European Speedster Assembly 2014

j4sp3rr

Edit history:

j4sp3rr: 2014-08-14 03:36:19 pm

2014-08-14 03:35:45 pm

lol.. site bugged and double response happend, sorry?!

Zzzlol94

2014-08-14 05:45:05 pm

Quote from j4sp3rr:

Quote from Zzzlol94:

Speaking of chairs, we on tech crew on blue stream were living the dream on those Kinnarps 5000. Those are so ridiculously comfy (unfortunately no head/armrests), wanted to get one of the 9000s a few weeks back (but those are really expensive).

on that note, not sure who on tech kept releasing the thing for the backrest to be locked into place, but please if you do that, put it back, almost every time i went to do tech for the last like 3 days i just barely kept myself from falling over Tongue

scared the living shit out of me every time i tried to rest back in the chair and i just flew backwards.

Well it's a bit late to say that now. I did use that somewhat frequently a few times, not sure on how many times I didn't lock it when leaving as it didn't matter at the time apparently, but at least it's synchro tilt, which is better than a fixed tilt when it comes to falling backwards.

ESA

2014-08-15 07:28:55 am

Feedback

We've all gotten home, had time to get some distance from European Speedster Assembly and read all the feedback. Here's our take on the event.

For clarity, this post was written by bangerra, Edenal, flicky, Grukk, joka and oasiz. (Notice the alphabetical order!)

General:

Charity:

Quote:

We know there are attendees, viewers and organisers all with wildly different ideas whether or not the charity aspect should be dropped or not. Having that said, the organisers were mostly leaning toward dropping it entirely up until the two days after the marathon ended. Everyone who was still around at the time sat down and had a long discussion about everything related to ESA and from that discussion it was clear that the overwhelming majority believed the charity aspect should be kept and we see no reason to go against that, even when we're not bringing in as much money to the charity as the *GDQ's, it's still a substantial amount and still one of the bigger charity events within the speedrunning community.

On top of that, the Swedish branch reached out to us, much thanks to Drew (romscout) and Charlie of the American MSF organisation. They've expressed a wish get involved with us which is something that we've lacked and it will make our work in the future easier in that aspect.

What's important to remember, is that we will never compromise our vision for ESA in favor for any charity. It's unlikely that a charity would ever interfere in this way, but it's a decision we'd like to stick to. Even if this event isn't as focused on charity as other events (be they gaming marathons or otherwise), we understand the draw that a charity has and the good that can be done with the money we're making. Yes it's worth the effort for all parties involved.

Introduce alternative ways to make your voice heard with donation incentives.

Quote:

Due to upcoming plans for the yellow stream (more on that later) we're looking into alternative ways for viewers to have an impact on the stream other than with their wallet. We will try out some of the following:

Online polls
- Instead of having a bidwar for character name, we might select 5 different candidates ourselves and run a Strawpoll.
Twitter re-tweets
- Instead of having a target bid for example [Beat this boss] we can ask our viewers to re-tweet a certain tweet. If X-amount of re-tweets are met, the runner will carry out the challenge.
Facebook shares
- Same as Twitter.

Not only will this generate attention for the challenge being met (more people know) but it also allows more people to get involved. Lot's of places run similar twitter contests with great success. This would be the next logical step.

Wi-Fi:

Quote:

Blame Edenal… Yes, we know we screwed up there. We did realise the impact of not having full wi-fi coverage. We had much less interaction on social media than we should and could have had. Having that said we are going to try to improve this aspect in two ways:
1) The House of Culture has integrated wi-fi. You will need to register, possibly with your email and phone number.
2) Make room in the budget for several routers for next year.

We can possibly reach out to Dreamhack, they might have several access point we might be able to rent/borrow. Or attendees themselves can be asked to bring routers. we will be prioritising this in the tech setup.

Venue events that newer people can get in on to get them involved quickly:

Quote:

This might seem super silly, but for someone who doesn't know anyone yet it could help to ease them in to the event. We're thinking of organising quick events with the purpose of getting to know other people. Here's examples of what that could be:

Simple Team Speedrunning Event
Skövde Treasure Hunt
Drinking Game Variants

Guide to Skövde and the surrounding area:

Quote:

With the majority of the attendees coming from abroad, a paper guide with the most important and useful information would be handy. During the first couple of days there were tours being given through Skövde by persons who had been there before showing the supermarket, where you could eat and other important stuff. But those who arrived later didn't have a chance to participate in that and felt lost. With a paper guide we hope to improve on that in the future.

The flyer could include:
- A map!
- Important locations including: Main venue, train station, mass housing.
- Restaurants with corruption deals and cute waiters/waitresses (MAX Burgers)
- Supermarkets with opening hours
- Rules of the event
- Attractions worth visiting like the lake.

Have them printed on site, but also available for printing at home or download as PDF to your phone.

- A full welcome pack could be produced with a small increase in event fee - local plan, guide to the venue - wristband/lanyard.

Printers:

Quote:

Unfortunately we did not have direct access to a printer. Crippe printed a huge amount of pages at home, but it's not fair to him to put that responsibility on him. For ESA2015, we will make room in the budget to purchase a printer, not only for printing boarding passes, train tickets and schedules. Also, maybe a couple of FLAGS!!!

Deposit fee:

Quote:

The game & schedule group had several major headaches with runners dropping out and even runners not showing up. Next year we will collect a deposit fee from everyone who signs up a game very close to the final cuts document being published.

The deposit will not impact the final price for the event. But hopefully reduce the amount of non-serious submissions and eventual drop-outs. The deposit will be between 10-15€.

Once again, the in venue feedback was very much in favour of this idea.

Alcohol:

Quote:

Apart from an incident or two during the final evening, management of alcohol was fine. Drinking will still not be allowed inside any of the venues, there are people who do not drink or are under aged, that needs to be respected. On top of that, it makes it easier for us to manage the event and everything as we go.
We will however allow some storage of alcohol indoors in a specified area, but outside of that, we don't want to know, see or hear about it inside the venue.

Rubbish

Quote:

The heat combines with trash left unattended for an extensive period of time was a bad idea. Large rubbish bins with lids, regularly emptied into outside area would have helped.
This is going to be different next year when we're moving to another venue, but emptying bins on a regular and scheduled basis will still be needed.

Viewing for Attendees

Quote:

Thanks to the projector at the blue stream there was never any issues with watching the runs. However the yellow stream did not have that luxury. The wall mounted HDTV could have been used in a larger extent, but instead the projector in the kitchen area was used. While dozens of people were watching the run, the chairs in the room were empty.

In the House of Culture there are projectors and screens available on the two locations where we're planning to have the stream. (Both in Freja + Valhall.)

Badges / Bracelets:

Quote:

Bracelets are not going away, they are here to stay. Several attendees did not put them on correctly, they should be tight, but not too tight. Not hanging loose. Why are bracelets not going away? Because we need an easy and reliable way of confirming that attendees have payed and have signed up. A badge can be taken off and left somewhere else, bracelets can’t. However, we will get custom made fabric bracelets for next year. They are more comfortable and simply cooler!

Badges might make a return and might be optional. One reason why we didn't have badges this year was that during ESA2013, we made them by hand. Which was fine for 70 attendees. But 220+ was simply out of the question.

A lot of attendees were in favour of lanyards and we will try to get them, we just need to find ways to produce them.

Communal food:

Quote:

Great addition. We're probably going to push this next year as a draw to the event.

Venues and locations

Nyeport venue:

Quote:

For those who don’t know, this is a youth centre that is empty during the summer.

With 200+ people in a venue that size. (Think of it like having 12 friends over in your 3-room-apartment) It certainly got full at times, with everything that comes from that. The kitchen area filled up with empty bottles and trash faster than expected.

Several things were broken, which no one owned up to. Replacing broken stuff will unfortunately come straight out of our this years and possibly next years budget. Increasing the price for the event.

