a good cause.

If you need a logo for them, Google can help. Hundreds of DWB logos in all qualities, formats, and languages you can imagine. Even if they did not give you anything at all (I doubt this if staff had actual communications with the organization), it takes very little effort to cover something like a logo or other promotional images. If you choose to keep up with charities in following years, the impetus is on organizers to open the dialogue with the charities early and often enough to make sure the needs of both the event and the charity can be adequately met.

[quote="KennyMan666"]It's about the focus and how involved the charity actually is. PCF straight up hires Mike, Matty and UA to organize AGDQ these days - it's first and foremost a PCF-sponsored charity event, there's no way to argue against that. The content just happens to be speedruns. DWB doesn't give us anything, which according to sources is why there was no DWB logo on the stream layout. We still do it because it's a good cause.[/quote]

If you need a logo for them, Google can help. Hundreds of DWB logos in all qualities, formats, and languages you can imagine. Even if they did not give you anything at all (I doubt this if staff had actual communications with the organization), it takes very little effort to cover something like a logo or other promotional images. If you choose to keep up with charities in following years, the impetus is on organizers to open the dialogue with the charities early and often enough to make sure the needs of both the event and the charity can be adequately met.

Edenal

2014-08-06 08:55:55 am

Hockey enthusiast

Before this discussion about logotypes goes any further.

It was my decision, and my decision alone to not have any DWB logo on either the general overlay or the setup screen. We'll address this point further in our upcoming reply.

Partystar

Edit history:

Partystar: 2014-08-06 09:12:33 am

Partystar: 2014-08-06 09:12:13 am

Partystar: 2014-08-06 09:11:04 am

2014-08-06 09:01:47 am

Quote from BaalNocturno:

Ok I'm finally back at home!

Basically I have absolutely no complaint to bring along (the heat thing is a twisted thing to discuss)
Overall i had an amazing time and all of you were/are fantastic!
But we should look into having more meetings (as allready discussed) since its a shame to see you guys only once a year

We have almost every month a meetup in the Netherlands in the form of mini-marathons and we invite guest stars. We don't have many viewers yet, but we always have a lot of fun and we are openminded to capture a wide variety of pro gaming skills. We had guests coming over from Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden. Just send Meridian a PM whenever you like to visit us. you can find more information at: twitch.tv/nlg_organisation

General_Beatrix

2014-08-06 09:04:22 am

My biggest gripe by far was the comfort of the chairs in the stream and practice rooms, those metal ones. They were the most uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on for extended periods of time and severely detracted from my enjoyment of watching runs in the stream rooms if I wasn't on the sofa. I was glad someone stole some comfortable chairs from I don't know where in the practice room on the last few days. Obviously buying 100 new chairs isn't an easy fix but jesus christ they were horrible and I haven't seen it mentioned yet I don't think. (Maybe it's just me)

Cereth

2014-08-06 09:07:58 am

Donations:

I really don't care about the amount or if these are dropped next year, for me it's just about having fun. My only concern is that there'll be more dead air during cutscenes or downtime as the runner can no longer say "Now's a good time for donations!" when there's nothing going on.

Tech issues:

I fail to see why games were greenlit on the tech info spreadsheet when they weren't ok. I was racing Bastion and it was highlighted green that we were able to play in 1920x1080, then 5 minutes before the run we apparently needed 1280x720, which the game didn't even support. (And apparently streaming 1080p 30hz was out of the question), and then the game apparently wasn't even captured correctly for half of the run anyway
Game sound here was also an issue, I wasn't able to play with any sound, and Incalex (the other racer) played with some sound from speakers on the monitor. Can we have like, headphones?
Sound was also an issue for the FF7 run, it's no wonder the seats were empty when there wasn't any game sound in the room at all.

Blue stream seemed ok but yellow needed a little love (specifically for PC games though, I think?)

Quote from General_Beatrix:

My biggest gripe by far was the comfort of the chairs in the stream and practice rooms, those metal ones. They were the most uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on for extended periods of time and severely detracted from my enjoyment of watching runs in the stream rooms if I wasn't on the sofa. I was glad someone stole some comfortable chairs from I don't know where in the practice room on the last few days. Obviously buying 100 new chairs isn't an easy fix but jesus christ they were horrible and I haven't seen it mentioned yet I don't think. (Maybe it's just me)

This was my reason for spending hardly any time in the blue stream room. At least when you're playing a game in the practice room you tend not to notice it so much, but watching a game for more than an hour is just awful on those chairs.

