RPG Limit Break 2015 - Main Thread

2014-08-07 10:35:36 am

Literally speaking... literally...

Hm what about "Quick Cast"?
You know from the spell command and as a fusion of "Speedrunning RPGs" (hence quick) and as a twitch show (hence Cast, like in Shoutcast).

As for the charity, I think a more international charity would be good, as many viewers of the past RPG marathons (RIP in Phoenix) are from overseas.

puwexil

2014-08-08 03:06:16 pm

Professional Second Banana

'Limit Break' had pretty strong support, so to help with branding/Googling we've decided to name the marathon 'RPG Limit Break'. Charity preference was pretty close between JDRF and NAMI, with JDRF having a slight lead; so we'll start researching/contacting both charities to see which we feel would be a better partner for the marathon.

1st post updated with some additional details about venue/housing and timetable for game submissions (mid-September, after AGDQ submissions have quieted down).

Sir VG

2014-08-08 04:21:07 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

YAY! See you in about a month for my game submissions. SO STOKED.

Freddeh

2014-08-08 04:22:11 pm

Note to self: Don't forget this thread.

PinkPajamas

2014-08-08 10:15:58 pm

Excited for this.
I can offer help since I live in Utah. I'll be looking into submitting a few games as well.

FFgamer86

2014-08-08 10:27:40 pm

SDA Speedruns: 1

Also Looking forward to this. Got to get to practicing!!

WanderingMind

2014-08-13 02:42:37 pm

Stay chill, be cool.

I figured I should ask this here ahead of time.

Let's say that the game I want to run requires a random drop early in the run. I am going to assume it goes wrong. Would be okay to have a safety save ready to load from in case I don't get the drop right away? It only happens once in a run for this game.

Omnigamer

2014-08-13 02:49:13 pm

All the things

Situations like that in the past (Dark Souls, IIRC) have used a safety save in the event that required drops do not happen. That said, I would avoid situations that require this unless absolutely necessary. If you can get by in the game but just a bit slower, do without loading the save to keep viewer focus. Just build more time into the estimate.

Vulajin

Edit history:

Vulajin: 2014-08-13 07:28:24 pm

2014-08-13 02:49:58 pm

The most important factor in a marathon run is that you are able to complete an exhibition run of your game. The run should be fast and look good, but if shit can happen and you are able to be prepared for shit happening, then you should be prepared.

If you watch my Pokemon White 2 run from C4L2014, you will see that I used a backup save to avoid spending more than 10 minutes on an extremely time-sensitive RNG manipulation to start the game.

(edit) Puwexil adds a good point. In order to facilitate the creation of my backup save, I asked that the character name bid wars for Pokemon be closed 4 hours before my run. Then, I used the winning names for my backup file. This meant that even though I had to use the backup file, I was still able to fulfill those incentives. Ubergoos did the same for Dark Souls at SGDQ 2013.

puwexil

2014-08-13 07:17:22 pm

Professional Second Banana

1 other thing to consider is if loading from a prepared safety save would interfere with any donation incentives (ie characters already named).

osey889

2014-08-13 07:49:53 pm

Not only am i interested in this marathon but i want to offer my services as a runner. i am learning Diablo 3 for Xbox360. I hope people would like to see it run. I hope this marathon becomes even more successful then C4L2014.

WanderingMind

2014-08-13 10:55:26 pm

Stay chill, be cool.

Quote from Vulajin:

The most important factor in a marathon run is that you are able to complete an exhibition run of your game. The run should be fast and look good, but if shit can happen and you are able to be prepared for shit happening, then you should be prepared.

If you watch my Pokemon White 2 run from C4L2014, you will see that I used a backup save to avoid spending more than 10 minutes on an extremely time-sensitive RNG manipulation to start the game.

(edit) Puwexil adds a good point. In order to facilitate the creation of my backup save, I asked that the character name bid wars for Pokemon be closed 4 hours before my run. Then, I used the winning names for my backup file. This meant that even though I had to use the backup file, I was still able to fulfill those incentives. Ubergoos did the same for Dark Souls at SGDQ 2013.

