Final Fantasy Series Relay Race

MLSTRM

Edit history:

MLSTRM: 2015-08-21 01:26:32 pm

2015-08-21 01:26:18 pm

You can never run enough games

So this has been in planning for a while, but we've nailed down all the details and I'm happy to announce that there will be an FF Series Relay Race on September 4th-7th on the RPGLimitBreak channel!

You can find some more information about the event here: http://bombch.us/BUNE

You can find some promotional banners here if you would like to help us advertise the event on your twitch channel/site http://1drv.ms/1fwkwnw

Thread title:

the_roth

2015-08-25 09:04:24 am

DO THE MEATEO

Wooooo, glad to be a part of it! Should be a ripper of an event.

SevenS1ns

2015-09-07 11:39:50 am

Final Fantasy Speedrunner

H U G E S U C C E S S!

Worn_Traveler

2015-09-07 12:59:14 pm

Formerly known as Skullboy

Great job everyone! That was fun to watch.

MLSTRM

2015-09-07 03:27:46 pm

You can never run enough games

First off, thanks everyone for watching!
I personally think the event went pretty well, but I do have some thoughts on some things, and I would also really like it if other people could give some honest feedback on how it went. This is the second event of this type I've done (The first being the FFXIII Trilogy relay race back in April), and I always like to know where I can improve.

First of all, again, huge thanks to everyone that made this happen. Cereth, RoryExtraLife and Sevens1ns for running tech stuff with me during the event, Puwexil and the rest of the RPGLimitBreak crew for the use of the channel, Oasiz for the use of his RTMP server, and of course all the runners and commentators that helped make this event what it was.

So, some personal review on how I thought things went. Please feel free to give feedback and comments on how you think everything went, and don't be afraid to point out bad things as well as things that went well.

1) Games, Teams, Balancing, Dates
This was the stuff that was setup earliest and so it came to mind first.
Apart from the obvious lack of a longer FF3 category I think we made good calls on each of the games for categories. FF1/2 using PSP was nice not only because the games are a lot easier to follow and friendlier to run, but also staring at NES graphics for that long would have turned off quite a few viewers I think. FF1 PS1 could have worked and was originally going to happen but we ran into scheduling issues with one of the runners. Running No64 and NoSketch for FF4 and FF6 respectively was the better choice in my opinion, partly because I think it made the event more accessible to people to watch, and also because I think those categories make for better races.
Teams and Balancing was an interesting conundrum to work through, since not only did I want the predicted times to be as close as possible, I wanted each game to be relatively close, and I think we did a pretty good job at that. Being less than an hour apart from over 65 hours of speedruns is a pretty good (~1.2% longer for team choco), and seeing as the vast majority of that difference opened up within the first few games, it was overall a pretty good balance imo.
I think the dates chosen were a good decision, with the monday being Labour Day for the US, meaning we kept a pretty large portion of people that would normally have work/school on that day. Didn't work out as well for the europeans, but we can't please everyone Sad

2) Layout and General broadcast quality
OK, so let's get the flaws out of the way first. There were a few disconnects and frame drops, but unfortunately this couldn't really be helped. We used mumble for broadcasting audio, and it seemed to work pretty well, although we had some server issues during the first half or so, and these did eventually stop. Overall audio balance was pretty good, no issues with having the games too loud/quiet for the most part.
The layout automation was all handled using a custom program that I created based on the one I wrote for the FF13 trilogy relay, although this time around it was significantly more sophisticated, handling the changing of backgrounds, and moving of the FF Menu hands around the layout, which indicated the game each team was currently on as well as pointing at the current game in the individual timer list and a couple of other things. It ran pretty well except for a crash that happened during FF7, after which I had to open Visual Studio, write in all of the split times manually and start it running again with the crash fixed (It was something I probably should have caught during testing, but it only occured after 24 hours had passed, which is something I admittedly forgot to check ever). Apart from this small blip the only other issue we had with it was the information shown. Many people have said that it should cycle the information a lot more often and I agree, I wasn't able to make the program automate the information change in time for the event, but its definitely something I'll incorporate when I fix the program up a little in a couple of weeks (I like to have stuff like this kept in a working condition in case I need it again). The general idea we discussed after the event was that it should cycle every 1 or 2 minutes, and I agree with that, as well as a catch built in that if the tab is manually changed it stays there for a while, which would usually be because a split is either coming up or just passed.
As for the aesthetics of the layout I think it generally looked nice, each background wasn't too distracting away from the feeds, and the small colour cues for each team were easy enough to notice without being distracting. Obviously general layout feedback is also appreciated since its a very subjective thing. I already have ideas on how to extend the same style of layout to more teams and different sets of games, which links in nicely to something I'll discuss at the end of this post.