Mass housing (House of Culture):

Quote:

Apart from the confusion about air mattresses, that worked out just fine. It was dark and quiet.

Nothing we could do about the wedding being scheduled in the middle of the event though. Which impacted our ability to use the showers. Don’t worry, this will be fixed for next year.

Gender separation for mass housing:

Quote:

We're thinking that we should have a female only mass-housing area if space and demand is there. After talking with some of the females attendees, all but two stayed in the hotel and I know that sleeping in a mixed-gender area is something that can put people off. In hindsight, this is probably something we should have implemented before. This would mean one area of girls only and another area of anybody.

Future:

Quote:

We've outgrown Nyeport for sure. The heatwave hit us hard.
Next year the event will return to the House of Culture. With the equivalent of the blue stream being located on the stage in Freja and the yellow stream being in Valhall.

It’s bigger, it’s got air conditioning. There are plenty of fridges - but that still doesn't mean you should leave that quarter slice of pizza that you are never going to finish there!
Valhall does have natural light coming through from the ceiling, but Freja doesn't. We're either going to use the stage lights or borrow the RGB lights from Nyeport to try to compensate.

After speaking with the hotel, they were very happy to have us as quests and we are most likely welcome back for ESA2015. If we keep on growing in this rate, there's might be something we can do to reduce the cost even more.

Mass housing is being looked at, we make no promises yet but at the same time we know it's a very important part to keep the total cost for the event down. It's one of our top priorities. Over 2/3rd of the ESA attendees stayed in Mass Housing this year.

Overlays:

Logos:

Quote:

There's a reason why the DWB/MSF logo was not present. It was hard coded into the earlier drafts of the layouts but, Edenal had it removed. The “sponsor” logos we did have were sponsors that actually assisted us in some way. Next year, the logo of the charity we're collecting money for will be featured, no questions asked.

Race overlays:

Quote:

The race overlays could have been saved with minor tweaks. Unfortunately with premade overlays that was nothing we could do on site but rest assured we've heard the feedback and will adjust in the future. The color coding might have been confusing, but it’s not something that’s going away. We’re certain that it’s going to become standard in the future of marathons and we don’t want to have text indicators or arrows showing which player is playing at a certain viewport. Having some kind of line subtly linking the text boxes and game viewport is something we’re discussing.

The idea with the colors was that they were supposed to sync with the ESA-logotype. We might change that to simply bright R - G - B for 3-player. And add a fourth color that’s a included in CMYK. Or simply black/white. We'll see!

Stretched games:

Quote:

We dropped the ball on the DS-overlays and totally forgot that GBA games are not 4:3. We won’t do that again. That's also one of the limitations of XSplit that we're limited to 12 scenes.

As for stretched 16:9 into 4:3. *cough* Half-Life 2 race. That’s simply because it was going to be a 2-player race but turned into a 4-player race just hour before the run. Similarly, Left 4 Dead 4-Player co-op was also added on site.
We had no 16:9 layout for 4-player races and did the best we could. We stand by that decision.

Bingo:

Quote:

For viewers, it became confusing at times not having the “bingo sheet” visible at all times. They expected speedruns and got something else. For bingos we might have to narrate them more like e-sports in order to keep all viewers informed, especially those who are familiar with speedrunning but not with the game itself.

At minimum future bingos will have a dedicated layout with the bingo sheet showing at all times as well as a dedicated commentator.

LiveSplit:

Quote:

Every ESA there's a debate how to handle splits for races. In the future we want to implement a solution where the runners themselves push a button to start their timer and push it again to end them. This could be accomplished without any additional development to LiveSplit but would require some tinkering from our part. (Simply run several instances).

However, we're reaching out to CryZe, the developer of LiveSplit who have been very supportive of the event. Maybe we're going to be able to create a new standard for how splits could be done for marathon races!

Possible to have goal splits for runs too?

Quote:

If we’re going for a 10 minute goal time, we could have, reach X by this time and so on to build hype? This would require more additional effort from the runner, planning their route and risk management much more carefully, but we believe it could be something! We might experiment with this technique during Dreamhack Winter 2014.

Setup and tech:

Tech crew (being a part of it as written by Edenal):

Quote:

This might seem harsh, but for you to be successful within the tech crew, you need to be forward, be around and most of all, be persistent; without anyone having to ask you. We can do a better job of teaching everyone how it works in theory, but the rest has to come from you. There are knowledgeable people around who you can ask anytime if there is something new you fully cannot understand. But we are never going to grab you tell you what to do. The interest has to come from you!

Several guys and gals stood out and contributed immensely to the success of ESA. We're very happy with that! You should be proud of yourselves!

Rest assured, however, that we will be making changes to how we teach and organise the tech crews and will also be expanding our "official" tech crew to give more options. We'll focusing the tech position and making it easier and safer than before.

PC games (bad framerates):

Quote:

The issue with bad framerates was not due to the underpowered PC’s. But rather due to the second output on the GFX card using Intel’s internal circuit.

The idea was to use HDMI / VGA splitters, but at times they were not used. This issue seems to be isolated to the yellow stream.

The splitters that we used on Blue stream would start giving up completely just randomly. For example, during SWAT, shrimp’s PC's splitter just decided to die -> display gone -> game crash.
This also introduced the issue of the splitters auto detecting the plugged PC in to 1080p24/30 instead of 60. Let’s never use these splitters again!

PC games (wrong resolution):

Quote:

Capture card bugged out in here as well, it was capturing at 1280x768, weird output modes are generally solved by using scalers.
Some laptops refuse to output anything else than the native resolution when mirrored, resorting to GPU based scaling with lower resolutions.
This is why we should dedicate DH / etc.. PCs for gaming
It is a HUGE challenge to get all pre-install stuff in there though

ESA will provide consoles:

Quote:

Will be provided by the organizers for ESA2015.
At least 2x of the following:
NES NTSC
SNES NTSC
Genesis NTSC
Nintendo 64 NTSC
Playstation 2 NTSC

If you have an old (fully working console) that you'd like to donate to us, please contact us at info@europeanspeedsterassembly.com

This does not mean you shouldn't bring your own console either!

TVs:

Quote:

Label NTSC-TVs - This was something we meant to do before ESA started, but never got around to doing.

Remote controls - Tie them to the TVs. Several times the remotes went missing, especially the universal ones.

During the final days, another 2 NTSC televisions were acquired. At least 2 more on top of that will be brought by Edenal for next year, possibly even more. We have also been in contact with a local second hand store which will help us get more NTSC compatible CTRs for next year. Additionally Jinny has access to an obscene amount of NTSC TVs in Gothenburg that he may be able to share with us.

If the budget allows, we will look into buying 4x B&O MX4000’s or 4x Sony PVM’s. That would be the dream!

We will also be sourcing more HD TVs and/or monitors for those playing HD games.

RTMP:

Quote:

The use of RTMP worked great for PC gaming and the interview studio. We will keep using this. But having the RTMP-server behind the municipalities firewall meant that we cannot broadcast video outside without resorting to really ugly hacks, this is unless someone does a node on the outside network.
During pirate stream I (Oasiz) relayed webcam through my home server.

We'd like to setup at least one RTMP outside on the House of Culture. Prehaps 2.

Stream / Chat / IRC:

Commentary:

Quote:

Several runners had issues with keeping up the hype and providing commentary for their runs. Some even thought it was weird that they had to do it all themselves. Previously runners have been very vocal about wanting to do all the commentary themselves in “their” time slot.

We believe that point has passed. In the future, there are going to be looking for dedicated commentators for at least every race / co-op run. Runners may still be miced up to be able to answer questions from the dedicated commentators and to be able to show emotions when something goes very right or very wrong.