I'm going to do the same thing if my game gets in, close off name bid wars 4 hours before my run. I'll need to prepare three backup saves for Valkyria Chronicles II and it's all I can use because of how many slots I have, one of which I have to start out with. It means I'll have to think hard about where I'm going to place my safety saves and practice the game as much as I can. I hope I only need to use one.

[quote="Vulajin"]The most important factor in a marathon run is that you are able to complete an exhibition run of your game. The run should be fast and look good, but if shit can happen and you are able to be prepared for shit happening, then you should be prepared.

If you watch my Pokemon White 2 run from C4L2014, you will see that I used a backup save to avoid spending more than 10 minutes on an extremely time-sensitive RNG manipulation to start the game.

(edit) Puwexil adds a good point. In order to facilitate the creation of my backup save, I asked that the character name bid wars for Pokemon be closed 4 hours before my run. Then, I used the winning names for my backup file. This meant that even though I had to use the backup file, I was still able to fulfill those incentives. Ubergoos did the same for Dark Souls at SGDQ 2013.[/quote]

I'm going to do the same thing if my game gets in, close off name bid wars 4 hours before my run.  I'll need to prepare three backup saves for Valkyria Chronicles II and it's all I can use because of how many slots I have, one of which I have to start out with.  It means I'll have to think hard about where I'm going to place my safety saves and practice the game as much as I can.  I hope I only need to use one.

Neohart

2014-08-20 03:24:05 pm

Final Fantasy VII Fanatic

I'm very interested in attending a event like this and even offering some yuffie warp+ action to it. Would love to meet a lot of the members of the community.

Darkwing Duck

2014-08-27 01:04:45 pm

Highly Evolved

Local paper here has an article on NAMI. Paper's coverage goes just north of Essentia's place.

http://www.standard.net/Health/2014/08/26/NAMI-addresses-suicide-prevention-mental-illness.html

bml

Edit history:

bml: 2014-08-27 10:50:03 pm

2014-08-27 10:31:13 pm

Can I request that someone pick up Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (GBA) for this event? I'd submit it myself but I doubt I'll be able to attend. This game was generally well-received when it was released and people seem to remember it fondly. Also, whenever Claude streams FFT someone _inevitably_ asks "does anyone speedrun Tactics Ogre?", so there seems to be some interest in a speedrun.

As a speedrun it is so-so.
Pros:
* Low amount of RNG for an SRPG. You can also mitigate RNG by using a savescum trick: reloading a mid-battle save to retry a missed attack.
* Most battles past the half-way point end in 1-2 turns.
* The final battle is tense (you are severely underleveled) and requires a little improvisation.
* Almost zero grinding and no random battles fought.
* The graphics and soundtrack are pretty sweet, if you're into the lo-fi pixely stuff.

Cons:
* The pacing is atrocious. Spell animations and enemy turns take forever to resolve.
* The "most battles end in 1-2 turns" has a downside: you use the same combo for each battle (molten blade-teleport-atropos) and it gets repetitive.
* Many longish cutscenes between battles, with nothing but text boxes that get mashed through.

Anyhow, I'm a bit biased and I don't know whether the pros outweigh the cons. If anyone is curious, you can check out my 4:23:xx RTA on Twitch here. My (loose) route notes are in the description. If you're interested in picking up the game, PM me on Twitch and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the game & route.

Can I request that someone pick up Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (GBA) for this event?  I'd submit it myself but I doubt I'll be able to attend.  This game was generally well-received when it was released and people seem to remember it fondly.  Also, whenever Claude streams FFT someone _inevitably_ asks "does anyone speedrun Tactics Ogre?", so there seems to be some interest in a speedrun.

As a speedrun it is so-so.
Pros:
* Low amount of RNG for an SRPG.  You can also mitigate RNG by using a savescum trick: reloading a mid-battle save to retry a missed attack.
* Most battles past the half-way point end in 1-2 turns.
* The final battle is tense (you are severely underleveled) and requires a little improvisation.
* Almost zero grinding and no random battles fought.
* The graphics and soundtrack are pretty sweet, if you're into the lo-fi pixely stuff.

Cons:
* The pacing is atrocious.  Spell animations and enemy turns take forever to resolve.
* The "most battles end in 1-2 turns" has a downside: you use the same combo for each battle (molten blade-teleport-atropos) and it gets repetitive.
* Many longish cutscenes between battles, with nothing but text boxes that get mashed through.

