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puwexil: 2018-06-05 09:06:45 am
Professional Second Banana
RPG Limit Break 2018 raised almost 50% more than last year's event and I've heard quite a bit of positive feedback from attendees and viewers; but as always there are things we can improve to make RPGLB 2019 even better.

To get the conversation started, here’s some thoughts from Staff - feel free to add on to these topics or any others you can think of.  It is preferred by Staff for feedback to be posted to this thread (to make it easier to find later), but it is also accepted via the #rpglb-event-feedback channel on our Discord server (discord.gg/rpglb).

Schedule/Games
-The event dates in mid-May were chosen to try to minimize conflicts with college/university classes & finals weeks, avoid running into Memorial Day weekend (which would impact many attendees' travel costs), and be at least a full month away from SGDQ.  We know that multiple community members are unhappy with the dates overlapping with Mothers' Day weekend, and we're interested in hearing feedback from them on what they'd rather see in event dates (the more specific the better).

-We are planning to keep the marathon 6 ½ days (Sunday-Saturday) for the foreseeable future.

-Game submissions were done about a month later than RPGLB17’s (in order to give runners more time to prepare their submissions), and the games list/schedule were released about 3 months prior to the event dates.  Interested to hear if this worked more conveniently for people compared to previous events (which did submissions & posted the game list about a month sooner).

-Runner drops were pretty heavy this year - we had a total of 6 games need to be removed from the schedule and replaced.  Real-life happens and we don't hold it against people for dropping (especially when our event has significant costs to attend for many people) - I'm just bringing this up since I saw some questions about how the games committee replaces drops, and wanted to go over that process (which is different from the initial game selection):
  -After the games list is done, games are chosen for the backup list - these are generally games that almost made the accept list but had to be cut for time, and games with a proven history of success at previous events (but didn’t make the accept list in favor of games that haven’t been in yet); and we aim for a backup list with a variety of run lengths, runners, and platforms.  Like accepted runners, it is expected that backup runners register for the event before the deadline in order to stay on the backup list.
  -The #1 factor in drop replacement was avoiding damage to the schedule, like significantly changing the timeslots for other runs, creating conflicts with runners' availability, creating logistical or tech setup issues due to specific runs being too close together or far apart, etc.
  -#2 factor was replacing drops quickly, so the new runners would have as much notice and practice time as possible.  We often did delay replacement decisions up to a week or so in order to see if more drops happened (which would allow for more replacement options, such as replacing 2 shorter games with 1 longer one).
  -Side factors were trying to use drop replacements to give runs to people that didn't already have other runs on the schedule (when possible), and having replacements be similar to the dropped game for genre/franchise/etc.

-Next event the committee will consider GDQ-style setup blocks (which will either just be absorbed or replaced with bonus games, depending on schedule pacing) and other options to help keep the schedule from falling too far behind.

Venue
- Using the smaller OC room for extra TVs seemed to work well for preventing heavy crowding in the main practice/casual room.  There wasn’t really a defined purpose for each room though - for future events we’re curious what attendees would like to see in TV rooms: larger ‘casual’ room and smaller ‘practice’ room (with the practice room expected to be a quieter place for runner practice), larger ‘practice/casual’ room and smaller ‘races/tournaments’ room, etc.

- Having both dividers closed seemed to help prevent practice room noise from getting into the stream room.

- The food/board game room being separated from the rest of the event space was unfortunate (I heard many attendees say they weren't aware it existed for some or all of the event), but was a necessary sacrifice to keep attendance fees low (we were offered a significant discount on renting the Officers Club, and going with a different setup that kept everything together would have cost a lot more).  Originally we were planning to have the food trucks park by the food room, but the hotel required them to park by the OC instead (fortunately the weather was consistently nice enough that this wasn't as big an inconvenience as it could have been).  We as staff appreciate people's flexibility in this, and aim to provide an unbroken space for next year's venue.

Food
-Food trucks seemed to work out well aside from the previously mentioned location issue.  Interested in feedback on the food selection, availability hours, meeting of dietary restrictions, etc.  As the event continues to grow we don’t expect our charity partner to be able to continue providing daily full meals for all attendees the entire event; but we are hopeful that food/drinks support will continue in some form.

Tech
Schedule delays occurred for a number of reasons, and the tech setup certainly contributed. Here are our thoughts on how/why that happened:
  - The audio setup became much more complex due to the new mixer and equipment; we knew this would happen and accepted the risk, plus it allowed us to do more cool things on audio (e.g. service special requests for Dr Skies and RyuQuezacotl during their runs)
  - Interview setups imposed some added delays, largely related to the above point
  - Many setups had specific issues that were unforeseen or unusual in nature, for example:
  - Valkyrie Profile was entirely our fault; we did not set up and test DS capture in advance
  - Soul Blazer was not reasonable to foresee; however, in the future we'll swap carts sooner as a testing step, because it's fast to do even if it's not likely to be the problem
  - Legend of Legaia was caused by the tech on shift not being sufficiently educated on the AV capture, and Vulajin/Gamer/others being asleep or unresponsive; we're looking to ensure 24/7 coverage of tech experts in the future
  - We experienced frequent issues with bad audio and video coming from consoles, almost entirely due to bad cables or splitter deficiencies; we're looking into better equipment to reduce these issues
  - We had one instance of unplanned stream downtime during the event (during Ni no Kuni); the cause is unknown so there are no related changes planned (no, no one kicked the cable)