As for 1-player runs, we would like the runner themselves to act as the expert commentator, providing technical insight of glitches and tricks while having 2 commentators that are very talkative to discuss other topics still relevant to the run. One of the commentators can double as host. They should however both be off camera. For example:

- History of the game
Records
Runners
“Stories” (several runners competing for the best time)
Categories
Similar games
#ESAFacts
#CroatianFacts
- Do roll calls
- Donations
- Tweets
- Chat interaction

This method will likely be tested during Dreamhack Winter 2014 / Summer 2015 and will be reviewed afterwards.

We will be taking a bigger interest ourselves (as organisers) in making sure commentary has been planned out and set up properly. It might be difficult for us to make sure commentary is good, but it's a point we have to strive for. Everyone knows that commentary can make or break a run (see countless examples of great commentary at *GDQs)

Over Estimate Runs:

Quote:

While we believe that going over estimate live is worse than any punishment we can dish out, we will be working more carefully to ensure all estimates are accurate and that runners are up to standard.

Roll call:

Quote:

Do it more often. It’s an important part of interacting with the viewers. At time like these we could use the shotgun mic.
For couch roll call the slider app can be used. For the whole room, not so much.

Music:

Quote:

The music helped fill the dead air. But was used too sparingly, having a better setup for playing music from day 1 will help solve this issue. The plan is to play music during setup with the room mic also capturing audio.

Ontwoplanks and AMVX have both sketched on audio setups for future events.

When using music, we will put it on the room speakers too. Fighting tournaments and other Esports event does this all the time, there's no reason why we should not be able to make it work

*Note* The PC that was used for Skype calls and playing music was one of the Dreamhack PC’s, which were not received until after the marathon had started.

Empty chairs:

Quote:

During ESA2015 we’re moving to a new location for the streams.
The blue stream is not 100% decided yet, but it’s likely that it will be hosted on the stage in the hall named Freja. With seats on the scene for ~30 people. The room is quite big, but will be divided by movable walls. The second half of the room can be used for something else. Possibly having the more serious practice in there? Valhall might get pretty noisy.

In case of PC stuff, could also have those in there for RTMPing so that not everyone at Valhall has to shut up during a run.

The yellow stream will be located on the stage in the hall named Valhall. The practice / casual gaming area will be located on the floor below the stage, this area should never be completely empty.

Briefing runners/commentators once a day:

Quote:

We had issues that runners / attendees did not fully understand the procedures for changing games and lacked experience in handling equipment. Even though the setup for the blue stream was made in such a way that there was only 1 power socket and 1 socket for inputting the SD/HD console some were still confused. Oddly, when quized after the event, everyone said the setup was simple and they had no trouble. Expensive equipment were broken by someone leaving them in the couch and the next person sitting on them.

For next year, there will be a periodic briefing where EVERY runner/commentator that has a run coming up within the next X hours has mandatory presence. This might seem a bit harsh, but given a 15 minute briefing will save us all hours. We did a big speech to a lot of people at the start of the marathon, but we're going to be more active in making sure this is understood by all and not missed.

This briefing will include:
Write down your phone number so the producer can call you if you are MIA.
When to show up for the run. (30 minutes before, and stand with console in hand)
How to handle microphones before, during and after the run.
How to wrap up your run after “TIME!”. (kitchen timer)
How to fill out the form for the tech crew to make sure the text in the overlay is correct. - This should be already done for the most part during submission

Before a run:

Quote:

Cheat sheet about what to do.

Runners should be asked to fill out a form including, twitch/hitbox name, requests for who’s going to be sitting on the couch, estimate. (We should already have this information, but a final QA-check won't hurt)

Closing words from the runner from the runner after his/her run:
Is this something that you want to after your run? Could this help “wrapping” up the run?

If going for extra things, must be confirmed with one of the organisers. If we're behind schedule, no way.

Kitchen Timer

Quote:

Great way to reduce “loading times” between games.

Hype Increasing:

Quote:

Complaints about low excitement and hype are subjective, but still something to consider. Flags added to runner names and particularly things such as this being emphasised during races is a fantastic draw to all. This is also might encourage people to band together slightly more without forming cliques.

We're going to focus on commentary (as mentioned earlier). We could and should utilize the Skype-setup we had a lot more. It made Goof Troop + Chip n Dale much much more interesting.

Additional Content Ideas

Quote:

This is early, but writing them here for the sake of it: Backseat running, teaching speedrunning segments. We'll have more backstage content including venue tours, interviews and so on.

The positive feedback outweighed the negative. In future these segments will be given as much focus with regards to setup as the games.

Phone/Laptop warriors:

Quote:

We will have a dedicated screen showing chat if required. You can have someone there to read it for you if you want that. We're happy to do the Q&A thing, but regardless of your intention, being on a laptop doesn't look great and being on a phone looks even worse.

Chat moderation:

Quote:

It was overall very good. Some complaints have been made about a certain moderator. We've not read the entire chat log but any potential fault of his really fall on us for not providing better directives. He's certainly going to keep moderating if he chooses too. We will recruit a bigger team of moderators on the outside.

Tech should be tech only:

Quote:

Much of the overworked tech crew came from their responsibility being unclear and frankly too big in scope. We are going to limit the responsibility of the tech crew to making sure the video from the console / PC shows up at the capture PC. Editing layouts, changing game titles, checking audio levels will be the responsibility of a "stream manager" or something similar such as one of the donation people.

Tournaments:

Quote:

We had several tournaments going on, we should have more of them on the yellow stream!

Online / Website / Twitter / Schedule:

Website:

Quote:

We'll get the website up much earlier. We will not underestimate the amount hype the site can generate again.
Pictures of attendees, bios, games. Searchable. (Like ESA2013)

This:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/391044-event-awesome-games-done-quick-2013

- We will continue to work with Pac and improve the website. There’s already a steady list of improvements, ranging from general updates to social media interaction and the ability to auto follow runners and get updates when certain runs are about to start.

Schedule during the event:

Quote:

This was one of the places we messed up the most. We will be making sure we have a working system for next year. We will also be trying to implement some improvements:

-Keep original schedule and have an updated schedule available at the same time so that viewers know what times we're aiming for.
-Possible addition of "goal times" with setup buffers rather than estimates to make things more interesting.

We will also plan out some "filler" content if we do get far ahead so as to alleviate long waiting periods of nothing.

Schedule Setup

Quote:

Marking runs (as they come in) with a block they fit will save a lot of time and effort in the long run.

Twitter:

Quote:

Under-utilized. Having a team off-site running this account would help to increase HYPE!
Maybe a different #tag so that we could pretty much randomize the tweets on the screen or just have them rolling in there (somewhat) automatically, updating every minute or two.

Identifying People

Quote:

A photo system (especially if casually done on a phone) would be very helpful - mugshots.

[center][u][b][size="20"]Feedback[/size][/b][/u][/center]

[center]We've all gotten home, had time to get some distance from European Speedster Assembly and read all the feedback. Here's our take on the event.

For clarity, this post was written by bangerra, Edenal, flicky, Grukk, joka and oasiz. (Notice the alphabetical order!)[/center]

[size="18"][b]General:[/b][/size][hidden]

[size="14"][b]Charity:[/b][/size]
[quote]We know there are attendees, viewers and organisers all with wildly different ideas whether or not the charity aspect should be dropped or not. Having that said, the organisers were  mostly leaning toward dropping it entirely up until the two days after the marathon ended. Everyone who was still around at the time sat down and had a long discussion about everything related to ESA and from that discussion it was clear that the overwhelming majority believed the charity aspect should be kept and we see no reason to go against that, even when we're not bringing in as much money to the charity as the *GDQ's, it's still a substantial amount and still one of the bigger charity events within the speedrunning community.

On top of that, the Swedish branch reached out to us, much thanks to Drew (romscout) and Charlie of the American MSF organisation. They've expressed a wish get involved with us which is something that we've lacked and it will make our work in the future easier in that aspect.