Anyhow, I'm a bit biased and I don't know whether the pros outweigh the cons.  If anyone is curious, you can check out my 4:23:xx RTA on Twitch [url=http://www.twitch.tv/bml2422/c/4909543]here[/url].  My (loose) route notes are in the description.  If you're interested in picking up the game, PM me on Twitch and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the game & route.

JLohman711

2014-08-28 04:41:45 am

This looks like it's going to be a great event. I'm assuming there will be a stream?

djtifaheart

2014-08-28 03:13:57 pm

Gotta Go Fast!

It'll be streamed - we're still ironing out the details as to which channel it'll be on. Stay tuned for further updates on that.

Binarynova

2014-09-04 03:35:11 pm

Oh man. I'll be keeping an eye on this for sure.

And an RPG marathon within fairly reasonable driving distance? If I could get my hands on a repro FF3 NES cart or a flash cart I'd be all over submitting my Any% (no glitched jobs) run.

Mikalia

2014-09-07 06:58:13 pm

oh man =O I really want to go. Maybe I can talk my husband into wanting to go so we can just drive there. >.>; I will definitely do some prizes for this though.

magicfreak500

2014-09-08 10:39:49 am

Its great to see that this is getting so much hype. Myself hoping to go and mostly as a runner though not sure how I could explain why the game I plan to offer up when it opens up for game offers is a good game to be accepted lol.

Mikalia

2014-09-10 10:45:40 pm

So I can't run any games, and I very highly doubt I will be able to by May next year, but I talked it over with my husband about taking time off to drive there and he said he wouldn't see a problem with that. I can't say it's for 100% sure, but we are defiantly planning to attend next year. =D I can't wait to have Puwexil meet my husband since I always say he kind of looks like him. If I am able to attend I want to help out with whatever I can. I really don't know much, but I am willing to help out with whatever I can do.

puwexil

Edit history:

puwexil: 2014-09-11 01:22:02 am

2014-09-11 12:14:03 am

Professional Second Banana

Li'l old me has so many doppelgangers out there. Tongue

Also, we're going to push the date for submissions back by a week, to the week of September 22nd. I've been pretty busy lately getting ready for the SNES Final Fantasy Relay this weekend; and 8 months out there's no need to rush it.

Mikalia

Edit history:

Mikalia: 2014-09-11 09:15:16 am

2014-09-11 09:14:28 am

ok understood thumbsup

SNES FF relay Cheesy

sweet

AlecK47

2014-09-11 05:02:45 pm

What with all the issues that attendance costs caused for C4L this year, we’ve made getting those squared away as soon as possible one of our main priorities. One of us will get them posted soon; definitely before game submissions open. That said, there are two good hotel options for offsite people, and because of the logistics of this event it’s basically up to those people where they stay. Details about onsite/offsite attendance caps are in the first post of the thread.

The more economical option is the In Town Suites at Woods Cross, an extended stay place that rents by the week.

Website: http://www.intownsuites.com/extended-stay-locations/utah/woods-cross
Phone: (801) 296-6400
Rate: $230 per week
Incidental Charges: $50 deposit for the first week
Occupancy Limit: 4 per room (including children)
Amenities: full kitchenette, laundry in building
Shuttle Services: none
Distance from event: approximately a 10 minute drive, rough estimate of a 30 minute walk
Other Notes: no continental breakfast, no tripadvisor ratings

There’s also the Country Inn and Suites, though

Website: http://www.countryinns.com/bountiful-hotel-ut-84010/utwestb/hotel/dining/detail
Phone: (801) 292-8100
Rates: $123.29 (1 king and sofa bed), $133.29 (2 queen), $143.29 (2 queen and sofa bed), $153.29 (2 queen family suite) – taxes included
Incidental Charges: $0.01 hold (yes, one cent)
Occupancy Limit: 4 per room (including children)
Amenities: mini fridge and microwave in all rooms, free continental breakfast (menu is on their site), basic fitness center, indoor/outdoor pool
Shuttle Services: between airport and hotel and between Lagoon Amusement Park and hotel, both 6am-11pm
Distance from event: under 10 minute drive, rough estimate of a 20 minute walk
Other Notes: good tripadvisor reviews (83%), offers a 15% discount with tickets to Lagoon Amusement Park (and discounts on park tickets if you buy from their desk)
Lagoon Amusement Park website: https://www.lagoonpark.com

tl;dr most people will probably prefer In Town Suites because of the lower cost, but if somebody wants to bring their family and have their kids and significant other spend at least some time at the amusement park (it’s open on the weekends only in May). For those concerned about getting between offsite lodging and Essentia’s place, we should have people available to give rides.