3) The actual event
I think everything ran pretty smoothly. Some people had concerns about the game switch-overs going into the event but I think we handled them well, and all issues were fixed pretty quickly as they popped up. Chat was chat, for the most part it was pretty good but there were a few terrible points, can't really be helped and the mods did a great job. I do have mostly-complete chat logs that I can upload somewhere if people are interested.
Overall the live broadcast was a pretty resounding success, I think more that slightly in part to our exposure on the twitch front page, which gave us a viewership consistently over 4500 after about 4 hours in, peaking up towards 10000, and a 7000 increase in followers on the RPGLimitBreak channel. In fact, if we could get more indepth viewer statistics from the RPGLimitBreak crew it would be pretty interesting to see if the viewership dropped or increased with each game, or if it was more time based. Either way, I think all of us can say it was way more popular than we could have expected, and thats nothing but good for the community as a whole.

4) The future
There were several mentions both in chat and the skype group we had for the relay about a few things regarding similar future events. The first was a relay of the side/sequel games that weren't included this time around, and the second was just a repeat of what we did, possibly with some additions to the lineup, extra teams, or different categories/versions.
I'd actually like to gague interest for both of these ideas before starting to organise anything, but I'd be happy to step up and run something like this again.

Overall, it went a lot better than I honestly expected it to (and I think a lot of people are the same) and I think next time around we could make it even better!

First off, thanks everyone for watching!
I personally think the event went pretty well, but I do have some thoughts on some things, and I would also really like it if other people could give some honest feedback on how it went. This is the second event of this type I've done (The first being the FFXIII Trilogy relay race back in April), and I always like to know where I can improve.

First of all, again, huge thanks to everyone that made this happen. Cereth, RoryExtraLife and Sevens1ns for running tech stuff with me during the event, Puwexil and the rest of the RPGLimitBreak crew for the use of the channel, Oasiz for the use of his RTMP server, and of course all the runners and commentators that helped make this event what it was.

So, some personal review on how I thought things went. Please feel free to give feedback and comments on how you think everything went, and don't be afraid to point out bad things as well as things that went well.

1) Games, Teams, Balancing, Dates
This was the stuff that was setup earliest and so it came to mind first. 
Apart from the obvious lack of a longer FF3 category I think we made good calls on each of the games for categories. FF1/2 using PSP was nice not only because the games are a lot easier to follow and friendlier to run, but also staring at NES graphics for that long would have turned off quite a few viewers I think. FF1 PS1 could have worked and was originally going to happen but we ran into scheduling issues with one of the runners. Running No64 and NoSketch for FF4 and FF6 respectively was the better choice in my opinion, partly because I think it made the event more accessible to people to watch, and also because I think those categories make for better races. 
Teams and Balancing was an interesting conundrum to work through, since not only did I want the predicted times to be as close as possible, I wanted each game to be relatively close, and I think we did a pretty good job at that. Being less than an hour apart from over 65 hours of speedruns is a pretty good (~1.2% longer for team choco), and seeing as the vast majority of that difference opened up within the first few games, it was overall a pretty good balance imo.
I think the dates chosen were a good decision, with the monday being Labour Day for the US, meaning we kept a pretty large portion of people that would normally have work/school on that day. Didn't work out as well for the europeans, but we can't please everyone :(