There were complaints at times during the event regarding audio issues, e.g. game audio too quiet or people being muted or the audio balance varying from game to game.
  - This is a Very Hard Problem(™)
  - Twitch chat feedback doesn't help with this since it's usually a mixed bag of conflicting opinions
  - We're looking to improve our monitoring both inside and outside the stream room to improve the quality of the stream
  - This is also partially a manpower issue because consistency is hard to accomplish without having the same people balancing
  - It's also partially a training problem with the new mixer; we're going to do a much better job next year educating audio volunteers on how to use the mixer to its full potential

Finally, we had some complaints regarding volunteering for tech (e.g. people coming on shift during a game and leaving during the same game), and we have some thoughts about tech volunteering as well:
  - Lengthy games that outlast individual volunteer shifts are a reality of our event, but we'll be thinking about whether we can improve that since we know it's boring and feels like you're not able to help much
  - Our tech training was not sufficient to cover all of the tasks expected of tech volunteers
  - Even so, our volunteers stepped up in a major way and educated each other
  - Another part of this was that we didn't even fully understand the mixer prior to the event, and learned many lessons by the end
  - We're planning to have training videos available pre-event next year
  - We made many changes to the tech setup throughout the event (usually to simplify things), and these complicated volunteers' lives; the tech scratch doc somewhat helped communicate these, but we need to improve on this communication
  - We struggle with 24/7 expert coverage of the event, which means sometimes volunteers are left without any expert support; this is a high priority for us to address next event

Twitch Chat/Discord
- We realize it's getting more difficult to keep Twitch chat under control, especially during the busy times. We're looking at bringing in more mods, especially those who have helped with community events, to make things better. We're also putting together a list of tools to help make moderation easier.

Website
-This event saw a fully redesigned rpglimitbreak.com website with a new stream viewer and links to other resources.  For people that used the site during the marathon, interested in feedback on the design and feature set.

-We are aiming to move game submissions and event registration to our website starting next year.

Prizes
-Next year’s prize submission form will include a field for preferred name to use on our website/stream layouts, and also an anonymous option.

Incentives
-Incentives were priced a bit higher overall than last event, and several incentives for the last 2 runs were hidden until the last 2 days to allow them to be priced based on the marathon’s overall donation pacing.

-A few runs this year falsely appeared to go over estimate due to mid-run incentives being miscategorized as post-run on the schedule.  For incentive submissions next year, we will ask runners to indicate whether incentives with time costs would be done during or after the run (to ensure that mid-run incentives are added to the estimate instead of to post-run setup).

Charity
-NAMI has been a great partner to our event for 4 years, and they’ve started using RPGLB as their shining example of ‘Do It Yourself’ fundraising campaigns.  The cause of mental health has also clearly resonated well with our attendees and viewers.  That said, we always want our charity cause/partner to have strong community support are always open to feedback.  The main specific feedback we’ve gotten in the past is requests for as much donation money as possible to go towards international/global efforts, and we have passed that along to NAMI.

Volunteering
Signups
  -Host auditions were slow until we put out a general call to get more applicants. Hopefully this goes away in year 2 of requesting auditions since all of our hosts from this year will have one
already, and there will be a larger attendee base that will want to submit.
  - Next year, we will ask on the form if Tech volunteers would be comfortable working on the audio mixer, given appropriate training.  This will help in scheduling to make sure knowledgeable people are on duty as much as possible.
  - There will also be a section to list what runs you will be on the couch for commentary to avoid any scheduling conflicts.

Scheduling
  - We attempted to place senior techs on specific shifts to cover setups, but that was somewhat undone by the sheer number of game drops and reworking the schedule multiple times in April, and even into May.  This resulted in inexperienced volunteers being thrown into the fire on occasion during setups.

On-Site
  - The biggest curveball we threw at volunteers on donations was having to update the schedule in the tracker.  We did not communicate this well enough internally as staff to prepare volunteers for it.  Going forward, updating the tracker will remain on the donation station volunteer, and we will include this in the orientation before the marathon.

Social Media
- Social Media coverage during the event went well, and people on Twitter appeared to be talking quite a bit about the event! We'll continue to look into ways to involve people off-site.

Pre-Show/Interviews
-The interview area/setup this event was a pretty significant upgrade from last year’s, and went off well aside from a few tech hiccups with transitions between normal setup and interview.

-Setup periods with scheduled interviews should have had some extra time added, but this didn’t happen due to a scheduling oversight - will do next time to help keep the schedule better on track.
Thread title:  
Sega Saturn Speedrunner
I enjoyed my time at the event. It was a bit weird at first that the front doors to the OC were locked, but I'm sure there was a reason for that. It was a lot easier acquiring a LCD this time around for use than it was last year. Thank you for including extra monitors in the practice room for that. The food was a mixed bag. I recall half of the food trucks being pretty decent to very good with the other 3 being quite poor in quality. I hope that next year if there are two practice rooms again that there will be a stream of the marathon in the second room as well. It was disappointing to not be able to have the stream in the background while in the second room. Not sure what else I can add, but I'll edit the post if I think of anything.
Food
Most people had mixed bag reactions to the food, but I thought it was all pretty alright. Some days certainly better than others, but maybe that's just me willing to eat anything you put in front of me.

Twitch Chat/Discord
One thing I see often in twitch chat moderation is lack of consistent ruling. [e.g. Someone says something, gets a warning/timeout, someone else does the same thing and gets an instant ban]. While i wasn't apart of of the Marathon Twitch Discord chat, as a general RPGLB mod I wonder if this can be improved upon. Along with resources for mods when people ask questions. 