Besides that, just general complaints about heat and people not tidying their own mess

Donations:

I really don't care about the amount or if these are dropped next year, for me it's just about having fun. My only concern is that there'll be more dead air during cutscenes or downtime as the runner can no longer say "Now's a good time for donations!" when there's nothing going on.

Tech issues:

I fail to see why games were greenlit on the [url="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1APvfKpZnpDp61MnFtJRnsTysjVKX_758RVEjFQ0aGts/edit#gid=1462989992t"]tech info spreadsheet[/url] when they weren't ok. I was racing Bastion and it was highlighted green that we were able to play in 1920x1080, then 5 minutes before the run we apparently [i]needed[/i] 1280x720, which the game didn't even support. (And apparently streaming 1080p 30hz was out of the question), and then the game apparently wasn't even captured correctly for half of the run anyway
Game sound here was also an issue, I wasn't able to play with any sound, and Incalex (the other racer) played with some sound from speakers on the monitor. Can we have like, headphones?
Sound was also an issue for the FF7 run, it's no wonder the seats were empty when there wasn't any game sound in the room at all.

Blue stream seemed ok but yellow needed a little love (specifically for PC games though, I think?)

[quote="General_Beatrix"]My biggest gripe by far was the comfort of the chairs in the stream and practice rooms, those metal ones. They were the most uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on for extended periods of time and severely detracted from my enjoyment of watching runs in the stream rooms if I wasn't on the sofa. I was glad someone stole some comfortable chairs from I don't know where in the practice room on the last few days. Obviously buying 100 new chairs isn't an easy fix but jesus christ they were horrible and I haven't seen it mentioned yet I don't think. (Maybe it's just me)[/quote]

This was my reason for spending hardly any time in the blue stream room. At least when you're playing a game in the practice room you tend not to notice it so much, but watching a game for more than an hour is just awful on those chairs.

Besides that, just general complaints about heat and people not tidying their own mess

Greenalink

2014-08-06 09:21:41 am

DS Dictator

Quote:

My biggest gripe by far was the comfort of the chairs in the stream and practice rooms, those metal ones. They were the most uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on for extended periods of time and severely detracted from my enjoyment of watching runs in the stream rooms if I wasn't on the sofa. I was glad someone stole some comfortable chairs from I don't know where in the practice room on the last few days. Obviously buying 100 new chairs isn't an easy fix but jesus christ they were horrible and I haven't seen it mentioned yet I don't think. (Maybe it's just me)

Not just you. My back was kinda screwed after a 3.5 hour Phantom Hourglass run. I even felt it during some of the nights, it did go away after a few days.

lillbrorsan

2014-08-06 09:37:48 am

Truljin @ Twitch

This was my first marathon meetup event and I had a blast, I'm not looking to repeat myself as plenty of others have already pointed some obvious things out, the one thing I want to say right away is a huge thanks to j4sp3rr for taking his time to learn and comment on my BGE run, made it so much more fun to run at the event!

heero_fred

2014-08-06 12:09:04 pm

I would like to give my feedback as a viewer, specially about the double stream setup since most of the other stuff has already been said:

I really liked the concept but I think it didn't translated that well into the actual event (I know there were a lot of scheduling problems, so I will give the benefit of the doubt because of this).

There were times that the run in the blue stream wasn't appealing for me so I switched to a long setup time in the yellow stream and the other way around also applied, and there were times where both streams were stuck in setup times at the same time.

Speaking of setup times, not only they were long in some cases, they were completely silent, no host talking or music playing in the background, it was really awkward to see the runners and tech crew doing the setup in complete silence.

Now to end this post with a suggestion, if you are going to keep the dual stream setup for future events, it would be nice to have on the stream layout what run is going on in the other stream, that way if you don't want to see the run on the blue stream, you know what is going on in the yellow one without having to either switch streams or look at the schedule).

I would like to give my feedback as a viewer, specially about the double stream setup since most of the other stuff has already been said:

I really liked the concept but I think it didn't translated that well into the actual event (I know there were a lot of scheduling problems, so I will give the benefit of the doubt because of this).