What's important to remember, is that we will never compromise our vision for ESA in favor for any charity. It's unlikely that a charity would ever interfere in this way, but it's a decision we'd like to stick to. Even if this event isn't as focused on charity as other events (be they gaming marathons or otherwise), we understand the draw that a charity has and the good that can be done with the money we're making. Yes it's worth the effort for all parties involved.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Introduce alternative ways to make your voice heard with donation incentives.[/b][/size]
[quote]Due to upcoming plans for the yellow stream (more on that later) we're looking into alternative ways for viewers to have an impact on the stream other than with their wallet. We will try out some of the following:

Online polls
   - Instead of having a bidwar for character name, we might select 5 different candidates ourselves and run a Strawpoll.
Twitter re-tweets 
   - Instead of having a target bid for example [Beat this boss] we can ask our viewers to re-tweet a certain tweet. If X-amount of re-tweets are met, the runner will carry out the challenge. 
Facebook shares
   - Same as Twitter.

Not only will this generate attention for the challenge being met (more people know) but it also allows more people to get involved. Lot's of places run similar twitter contests with great success. This would be the next logical step.
[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Wi-Fi:[/b][/size]
[quote]Blame Edenal… Yes, we know we screwed up there. We did realise the impact of not having full wi-fi coverage. We had much less interaction on social media than we should and could have had. Having that said we are going to try to improve this aspect in two ways:
1) The House of Culture has integrated wi-fi. You will need to register, possibly with your email and phone number. 
2) Make room in the budget for several routers for next year.

We can possibly reach out to Dreamhack, they might have several access point we might be able to rent/borrow. Or attendees themselves can be asked to bring routers. we will be prioritising this in the tech setup.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Venue events that newer people can get in on to get them involved quickly:[/b][/size]
[quote]This might seem super silly, but for someone who doesn't know anyone yet it could help to ease them in to the event. We're thinking of organising quick events with the purpose of getting to know other people. Here's examples of what that could be:

Simple Team Speedrunning Event
Skövde Treasure Hunt
Drinking Game Variants 
[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Guide to Skövde and the surrounding area:[/b][/size]
[quote]With the majority of the attendees coming from abroad, a paper guide with the most important and useful information would be handy. During the first couple of days there were tours being given through Skövde by persons who had been there before showing the supermarket, where you could eat and other important stuff. But those who arrived later didn't have a chance to participate in that and felt lost. With a paper guide we hope to improve on that in the future.

The flyer could include:
 - A map!
 - Important locations including: Main venue, train station, mass housing.
 - Restaurants with corruption deals and cute waiters/waitresses (MAX Burgers)
 - Supermarkets with opening hours
 - Rules of the event
 - Attractions worth visiting like the lake.

Have them printed on site, but also available for printing at home or download as PDF to your phone.
 
- A full welcome pack could be produced with a small increase in event fee - local plan, guide to the venue - wristband/lanyard. [/quote]

[size="14"][b]Printers:[/b][/size]
[quote]Unfortunately we did not have direct access to a printer. Crippe printed a huge amount of pages at home, but it's not fair to him to put that responsibility on him. For ESA2015, we will make room in the budget to purchase a printer, not only for printing boarding passes, train tickets and schedules. Also, maybe a couple of FLAGS!!![/quote]

[size="14"][b]Deposit fee:[/b][/size]
[quote]The game & schedule group had several major headaches with runners dropping out and even runners not showing up. Next year we will collect a deposit fee from everyone who signs up a game very close to the final cuts document being published.

The deposit will not impact the final price for the event. But hopefully reduce the amount of non-serious submissions and eventual drop-outs. The deposit will be between 10-15€.

Once again, the in venue feedback was very much in favour of this idea.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Alcohol:[/b][/size]
[quote]Apart from an incident or two during the final evening, management of alcohol was fine. Drinking will still not be allowed inside any of the venues, there are people who do not drink or are under aged, that needs to be respected. On top of that, it makes it easier for us to manage the event and everything as we go.
We will however allow some storage of alcohol indoors in a specified area, but outside of that, we don't want to know, see or hear about it inside the venue.
[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Rubbish[/b][/size]
[quote]The heat combines with trash left unattended for an extensive period of time was a bad idea. Large rubbish bins with lids, regularly emptied into outside area would have helped.
This is going to be different next year when we're moving to another venue, but emptying bins on a regular and scheduled basis will still be needed.
[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Viewing for Attendees[/b][/size]
[quote]Thanks to the projector at the blue stream there was never any issues with watching the runs. However the yellow stream did not have that luxury. The wall mounted HDTV could have been used in a larger extent, but instead the projector in the kitchen area was used. While dozens of people were watching the run, the chairs in the room were empty.

In the House of Culture there are projectors and screens available on the two locations where we're planning to have the stream. (Both in Freja + Valhall.)[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Badges / Bracelets:[/b][/size]
[quote]Bracelets are not going away, they are here to stay. Several attendees did not put them on correctly, they should be tight, but not too tight. Not hanging loose. Why are bracelets not going away? Because we need an easy and reliable way of confirming that attendees have payed and have signed up. A badge can be taken off and left somewhere else, bracelets can’t. However, we will get custom made fabric bracelets for next year. They are more comfortable and simply cooler!

Badges might make a return and might be optional. One reason why we didn't have badges this year was that during ESA2013, we made them by hand. Which was fine for 70 attendees. But 220+ was simply out of the question.

A lot of attendees were in favour of lanyards and we will try to get them, we just need to find ways to produce them.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Communal food:[/b][/size]
[quote]Great addition. We're probably going to push this next year as a draw to the event.[/quote]
[/hidden]

[size="16"][b]Venues and locations[/b][/size]
[hidden]

[size="14"][b]Nyeport venue:[/b][/size]
[quote]For those who don’t know, this is a youth centre that is empty during the summer.

With 200+ people in a venue that size. (Think of it like having 12 friends over in your 3-room-apartment) It certainly got full at times, with everything that comes from that. The kitchen area filled up with empty bottles and trash faster than expected.

Several things were broken, which no one owned up to. Replacing broken stuff will unfortunately come straight out of our this years and possibly next years budget. Increasing the price for the event.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Mass housing (House of Culture):[/b][/size]
[quote]Apart from the confusion about air mattresses, that worked out just fine. It was dark and quiet.

Nothing we could do about the wedding being scheduled in the middle of the event though. Which impacted our ability to use the showers. Don’t worry, this will be fixed for next year.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Gender separation for mass housing:[/b][/size]
[quote]We're thinking that we should have a female only mass-housing area if space and demand is there. After talking with some of the females attendees, all but two stayed in the hotel and I know that sleeping in a mixed-gender area is something that can put people off. In hindsight, this is probably something we should have implemented before. This would mean one area of girls only and another area of anybody.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Future:[/b][/size]
[quote]We've outgrown Nyeport for sure. The heatwave hit us hard. 
Next year the event will return to the House of Culture. With the equivalent of the blue stream being located on the stage in Freja and the yellow stream being in Valhall.

It’s bigger, it’s got air conditioning. There are plenty of fridges - but that still doesn't mean you should leave that quarter slice of pizza that you are never going to finish there! 
Valhall does have natural light coming through from the ceiling, but Freja doesn't. We're either going to use the stage lights or borrow the RGB lights from Nyeport to try to compensate.

After speaking with the hotel, they were very happy to have us as quests and we are most likely welcome back for ESA2015. If we keep on growing in this rate, there's might be something we can do to reduce the cost even more.