2) Layout and General broadcast quality
OK, so let's get the flaws out of the way first. There were a few disconnects and frame drops, but unfortunately this couldn't really be helped. We used mumble for broadcasting audio, and it seemed to work pretty well, although we had some server issues during the first half or so, and these did eventually stop. Overall audio balance was pretty good, no issues with having the games too loud/quiet for the most part.
The layout automation was all handled using a custom program that I created based on the one I wrote for the FF13 trilogy relay, although this time around it was significantly more sophisticated, handling the changing of backgrounds, and moving of the FF Menu hands around the layout, which indicated the game each team was currently on as well as pointing at the current game in the individual timer list and a couple of other things. It ran pretty well except for a crash that happened during FF7, after which I had to open Visual Studio, write in all of the split times manually and start it running again with the crash fixed (It was something I probably should have caught during testing, but it only occured after 24 hours had passed, which is something I admittedly forgot to check ever). Apart from this small blip the only other issue we had with it was the information shown. Many people have said that it should cycle the information a lot more often and I agree, I wasn't able to make the program automate the information change in time for the event, but its definitely something I'll incorporate when I fix the program up a little in a couple of weeks (I like to have stuff like this kept in a working condition in case I need it again). The general idea we discussed after the event was that it should cycle every 1 or 2 minutes, and I agree with that, as well as a catch built in that if the tab is manually changed it stays there for a while, which would usually be because a split is either coming up or just passed.
As for the aesthetics of the layout I think it generally looked nice, each background wasn't too distracting away from the feeds, and the small colour cues for each team were easy enough to notice without being distracting. Obviously general layout feedback is also appreciated since its a very subjective thing. I already have ideas on how to extend the same style of layout to more teams and different sets of games, which links in nicely to something I'll discuss at the end of this post.

3) The actual event
I think everything ran pretty smoothly. Some people had concerns about the game switch-overs going into the event but I think we handled them well, and all issues were fixed pretty quickly as they popped up. Chat was chat, for the most part it was pretty good but there were a few terrible points, can't really be helped and the mods did a great job. I do have mostly-complete chat logs that I can upload somewhere if people are interested.
Overall the live broadcast was a pretty resounding success, I think more that slightly in part to our exposure on the twitch front page, which gave us a viewership consistently over 4500 after about 4 hours in, peaking up towards 10000, and a 7000 increase in followers on the RPGLimitBreak channel. In fact, if we could get more indepth viewer statistics from the RPGLimitBreak crew it would be pretty interesting to see if the viewership dropped or increased with each game, or if it was more time based. Either way, I think all of us can say it was way more popular than we could have expected, and thats nothing but good for the community as a whole.

4) The future
There were several mentions both in chat and the skype group we had for the relay about a few things regarding similar future events. The first was a relay of the side/sequel games that weren't included this time around, and the second was just a repeat of what we did, possibly with some additions to the lineup, extra teams, or different categories/versions. 
I'd actually like to gague interest for both of these ideas before starting to organise anything, but I'd be happy to step up and run something like this again.

Overall, it went a lot better than I honestly expected it to (and I think a lot of people are the same) and I think next time around we could make it even better!

SevenS1ns

2015-09-07 03:59:50 pm

Final Fantasy Speedrunner

Did not expect this event to turn so many heads with how little work we put in on promoting it. Before the event started I've personally only mentioned it to my stream/kept it as a topic in #finalfantasy on the SRL IRC and notified a few runners. On the day of the event I did call on the help of Twitter/Facebook/Skype group, as well as the LoL team I stream for (team NME over at http://enemy.gg) that consequently actually did promote the event through Twitter!

I pretty much agree with everything you've said and the only thing I can think of and would like to add to improve the event; from an entertainment standpoint; would be to figure out a way to have the games being raced side by side after some time so that the commentary is "synched" as much as possible.

Someone suggested it be through block pauses, say FF1/2/3 then pause for the 2nd team to catch up so FF4/5/6 can start at the same time and then the same for FF7/8/9, etc.

We couldn't possibly have anticipated this much interest in the relay though, even disregarding it being a Labour day weekend, the only thing we could've done was employ more mods. I did hear chat took a turn for the worse when I was absent a few times; that, and it was pretty hard to fix the chat with how little manpower we had during suggestive moments in FFX especially. Nonetheless I think we did a damn fine job keeping everything (and everyone) in check and keep it as PG13 as possible.