Charity
Definitely a fan of continuing to support NAMI as I've said previously. Not entirely against going with another, though.

Volunteering
As a Tech Shift volunteer, I would have liked it if they were split up into separate roles, puwexil mentioned about saying you'd be comfortable working with the mixer during volunteer registration, I definitely support that.
Something that might be asking for much, would be quick documentation for useage of mixer, and maybe some of the tech setup stuff. I wouldn't expect complex setups to be done with that, but just something to quickly refer to as reminders over the course of the week. Would also work well if things change during the week [e.g. After a few days it was noted that during Break Screens we should switch to the Interview Cam instead of Runner cam as it generally was a more interesting shot during transitions, but most people on Stream Tech didn't get that memo, so it was inconsistently applied]
Dual post with Discord / SDA Forums.

- Venue: As noted, the Food Room being so far away was pretty bad. It sucked not having everything tied together neatly. With that being said, I certainly would have made the same decision, all things being said and done. The focus isn't board games and puzzles, it's putting together a marathon and making that affordable for as many people as possible. We all seem to agree it was bad, but the best possible decision out of a list of middling options.

- Food: I am appreciative of NAMI providing lunch for most of the days of the marathon. The food truck quality was up and down but overall, not too bad.  Next time, if there is a day where they cannot provide food truck vouchers, is there a way for them to at least provide food trucks to come in? They may be willing to come in regardless, knowing there's a captive audience. The days we didn't have access to trucks i used GrubHub, which wasn't as satisfying. Like I said, any days being provided for free is great, and it's amazing that NAMI is so supportive of the event.

- Tech: Windows 10 is... special. That's all I'll say regarding Valkyrie Profile.

Regarding Donation Station, we had some early glitches that feel like they could have been at least known prior to, had the system been looked at. We had several donations stuck in the tracker, and stuff wasn't filtering up to the host. Stuff happens, and I obviously don't know what happened earlier, but can we make sure a check is done before the start of the event?

Additionally, there seemed to be a lack of knowledge and training on donation station. I'm always happy to be of aid, but several times I was helping to train people in an ad hoc manner. Having a half hour shift, only to then tell people they don't get to implement what they learned for 4 or 5 days means that they'll generally not retain what they learned. Would it be possible to have a second training day on Wednesday or Thursday? At around 11AM, maybe right in the middle of a longer game. It could be during a veteran's shift, that would not be excessively difficult in my opinion. 

Twitch Chat Moderation : I thought the twitch mods did a good job! It's hard to expect people to watch over the chat 24/7 like hawks, demanding that offensive content is purged instantaneously. The only solution I see is to either do sub-only chat (I don't think we have reached that critical mass yet, RPGLB Chat was less busy than GDQ Chat with Sub Only mode on), or to have a 5 or 10 second delay on all messages. That would also be a reasonable solution. 
Edit history:
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 06:10:04 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 06:09:06 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:43:47 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:41:33 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:36:12 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:34:04 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:33:17 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:32:48 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 05:13:42 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:58:40 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:58:22 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:52:32 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:48:03 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:46:11 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:45:47 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:44:22 am
GhostKingG1: 2018-06-05 04:11:14 am
Why Hello it is Me
Once again a fantastic marathon. Congrats to everyone on another successful event. Here is most of the feedback I could think of:

Stream/Tech:

-The layout was good as always. Simple but effective with lots of engagement without being cluttered. The one issue was games with very long titles having tiny category names, which I recall was due to the title and category name being the same object in OBS.

-Tech was generally on point. A few runs had audio issues, but rarely anything big that I could say hurt the marathon that was the fault of tech (RIP Twitch during Omega Weapon), and most problems were fixed quickly, so kudos to the tech crew. Helped a lot during the Custom Robo 1v1 and the Partners in Time run with the audio issues. Apologies on my end for messing up the game feed cropping during BoD7, that was largely my own misunderstanding of how it was cropped and I was able to make due anyways.

-Regarding setup issues, I think it might be good to get a hold of runners beforehand via email the way GDQ does with its runners to assure that each runner gives a list of exactly what they need and what they will be providing, so to hopefully minimize some of the extended set up issues, as there were a couple runs that had additional set up problems because the resources needed for the run were not discussed with tech beforehand. I do think it's good we got a notification in the discord regarding getting commentary prepared beforehand, so something like that for what the runner needs techwise wouldn't hurt either.

-Having music play in the background during downtime was really good. Although, from what I was told it was a very simple setup put together shortly before the event with only about a 5 hour playlist, so we got the same songs fairly regularly. In addition none of the song titles showed up on the layout for any inquisitive viewers, often leaving people asking in chat “what song is this (from)?” Not a big deal, but several other marathons do this already so I hope next year RPGLB can have a bigger playlist with song listings available.

Venue/Event Setup:

-I still greatly enjoy the venue, with its ease of access from the airport, edible complementary breakfast, and it seems it was well able to handle the influx of about 60 more attendees this time. That said, I felt as if there was never much incentive to go to the downstairs room of the hotel where the casual boardgame room was. The problem was mainly that it was so out of the way that it took specifically getting people together to get anything to happen down there, and often people just neglected it entirely and hung out in the hotel lobby instead. Perhaps having a partial casual gaming room nearby would have had more people down there, as basically everything else happened in the officer's club.

The big concerns for this year mainly concern hotel rooms, which capped out before we reached event capacity, and of course the visit from campus police, but sounds like those were easier to deal with than last year's scheduling ordeal.