Mass housing is being looked at, we make no promises yet but at the same time we know it's a very important part to keep the total cost for the event down. It's one of our top priorities. Over 2/3rd of the ESA attendees stayed in Mass Housing this year.[/quote]
[/hidden]

[size="16"][b]Overlays:[/b][/size]
[hidden]

[size="14"][b]Logos:[/b][/size]
[quote]There's a reason why the DWB/MSF logo was not present. It was hard coded into the earlier drafts of the layouts but, Edenal had it removed. The “sponsor” logos we did have were sponsors that actually assisted us in some way. Next year, the logo of the charity we're collecting money for will be featured, no questions asked.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Race overlays:[/b][/size]
[quote]The race overlays could have been saved with minor tweaks. Unfortunately with premade overlays that was nothing we could do on site but rest assured we've heard the feedback and will adjust in the future. The color coding might have been confusing, but it’s not something that’s going away. We’re certain that it’s going to become standard in the future of marathons and we don’t want to have text indicators or arrows showing which player is playing at a certain viewport. Having some kind of line subtly linking the text boxes and game viewport is something we’re discussing.

The idea with the colors was that they were supposed to sync with the ESA-logotype. We might change that to simply bright R - G - B for 3-player. And add a fourth color that’s a included in CMYK. Or simply black/white. We'll see![/quote]

[size="14"][b]Stretched games:[/b][/size]
[quote]We dropped the ball on the DS-overlays and totally forgot that GBA games are not 4:3. We won’t do that again. That's also one of the limitations of XSplit that we're limited to 12 scenes.

As for stretched 16:9 into 4:3. *cough* Half-Life 2 race. That’s simply because it was going to be a 2-player race but turned into a 4-player race just hour before the run. Similarly, Left 4 Dead 4-Player co-op was also added on site.
We had no 16:9 layout for 4-player races and did the best we could. We stand by that decision.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Bingo:[/b][/size]
[quote]For viewers, it became confusing at times not having the “bingo sheet” visible at all times. They expected speedruns and got something else. For bingos we might have to narrate them more like e-sports in order to keep all viewers informed, especially those who are familiar with speedrunning but not with the game itself.

At minimum future bingos will have a dedicated layout with the bingo sheet showing at all times as well as a dedicated commentator.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]LiveSplit:[/b][/size]
[quote]Every ESA there's a debate how to handle splits for races. In the future we want to implement a solution where the runners themselves push a button to start their timer and push it again to end them. This could be accomplished without any additional development to LiveSplit but would require some tinkering from our part. (Simply run several instances).

However, we're reaching out to CryZe, the developer of LiveSplit who have been very supportive of the event. Maybe we're going to be able to create a new standard for how splits could be done for marathon races! 
[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Possible to have goal splits for runs too?[/b] [/size]
[quote]If we’re going for a 10 minute goal time, we could have, reach X by this time and so on to build hype? This would require more additional effort from the runner, planning their route and risk management much more carefully, but we believe it could be something! We might experiment with this technique during Dreamhack Winter 2014.[/quote]
[/hidden]

[size="16"][b]Setup and tech:[/b][/size]
[hidden]

[size="14"][b]Tech crew (being a part of it as written by Edenal):[/b][/size]
[quote]This might seem harsh, but for you to be successful within the tech crew, you need to be forward, be around and most of all, be persistent; without anyone having to ask you. We can do a better job of teaching everyone how it works in theory, but the rest has to come from you. There are knowledgeable people around who you can ask anytime if there is something new you fully cannot understand. But we are never going to grab you tell you what to do. The interest has to come from you!

Several guys and gals stood out and contributed immensely to the success of ESA. We're very happy with that! You should be proud of yourselves!

Rest assured, however, that we will be making changes to how we teach and organise the tech crews and will also be expanding our "official" tech crew to give more options. We'll focusing the tech position and making it easier and safer than before.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]PC games (bad framerates):[/b][/size]
[quote]The issue with bad framerates was not due to the underpowered PC’s. But rather due to the second output on the GFX card using Intel’s internal circuit.

The idea was to use HDMI / VGA splitters, but at times they were not used. This issue seems to be isolated to the yellow stream.

The splitters that we used on Blue stream would start giving up completely just randomly. For example, during SWAT, shrimp’s PC's splitter just decided to die -> display gone -> game crash. 
This also introduced the issue of the splitters auto detecting the plugged PC in to 1080p24/30 instead of 60. Let’s never use these splitters again![/quote]

[size="14"][b]PC games (wrong resolution):[/b][/size]
[quote]Capture card bugged out in here as well, it was capturing at 1280x768, weird output modes are generally solved by using scalers.
Some laptops refuse to output anything else than the native resolution when mirrored, resorting to GPU based scaling with lower resolutions.
This is why we should dedicate DH / etc.. PCs for gaming
It is a HUGE challenge to get all pre-install stuff in there though[/quote]

[size="14"][b]ESA will provide consoles:[/b][/size]
[quote]Will be provided by the organizers for ESA2015.
At least 2x of the following:
NES NTSC
SNES NTSC
Genesis NTSC
Nintendo 64 NTSC
Playstation 2 NTSC

If you have an old (fully working console) that you'd like to donate to us, please contact us at info@europeanspeedsterassembly.com

This does not mean you shouldn't bring your own console either![/quote]

[size="14"][b]TVs:[/b][/size]
[quote]Label NTSC-TVs - This was something we meant to do before ESA started, but never got around to doing.

Remote controls - Tie them to the TVs. Several times the remotes went missing, especially the universal ones.

During the final days, another 2 NTSC televisions were acquired. At least 2 more on top of that will be brought by Edenal for next year, possibly even more. We have also been in contact with a local second hand store which will help us get more NTSC compatible CTRs for next year. Additionally Jinny has access to an obscene amount of NTSC TVs in Gothenburg that he may be able to share with us.

If the budget allows, we will look into buying 4x B&O MX4000’s or 4x Sony PVM’s. That would be the dream!

We will also be sourcing more HD TVs and/or monitors for those playing HD games.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]RTMP:[/b][/size]
[quote]The use of RTMP worked great for PC gaming and the interview studio. We will keep using this. But having the RTMP-server behind the municipalities firewall meant that we cannot broadcast video outside without resorting to really ugly hacks, this is unless someone does a node on the outside network.
During pirate stream I (Oasiz) relayed webcam through my home server.

We'd like to setup at least one RTMP outside on the House of Culture. Prehaps 2.[/quote]
[/hidden]

[size="16"][b]Stream / Chat / IRC:[/b][/size]
[hidden]
[size="14"][b]Commentary:[/b][/size]
[quote]Several runners had issues with keeping up the hype and providing commentary for their runs. Some even thought it was weird that they had to do it all themselves. Previously runners have been very vocal about wanting to do all the commentary themselves in “their” time slot.

We believe that point has passed. In the future, there are going to be looking for dedicated commentators for at least every race / co-op run. Runners may still be miced up to be able to answer questions from the dedicated commentators and to be able to show emotions when something goes very right or very wrong.

As for 1-player runs, we would like the runner themselves to act as the expert commentator, providing technical insight of glitches and tricks while having 2 commentators that are very talkative to discuss other topics still relevant to the run. One of the commentators can double as host. They should however both be off camera. For example:

- History of the game
   Records
   Runners
   “Stories” (several runners competing for the best time)
   Categories
   Similar games
   #ESAFacts
   #CroatianFacts
- Do roll calls
- Donations
- Tweets
- Chat interaction

This method will likely be tested during Dreamhack Winter 2014 / Summer 2015 and will be reviewed afterwards.

We will be taking a bigger interest ourselves (as organisers) in making sure commentary has been planned out and set up properly. It might be difficult for us to make sure commentary is good, but it's a point we have to strive for. Everyone knows that commentary can make or break a run (see countless examples of great commentary at *GDQs)[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Over Estimate Runs:[/b][/size]
[quote]While we believe that going over estimate live is worse than any punishment we can dish out, we will be working more carefully to ensure all estimates are accurate and that runners are up to standard.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Roll call:[/b][/size]
[quote]Do it more often. It’s an important part of interacting with the viewers. At time like these we could use the shotgun mic.
For couch roll call the slider app can be used. For the whole room, not so much.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Music:[/b][/size]
[quote]The music helped fill the dead air. But was used too sparingly, having a better setup for playing music from day 1 will help solve this issue. The plan is to play music during setup with the room mic also capturing audio.