Oh, that's actually another compliment from me to everyone who participated in the event: Well done keeping it PG13 99% of the time!

But yeah, roll on event #2; spinoffs or no, I'm game!

Did not expect this event to turn so many heads with how little work we put in on promoting it. Before the event started I've personally only mentioned it to my stream/kept it as a topic in #finalfantasy on the SRL IRC and notified a few runners. On the day of the event I did call on the help of Twitter/Facebook/Skype group, as well as the LoL team I stream for (team NME over at http://enemy.gg) that consequently actually did promote the event through Twitter!

I pretty much agree with everything you've said and the only thing I can think of and would like to add to improve the event; from an entertainment standpoint; would be to figure out a way to have the games being raced side by side after some time so that the commentary is "synched" as much as possible.

Someone suggested it be through block pauses, say FF1/2/3 then pause for the 2nd team to catch up so FF4/5/6 can start at the same time and then the same for FF7/8/9, etc.

We couldn't possibly have anticipated this much interest in the relay though, even disregarding it being a Labour day weekend, the only thing we could've done was employ more mods. I did hear chat took a turn for the worse when I was absent a few times; that, and it was pretty hard to fix the chat with how little manpower we had during suggestive moments in FFX especially. Nonetheless I think we did a damn fine job keeping everything (and everyone) in check and keep it as PG13 as possible.

Oh, that's actually another compliment from me to everyone who participated in the event: Well done keeping it PG13 99% of the time!

But yeah, roll on event #2; spinoffs or no, I'm game!

revenantkioku

2015-09-07 04:27:52 pm

I only dipped in and out here and there, but it was super entertaining each time I did.

It was kind of a bummer to see Team Chocobo an hour behind or so constantly, but it was also exciting to see how much they caught up. Although that was kind of hard to figure out at times with the layout as it was. If there was a way to show the current split for the team behind and the time of that split for the winning team, that would have been helpful. But I don't expect that would be super simple.

Regardless, it was super entertaining, and really makes me want to join in on the Final Fantasy speed run community somehow. Great job!

Cereth

2015-09-07 04:44:37 pm

I really don't have any complaints about how this went, I'm really happy everything ran so smoothly.

Thanks to all the runners for managing to show up on time, and managing to save regularly and not have any major issues.

Chat could have done with a few more moderators but overall it was ok, especially for the number of viewers, it's a very minor issue.

For the future I'd personally like to keep it to main series games, and perhaps add in the sequels (X-2, XIII-2, LR) and also other side games that are popular or are otherwise good runs. For that I'd consider Mystic Quest, Tactics and Chrono Trigger. Of course, adding more runs makes scheduling even more difficult. I don't really think we'll be able to consider different categories too much, I think in this event we made all the right choices (excl. 3), and it mostly comes down to submissions and runner availability for most games anyway (especially 1/2/3)

I think what might be best for a future event is to accept submissions for all FF games, and decide on games afterward, instead of picking the games, and then poking runners for those games. In the end it might be best to not add a game that doesn't have many runners or no backup runner in case of a no-show, instead of putting on a bad showing for said game.

I really don't have any complaints about how this went, I'm really happy everything ran so smoothly.

Thanks to all the runners for managing to show up on time, and managing to save regularly and not have any major issues.

Chat could have done with a few more moderators but overall it was ok, especially for the number of viewers, it's a very minor issue.

For the future I'd personally like to keep it to main series games, and perhaps add in the sequels (X-2, XIII-2, LR) and also other side games that are popular or are otherwise good runs. For that I'd consider Mystic Quest, Tactics and Chrono Trigger. Of course, adding more runs makes scheduling even more difficult. I don't really think we'll be able to consider different categories too much, I think in this event we made all the right choices (excl. 3), and it mostly comes down to submissions and runner availability for most games anyway (especially 1/2/3)

I think what might be best for a future event is to accept submissions for all FF games, and decide on games afterward, instead of picking the games, and then poking runners for those games. In the end it might be best to not add a game that doesn't have many runners or no backup runner in case of a no-show, instead of putting on a bad showing for said game.

doicm

2015-09-07 04:57:19 pm

Considering I've tried to organize a couple of relays in the past, huge kudos to the organizers of the relay for organizing something this huge. I can't even imagine trying to fit in this many people into this schedule with these games, etc. Shame to all the naysayers and picky people in chat who don't understand how much work goes into these things, imo.

