Live SDA Charity event at MAGFest

2009-11-16 01:03:11 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

It's not that stanski definitely isn't coming, it's that he says he's not sure if he can come. It's a big maybe at this point.

Spook: Yeah, I'm giving you a 20 minute window because I remember the NG ending being incredibly long, and maybe people will want to see it. I have faith that you'll complete the game well under 20 minutes. Wink

Mike89: That's great, it's fine if you're five minutes slower than stanski as long as if you can keep up a fast pace and pull off at least a couple of the shortcuts.

Frezy_Man: Stanski misses you too. Sad

MatrixTN

2009-11-16 07:26:57 pm

You got a deletion wish?

Dammit Stan, what did you do THIS time?!

I'm not worthy as far as Sonic 2 is concerned, and Toy Story is definitely not my caliber either (so yeah I'd consider that scratched unless otherwise noted).

JaggerG

2009-11-17 01:37:31 am

Jumping Turtle

Has anyone thought up any cool designs or banners or anything for the site? As much as I love the simplicity of our homepage, I don't think the masses find it very appealing to be so barren. I might make another personal signature to advertise at the end of the year, but I pretty much suck at graphic design so I definitely couldn't do anything for the page/ads/stuff.

mikwuyma

2009-11-17 08:35:57 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

JaggerG: I asked Phil from The Speed Gamers if they would design a banner for us.

For anyone who is thinking, "Hey, this is our marathon, not the speed gamers'!" Consider this:

1. The Speed Gamers have expressed interest in coming to MAGFest, and AFAIK, they're still planning on coming.

2. It's just a banner. We're still playing all of the games, doing all or most of the commentary (depends on whether we get guest commentators or not), and the marathon is still under the SDA name.

3. Just admit it, we suck at graphic design. We have great programmers, great video encoders and editors, but we don't don't have anyone (AFAIK) who can design a spiffy banner. TSG has already proven that they can design spiffy banners.

I was considering having a banner design contest on the forums, but I'm not sure if anyone would participate. Sad

If anyone knows a good graphic designer, then that would be great.

arkarian

2009-11-17 12:54:32 pm

gamelogs.org

i started working on the site/page/whatever and was thinking about a banner the other day. if phil's willing to do one, that would be really great. judging by tsg's previous banners, anything i do wouldn't be nearly as good as his.

Frezy_man

2009-11-17 01:29:09 pm

bläää

Quote:

I was considering having a banner design contest on the forums, but I'm not sure if anyone would participate. Sad If anyone knows a good graphic designer, then that would be great.

Why not try that? I have seen two attempts on other sites and the results use to be great.

mikwuyma

2009-11-17 02:05:47 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

I'll try having a banner contest if The Speed Gamers won't make a banner for us, or if they take too long to respond.

Emptyeye

2009-11-17 02:44:31 pm

Talk to the Hand

Goddammit.

I practiced running TMNT today. I had a nice sub-30M run going...until I died on fucking Shredder of all things (I knocked him off to the right instead of the left like I usually do, and on one particular swing was just far enough away that I missed and he mutagen gunned me). After the continue, the laser soldiers flew in low and I just gave up at that point.

Goddammit.

ALSO: Still terrible at anything design-related, by the way. Smiley

Tompa

2009-11-18 01:46:45 am

I was wondering... How much (if any) advertising has been made so far? I presume it has been discussed already, but it's afterall the main thing to get viewers for the marathon: To let people know about it.
I'm going to spread the word at a few sites at least.

JaggerG

Edit history:

JaggerG: 2009-11-18 04:21:31 am

2009-11-18 03:56:46 am

Jumping Turtle

Supposedly more people actually remember the closer to the marathon it's advertised. It's probably not necessarily bad to advertise "too" early, but on major sites it may be better to hold off until mid/late December. If you keep reminding people about it over a couple months they might get sick of hearing about it or something, though.

Quote from mikwuyma:

I was considering having a banner design contest on the forums, but I'm not sure if anyone would participate. Sad

That's pretty silly reasoning. I haven't been paying that much attention to the community here, but as far as I can tell, there are a lot of people you're speaking for there. Having a tech forum doesn't necessarily mean there are no artists.