Ontwoplanks and AMVX have both sketched on audio setups for future events.

When using music, we will put it on the room speakers too. Fighting tournaments and other Esports event does this all the time, there's no reason why we should not be able to make it work

*Note* The PC that was used for Skype calls and playing music was one of the Dreamhack PC’s, which were not received until after the marathon had started. 
[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Empty chairs:[/b][/size]
[quote]During ESA2015 we’re moving to a new location for the streams. 
The blue stream is not 100% decided yet, but it’s likely that it will be hosted on the stage in the hall named Freja. With seats on the scene for ~30 people. The room is quite big, but will be divided by movable walls. The second half of the room can be used for something else. Possibly having the more serious practice in there? Valhall might get pretty noisy.

In case of PC stuff, could also have those in there for RTMPing so that not everyone at Valhall has to shut up during a run.

The yellow stream will be located on the stage in the hall named Valhall. The practice / casual gaming area will be located on the floor below the stage, this area should never be completely empty.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Briefing runners/commentators once a day:[/b][/size]
[quote]We had issues that runners / attendees did not fully understand the procedures for changing games and lacked experience in handling equipment. Even though the setup for the blue stream was made in such a way that there was only 1 power socket and 1 socket for inputting the SD/HD console some were still confused. Oddly, when quized after the event, everyone said the setup was simple and they had no trouble. Expensive equipment were broken by someone leaving them in the couch and the next person sitting on them.

For next year, there will be a periodic briefing where EVERY runner/commentator that has a run coming up within the next X hours has mandatory presence. This might seem a bit harsh, but given a 15 minute briefing will save us all hours. We did a big speech to a lot of people at the start of the marathon, but we're going to be more active in making sure this is understood by all and not missed.

This briefing will include:
Write down your phone number so the producer can call you if you are MIA.
When to show up for the run. (30 minutes before, and stand with console in hand)
How to handle microphones before, during and after the run.
How to wrap up your run after “TIME!”. (kitchen timer)
How to fill out the form for the tech crew to make sure the text in the overlay is correct. - This should be already done for the most part during submission[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Before a run:[/b][/size]
[quote]Cheat sheet about what to do.

Runners should be asked to fill out a form including, twitch/hitbox name, requests for who’s going to be sitting on the couch, estimate. (We should already have this information, but a final QA-check won't hurt)

Closing words from the runner from the runner after his/her run:
Is this something that you want to after your run? Could this help “wrapping” up the run?

If going for extra things, must be confirmed with one of the organisers. If we're behind schedule, no way.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Kitchen Timer[/b][/size]
[quote]Great way to reduce “loading times” between games.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Hype Increasing:[/b][/size]
[quote]Complaints about low excitement and hype are subjective, but still something to consider. Flags added to runner names and particularly things such as this being emphasised during races is a fantastic draw to all. This is also might encourage people to band together slightly more without forming cliques.

We're going to focus on commentary (as mentioned earlier). We could and should utilize the Skype-setup we had a lot more. It made Goof Troop + Chip n Dale much much more interesting.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Additional Content Ideas[/b][/size]
[quote]This is early, but writing them here for the sake of it: Backseat running, teaching speedrunning segments. We'll have more backstage content including venue tours, interviews and so on.

The positive feedback outweighed the negative. In future these segments will be given as much focus with regards to setup as the games.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Phone/Laptop warriors:[/b][/size]
[quote]We will have a dedicated screen showing chat if required. You can have someone there to read it for you if you want that. We're happy to do the Q&A thing, but regardless of your intention, being on a laptop doesn't look great and being on a phone looks even worse.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Chat moderation:[/b][/size]
[quote]It was overall very good. Some complaints have been made about a certain moderator. We've not read the entire chat log but any potential fault of his really fall on us for not providing better directives. He's certainly going to keep moderating if he chooses too. We will recruit a bigger team of moderators on the outside. [/quote]

[size="14"][b]Tech should be tech only:[/b][/size]
[quote]Much of the overworked tech crew came from their responsibility being unclear and frankly too big in scope. We are going to limit the responsibility of the tech crew to making sure the video from the console / PC shows up at the capture PC. Editing layouts, changing game titles, checking audio levels will be the responsibility of a "stream manager" or something similar such as one of the donation people.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Tournaments:[/b][/size]
[quote]We had several tournaments going on, we should have more of them on the yellow stream![/quote]
[/hidden]

[size="16"][b]Online / Website / Twitter / Schedule:[/b][/size]
[hidden]
[size="14"][b]Website:[/b][/size]
[quote]We'll get the website up much earlier. We will not  underestimate the amount hype the site can generate again.
Pictures of attendees, bios, games. Searchable. (Like ESA2013)

This: 
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/391044-event-awesome-games-done-quick-2013

- We will continue to work with Pac and improve the website. There’s already a steady list of improvements, ranging from general updates to social media interaction and the ability to auto follow runners and get updates when certain runs are about to start.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Schedule during the event:[/b][/size]
[quote]This was one of the places we messed up the most. We will be making sure we have a working system for next year. We will also be trying to implement some improvements:

-Keep original schedule and have an updated schedule available at the same time so that viewers know what times we're aiming for.
-Possible addition of "goal times" with setup buffers rather than estimates to make things more interesting.

We will also plan out some "filler" content if we do get far ahead so as to alleviate long waiting periods of nothing.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Schedule Setup[/b][/size]
[quote]Marking runs (as they come in) with a block they fit will save a lot of time and effort in the long run.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Twitter:[/b][/size]
[quote]Under-utilized. Having a team off-site running this account would help to increase HYPE!
Maybe a different #tag so that we could pretty much randomize the tweets on the screen or just have them rolling in there (somewhat) automatically, updating every minute or two.[/quote]

[size="14"][b]Identifying People[/b][/size]
[quote]A photo system (especially if casually done on a phone) would be very helpful - mugshots.[/quote]
[/hidden]

RoboSparkle

2014-08-15 11:44:51 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

I for one am very hype about ESA 2015. Can I submit my 20 game ideas now? Tongue

Cereth

2014-08-15 03:14:47 pm

It's probably best to not strictly use colour co-ordination for co-op/races, you'll probably irritate colourblind people.
Also be prepared to have hitbox icons replace twitch icons for the runners. This year had the twitch logo as part of the overlay iirc, I'm sure there'll be at least 1 hitbox user next year.

Quote:

- History of the game
Records
Runners
“Stories” (several runners competing for the best time)
Categories
Similar games
#ESAFacts
#CroatianFacts
- Do roll calls
- Donations
- Tweets
- Chat interaction

It might be a good idea to have something similar to this next to the TV or something, as like a cheatsheet for the runner or a commentator if they can't think of anything to talk about.

There was no mention of different chairs in general. Does different venue mean different chairs?

Edenal

Edit history:

Edenal: 2014-08-15 05:46:53 pm

Edenal: 2014-08-15 05:46:01 pm

2014-08-15 04:01:12 pm

Hockey enthusiast

Quote from Cereth:

There was no mention of different chairs in general. Does different venue mean different chairs?

There's unfortunately nothing we can do about the chairs without increasing the attendance fee and renting chairs from a third party. ~~After some research it look like that would adding 5-10€ to the attendance fee. (10~ days, 1.2€ per chair and day, with heavy discount for the long rental time)~~

Edit: Late night math... Let's do that again.
Let's say 50 chairs, 10 days.
Add delivery/transport/assembly. Safe estimate would be 1.5€ a day / chair. 50*10*1.5€ = 750€
I took some liberties with the pricing, but their listing price is ~4€ / chair / day, without transport.