-For the time being I like it being kept in Salt Lake City. Apart from it being relatively cheap for me to travel, I imagine it's a lot easier for setup due to the resources nearby, and it's also just a beautiful locale. I understand that it ends up being a bit of a travel issue for some East Coast residents, but I can't imagine it's much worse than Minneapolis is for SGDQ for most flights anyways.

Publicity/Promotion:

-Having the Legend of Mana race on GDQ's channel beforehand was a really nice idea for promotion. There was a lot of twitter promotion going on to help out as well. Viewer numbers were consistently higher throughout, especially during frontpage times where we nearly got to 20k concurrent viewers toward the end.

I do think there is a bit more that can be done to promote the event beforehand; one person on Youtube mentioned possibly doing a promotional video a week before the event so people on Youtube can find their way to the actual event on Twitch before it happens.

Moderation:


-Moderation was hard this year, so Im glad we had moderators from previous marathons and past community showcases allowed to be there to moderate. A list of tools to help moderation will definitely come in handy, but I think that mods really could use a more broad list of rules and appropriate actions to take. There were some instances where messages were met with far stronger reaction than I felt necessary (such as a 10 minute timeout for something that really only needed a purge), and I think a lot of people were very much confused with moderator action. At times I had to pop into the moderator discord and ask the mods what the deal was, considering links started getting met with deletion in spite of there being no policy on links. Often times I had to post a comment in chat specifically stating for people not to do something and why, in order to explain why we were taking certain courses of action. Nonetheless, the team did overall pretty well at what is essentially the most thankless job of running a marathon, and all in all people liked being able to talk in the marathon chat without it getting completely spammy.


Volunteering:

-The hosting process this year was simple enough, and I quite enjoyed my time hosting. I noticed a couple issues with hosts getting information wrong (like where sub revenue goes) throughout the week, so I suppose perhaps more could have been done on the dos/donts of hosting, but nothing's perfect, and I do think having hosts do an audition was for the better.

Charity:

-I 100% support NAMI being our charity going into next year, and if not them for some reason then certainly something in support of mental illness awareness and the like. They're rated pretty high, and they support the event in a good way. There aren't really any large marathons that focus on the subject of mental illness, and allowing people to get up and speak at the end adds a sentimental value I don't really see anywhere else.

Submissions:

-Having submissions after AGDQ helped. I still like the submission process, which allows for edits, comments, and lengthy description. The only issue left I think is that submissions are still done on the dwindling SDA (which is why Im glad a feedback channel is also on discord), although people were willing to make accounts on SDA just for submissions, so I don't think it hurts submissions too bad.

-At this point there are still some pretty big series of RPGs that haven't seen much in the way of RPGLB submissions yet(Bioware, Elder Scrolls, Soulsborne), and I wonder if it has to do with where runners of those games live, or if they just are unaware of the event. As the event continues to grow, I'm hoping that more is done to promote community events on the channel in the coming year, which may help increase the diversity of submissions. Last year had stuff like the Bethesda relay on the channel, plus Questing for Glory. Potentially, the channel's twitter account could be more active in promoting community events, as well as the fact that the channel accepts community event submissions. Ultimately though, it comes down to who submits what when it comes to the schedule, so that's not really on staff. Just something to consider.

Games/Schedule:

-Had no real issues with setup or tech in running any of the games I was a part of (and again thanks to staff for letting me have a chance to show off several games I adore), beyond the little tech issues during BoD7. Always love running games at this event.

-There was a pretty wide variety of games, with plenty of surprise hits and staples performing well. Beating last year's total by over 50k suggests it was a good schedule all around. I certainly enjoyed catching nearly all that I ended up watching. Plus the Final Fantasy selections this year didn't take up the same bulk of the schedule as in years past, showing the marathon can find success without leaning on the heavy hitters too much. The inclusion of more longer games was generally welcome and I'm still glad we have at least a couple that get daytime or even primetime spots, so I hope that continues. I do have two concerns regarding the schedule, however:

1: Silly/bad block seemed like a bit of an experimental idea, and it definitely paid off, as the room was more full during most of that block than I've ever seen during an overnight at the marathon. Not to mention the donation total was also really good, and the reception was really strong. While I like having silly and bad games on the schedule (and I really enjoyed the block myself), I am a bit concerned with the possibility of games getting shoehorned in and certain games which would be a reach to get into the schedule otherwise being taken to fill it up, rather than just taking either a couple of really good (well, entertaining) ones. Not that I had really any issue with the games on the block this year other than Virtual Hydlide oh god my eyes, it's moreso I just hope it doesn't become a "we have to do this every year" block where theres like an expected amount of hours on the schedule, if you get what I mean.

2: With all due respect to the runners, who filled in admirably and put on a good show, when viewed strictly as a schedule of games, I felt that the backups that were taken were a bit of a mismatch for replacing the games which had to be dropped when it came to the matter of schedule diversity. The 6 games dropped this year were Musashi, Icewind Dale, Fable, Phantasy Star II, Baldur's Gate, and Dragon View. Of these, 5/6 of them were either Western RPGs or Action RPGs, genres which are generally less represented on the schedule than turn-based RPGs. The replacements were Dragon Quest I, Final Fantasy I PSP, SaGa Frontier, and Diablo II. Of those, 3/4 of them are turn-based RPGs, and both DQ1 and FF1 also had considerable overlap with multiple other games in those series which were taken this year, which I feel ultimately homogenized the schedule a bit. When there were games like Odin Sphere, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Mega Man Battle Network 5 on the backups list as well, I feel like there were at least options to try to replace the less represented sub-genres on the schedule that ultimately weren't taken.