I think moderators did an excellent job, and other people in the chat did a pretty good job answering questions (and re-answering the same questions asked a second later). The only major concern I saw that wasn't easily fixable was the commentary spoiling the gameplay a few seconds in advance with the delay issue. Perhaps it's something that could be dealt with, but difficult to address in an online relay marathon setting.

This was a pleasant surprise to see happen this weekend, and I had no clue this was even going on until the day of the relay. Good luck to those trying to organize something of this magnitude again, especially if you plan on somehow getting a third or even a fourth team into this. That would be absolutely insane.

Considering I've tried to organize a couple of relays in the past, huge kudos to the organizers of the relay for organizing something this huge. I can't even imagine trying to fit in this many people into this schedule with these games, etc. Shame to all the naysayers and picky people in chat who don't understand how much work goes into these things, imo.

I think moderators did an excellent job, and other people in the chat did a pretty good job answering questions (and re-answering the same questions asked a second later). The only major concern I saw that wasn't easily fixable was the commentary spoiling the gameplay a few seconds in advance with the delay issue. Perhaps it's something that could be dealt with, but difficult to address in an online relay marathon setting.

This was a pleasant surprise to see happen this weekend, and I had no clue this was even going on until the day of the relay. Good luck to those trying to organize something of this magnitude again, especially if you plan on somehow getting a third or even a fourth team into this. That would be absolutely insane.

Lenophis

Edit history:

Lenophis: 2015-09-07 11:52:28 pm

2015-09-07 11:50:12 pm

0-10

Quote from MLSTRM:

FF1 PS1 could have worked and was originally going to happen but we ran into scheduling issues with one of the runners.

~~Yeah, that's my bad. I was in Minneapolis for that whole Metacon thing.~~ Glad to see the FF1 portion of the race went without a hitch, though! About damn time that game gets some rep.

Wow, lern2reed. I wasn't running PS1. :p

Props to all that participated!

Melodia

2015-09-07 11:58:42 pm

I have nothing to add really, outside of maybe there should have been something on stream to make it a little more clear about the event -- the chat was inudated with SOOOOOOOOOOOOO many questions about what games were being run, "if they stayed up the whole time", thinking there was ONE person playing, etc etc
Obviously you can't control all of that, but maybe a small side comment like "Race Final Fantasy 1 to 10 and 12-13 between 24 runners!" or something like that (I'm sure someone could word it better).

Incidently if it happens again I think keeping it to ONLY main numbered is the best idea, but it'd be a neat experiment to try a 'side FF relay' with all the main side and spinoff games (MQ, T, Interlude, TAY, CC, DoC, X-2, XIII-2, LR and Type-0 all come to mind). Obviously this wouldn't garner as much interest but I know I'd enjoy it...and a LOT of people were disappointed at the lack of X-2 and XIII-2

the_roth

2015-09-08 12:35:50 am

DO THE MEATEO

Games/Teams: They were well balanced, the only problem I found was that the estimate for FF2 was off by 40 minutes. I think the times on the speedrun wiki were around 3:20 while the estimate was 2:40.

Layout: Loved the layouts. There is a way to maximise room if you wanted to, by (I can't explain it in words, so just made a badly photoshopped image - see http://i.imgur.com/clE3zmT.jpg ). The long FF games logo is cropped and would ideally scroll as games are completed, you can then fit more info in the blue/pink squares as viewers can see the game/who's streaming perpetually.

Future: Loved the relay and it's a great idea, hope to see it continue next year! I suggested the block idea that Sevens1ns was talking about although it might not be necessary. People thinking about stopping/starting the relay/having blocks probably only occurred because one of the teams was trolled very early on, it's unlikely to happen again to that extent in the future. Another way would be to just resync the relay whenever if it gets too far out, e.g. if one team falls horribly behind way early, then resync the relay after that game and then continue (dumb thought, but ideas are ideas).