What with all the issues that attendance costs caused for C4L this year, we’ve made getting those squared away as soon as possible one of our main priorities.  One of us will get them posted soon; definitely before game submissions open.  That said, there are two good hotel options for offsite people, and because of the logistics of this event it’s basically up to those people where they stay.  Details about onsite/offsite attendance caps are in the first post of the thread.

The more economical option is the In Town Suites at Woods Cross, an extended stay place that rents by the week.
[hidden]Website: http://www.intownsuites.com/extended-stay-locations/utah/woods-cross
Phone: (801) 296-6400
Rate: $230 per week
Incidental Charges: $50 deposit for the first week
Occupancy Limit: 4 per room (including children)
Amenities: full kitchenette, laundry in building
Shuttle Services: none
Distance from event: approximately a 10 minute drive, rough estimate of a 30 minute walk
Other Notes: no continental breakfast, no tripadvisor ratings[/hidden]

There’s also the Country Inn and Suites, though
[hidden]Website: http://www.countryinns.com/bountiful-hotel-ut-84010/utwestb/hotel/dining/detail
Phone: (801) 292-8100
Rates: $123.29 (1 king and sofa bed), $133.29 (2 queen), $143.29 (2 queen and sofa bed), $153.29 (2 queen family suite) – taxes included
Incidental Charges: $0.01 hold (yes, one cent)
Occupancy Limit: 4 per room (including children)
Amenities: mini fridge and microwave in all rooms, free continental breakfast (menu is on their site), basic fitness center, indoor/outdoor pool
Shuttle Services: between airport and hotel and between Lagoon Amusement Park and hotel, both 6am-11pm
Distance from event: under 10 minute drive, rough estimate of a 20 minute walk
Other Notes: good tripadvisor reviews (83%), offers a 15% discount with tickets to Lagoon Amusement Park (and discounts on park tickets if you buy from their desk)
Lagoon Amusement Park website: https://www.lagoonpark.com[/hidden]

tl;dr most people will probably prefer In Town Suites because of the lower cost, but if somebody wants to bring their family and have their kids and significant other spend at least some time at the amusement park (it’s open on the weekends only in May).  For those concerned about getting between offsite lodging and Essentia’s place, we should have people available to give rides.

puwexil

2014-09-20 12:49:40 pm

Professional Second Banana

To fill in the rest of the cost details, the cost for attendees staying onsite will be $50 (to cover tech equipment needed for the marathon and reimburse Essentia & Denton for electricity/Internet/AC/etc costs) + $20/day for food (main marathon dates only, not setup/bonus days). For attendees staying offsite, we've decided to waive the $50 since they're already paying for their own accommodations (and 30 x $50 will give us the funds we need for the projected marathon expenses).

So in short, cost for attending the entire marathon will be $150 if staying onsite and $100 if staying offsite. Payment deadline will be April 1, 2015, after which if we've had more than 45 signups, slots of non-payers will be reassigned.

Re: game submissions, I've heard some concerns from multiple people about the current timeline (people haven't had time to route games they're interested in offering, and would have to basically give blind estimates). The planning group and I talked it over, and we've agreed that pushing the submission timetable (which was originally designed around maximizing the amount of time people had to make travel arrangements) forward by a more significant amount would help make for a stronger game lineup and reduce drop-outs.