Phhilu

2014-08-16 07:04:49 am

Enthusiastic watcher

Quote from ESA:

Nyeport venue:
Several things were broken, which no one owned up to. Replacing broken stuff will unfortunately come straight out of our this years and possibly next years budget. Increasing the price for the event.

I remember being the reason behind a broken plate (or maybe it was two?) as I was taking them out of the dishwasher. If there's a way for me to pay for that I'm more than willing too.

Harima

2014-08-18 10:25:19 am

Literally speaking... literally...

What I still miss in this feedback thread is that donations are still being done in Dollars despite ESA being a european marathon. Why not ask the SDA stuff about maybe a change to the tracker that € is supported in donations?

I feel this could support the feeling of it truely being a european event.

j4sp3rr

2014-08-18 01:08:02 pm

Quote from Harima:

What I still miss in this feedback thread is that donations are still being done in Dollars despite ESA being a european marathon. Why not ask the SDA stuff about maybe a change to the tracker that € is supported in donations?

I feel this could support the feeling of it truely being a european event.

If you checked the donations you'd see they are going directly to MSF - USA, their bank is obviously american, therefor it is easier to work with dollars, because the conversion happens on paypals end, not on the ESA/donation tracker end. also for them to recieve dollars is obviously much easier

presjpolk

2014-08-18 01:32:36 pm

HELLO!

Quote from Harima:

What I still miss in this feedback thread is that donations are still being done in Dollars despite ESA being a european marathon. Why not ask the SDA stuff about maybe a change to the tracker that € is supported in donations?

I feel this could support the feeling of it truely being a european event.

Besides, the event's in Sweden. You'd prefer SEK over USD?

Chrono_Rider

2014-08-18 06:17:17 pm

This was a really enjoyable event.

You guys should keep this as a charity marathon, there is no reason not to.

Driscollad

2014-08-20 12:22:17 pm

Edenal:

Thanks for the detailed reply. It shows solid dedication to improving ESA beyond expectations for 2015, and that attendees can be confident in leadership moving forward. Great job, here's to 2015...

Therio

2014-08-22 06:01:00 pm

That's a pity.

Quote:

We had several tournaments going on, we should have more of them on the yellow stream!

A lot of these were set up on the fly. Windjammers and Shaq Fu, for example, were basically decided on a whim a short time before the tournament actually started. Doing those tournaments on stream would be cool, but the way they popped up was very spontaneous which conflicted with the set schedule for the yellow stream.

Alko

2014-08-31 05:50:45 pm

Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^

Yes, it has been almost an entire month until I finally decided to look into this thread … the sheer number of posts was too intimidating, and my schedule too full ^^' I'm going to mention some stuff that I either think was missed or wasn't posted clearly enough. I'll mostly not repeat stuff that's already been said Wink

Stuff that I entirely take the blame for:
Everything related to the good and bad of donation station. Specifically, I was not bold enough in asking people whether they wanted to take over a shift for the first few days. I started being a lot more demanding after the yellow stream had gone live, and it seemed to work out (i.e. there was always someone on host when I checked).
Hosts being too loud compared with other miced people in the room: I know at least one person who almost kissed the blue stream's host mic while talking, when a good distance would have been a foot away. I obviously slacked in telling people how to handle it.
Donation cheat sheets were late, although I'm only going to take half the blame for that this year :p If it happens again next year, I'll take 1.5 blames though, so that will make it fair.
Prizes: I, as the head of donations, hardly had any idea of which prizes we had (I read the thread on SDA, but there were about five times as many prizes entered into the tracker as I saw when I first opened the prize page). I'm pretty sure that I'll take a larger responsibility around organising the prizes before the event. As a second, I'm also taking the entire blame for not drawing prizes during or shortly after the event, and also for not keeping a prize-drawing friendly environment in the tracker

Specifically, the tracker needs to know when game start and end times were, and nobody adjusted them to fit the actual times. GDQs do that by having a spreadsheet which implicitly contains the amount of delay. Schedule people, tech people and donation people should get together way ahead of next year to thrash out how we want that thing done. It's as easy as one person opening two game entries in the tracker, clicking two different 'now' buttons and saving twice Wink

I'm thankful to Efreeti for being the blame-him mod at the beginning of ESA, so that when I entered serious modding business, they already knew who to moan about 8D. More seriously, though; I'm pretty sure I was probably the second harshest mod after him, so I'll take part of the mod-bashing as well.
If I made 'please donate, cuz I'm bored here' comments in the chat (and I know I did), they were meant to be jokingly. If anybody took them seriously, or felt in any other way offended, I wish to beg your pardon Sad

Concerning dead air during setup times: When I was a host, I tried talking through the entirety of setup times … which got really hard once they exceeded a threshhold (there's only so much event, charity, upcoming runs, restreams, second streams, upcoming unmet incentives and prizes I can plug). So just to reiterate what I find very important: Setup times need to get a lot shorter than they were this year—I think we all realised the problem now. If the host did not talk during setup times, then that's something I probably should have briefed them more about. I thought I mentioned that every time I briefed people … I'll also be doing some of the briefing differently next year, most notably in advance so again, I hope I can cover that part. I think, if setup times can be reasonably reduced, we won't need music or anything else to fill silence times between runs. (However, it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan, especially in case we're running ahead.)

Stuff I don't want to take the (entire?) blame for:
The concept of on-site chat moderators and all the ideas behind it was great, but no-one felt responsible for it. But I think the PC screen is the better idea for relaying chat questions to the runner. As you said it needs more moderators and clear directives for what to enforce and what to let slide.
We had a clear 'no food or uncapped drinks' rule for the blue room (the practice room, not the blue stream room). It was broken from day one to the final day. People were so unconcerned about breaking that rule, they even left their glasses with liquids in them on the tables. It's a good thing we probably won't be using that room for something as important again. I'm thinking some kind of a 'police volunteer' force might be good: A group of volunteers explicitly allowed (and required) to take away people's drinks and food out of forbidden areas. I'm surprised nobody left that feedback here :p
We didn't have a dedicated laptop for the yellow stream's donation station, and we didn't have enough laptop power for the blue one. Next year, I'll ask for people's laptops explicitly in the equipment thread. Also, there seems to be a common desire for (a) mice and (b) a properly labelled keyboard (can't you blind-type? :p) on donation laptops, so maybe we can also cover them?
This is going to be kind of moot, since we won't be using Nyeport as excessively next year, but the amount of times I wandered onto a random public PC in there, and found both streams open, the system and internet staggering to keep them running plus the other two tabs was amazing. Please close streams when you leave the PC, or at least pause them. I especially saw no need to have the yellow stream running, as there was a projector right on the wall of that room …

Random notes:
Most so-called colour-blind are in fact only red-green blind. So if care is taken, to either not use both red and green, or to have one of the two colours being quite light while the other is pretty dark, colour-blind people should have no problem with the race overlays.
Yay for fabric bracelets =D Gives ESA all the more of a festival feel =D
Defining 'gender' separation as having one area females only and one mixed is (borderline?) sexist =O Having a females only, a males only and a mixed area is the better idea imho.
I definitely approve of the idea of a 'stream manager' to do stuff like change the game thumbsup

If we're working with MSF Sweden next year, chances are donations will actually be in SEK? =D The tracker can work with probably any currency afaik; at least it has the explicit options of USD and CAD.