On a strictly subjective note, I'm also not particularly fond of closing on the same game that it did just 2 years ago, considering the significance of the closing slot in the marathon. That said, I understand that there was some sort of caveat with just about any of the stronger picks for closer (whether it be dates of runner's attendance, or having the same runner close with a different game), so it's not a big issue for me (and the runner and couch did great anyways). I am really happy that Ys was given the opportunity to open as well.

-It became almost a running gag how many runs went over estimate this year; by my count, 17 went over estimate (counting FF8 which had its estimate changed mid run to account for incentives). The vast majority of them were due to the runs not having bonus incentives add time to the estimate, but I think in the future having a couple small setup buffers wouldn't hurt in terms of keeping us on schedule. I think the submissions page should place more stress on the idea that estimates are for “this is if a lot goes wrong”. I think there's some sort of pressure created by marathons being so hotly “competitive” with submissions, that it leads to people giving really tight estimates. Going over estimate is greatly exaggerated as a problem on an individual run basis, but when it becomes a bit of a theme it pushes the marathon behind schedule, which it did in a relatively big way unfortunately. Lastly, I think there's still this propensity to roll the credits on many games, which I think that if we're super behind, staff should be limiting.

Incentives:

-Incentives this year were good, and well accounted for in terms of pricing. All of them got met, but there was never a guarantee for many of them, which I feel is a good thing as it meant that they had to be worked for, so to speak. Most bidwars did really well too.

Miscellaneous:

-By and large, the commentary this year was great. Most of the runs had the right mix of informative, fun, and comfy, that all make this marathon work so well. I hope this continues.

I do think there were some faux pas that should be avoided in the future. Not the kind of stuff to explicitly outline in the rules, but more matters that should probably be brought up somewhere in the runner/commentary instructions and whatnot. For example, a couple commentators used the term “triggered” in the internet-jokey, Urban Dictionary fashion (i.e. in place of “upset” or “offended”), which, while not exactly in the rules, is a really big no-no when the marathon is supporting a charity centered around removing the stigma on mental illness, as it undermines the whole concept when the concept of a stress trigger has real weight for many people with Anxiety and PTSD. (And I mean specifically this definition, since stuff like "story trigger" is entirely different).

-I like the website more at the moment, although the sudden switch to the website for the schedule mid-marathon felt a bit awkward, having bookmarked the Horaro myself and the Horaro being posted on Twitter. If the schedule is going to be on the website or tracker, I do think it would be nice to have it segmented by days rather than one big “wall” of runs.

-Food trucks were nice. I will never complain about free food if it's at all edible, and it was usually at least decent. I know we didn't have the same kind of catering this year and not all of the food was great for everyone, but the fact that most of the trucks (at least that I saw) had options this year was really nice as well.

-The last day (the day after the event concluded) felt kind of a down day personally, with everyone tearing down and few people making time to go hang out and do fun stuff like going games shopping bowling like we did in years past Sad I think part of this is due to teardown coming the next day since we ran so late, and part of it was just how many people had early departures. Just a bit of a bummer.

I'll add more if it comes to mind. Thanks again to staff, volunteers, runners, commentators, etc. for a great event, it's always a pleasure coming and I hope the event continues its streak of fantastic marathons Smiley
I watched from home and worked as a moderator for the marathon (again, I'm honored you chose me to do so).

Schedule/Games
- I enjoyed the game selection and most of the runs were at a decent time for I think the viewership that they would pull on their own.

-That said, I think something needs to be done to assist in staying on schedule. I know only some of the reason is the tech issues, but we were pretty far off schedule toward the end, and it became a strong challenge to know when certain things were happening. If the GDQ style setup blocks don't pan out, something needs to be considered.

-It would be nice to have a schedule of interviews as well. It's something that would be nice to bring about hype to various runs about "MAKE SURE YOU'RE EARLY FOR THE INTERVIEW WITH ______ ".

-Would it help to consider the tech needs of each run when scheduling? Like "these are all PSX and these are all GBA, so lets group them together for easier set up" (It's a thought)

Tech
-Personally, I can tell the difference in some of the new tech. Part of this is I'm someone with a lot of audio training, and I appreciated the better richness that I felt I heard in this years voices to last year's. It was very nice

-I know extra onsite  monitoring of the stream would potentially help,  or maybe that is something potentially the moderation team could assist with? We were in the discord usually at the same time as stream, and we might be a smaller, more reliable pool for getting feedback if needed. Less than the insanity that is the twitch chat.

Twitch Chat / Moderation
-This is probably where I have some of the strongest opinions as it centers around my experience. Overall, it was a great experience.

-I personally am not a fan of sub only chat, and I appreciate that we were not. I would rather spend my $5 in a donation than $5 to talk in chat. I think it also increases a welcoming atmosphere to new people viewing the marathon that they can participate in chat.

-The mod team we had was fantastic and a great group to work with. Some of the speediest people to ever time out, I'll tell you that. I barely had time to react sometimes!

- I see a couple ways to help decrease the load on the mod team. Everything I'm suggesting I would be willing to assist in getting setup/solutions found/ etc during the down time until next year's marathon. 
  -ASCII art spam. Something that auto purges it.
  -Emote/symbol limit,  something that keeps people from posting a message of emotes the lenth of the chat.
  -slow mode. I really think some version of slow mode would assist in getting messages purged before the chat ever saw them, and thus reducing the overall volume, I think some people would post one, see how long it took the mod team, then post another. If they're not seeing them at all, they might reduce the number they do this.
 