Quote from Arkarian:

if phil's willing to do one, that would be really great.

Actually Phil's just the person that Mike's been contacting for tips and advice on running the marathon - he's pretty much passing information back and forth to get everyone's input. He's one of the head staff members, but still, other people have info he might not, and occasionally things are brought up that have other people involved, such as questions about the banners.

The banners for the site are done by Anatotitan. No idea if Ana's going to do a banner for the SDA marathon, but couldn't hurt to ask Phil to ask, I guess.

Supposedly more people actually remember the closer to the marathon it's advertised. It's probably not necessarily bad to advertise "too" early, but on major sites it may be better to hold off until mid/late December. If you keep reminding people about it over a couple months they might get sick of hearing about it or something, though.

[quote="mikwuyma"]
I was considering having a banner design contest on the forums, but [b]I'm not sure if anyone would participate[/b]. :(
[/quote]
That's pretty silly reasoning. I haven't been paying that much attention to the community here, but as far as I can tell, there are a lot of people you're speaking for there. Having a tech forum doesn't necessarily mean there are no artists.

[quote="Arkarian"]
if phil's willing to do one, that would be really great.
[/quote]
Actually Phil's just the person that Mike's been contacting for tips and advice on running the marathon - he's pretty much passing information back and forth to get everyone's input. He's one of the head staff members, but still, other people have info he might not, and occasionally things are brought up that have other people involved, such as questions about the banners.

The banners for the site are done by Anatotitan. No idea if Ana's going to do a banner for the SDA marathon, but couldn't hurt to ask Phil to ask, I guess.

mikwuyma

2009-11-18 08:42:10 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Tompa: I asked Phil from TSG about press releases, and they said the most effective news postings are the ones closest to the marathon, so much so that the the best ones are usually the ones posting during the marathon. I'm thinking of making a press release and sending it early/mid december, and requesting that the sites hold off on posting about the marathon until the latest possible date.

However, if there are some forums you want to mention the marathon on, that's a good idea, though you might want to wait until we have a website for the marathon.

Actually, what I need to start doing is contacting companies about potential swag and prizes we could give out during the marathon.

JaggerG: Yeah, Phil is the person I know best from TSG, that's why I'm asking him all of the questions.

Banner: Yeah, that was stupid reasoning on my part. :-[ If The Speed Gamers don't make a banner for us, I'll make a forum topic about a banner and mention it in the news. I'm sure at least a couple of people who pay attention to SDA, but don't post in the forums know a little something about graphic design.

Tompa: I asked Phil from TSG about press releases, and they said the most effective news postings are the ones closest to the marathon, so much so that the the best ones are usually the ones posting during the marathon. I'm thinking of making a press release and sending it early/mid december, and requesting that the sites hold off on posting about the marathon until the latest possible date.

However, if there are some forums you want to mention the marathon on, that's a good idea, though you might want to wait until we have a website for the marathon.

Actually, what I need to start doing is contacting companies about potential swag and prizes we could give out during the marathon.

JaggerG: Yeah, Phil is the person I know best from TSG, that's why I'm asking him all of the questions.

Banner: Yeah, that was stupid reasoning on my part. :-[ If The Speed Gamers don't make a banner for us, I'll make a forum topic about a banner and mention it in the news. I'm sure at least a couple of people who pay attention to SDA, but don't post in the forums know a little something about graphic design.

Essentia

2009-11-18 09:40:16 am

Everything's better with Magitek

I made a post about our marathon on the TSG forums a few days ago. Their community is big on streams, so I wanted to advertise this early so that no others would avoid planning streams for the same time we do ours.
http://community.thespeedgamers.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5762

JaggerG

2009-11-18 02:40:39 pm

Jumping Turtle

Quote from Essentia:

so that no others would avoid planning streams for the same time

Sorry, just couldn't not point out the accidental double negative. :^P

Lulls, I've kind of been avoiding discussing the SDA marathon around TSGers until after the pokethon, but I guess they've already heard about it. That makes things simpler I guess.