There were times that the run in the blue stream wasn't appealing for me so I switched to a long setup time in the yellow stream and the other way around also applied, and there were times where both streams were stuck in setup times at the same time.

Speaking of setup times, not only they were long in some cases, [b]they were completely silent[/b], no host talking or music playing in the background, it was really awkward to see the runners and tech crew doing the setup in complete silence.

Now to end this post with a suggestion, if you are going to keep the dual stream setup for future events, it would be nice to have on the stream layout what run is going on in the other stream, that way if you don't want to see the run on the blue stream, you know what is going on in the yellow one without having to either switch streams or look at the schedule).

Omnigamer

2014-08-06 12:24:40 pm

All the things

Something I think it would be good to identify for future events are the metrics for success of the event. Time and again the argument has come up that this is not a GDQ and has different goals, but in the same way the event should also define those goals and have ways to track just how well they're doing to meet them. This is fairly obvious for something like a GDQ by looking at growth in donations year-to-year, but is not as clear if the charity is not a primary focus. Some examples:

Viewers: Is it important to have further outreach each consecutive year? There are many ways to subdivide this aspect (totals, uniques, average time watched, etc) but the end thing to decide is how much is the event for the people watching it. This ties in to just about everything else, but from the perspective of the organizers, how important is it that viewership grows year-to-year?

Charity: If charity is part of the event, how important are donations to the overall success of the event? There have been a few sentiments that the amount is irrelevant, and simply having the charity available is helpful. That's good for being able to say "We helped!" but is not useful for figuring out if ESA 2016 does better than ESA 2015 at meeting its stated goals. One can argue that this is a huge metric for GDQs and drives a lot of their decisions, but in the same way if this is not a main goal for future ESA events it can also help to drive decisions. Having a host role is no longer as important, for example, if the charity plays only a minor role in terms of success.

Speedrunning/Community: Is a goal of the event to promote various aspects of speedrunning and the community? This is more difficult to track, but if it's a big goal at all then it can be seen through scheduling of more unique content, such as the TASing, specialized races, discussions, and otherwise. This is as much creativity as anything, but ESA has shown that they are willing to try lots of new things and experiment. Finding unique ways to get the speedrunning "culture" across to viewers is definitely a valuable goal, but is simultaneously tied to viewership.

On-site Event Experience: Many, many posts in this thread and last year's thread indicate that ESA was a blast to be a part of. Continuing this trend is valuable within our own community, and worth some amount of focus. How much should organizers focus on improving the ESA experience?

There are many other ways to try to break things down, but it's important to state up front how organizers intend for success to be measured and, if needed, decide a pecking order of which aspects are most important to the event as a whole. Tech, scheduling, advertising, and many other important facets to the marathon extend from these aspects. It's easy to say "We'll do everything and improve in everything!" but being able to balance so many things well is a huge challenge. Having these goals available will better help organizers to decide how things should change or stay the same for future events.

Something I think it would be good to identify for future events are the metrics for success of the event. Time and again the argument has come up that this is not a GDQ and has different goals, but in the same way the event should also define those goals and have ways to track just how well they're doing to meet them. This is fairly obvious for something like a GDQ by looking at growth in donations year-to-year, but is not as clear if the charity is not a primary focus. Some examples:

[b]Viewers:[/b] Is it important to have further outreach each consecutive year? There are many ways to subdivide this aspect (totals, uniques, average time watched, etc) but the end thing to decide is how much is the event for the people watching it. This ties in to just about everything else, but from the perspective of the organizers, how important is it that viewership grows year-to-year?

[b]Charity:[/b] If charity is part of the event, how important are donations to the overall success of the event? There have been a few sentiments that the amount is irrelevant, and simply having the charity available is helpful. That's good for being able to say "We helped!" but is not useful for figuring out if ESA 2016 does better than ESA 2015 at meeting its stated goals. One can argue that this is a huge metric for GDQs and drives a lot of their decisions, but in the same way if this is not a main goal for future ESA events it can also help to drive decisions. Having a host role is no longer as important, for example, if the charity plays only a minor role in terms of success.