-Moderation clarification would definitely help. There were times I definitely as a new mod deferred to the other mods that had been around what they thought a better punishment was for something, and if I wasn't as far as links/mulit line I just resorted to not doing anything (except the links that were clearly inappropriate)

-The fact that moderators can now manage auto-mod helps a lot. The mod team should be better aware of how to do so before next year to make better use of its functions.

-!couch command : PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW WHO'S ON THE COUCH!

-Lastly, I think having some general idea of the various moderators schedule would be helpful as well. By the end of the marathon, we all kinda had a feel for when each other would be around. but it would be nice to at least have something to reference
"Alphena is in CST and usually around from 7pm to 1am." and what not - something that let us make sure we never felt like we were either leaving it under modded or what not. Nothing obligatory, just something to let us keep it in mind. We could set up mod shifts, but most of us would probably be around more than any shift we signed up for.
steak Steak STEAK!!!
Just to clarify on Legaia in particular - I had informed staff that I would be needing my own TV for the run to keep my display lag consistent with my practice for slots.  I accept responsibility for not making further arrangements to make sure that staff would also be aware that unlike the CRT's in the stream room, that my TV only accepts composite / component / HDMI and not S-Video.  That was an oversight on my part.  On another note, my estimate was unnecessarily generous, so I guess that helps make up for things.
Overall I had an amazing time and felt the event was very well handled, staff was amazing as usual! Some specific points:

Food
Speaking as someone who can't eat gluten or eggs I was very happy with the food that was provided. Any problems I had was with the truck itself and not RPGLB's management of the trucks (and even then it was a very small issue) I found the food was good though I was especially delighted by the meals which came with vegetables near the end of the week!

Volunteering
Training was done in a short shift before the event started. It was a crowded room making it hard to see for the host training, and the tech training had gone overtime so was still happening when the donation station training started so it was even more cramped and noisy so very difficult to hear what was being said. There were tasks that were added afterwards as well which caused some confusion. That being said Bobtheninjagoldfish did an amazing job of providing the training and also providing volunteer support during the event as things came up. There were some mixups with some of the scheduled volunteers (as happens at these sorts of things) and Stinger was also great with assisting with that. I would happily volunteer to help again!

Safety
I'm sorry to be the one to have to bring this up but unfortunately this was a huge issue at the end of the marathon though I know many were unaware this was even occurring. I will be sending a private and more detailed feedback of this specific issue directly to staff, however there was an issue where there was someone at the event who was causing major safety issues for some/all of the women at the event and I was one of the affected women.

I fully believe that Staff cared very much about this issue and also that they did their best to try and keep me, as well as the other directly affected women, safe but there was a lack of communication where many women at the event were not aware of the threat to their safety and this is greatly concerning to me. Unfortunately as the event continues to grow and be successful, there will be more occurrances of this type of issue. We should not have to be scared to go to or be strongly encouraged to have an escort when going to the bathroom.

Overall Feedback
This event was overall amazing and well put together as usual and I know Staff will do their best to make next year even better, and I know I can't wait to go back and have another amazing year Smiley
Edit history:
kariohki: 2018-06-07 09:10:00 am
waifus are laifu
Overall I think everything went smoothly. Only complaint was the sudden change to donation processing that meant that person had to do start/end time for games, which wasn't communicated through Discord or otherwise ahead of time. I would've completely missed it if I hadn't flipped through the donation rules document on my second shift (as my first shift was before the change was made). Also maybe implementing an official "lost and found" area/station would be helpful for people who misplace things. Registration desk was kinda used as that, but you'd need to fill in the gaps in that schedule for it to work fully.

Never heard anything about any "safety" issues, and never felt unsafe at any time, even when walking between the buildings at night. Guess I'm too much of a potato to be creeped at? Not that it's in invalid complaint, but I don't want people wanting to attend and thinking there's rampant stalking of women/others.
Live and Learn, Die and Learn Faster
Sadly I could not attend the event in person this year but I would like to offer what feedback I can.

Moderation
I wanted to be able to assist in some way even if I couldn't attend, so I volunteered to be a Twitch mod; unfortunately, this proved fruitless since I was spending the week watching with my sister and only had access to Twitch chat on my phone, which made timely moderation responses nearly impossible; luckily, there were enough qualified mods around that problems were taken care of swiftly and, I believe, fairly well over all.  That said, having more information given out to mods in the future on expections/regulations/commands/automod features and capabilities would be an assistance, so I would like to add my support to those who first mentioned these ideas.

Schedule/Games
Except for the unfortunate circumstances that led to the stream falling so far behind, the overall product of the runs was great.  We all have favorites that couldn't make it in our limited time, but there was a fine collection of RPGs from different systems and game types, and the addition of the 'Wacky Block' added a fantastic change of pace.  Awful or not, the atmosphere of the Awful block has long made it one of my favorite parts of the GDQs, and awful RPGs added to the mix adds to the fun.  So the only real comment I have in this regard is this: please keep the Wacky Block going (I know, this is largely in the hands of the runners who submit them)

Tech
Overall I am definitely seeing progress on the tech side of things.  Hiccups aside, progress is important and is impossible without such hiccups, but the important thing is that we are moving forward.  The addition of music is great; all complaints of the lack of information and small pool of music aside, it was a vast improvement over the previous three years of NO music.  And, of course, we shouldn't rest on our laurels, so we should take these notes seriously.  More music and perhaps a song description tag in the interim screen would be the next logical progression.  Regarding audio issues, I definitely noticed that during many interviews the volume was much lower and in some of them was often inaudible.  While Twitch chat is not an entirely reliable source for judging sound quality, we probably could make use of mods in Discord, requiring them to report those issues as soon as possible and making sure, especially during setup/interviews and other situations when adjusting may/will be necessary, that the tech crews are watching for those comments so they can be addressed more swiftly.