Essentia

2009-11-18 02:42:46 pm

Everything's better with Magitek

And here I thought I was good at English... :-[

And yeah, it looks like a bunch of TSG people have already heard about it, so I see no harm in advertising it this early.

VorpalEdge

2009-11-21 09:34:55 pm

welcome to the machine

I told mike about this a while back, but I figure I should mention that I've given up on link's awakening. I'm not going to be able to do both it and super metroid justice, and sm takes priority because I like it more. Frankly, at this point I doubt I'm going to play la again ever. Kinda burned myself out on it back when I did the run, and it hasn't gone away.

Sorry to disappoint, Tigger. If you were looking forwards to playing with me I'm sorry. Sad

JaggerG

2009-11-23 12:40:50 am

Jumping Turtle

If frezy's going to do Zero Mission in :35, I don't think the LA run taking a couple minutes longer is gonna be too bad. Unless you're like, constantly dying or something. Maybe you can just take a break and pick it back up again at the end of december?

JaggerG

2009-11-24 07:39:39 pm

Jumping Turtle

Quote from Tigger77:

I coude do Links Awakening (DX). I only have the Pal cartrige of DX I never played the black and wihte version.
For DX I woude say ~ 1:35 woud be deffenitly + 10 min credits so time = 1:45

Hang on, Tigger, you still there? The record for the US DX version is 1:45:32. Unless you found a major shortcut or massively better route, or if it turns out you actually can skip dialogue in the EUDX version, I'm guessing your run is gonna be more like 2 hours total including set-up and credits. Are you sure on your estimates?

VorpalEdge

2009-11-24 08:07:39 pm

welcome to the machine

The DX run is one of the most out-of-date runs on the site. If Tigger gets anything near a successful run he's going to crush it.

mikwuyma

2009-12-01 11:33:30 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Whoops, sorry I haven't posted here a while with updates.

updates

There's now a separate topic for promotion: http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,11000.0.html

I updated the schedule a bit, but the changes are so miniscule you probaby won't notice (just a couple of minutes added here and there, some commentators updated).

Two of The Speed Gamers, Phil and Baltes are confirmed to be coming to MAGFest and might do some guest commentary, and Brentalfloss (yes, the BrentalFloss, already confirmed to be at MAGFest), has expressed interest in doing commentary for our marathon. Guest commentary so far is looking good. Smiley

Practice status (not just me this time)

Final Fantasy 6: Essentia is still working at it, and even found a couple of improvements.

Secret of Mana: Molotov has done some research on how to improve our time even further. Results can be found here.

Link's Awakening: Tigger77 told me he's working on this game, but didn't want to say anything until he's completed more runs.

Super Metroid: Yes, Vorpaledge has actually been practicing this game in segments. He's going to start doing some single-segment runs soon.

Okay, now my games:

Contra: Hard Corps: Haven't played this too much, but it's still not hard for me.

Altered Beast: Beating this game is not a problem, beating it on one-life is (unless stanski if comes over and does a 2-player run with me!), mainly because the second and third boss, and goats are jerks. Nope, not the fourth boss, though he does suck and is slow to kill.

Turtles 4: Haven't done any full runs in a while, but I've practiced the stone soldier sections and later stages a lot. I should be good to go.

Mega Man X3: Practiced a bit, still kind of stink. Sad

I really really need to sit down with this game, it's the only one that's giving me a lot of trouble.

Gunstar Heroes: Haven't done any full runs in a while, but I have practiced the ship stage and final stage some, I should be okay.

Contra 3: Haven't played this since last time

P.S. I have a video camera. I'll start streaming practice attempts soon, I promise!

Whoops, sorry I haven't posted here a while with updates.

[b]updates[/b]

There's now a separate topic for promotion: http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,11000.0.html

I updated the schedule a bit, but the changes are so miniscule you probaby won't notice (just a couple of minutes added here and there, some commentators updated).