Yes, it has been almost an entire month until I finally decided to look into this thread … the sheer number of posts was too intimidating, and my schedule too full ^^' I'm going to mention some stuff that I either think was missed or wasn't posted clearly enough. I'll mostly not repeat stuff that's already been said ;)

Stuff that I entirely take the blame for:
Everything related to the good and bad of donation station. Specifically, I was not bold enough in asking people whether they wanted to take over a shift for the first few days. I started being a lot more demanding after the yellow stream had gone live, and it seemed to work out (i.e. there was always someone on host when I checked).
Hosts being too loud compared with other miced people in the room: I know at least one person who almost kissed the blue stream's host mic while talking, when a good distance would have been a foot away. I obviously slacked in telling people how to handle it.
Donation cheat sheets were late, although I'm only going to take half the blame for that this year :p If it happens again next year, I'll take 1.5 blames though, so that will make it fair.
Prizes: I, as the head of donations, hardly had any idea of which prizes we had (I read the thread on SDA, but there were about five times as many prizes entered into the tracker as I saw when I first opened the prize page). I'm pretty sure that I'll take a larger responsibility around organising the prizes before the event. As a second, I'm also taking the entire blame for not drawing prizes during or shortly after the event, and also for not keeping a prize-drawing friendly environment in the tracker
[spoiler]Specifically, the tracker needs to know when game start and end times were, and nobody adjusted them to fit the actual times. GDQs do that by having a spreadsheet which implicitly contains the amount of delay. Schedule people, tech people and donation people should get together way ahead of next year to thrash out how we want that thing done. It's as easy as one person opening two game entries in the tracker, clicking two different 'now' buttons and saving twice ;) [/spoiler]
I'm thankful to Efreeti for being the blame-him mod at the beginning of ESA, so that when I entered serious modding business, they already knew who to moan about 8D. More seriously, though; I'm pretty sure I was probably the second harshest mod after him, so I'll take part of the mod-bashing as well.
If I made 'please donate, cuz I'm bored here' comments in the chat (and I know I did), they were meant to be jokingly. If anybody took them seriously, or felt in any other way offended, I wish to beg your pardon :(

Concerning dead air during setup times: When I was a host, I tried talking through the entirety of setup times … which got really hard once they exceeded a threshhold (there's only so much event, charity, upcoming runs, restreams, second streams, upcoming unmet incentives and prizes I can plug). So just to reiterate what I find very important: [b]Setup times need to get [i]a lot[/i] shorter than they were this year[/b]—I think we all realised the problem now. If the host did not talk during setup times, then that's something I probably should have briefed them more about. I thought I mentioned that every time I briefed people … I'll also be doing some of the briefing differently next year, most notably [i]in advance[/i] so again, I hope I can cover that part. I think, if setup times can be reasonably reduced, we won't need music or anything else to fill silence times between runs. (However, it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan, especially in case we're running ahead.)

Stuff I don't want to take the (entire?) blame for:
The concept of on-site chat moderators and all the ideas behind it was great, but no-one felt responsible for it. But I think the PC screen is the better idea for relaying chat questions to the runner. As you said it needs more moderators and clear directives for what to enforce and what to let slide.
We had a clear 'no food or uncapped drinks' rule for the blue room (the practice room, not the blue [i]stream[/i] room). It was broken from day one to the final day. People were so unconcerned about breaking that rule, they even left their glasses with liquids in them on the tables. It's a good thing we probably won't be using that room for something as important again. I'm thinking some kind of a 'police volunteer' force might be good: A group of volunteers explicitly allowed (and required) to take away people's drinks and food out of forbidden areas. I'm surprised nobody left [i]that[/i] feedback here :p
We didn't have a dedicated laptop for the yellow stream's donation station, and we didn't have enough laptop power for the blue one. Next year, I'll ask for people's laptops explicitly in the equipment thread. Also, there seems to be a common desire for (a) mice and (b) a properly labelled keyboard (can't you blind-type? :p) on donation laptops, so maybe we can also cover them?
This is going to be kind of moot, since we won't be using Nyeport as excessively next year, but the amount of times I wandered onto a random public PC in there, and found both streams open, the system and internet staggering to keep them running plus the other two tabs was amazing. [i]Please[/i] close streams when you leave the PC, or at least pause them. I especially saw no need to have the yellow stream running, as there was a projector right on the wall of that room …

Random notes:
Most so-called colour-blind are in fact only red-green blind. So if care is taken, to either not use both red and green, or to have one of the two colours being quite light while the other is pretty dark, colour-blind people should have no problem with the race overlays.
Yay for fabric bracelets =D Gives ESA all the more of a festival feel =D
Defining 'gender' separation as having one area females only and one mixed is (borderline?) sexist =O Having a females only, a males only and a mixed area is the better idea imho.
I definitely approve of the idea of a 'stream manager' to do stuff like change the game :thumbsup:
If we're working with MSF Sweden next year, chances are donations will actually be in SEK? =D The tracker can work with probably any currency afaik; at least it has the explicit options of USD and CAD.

curseddolls

2014-08-31 10:48:23 pm

"Defining 'gender' separation as having one area females only and one mixed is (borderline?) sexist =O Having a females only, a males only and a mixed area is the better idea imho."

I really don't understand who complained about this part in the first place.
The only girls who was at the event was me, kitty, suzy, tingles and her at tech support (sorry never asked for her name :X)

So far I know only me and tingle slept at the mass housing. So we are going to have one room for two girls next time?
If a girl feel it wrong to sleep with a bunch of other nerdy guys then sure have a room for those people.
But don't force it. I in other hand have nothing against sleeping in the mass housing and I certainly don't care if I sleep in
the same room as gazillions of other guys. It's just a room for sleeping, most of the time we are there for the event not
to be in the bed.

That's just what I think anyway..

j4sp3rr

2014-09-01 08:20:14 am

Quote from Alko:

We didn't have a dedicated laptop for the yellow stream's donation station, and we didn't have enough laptop power for the blue one. Next year, I'll ask for people's laptops explicitly in the equipment thread. Also, there seems to be a common desire for (a) mice and (b) a properly labelled keyboard (can't you blind-type? :p) on donation laptops, so maybe we can also cover them?

if i can find the room for them i'll try and bring:
2-3 keyboards
3-4 mice
1-2 laptops
i also have 2 mousepads now(i'm really anal about hating my mice being used without a proper surface(they last way longer with them :P) one is really massive though, so that would probably be best for the gaming pc area

Efreeti

2014-09-01 10:16:13 am

Clear as a crisp spring morning!

Quote from Alko:

I'm thankful to Efreeti for being the blame-him mod at the beginning of ESA, so that when I entered serious modding business, they already knew who to moan about 8D. More seriously, though; I'm pretty sure I was probably the second harshest mod after him, so I'll take part of the mod-bashing as well.

I suspected this. And though I didn't set out to become it, I was okay with the idea of taking blame or being bashed. It's cool. *brofist*
Frankly I think all moderators should be prepared to have to deal with hate. More often than not it's just about chatters having someone to blame. It's not always logical, but twitch chat was never very logical. Tongue

j4sp3rr

2014-09-01 03:25:49 pm

Quote from Efreeti:

Quote from Alko:

I'm thankful to Efreeti for being the blame-him mod at the beginning of ESA, so that when I entered serious modding business, they already knew who to moan about 8D. More seriously, though; I'm pretty sure I was probably the second harshest mod after him, so I'll take part of the mod-bashing as well.

I suspected this. And though I didn't set out to become it, I was okay with the idea of taking blame or being bashed. It's cool. *brofist*
Frankly I think all moderators should be prepared to have to deal with hate. More often than not it's just about chatters having someone to blame. It's not always logical, but twitch chat was never very logical. Tongue

i'm honestly probably in due part of putting that weight on your shoulders, i had my days where i just went "full-nazi"(nothing bad intended) honestly the only thing to resolve this is clear moderation rules, and maybe 1 onsite head moderator to decide on off-cases?

tdawg

Edit history:

tdawg: 2014-09-06 11:51:13 pm

2014-09-06 11:49:31 pm

I was just looking up train tickets for dreamhack speedrun event and I stumbled upon this page on SJ website. Since many of us foreigners arrived on the same day (25th July) plus were taking the same route from stockholm C - Skovde, maybe a group discount with SJ could be arranged for next year?

http://www.sj.se/sj/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=19128&l=en&l=en&intcmp=1171265