Charity
I see it come up every year either before or after RPGLB that some people (particular non-US Residents) who will question the choice of a fully American institution, and I certainly respect those concerns; I would definitely feel less inclined to donate to the charity if a similar situation arose around a charity marathon in another country, to be perfectly frank.  However, I do fully support NAMI as our charity of choice.  While Médecins sans Frontières and the Prevent Cancer Foundation are excellent charities fully supported by GDQ and do great work around the globe, the issue of mental health is a very important topic in today's society and deserves a spotlight as well.  After all, everyone knows MSF and cancer is universally feared and hated, but we are still emerging from the Dark Ages regarding mental health and, as so many have stated in the wonderful closing testimonies of the 4 RPGLBs so far, it touches so many of us so deeply.  I hope we continue supporting NAMI in the future, and I also hope NAMI will continue to develop its international outreach programs as well, because other nations around the globe also need the benefit of advocacy and education regarding mental health and illness.

Miscellaneous/Other
Already looking forward to attending once again next year.  I can offer precious little feedback on the venue and such, but I am also pleased with the location of SLC since, unlike AGDQ and SGDQ, it is much closer and easier for me to attend.  I also think the timing of it is overall rather good; as Puwexil has stated, it is a difficult time period to schedule around with Memorial Day/Graduation coming up shortly after it and SGDQ just around the corner from there.
Schedule/Games
I can sympathize with the event dates. Game submissions were well-timed -- I was able to go to GDQ and still have plenty of time to think about what I was able to submit and put together. I like the idea of scheduling blocks/bonus games.

Venue
I think the practice rooms should have priority over casual rooms. I wish there was an area to eat in the OC proper in the event of poor weather -- we were blessed there. I like the idea of races/tournaments/non-practice things getting their own official room.

The food and board game thing seemed unfortunate, but as someone who never really was there for the true power of the early board games, I appreciate that this could matter a lot more to someone else.

Food
I happily ate the food trucks every day. They ranged from "acceptable" to "really good" -- wasn't really a bad truck. I'm sad that most of what I've heard is about the vouchers being discontinued but I understand it.

Twitch Chat/Discord
Got nothing to say about this except a kudos to everyone who was helping. It was a tidal wave, and the people who volunteered their time should be commended for it.

Website
My only issue with the website was that it didn't really transmit the schedule updates well. Once we were behind I was always looking for the Horaro instead.

Charity
I love the charity. Michelle was a blast to speak to.

Volunteering
Signups
Two things I would like to say with respect to this:
1) I'd like to see a more structured format for people to be able to accept commentary. I appreciate that a lot of commentary is filled only by word of mouth/by friends/etc, but there were at least a couple of runs that seemed to be looking for people. Forums and discord got kind of chaotic.
2) I'm not sure who I saw say this first, but the ability to have a second trainee shift for people who come to the event but are not there on the morning of the first day would be really helpful. I felt a little bit behind on my first shifts simply because I didn't get that help early. Perhaps if we are able to set dates when we are planning to arrive slightly after registration drops are over,  then we can create a schedule that helps everyone get a training shift.

On-Site
I actually thought that people handled the new, last-minute things quite well given that they were new, last-minute things.

Safety
I would also like to echo Netara in saying that the effort on the staff on this safety issue was commendable, but that it needed to resolve a little faster and the communication needed to be a lot better about it. There shouldn't be someone causing an ongoing safety issue where people have to be escorted between buildings while still being allowed around the event -- that needed a little more attention.

Overall
I had a great time at RPGLB and am looking forward to submitting more runs next year. I would strongly encourage staff, in the event that they change venues, to find a place that will continue to cater to driving people around and making food as easily accessible as possible -- particularly at odd hours.
I'm providing feedback mainly as an attendee here, as I ended up not watching too many runs live.

Schedule/Games
I thought the placement of the marathon in the middle of May was pretty good, but I'm also out of school so I don't have exams to dodge.  The game list release timing was pretty good, too; it's nice having a couple months notice to put in for time off work and all that.

Unfortunately, the marathon schedule did get pretty far behind, and I'm glad you're looking into adding setup blocks to account for that.  RPG runs can have really bad "worst case scenarios", so more flexibility in the schedule will help.  I was honestly bummed that the Dragon Quest games were given such good timeslots (which I really appreciate), only to be bumped back four hours.  I wasn't expecting to have to commentate DQ1 that late (early?), and I'm glad Haktical and Deaner were on top of it because I was falling asleep on that couch X:


Venue
The only other event I've attended like this was SGDQ 2017, but I liked this event's venue a lot more.  The rooms cost about the same as SGDQ, but the hotel provided a lot more of the things I expected to be provided with (free breakfast, versus $12 breakfast at SGDQ zzz).  It kinda sucked that there wasn't anywhere we could walk to in under 20 minutes (the return trip was all uphill at 4200' elevation WutFace), but the public/hotel transportation options were helpful.  And traveling a bit to eat once a day was a nice break from sitting around in the hotel all day.

The Officers Club had just the right amount of space in it.  It never seemed to be so full that we couldn't find 3-4 TVs in the same area to set up a DQ1 race or something.  The food room's location was really unfortunate; I popped my head in there twice and there wasn't anyone hanging out in there either time.