Two of [url=http://www.thespeedgamers.com]The Speed Gamers[/url], Phil and Baltes are confirmed to be coming to MAGFest and might do some guest commentary, and Brentalfloss (yes, [b]the [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/brentalfloss]BrentalFloss[/url][/b], already confirmed to be at MAGFest), has expressed interest in doing commentary for our marathon. Guest commentary so far is looking good. :)

[b]Practice status (not just me this time)[/b]

Final Fantasy 6: Essentia is still working at it, and even [url=http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,5990.msg306576.html#msg306576]found a couple of improvements[/url].

Secret of Mana: Molotov has done some research on how to improve our time even further. Results can be found [url=http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,1142.msg306484.html#msg306484]here[/url].

Link's Awakening: Tigger77 told me he's working on this game, but didn't want to say anything until he's completed more runs.

Super Metroid: Yes, Vorpaledge has actually been practicing this game in segments. He's going to start doing some single-segment runs soon.

Okay, now my games:

Contra: Hard Corps: Haven't played this too much, but it's still not hard for me.

Altered Beast: Beating this game is not a problem, beating it on one-life is (unless stanski if comes over and does a 2-player run with me!), mainly because the second and third boss, and goats are jerks. Nope, not the fourth boss, though he does suck and is slow to kill.

Turtles 4: Haven't done any full runs in a while, but I've practiced the stone soldier sections and later stages a lot. I should be good to go.

Mega Man X3: Practiced a bit, still kind of stink. :( I really really need to sit down with this game, it's the only one that's giving me a lot of trouble.

Gunstar Heroes: Haven't done any full runs in a while, but I have practiced the ship stage and final stage some, I should be okay.

Contra 3: Haven't played this since last time

P.S. I have a video camera. I'll start streaming practice attempts soon, I promise!

tjp7154

2009-12-02 12:33:52 am

#Casual

For my Donkey Kong Country run, I've decided to do as many risky maneuvers as possible, since I've for the most part been able to recover from bad mistakes in my practice runs.

For some silly, annoying reason, I make a lot of mistakes when I know I'm recording myself. I just can't seem to shake it off. Mid-December I'm planning on doing constant recorded runs to see if I can shake off the nervousness, because I KNOW it'll probably happen when people are actually WATCHING my run.

My biggest hurdle is Oil Drum Alley, which I can definitely get through, just not consistently enough and when I'm recording. I can actually do Blackout Basement better than Oil Drum Alley. Platform Perils still looks awesome when I get it right. I get the halfway barrel as a precaution.

I might even practice over ustream as well ;), although the video quality won't be as good as Essentia's was (I was impressed).

mike89

2009-12-02 03:18:51 am

SEGA Junkie

My games:

Sonic 1: Meh. I'm not going to use many of the large skips just because I'm not consistent enough at them. If it means stanski wins the race, so be it.

Sonic 3: Should be able to pick this up no problem. I can't remember if I've already mentioned this but I'm going to get the audience involved on this one and get them to pick which character I run for Sonic 3, so I'll need to practice three characters, but I think I can do them all with no problem.

Vectorman: I just beat the speedrun by two minutes, and fully expect to beat the existing speedrun at MAGfest (though that won't be the submitted run). No worries here.

Vectorman 2: Much more worries here. V2 has a lot more enemies that can knock off large portions of health in a big hurry (especially on the tank levels towards the end of the game). I might have to be prepared to lose a life or two on this one, and just hope it doesn't cost me too much time.

DKC3: Haven't played this for a while, I need to come back to it. I've hit the target time of 1h 20m a couple of times now, but I think I can do a fair bit better so I'm going to keep trying.

My games:

Sonic 1: Meh. I'm not going to use many of the large skips just because I'm not consistent enough at them. If it means stanski wins the race, so be it.

Sonic 3: Should be able to pick this up no problem. I can't remember if I've already mentioned this but I'm going to get the audience involved on this one and get them to pick which character I run for Sonic 3, so I'll need to practice three characters, but I think I can do them all with no problem.

Vectorman: I [url=http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZP0R9HAY]just beat the speedrun by two minutes[/url], and fully expect to beat the existing speedrun at MAGfest (though that won't be the submitted run). No worries here.