[b]Speedrunning/Community:[/b] Is a goal of the event to promote various aspects of speedrunning and the community? This is more difficult to track, but if it's a big goal at all then it can be seen through scheduling of more unique content, such as the TASing, specialized races, discussions, and otherwise. This is as much creativity as anything, but ESA has shown that they are willing to try lots of new things and experiment. Finding unique ways to get the speedrunning "culture" across to viewers is definitely a valuable goal, but is simultaneously tied to viewership.

[b]On-site Event Experience:[/b] Many, many posts in this thread and last year's thread indicate that ESA was a blast to be a part of. Continuing this trend is valuable within our own community, and worth some amount of focus. How much should organizers focus on improving the ESA experience?

There are many other ways to try to break things down, but it's important to state up front how organizers intend for success to be measured and, if needed, decide a pecking order of which aspects are most important to the event as a whole. Tech, scheduling, advertising, and many other important facets to the marathon extend from these aspects. It's easy to say "We'll do everything and improve in everything!" but being able to balance so many things well is a huge challenge. Having these goals available will better help organizers to decide how things should change or stay the same for future events.

Therio

Edit history:

Therio: 2014-08-06 01:36:55 pm

2014-08-06 01:34:58 pm

That's a pity.

Quote from General_Beatrix:

My biggest gripe by far was the comfort of the chairs in the stream and practice rooms, those metal ones. They were the most uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on for extended periods of time and severely detracted from my enjoyment of watching runs in the stream rooms if I wasn't on the sofa. I was glad someone stole some comfortable chairs from I don't know where in the practice room on the last few days. Obviously buying 100 new chairs isn't an easy fix but jesus christ they were horrible and I haven't seen it mentioned yet I don't think. (Maybe it's just me)

I fucking hate those chairs.

Besides that, something else that nobody seems to have mentioned was the feel and atmosphere of the (actual, physical) blue stream room. I don't know about you guys, but I can't sit in that room for more than 10~20 minutes without getting extremely sleepy (pretty sure I slept on camera during both Bayonetta and MGR, which were two of the runs I really wanted to watch AND stole one of the good chairs for). Some people at the event have echoed this critique, and some of the people who were at AGDQ14 said that it was the same for that streaming room, albeit for different reasons. I'm not entirely sure what the cause of it is, but there's a group of people I know of that didn't want to go in there unless it was something they really wanted to watch just because they feared falling asleep in there.

EDIT:
Get flytraps for the lobby or fix the AC so the doors don't have to be bolted open. The flies ruled that place.

[quote="General_Beatrix"]My biggest gripe by far was the comfort of the chairs in the stream and practice rooms, those metal ones. They were the most uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on for extended periods of time and severely detracted from my enjoyment of watching runs in the stream rooms if I wasn't on the sofa. I was glad someone stole some comfortable chairs from I don't know where in the practice room on the last few days. Obviously buying 100 new chairs isn't an easy fix but jesus christ they were horrible and I haven't seen it mentioned yet I don't think. (Maybe it's just me)[/quote]

I fucking hate those chairs.

Besides that, something else that nobody seems to have mentioned was the feel and atmosphere of the (actual, physical) blue stream room. I don't know about you guys, but I can't sit in that room for more than 10~20 minutes without getting extremely sleepy (pretty sure I slept on camera during both Bayonetta and MGR, which were two of the runs I really wanted to watch AND stole one of the good chairs for). Some people at the event have echoed this critique, and some of the people who were at AGDQ14 said that it was the same for that streaming room, albeit for different reasons. I'm not entirely sure what the cause of it is, but there's a group of people I know of that didn't want to go in there unless it was something they really wanted to watch just because they feared falling asleep in there.

EDIT:
Get flytraps for the lobby or fix the AC so the doors don't have to be bolted open. The flies ruled that place.

AngryManjuu

2014-08-06 01:40:55 pm

Getting sleepy in rooms is usually a sign of high CO2 and low O2 concentration. Just remember to open the windows every now and then Wink

Therio

2014-08-06 01:42:18 pm

That's a pity.

They were open near permanently from what I recall, to the point that someone got stung by a wasp during their run (although that may have been in the yellow stream room, can't recall).

Partystar

2014-08-06 02:08:47 pm

yeah I also often felt very sleepy and like a complete zombie too, especially in the large practice room but also in the blue stream room. I felt better in the hallway practice area. It may have been a combination of temperature, a lot of equipment and many people in the same room on top of not being outside enough, lack of physical activity, shifted sleep pattern, eating piza's etc.