Food
The food trucks were awesome.  I absolutely didn't expect to get double the value of my registration out of the food tickets, and would completely understand if that didn't continue to happen at future events.  If it had rained at all, though, I'm not actually sure where we would've taken our food to eat, but fortunately the weather cooperated all six days.


Other Comments
Overall, the event was really fun.  I like that everyone there has closer ties to each other than "video games" (Rando;  the closer tie is rando).  I'm borrowing my roommate's opinion here, but SGDQ felt like a lot of "spectators" were in attendance, whereas with Limit Break I felt like everyone there ran something ((even if that something is rando)).  I really hope it continues to feel that way as the event grows.
www.twitch.tv/ghoul02
First off, I just want to say congrats again to the RPGLB staff on another absolutely amazing event. It's probably my favorite event every year, whether I'm in the marathon room or not. It truly feels like an event for the community, by the community and it's an event that, as long as that continues, I'll continue to support. That said, feedback, here we go:

Schedule/Games:

I have a lot to say here but a lot was said by others, I'll DM Puwexil with the rest.

Venue

As was already highlighted, the lack of knowledge + distance of the food room made it relatively worthless. While I understand the original intent behind the food trucks was to have them nearer it, most people that didn't eat as a picnic would eat in the hotel lobby instead. I can't think of a great solution to this other than that it might have been better to have split the "casual" room into halves where one would be food/board game friendly? Even then it might have been somewhat questionable.

Plenty of TVs to go around was great and there really wasn't a ton of crunch on HD monitors; there were only a few times I had trouble getting one for casual fighting games. I assume this would be even better for HD runners as they should have had priority on them prior to their runs being in the marathon.

I do question if enough rooms were booked as part of the group's block although this is probably hard to estimate. I remember my room had issues on a few days that were eventually resolved. We sadly might have outgrown our venue assuming another 15-20% attendee growth, so I'm curious where else is possible in the SLC area.

Food

Very few complaints. It was debatably uneven in quality but it worked well, there were plenty of options and it's a wonderful bonus that eases the financial burden of attendance substantially. I sadly can't expect it to continue, as again, I'm expecting decent attendee growth and it's surely not the easiest financial burden on our charity partner but as long as they'll continue to offer it, I'll gladly accept.

Tech

I think the idea of having some pre-attendance tutorials is great although potentially hard to implement. I do know that your first tech shift is generally a bit scary (from first-hand experience), and having external sources can lessen the burden of knowledge substantially.

I think another person or two will probably be needed for expert coverage, as I'd hate for Gamer/Vulajin and the few others that know how everything works to have little to no sleep or free time at the event, especially as they're potential future runners.

I think some of the tech issues could be averted with better cooperation in a few ways, at least from the major outage. I think a survey on game acceptance that lays out the console used, controller, preference for sitting on the couch vs chair, and ANY other concerns like TV preferance, HDCP, console model would be incredibly useful for both tech and the head volunteers as they can review the upcoming games and the tech required more easily. I also think slightly more ownership of the technical side of the run setup by runners would go a long way - for example, Osey and I did a full run through of Yo-kai Watch on the stream PC before our marathon run and I think our DS setup went about as well as it could ever be for the event. Even something like playing your game in full on hardware at the event should probably be considered super important to make sure that it runs on the computer/equipment wasn't damaged in flight.

On a personal note, I'm happy to not be given one of the scariest tech shifts of the event (I jest, but getting Drakkhen, The Demon Rush, and Child of Light is not good for my heart)

Twitch Chat/Discord

I can't speak too much here as I didn't see it much but it seemed to go well in general. I do want to offer a counterpoint to people happy that the chat wasn't in sub only by saying that I'm 100% okay with event chats going sub only if the situation calls for it, although I don't think it was necessary this year. I think ultimately it's a decent way to keep chat in check if needed and shouldn't be avoided if it would solve issues in the future. Again, I don't think it was necessary this year.

Discord seemed underutilized this year? I feel like it was busier last year but I could be misremembering. Regardless, I don't remember much happening there, although more promotion might have been good?

Website

Little to say. Looks better than years past. I'd like to see it utilized throughout the year for community event notifications as well; the website was essentially dead for the last 11 months, unable to even be accessed. At worst, it should just redirect to the Twitch page when not being used.

Game submissions moving to an internal platform is understandable, given SDA's decline.

Prizes

Little to say. Probably should be brought up a little more by hosts than they are sometimes, but this is up to individual hosts and ultimately, there are a lot of things they need to be working with anyway.

Incentives

Seemed to be generally handled well. Most games had them, they seemed priced about right - priced at the sweet spot to where they're hard to hit but not so hard to hit that they don't happen. Kudos for predicting the pace of donations so well.

Charity

NAMI is great. They seem to resonate with the community, I think RPGs lend themselves well to the cause in general and the charity themselves seems like they've been fantastic to work with. The one thing I will say is that for Future FF6 runs, Save or Kill Cid might need to either not be a thing or it might be better to make it a "Save Cid" incentive since it's a bit of a hot button moment for that game (that said, it can be handled well even if Cid dies, it does kinda feel a bit... iffy with the cause. I wouldn't want that scene to be playing while a NAMI rep was in the room for example). And similarly, this is something that runners should be cognizant of for their own games or incentives.

Volunteering

Seemed fine for the most part. I'd talk interview team as well but I think that'll have its own internal feedback process anyway so I'll save those thoughts for then.

Social Media

In general, seemed well handled. Good job to those that handled it.