Games/Teams: They were well balanced, the only problem I found was that the estimate for FF2 was off by 40 minutes. I think the times on the speedrun wiki were around 3:20 while the estimate was 2:40.

Layout: Loved the layouts. There is a way to maximise room if you wanted to, by (I can't explain it in words, so just made a badly photoshopped image - see http://i.imgur.com/clE3zmT.jpg ). The long FF games logo is cropped and would ideally scroll as games are completed, you can then fit more info in the blue/pink squares as viewers can see the game/who's streaming perpetually.

Future: Loved the relay and it's a great idea, hope to see it continue next year! I suggested the block idea that Sevens1ns was talking about although it might not be necessary. People thinking about stopping/starting the relay/having blocks probably only occurred because one of the teams was trolled very early on, it's unlikely to happen again to that extent in the future. Another way would be to just resync the relay whenever if it gets too far out, e.g. if one team falls horribly behind way early, then resync the relay after that game and then continue (dumb thought, but ideas are ideas).

puwexil

2015-09-08 08:19:37 pm

Professional Second Banana

Here are the average viewer counts for each hour (timestamps look to be US Pacific - GMT-7).

9/4/2015 14:00 350.5856472
9/4/2015 15:00 1188.535465
9/4/2015 16:00 1610.718211
9/4/2015 17:00 1751.363662
9/4/2015 18:00 1941.117965
9/4/2015 19:00 2208.749915
9/4/2015 20:00 2782.52624
9/4/2015 21:00 3633.545319
9/4/2015 22:00 3772.953167
9/4/2015 23:00 4156.351868
9/5/2015 0:00 4656.062326
9/5/2015 1:00 5659.432174
9/5/2015 2:00 5819.988965
9/5/2015 3:00 5980.764703
9/5/2015 4:00 6046.663829
9/5/2015 5:00 6050.107941
9/5/2015 6:00 4710.606461
9/5/2015 7:00 4490.742031
9/5/2015 8:00 4553.542786
9/5/2015 9:00 4781.531441
9/5/2015 10:00 4716.507467
9/5/2015 11:00 4639.742531
9/5/2015 12:00 4589.346129
9/5/2015 13:00 4585.450564
9/5/2015 14:00 4607.324613
9/5/2015 15:00 5001.925673
9/5/2015 16:00 5221.40949
9/5/2015 17:00 4847.355825
9/5/2015 18:00 4800.531558
9/5/2015 19:00 4572.199181
9/5/2015 20:00 5375.792075
9/5/2015 21:00 5375.622738
9/5/2015 22:00 5312.506443
9/5/2015 23:00 5708.595132
9/6/2015 0:00 6798.480958
9/6/2015 1:00 7434.781954
9/6/2015 2:00 7387.440978
9/6/2015 3:00 7728.160914
9/6/2015 4:00 7906.411293
9/6/2015 5:00 8186.061896
9/6/2015 6:00 8459.771138
9/6/2015 7:00 7837.056395
9/6/2015 8:00 7767.727808
9/6/2015 9:00 8028.23394
9/6/2015 10:00 8521.106783
9/6/2015 11:00 8222.462672
9/6/2015 12:00 7670.430831
9/6/2015 13:00 7476.948646
9/6/2015 14:00 6265.005861
9/6/2015 15:00 6410.105467
9/6/2015 16:00 6366.254799
9/6/2015 17:00 6485.478975
9/6/2015 18:00 6406.935271
9/6/2015 19:00 6178.081772
9/6/2015 20:00 6868.891235
9/6/2015 21:00 7679.488163
9/6/2015 22:00 7248.315469
9/6/2015 23:00 7381.480087
9/7/2015 0:00 7245.916661
9/7/2015 1:00 6982.4652
9/7/2015 2:00 6779.435639
9/7/2015 3:00 6393.551843
9/7/2015 4:00 6035.536574
9/7/2015 5:00 6325.956375
9/7/2015 6:00 6983.883417
9/7/2015 7:00 6695.646964
9/7/2015 8:00 7375.906809
9/7/2015 9:00 6241.238147
9/7/2015 10:00 5316.368961

I don't have much feedback that hasn't already been said, other than that the only way I see to increase the chances of a naturally closer race is to have more than 2 teams - the FF4-6 Relay I organize has 4 teams, and the most recent one had an insanely close 1st/2nd place finish (partially due to setup issues on 1 team's part, but an exciting watch nonetheless). I can definitely appreciate the difficulty of getting 24 runners to commit to specific timeframes for a full-weekend relay though, much less even more people.