Kotti

2014-08-07 02:57:55 am

- Not sure if this was done or how often this was done but when there's setup going on in on stream, even if it's just a minute or two, why not restream the other stream? It would mean less time spent broadcasting nothing and more exposure to the other stream. Even if you show the second stream for 30 seconds people might get interested and go have a better look at that stream.

- Good move with the Dreamhack computers, even if they were weak they were definitely enough for most games. Just having computers around for general use was really convenient.

- Name tags, how come there weren't any?

Last year I was a bit worried the event would become less relaxed and fun as it was growing. That didn't happen last year so this year I was sure it would still be as fun as before - and it definitely was. After this year, even more so than before, I feel that ESA is in very good hands. Huge thanks to the organizers for another amazing event, it was once again great fun to attend and run at ESA!

JangBang

2014-08-07 05:27:03 am

The results are in

The main issue that I had with the event, as an attendee, was the lack of TVs, and people using TVs in the blue hall practice room for casual stuff like melee friendlies or mario party. However this was almost only an issue during the sunday, monday, and tuesday imo. As the event progressed it naturally got a lot easier to find TVs to practice/do whatever on.

All in all I really enjoyed the event and look forward to attend more in the future if I am able to.

JustShanz

Edit history:

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:23:15 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:15:59 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:06:30 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:06:18 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:06:07 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:05:43 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:05:18 pm

JustShanz: 2014-08-07 01:04:32 pm

2014-08-07 01:02:40 pm

FrankerZ

Everything has pretty much been said. My only issue was with the wristbands. While cheap, they were very annoying to wear (at least to me). The paper dug into my wrists and they didn't last very long. I removed mine on the 3rd day and I noticed lots of others had done the same.

Speaking of which I feel there was a lack of enforcement of people who should be there, after the first day or two nobody seemed to care. With lots of people leaving their expensive stuff around it seemed very easy for someone to just walk in who shouldn't be there. I don't think there was an incident this year but it can happen.

Something like a highly visible badge that you pin to your shirt/whatever which must be worn at all times (no matter who you are) would be better. You should be asked to leave and come back with it on (no exceptions). Maybe have a different colour for Staff/kinda staff people so it's easy to find them if you have a question or something similar.

Great event though, I very much enjoyed my time with you all and I hope I can attend next year. Shoutouts to Flicky for understanding that my game was framerate specific and letting me get practice on the actual streaming computer. My run would have went totally different without that practice time.

Edit: What the hell was with people leaving money laying around randomly? That's just asking for it

Everything has pretty much been said. My only issue was with the wristbands. While cheap, they were very annoying to wear (at least to me). The paper dug into my wrists and they didn't last very long. I removed mine on the 3rd day and I noticed lots of others had done the same.

Speaking of which I feel there was a lack of enforcement of people who should be there, after the first day or two nobody seemed to care. With lots of people leaving their expensive stuff around it seemed very easy for someone to just walk in who shouldn't be there. I don't think there was an incident this year but it can happen.

Something like a highly visible badge that you pin to your shirt/whatever which must be worn at all times (no matter who you are) would be better. You should be asked to leave and come back with it on (no exceptions). Maybe have a different colour for Staff/kinda staff people so it's easy to find them if you have a question or something similar.

Great event though, I very much enjoyed my time with you all and I hope I can attend next year. Shoutouts to Flicky for understanding that my game was framerate specific and letting me get practice on the actual streaming computer. My run would have went totally different without that practice time.

Edit: What the hell was with people leaving money laying around randomly? That's just asking for it

tdawg

2014-08-07 01:42:12 pm

I fully agree with justshanz in regards to the wristbands. For ESA 2015, it would be great to see the return of the ESA 2013 style lanyards / tags :-)

flicky

2014-08-07 02:35:46 pm

$15 per rant/allegory

Quote from liquidsnake:

One thing about gdq i like is they position the games perfectly they know when the viewers will watch what game and how to carry those peak viewers to the next one which might be slightly more boring. Maybe esa should consider putting the popular runners and their games at good times.

Could you give some examples of this and share out your time zone? If there were that many problems then this is something we'd like to look at again.