Vectorman 2: Much more worries here. V2 has a lot more enemies that can knock off large portions of health in a big hurry (especially on the tank levels towards the end of the game). I might have to be prepared to lose a life or two on this one, and just hope it doesn't cost me too much time.

DKC3: Haven't played this for a while, I need to come back to it. I've hit the target time of 1h 20m a couple of times now, but I think I can do a fair bit better so I'm going to keep trying.

Breakdown

2009-12-02 05:37:54 am

Haters gonna hate

Quick practice update before I go to work:

First off, guess who got a Genesis. Grin

EWJ: I've done two full playthroughs since I got my hands on the hardware. Neither was stellar, but both clocked in under 40. There's a few things I need to get the timing back down for (first boss, Snot a Problem levels) and definitely need to brush up on For Pete's Sake and the later Andy Asteroids levels again (I lost two of those in my second attempt, and the Psycrow fight not only wastes time, but creates ammo problems for me). Not too worried about this one really.

Ristar: Still have enough of it in muscle memory to impress the masses, but those familiar with my run will probably see this as a behind the curtain look of the running process. Sincerely doubt I'll nail all the pole tricks first try live, but there's only a couple that are really critical to hit for big time savings. Deathless shouldn't be too big a problem, and I'll eat my hat if I have to continue.

Zelda 2: I'm super rusty, still needs lots of work. Probably going to grab Shield and Life as well as an extra heart container and some link dolls as I don't see deathless happening live without sacrificing too much in the way of speed (too much random crap). No continues is the goal.

Faxanadu: This is my project for the week, as I've only really done route revamping theory to this point. Route won't be as balls to walls as Shiner's upcoming run, but I may very well beat my old time live. We'll see how it goes before I make any official claims to changing my estimate though.

Jackal: I bumped my estimate to 12 a while ago, and that's a target I can hit no problem. A few warm up games on this closer to go time and I should be good to go.

It's a little crazy that we're inside of a month of actually doing this thing.

Quick practice update before I go to work:

First off, guess who got a Genesis.  ;D

EWJ:  I've done two full playthroughs since I got my hands on the hardware.  Neither was stellar, but both clocked in under 40.  There's a few things I need to get the timing back down for (first boss, Snot a Problem levels) and definitely need to brush up on For Pete's Sake and the later Andy Asteroids levels again (I lost two of those in my second attempt, and the Psycrow fight not only wastes time, but creates ammo problems for me).  Not too worried about this one really.

Ristar:  Still have enough of it in muscle memory to impress the masses, but those familiar with my run will probably see this as a behind the curtain look of the running process.  Sincerely doubt I'll nail all the pole tricks first try live, but there's only a couple that are really critical to hit for big time savings.  Deathless shouldn't be too big a problem, and I'll eat my hat if I have to continue.

Zelda 2:  I'm super rusty, still needs lots of work.  Probably going to grab Shield and Life as well as an extra heart container and some link dolls as I don't see deathless happening live without sacrificing too much in the way of speed (too much random crap).  No continues is the goal.

Faxanadu:  This is my project for the week, as I've only really done route revamping theory to this point.  Route won't be as balls to walls as Shiner's upcoming run, but I may very well beat my old time live.  We'll see how it goes before I make any official claims to changing my estimate though.

Jackal:  I bumped my estimate to 12 a while ago, and that's a target I can hit no problem.  A few warm up games on this closer to go time and I should be good to go.

It's a little crazy that we're inside of a month of actually doing this thing.

Emptyeye

2009-12-02 05:57:59 am

Talk to the Hand

Okay!

Did a bit of practice yesterday.

Battletoads: 24M1.97S. Outside of missing the Boot Scuzz glitch (Which is not at all consistent for me even with sound, and is going to be pretty much blind luck in the Pianotoads environment), and a not-particularly-good Dark Queen fight, I'm actually really happy with this particular run.