Congrats again to the organizers - was amazing to see such an ambitious event like this come to fruition.

Here are the average viewer counts for each hour (timestamps look to be US Pacific - GMT-7).

[spoiler]
9/4/2015 14:00	350.5856472
9/4/2015 15:00	1188.535465
9/4/2015 16:00	1610.718211
9/4/2015 17:00	1751.363662
9/4/2015 18:00	1941.117965
9/4/2015 19:00	2208.749915
9/4/2015 20:00	2782.52624
9/4/2015 21:00	3633.545319
9/4/2015 22:00	3772.953167
9/4/2015 23:00	4156.351868
9/5/2015 0:00	4656.062326
9/5/2015 1:00	5659.432174
9/5/2015 2:00	5819.988965
9/5/2015 3:00	5980.764703
9/5/2015 4:00	6046.663829
9/5/2015 5:00	6050.107941
9/5/2015 6:00	4710.606461
9/5/2015 7:00	4490.742031
9/5/2015 8:00	4553.542786
9/5/2015 9:00	4781.531441
9/5/2015 10:00	4716.507467
9/5/2015 11:00	4639.742531
9/5/2015 12:00	4589.346129
9/5/2015 13:00	4585.450564
9/5/2015 14:00	4607.324613
9/5/2015 15:00	5001.925673
9/5/2015 16:00	5221.40949
9/5/2015 17:00	4847.355825
9/5/2015 18:00	4800.531558
9/5/2015 19:00	4572.199181
9/5/2015 20:00	5375.792075
9/5/2015 21:00	5375.622738
9/5/2015 22:00	5312.506443
9/5/2015 23:00	5708.595132
9/6/2015 0:00	6798.480958
9/6/2015 1:00	7434.781954
9/6/2015 2:00	7387.440978
9/6/2015 3:00	7728.160914
9/6/2015 4:00	7906.411293
9/6/2015 5:00	8186.061896
9/6/2015 6:00	8459.771138
9/6/2015 7:00	7837.056395
9/6/2015 8:00	7767.727808
9/6/2015 9:00	8028.23394
9/6/2015 10:00	8521.106783
9/6/2015 11:00	8222.462672
9/6/2015 12:00	7670.430831
9/6/2015 13:00	7476.948646
9/6/2015 14:00	6265.005861
9/6/2015 15:00	6410.105467
9/6/2015 16:00	6366.254799
9/6/2015 17:00	6485.478975
9/6/2015 18:00	6406.935271
9/6/2015 19:00	6178.081772
9/6/2015 20:00	6868.891235
9/6/2015 21:00	7679.488163
9/6/2015 22:00	7248.315469
9/6/2015 23:00	7381.480087
9/7/2015 0:00	7245.916661
9/7/2015 1:00	6982.4652
9/7/2015 2:00	6779.435639
9/7/2015 3:00	6393.551843
9/7/2015 4:00	6035.536574
9/7/2015 5:00	6325.956375
9/7/2015 6:00	6983.883417
9/7/2015 7:00	6695.646964
9/7/2015 8:00	7375.906809
9/7/2015 9:00	6241.238147
9/7/2015 10:00	5316.368961
[/spoiler]

I don't have much feedback that hasn't already been said, other than that the only way I see to increase the chances of a naturally closer race is to have more than 2 teams - the FF4-6 Relay I organize has 4 teams, and the most recent one had an insanely close 1st/2nd place finish (partially due to setup issues on 1 team's part, but an exciting watch nonetheless).  I can definitely appreciate the difficulty of getting 24 runners to commit to specific timeframes for a full-weekend relay though, much less even more people.

Congrats again to the organizers - was amazing to see such an ambitious event like this come to fruition.