The new plans are to start a separate thread for submissions on October 27th and have it run through November 10th (11:59PM EST/GMT-5, if anyone's planning to wait until the last minute Wink

). After that we'll review the offers and pick runs both for the main schedule and for backups in case of drop-outs, and release a list the last week of November (before the holiday season starts). Submission limit will be a max of 5 games/10 total categories per runner, and runs will be chosen based on the following criteria relative to the other submissions:

Length - This will be a 5-day marathon, or about 120 hours. We want to have as much variety on the schedule as possible (both for games and runners), so 6-8+ hour runs will need to be very strong in the below areas.
Donation Incentives - What we're here for (along with having a fun week)! Can you name characters? Are there storyline branches/character choices/optional bosses that work in a speedrun route? Are there in-jokes in the game that fans would donate to see (ie the Phantom Train Suplex). Strong donation incentives will be especially important for longer runs.
Entertainment - Does the run have interesting tricks/strats that make for engaging commentary? Is there variety in the gameplay throughout the course of the run? What is the cutscene to action ratio like?
Game Popularity - One of the purposes of this marathon will be giving some RPGs that aren't popular enough to make a GDQ schedule a chance in the spotlight; but at the same time we want to have games on the schedule that a decent chunk of our audience has heard of and will stick around for. More obscure games also tend to have difficulty getting commentators besides the runner; and based on the C4L feedback we want to work on having strong commentary throughout this marathon.
Marathon Safety - How consistently can your run be finished within the estimate you give? How big of an impact does randomness have on the run? How likely would it have to be mercy killed to prevent going significantly over estimate?

Defining what is/isn't an RPG is something I'm not going to attempt - I and the people who help me form the schedule will decide on a case-by-case basis if any offered games aren't appropriate for the marathon.

To fill in the rest of the cost details, the cost for attendees staying onsite will be $50 (to cover tech equipment needed for the marathon and reimburse Essentia & Denton for electricity/Internet/AC/etc costs) + $20/day for food (main marathon dates only, not setup/bonus days).  For attendees staying offsite, we've decided to waive the $50 since they're already paying for their own accommodations (and 30 x $50 will give us the funds we need for the projected marathon expenses).

So in short, cost for attending the entire marathon will be $150 if staying onsite and $100 if staying offsite.  Payment deadline will be April 1, 2015, after which if we've had more than 45 signups, slots of non-payers will be reassigned.

[u]Re: game submissions[/u], I've heard some concerns from multiple people about the current timeline (people haven't had time to route games they're interested in offering, and would have to basically give blind estimates).  The planning group and I talked it over, and we've agreed that pushing the submission timetable (which was originally designed around maximizing the amount of time people had to make travel arrangements) forward by a more significant amount would help make for a stronger game lineup and reduce drop-outs.

The new plans are to start a separate thread for submissions on [b]October 27th[/b] and have it run through November 10th (11:59PM EST/GMT-5, if anyone's planning to wait until the last minute ;) ).  After that we'll review the offers and pick runs both for the main schedule and for backups in case of drop-outs, and release a list the last week of November (before the holiday season starts).  Submission limit will be a max of 5 games/10 total categories per runner, and runs will be chosen based on the following criteria relative to the other submissions:

Length - This will be a 5-day marathon, or about 120 hours.  We want to have as much variety on the schedule as possible (both for games and runners), so 6-8+ hour runs will need to be very strong in the below areas.
Donation Incentives - What we're here for (along with having a fun week)!  Can you name characters?  Are there storyline branches/character choices/optional bosses that work in a speedrun route?  Are there in-jokes in the game that fans would donate to see (ie the Phantom Train Suplex).  Strong donation incentives will be especially important for longer runs.
Entertainment - Does the run have interesting tricks/strats that make for engaging commentary?  Is there variety in the gameplay throughout the course of the run?  What is the cutscene to action ratio like?
Game Popularity - One of the purposes of this marathon will be giving some RPGs that aren't popular enough to make a GDQ schedule a chance in the spotlight; but at the same time we want to have games on the schedule that a decent chunk of our audience has heard of and will stick around for.  More obscure games also tend to have difficulty getting commentators besides the runner; and based on the C4L feedback we want to work on having strong commentary throughout this marathon.
Marathon Safety - How consistently can your run be finished within the estimate you give?  How big of an impact does randomness have on the run?  How likely would it have to be mercy killed to prevent going significantly over estimate?

Defining what is/isn't an RPG is something I'm not going to attempt - I and the people who help me form the schedule will decide on a case-by-case basis if any offered games aren't appropriate for the marathon.