TMNT: 35M32S...and a continue. Good points: I think I actually figured out how to "scramble" in the case of a bad laser soldier setup, and I also now know how to consistently trap Shredder. Smiley

JaggerG

2009-12-02 11:41:47 pm

Jumping Turtle

For the more stage-shy players, if you're unable to stream, it might be a good idea to at least have a skype call on to attempt to emulate the experience of having someone talking to an audience behind you as you play. Perhaps keep us informed on important details as you go so nobody is completely out of the loop.

Regardless, it's less than a month already. I hope you guys are pretty certain you can make your goal (in real time, including credits and all that jazz). It's not a huge deal as long as you're not like, half an hour behind your estimate in a one-hour game for example. Time can be made up by other players - it is a coordinated team effort, after all - so don't feel like you have to drop your game completely because you're afraid you might die a couple times. Unless you get a game over and have to start from the beginning (and if you've already volunteered to run, I take it you're all pretty confident you can pull it off no problem), you should be fine. It's just very important to do several test single segment runs to make sure your estimate is at least close.

For the more stage-shy players, if you're unable to stream, it might be a good idea to at least have a skype call on to attempt to emulate the experience of having someone talking to an audience behind you as you play. Perhaps keep us informed on important details as you go so nobody is completely out of the loop.

Regardless, it's less than a month already. I hope you guys are pretty certain you can make your goal (in real time, including credits and all that jazz). It's not a huge deal as long as you're not like, half an hour behind your estimate in a one-hour game for example. Time can be made up by other players - it is a coordinated team effort, after all - so don't feel like you have to drop your game completely because you're afraid you might die a couple times. Unless you get a game over and have to start from the beginning (and if you've already volunteered to run, I take it you're all pretty confident you can pull it off no problem), you should be fine. It's just very important to do several test single segment runs to make sure your estimate is at least close.

Emptyeye

2009-12-04 10:55:57 pm

Talk to the Hand

I'm probably the least stage-shy person here, as well as maybe the only one with speedrunning (Mostly) in front of an audience experience. So no problems there. Smiley

The big variable for me is going to be time of start, especially on the Battletoads/TMNT combo. Suffice to say that I'm not typically doing speedruns at 11:30 PM.

Anyway, practice today:
Rygar: 27M 6.13S. I seem to be pulling low 27s pretty consistently since adjusting my early-game strategy, so I'm not really concerned here.
TMNT: 39M 9S. At this point, I'm convinced the game is just having Shredder mutagen gun me out of spite. Had him in the left corner, was whacking him with Don..and I get mutagen gunned out of nowhere. >_< I posted "I'd like to throw [This game] through a window" on The Shizz.

Despite that, about an hour ago, I decided to give it another attempt, since it was close to midnight, so that would be essentially simulating the state I'll be in at MAGFest.

28M 11.19S, my first Sub-30 run. And that could've been a good minute or two faster with better execution (Not getting Raph crushed in the walls in Tunnel 17 of Area 4; not going for a swim in Area 3...). Still, this was maybe the first run I had that the Technodrome was in the "first" spot, and I took advantage of it.

I'm probably the least stage-shy person here, as well as maybe the only one with speedrunning (Mostly) in front of an audience experience. So no problems there. :) The big variable for me is going to be time of start, especially on the Battletoads/TMNT combo. Suffice to say that I'm not typically doing speedruns at 11:30 PM.

Anyway, practice today:
Rygar: 27M 6.13S. I seem to be pulling low 27s pretty consistently since adjusting my early-game strategy, so I'm not really concerned here.
TMNT: 39M 9S. At this point, I'm convinced the game is just having Shredder mutagen gun me out of spite. Had him in the left corner, was whacking him with Don..and I get mutagen gunned out of nowhere. >_< I posted "I'd like to throw [This game] through a window" on The Shizz.

Despite that, about an hour ago, I decided to give it another attempt, since it was close to midnight, so that would be essentially simulating the state I'll be in at MAGFest.

[b]28M 11.19S[/b], my first Sub-30 run. And that could've been a good minute or two faster with better execution (Not getting Raph crushed in the walls in Tunnel 17 of Area 4; not going for a swim in Area 3...). Still, this was maybe the first run I had that the Technodrome was in the "first" spot, and I took advantage of it.