Yvathacal

Edit history:

Yvathacal: 2014-08-07 02:40:37 pm

2014-08-07 02:40:08 pm

Agreeing with the other people, the bands were kinda bad especially with the heat we had in sweden and I have no problems with paying a bit extra to get rid of those and get tags or whatever.

Some other things:
- People were slobs when it came on keeping the showers "clean", I can understand if the floor is wet in the shower room but when the lounge room floor is also completely soaked it just makes it annoying to shower.

- I have nothing against people playing a card game but if you leave the table for 2 hours and expect the game to be intact after you watch a run and say to people not to use the table then there is clearly something wrong with you.

- The recaps were fun, but dont do them in the lounge room and expect people to be quiet, it just makes the room uncomfortable to be in.

I still had a shitload of fun and will definitely attend ESA '15.

twitch viewer liquidsnake

2014-08-08 12:06:37 am

my time zone UTC+05:30 , i ended up missing all the good runs that happened at late night :\ even the noobest dark souls everyone was talking about in chat Kappa .
i am talking more about the game placing than schedule times
for example sgdq 14 started with super mario 3d world ->Crash Bandicoot and continued to show games that are known to more people and brings in more viewers and then went with different dedicated blocks for pc, mega man, donkey kong etc and remember their setup times were extremely short and you could hear everything and excellent commentary explaining the games as much as possible.
the viewers had already filled up to the brim right at the first game. Despite a delayed start.

ESA 2014 started off with
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos->Ape Escape 3-> Metroid Fusion->Zelda II: The Adventure of Link , more than 3/4th of the chat did not know anything about the first game and the second game did not do any favors , i ended up looking it up on Wikipedia, combine that with long setup times after each game ended with total silence and zero or small talk for each game, empty rooms. I don't think anyone thought the event had fully begun.
I do appreciate esa trying out different games but with no one to explain it properly and one line answers to doubts , the chat were just talking with themselves rather than watch the game. <evident from people using mobiles in the room to talk with chat instead and many looking the other side to see the chat instead of the game being run>.
if famous runners like josh or adam had begun the maraton with their popular games like gta , there would have been a lot more viewers since they watch it frequently and enjoy them.[i know the games are setup so that its convenient for the runners arrival times etc] just take it as a example, with so many marathons you need to start with a game that's extremely popular or a runner who is popular to get the viewers to the start of the marathon and then carry them over.

But the intros before each game was great and so were the layouts and the camera view(which zoomed in too much at first and was fixed after chat asked for it)

i have been watching these marathons since agdq 2012, there is no denying that you folks have a lot of fun there.

my time zone UTC+05:30 , i ended up missing all the good runs that happened at late night :\ even the noobest dark souls everyone was talking about in chat Kappa . 
i am talking more about the game placing than schedule times 
for example sgdq 14 started with super mario 3d world ->Crash Bandicoot  and continued to show games that are known to more people and brings in more viewers and then went with different dedicated blocks for pc, mega man, donkey kong etc and remember their setup times were extremely short and you could hear everything and excellent commentary explaining the games as much as possible.
the viewers had already filled up to the brim right at the first game. Despite a delayed start.

ESA 2014 started off with
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos->Ape Escape 3-> Metroid Fusion->Zelda II: The Adventure of Link , more than 3/4th of the chat did not know anything about the first game and the second game did not do any favors , i ended up looking it up on Wikipedia, combine that with long setup times after each game ended with total silence and zero or  small talk for each game, empty rooms. I don't think anyone thought the event had fully begun. 
I do appreciate esa trying out different games but with no one to explain it properly and one line answers to doubts , the chat were just talking with themselves rather than watch the game. <evident from people using mobiles in the room to talk with chat instead and many looking the other side to see the chat instead of the game being run>.
if famous runners like josh or adam had begun the maraton with their popular games like gta , there would have been a lot more viewers since they watch it frequently and enjoy them.[i know the games are setup so that its convenient for the runners arrival times etc] just take it as a example, with so many marathons you need to start with a game that's extremely popular or a runner who is popular to get the viewers to the start of the marathon and then carry them over.

But the intros before each game was great and so were the layouts and the camera view(which zoomed in too much at first and was fixed after chat asked for it)

i have been watching these marathons since agdq 2012, there is no denying that you folks have a lot of fun there.