SGDQ 2014 Feedback Thread

Vulajin

Edit history:

Vulajin: 2014-07-10 01:41:28 am

2014-07-10 01:40:53 am

(edit: disclaimer - I'm not staff and I don't organize volunteers in any capacity)

Quote from moofinmoofin:

Filler/Bonus Runs. Why not the same thing?

If ever we go over schedule like that again, have a list of runs that people put down on a list for filler/bonus and have them go up. If the schedule is not on track or we are behind, just tell those people they will do it in bonus. Let them know the whole idea and that's it's a maybe thing. The donations for extra runs like there were in AGDQ would be perfect. All the Minecrafts and Ninja Baseball Batmans that people can throw their money at. But yeah you guys already know that shit and I am just some dumb spectator who knows very little about the behind the scenes stuff. Still, there ya go.

This is half planned and half unplanned. Normally when you look at the schedule before the marathon, there are a bunch of "setup" blocks that are an hour long, give or take a bit. These setup blocks usually have a bonus game intended for them already. If the marathon is proceeding on schedule, the bonus game is opened for donations (see: Minecraft at AGDQ14, OOT at SGDQ14). If it's not, the bonus game is not opened up. Being far enough ahead of schedule that we actually needed more runs was pretty new, and while I think the staff had some ideas for this, a bunch of stuff was probably spur of the moment.

Quote from moofinmoofin:

Different signups for different volunteer positions, and how long a shift would take.

I didn't want to volunteer because it was my first *GDQ and I didn't want to be bogged down for it. However if there was a spreadsheet system with organized positions, that would be rad. Like, I could lend like three hours every day to do donation station, or general sign-ins or whatever, just to give those dudes a break, but if I remember correctly, it was very open ended, so I didn't want it to sound lazy, like:

"Hey volunteer thread, I guess I could do a couple of hours, maybe."

If it was a more detailed signup, one with detailed shift times, then I would, and maybe others would, sign up to help.

Shifts are always just a couple of hours, and the schedule is made after signups based on the availabilities that individuals provide. Trading shifts is also always okay. What part specifically dissuades you from volunteering? Would it help if the nature of what volunteers do (i.e. how many hours you get, which is generally 1-2 shifts of 3 hours each across the entire marathon) were clarified further, or if it were more clear that "newbies" are more than welcome to volunteer? We will absolutely continue to need more volunteers (though, in fairness, we'll see commensurately more at AGDQ since more people attend), so any further insight you can give will help.

(edit: disclaimer - I'm not staff and I don't organize volunteers in any capacity)

[quote="moofinmoofin"][b]Filler/Bonus Runs. Why not the same thing?[/b]

If ever we go over schedule like that again, have a list of runs that people put down on a list for filler/bonus and have them go up. If the schedule is not on track or we are behind, just tell those people they will do it in bonus. Let them know the whole idea and that's it's a maybe thing. The donations for extra runs like there were in AGDQ would be perfect. All the Minecrafts and Ninja Baseball Batmans that people can throw their money at. But yeah you guys already know that shit and I am just some dumb spectator who knows very little about the behind the scenes stuff. Still, there ya go.[/quote]

This is half planned and half unplanned. Normally when you look at the schedule before the marathon, there are a bunch of "setup" blocks that are an hour long, give or take a bit. These setup blocks usually have a bonus game intended for them already. If the marathon is proceeding on schedule, the bonus game is opened for donations (see: Minecraft at AGDQ14, OOT at SGDQ14). If it's not, the bonus game is not opened up. Being far enough ahead of schedule that we actually needed [i]more[/i] runs was pretty new, and while I think the staff had some ideas for this, a bunch of stuff was probably spur of the moment.

[quote="moofinmoofin"][b]Different signups for different volunteer positions, and how long a shift would take. [/b]

I didn't want to volunteer because it was my first *GDQ and I didn't want to be bogged down for it. However if there was a spreadsheet system with organized positions, that would be rad. Like, I could lend like three hours every day to do donation station, or general sign-ins or whatever, just to give those dudes a break, but if I remember correctly, it was very open ended, so I didn't want it to sound lazy, like:
[i]
"Hey volunteer thread, I guess I could do a couple of hours, maybe."[/i]

If it was a more detailed signup, one with detailed shift times, then I would, and maybe others would, sign up to help.[/quote]

Shifts are always just a couple of hours, and the schedule is made after signups based on the availabilities that individuals provide. Trading shifts is also always okay. What part specifically dissuades you from volunteering? Would it help if the nature of what volunteers do (i.e. how many hours you get, which is generally 1-2 shifts of 3 hours each across the entire marathon) were clarified further, or if it were more clear that "newbies" are more than welcome to volunteer? We will absolutely continue to need more volunteers (though, in fairness, we'll see commensurately more at AGDQ since more people attend), so any further insight you can give will help.

C.J.

2014-07-10 01:44:54 am

I would like it if things were included in the title cards, such as who is on the couch commentary, who is reading donations, and what the current WR is of the game they are playing.

I would also like to note that I like it when runners talk good on the game that they're playing and talking good on anyone in the community in general. I don't care for runners that bag on the game they are playing, if you find what you are doing to be boring, what do think your audience (who may not be familiar with your game or speedrunning in general) is going to believe?

I also enjoy it when speedrunners get applause for their actions, in fact, I believe this doesn't happen nearly as much as it should. We need even more hype and applause. These events are amazing, and should be treated as such. Thank you.

moofinmoofin

2014-07-10 02:26:17 am

Snow Problem

[quote="Vulajin"](edit: disclaimer - I'm not staff and I don't organize volunteers in any capacity)

Quote:

Shifts are always just a couple of hours, and the schedule is made after signups based on the availabilities that individuals provide. Trading shifts is also always okay. What part specifically dissuades you from volunteering? Would it help if the nature of what volunteers do (i.e. how many hours you get, which is generally 1-2 shifts of 3 hours each across the entire marathon) were clarified further, or if it were more clear that "newbies" are more than welcome to volunteer? We will absolutely continue to need more volunteers (though, in fairness, we'll see commensurately more at AGDQ since more people attend), so any further insight you can give will help.

Oh if I knew that I would have totally given a bit of my time to give the rest of you dudes a rest. I guess if I would have known the shift times more easily it would have made the difference.

When I volunteer for libraries or something there is usually a list of shift times and a white board and stuff, you know? A more open and explained announcement rather than a thread that I only saw once before going to SGDQ would have made me down to do it. I always thought it was some long and hellish ordeal where you go up for like 12 hours at a time. Scary shit when I'm on vacation.

[quote="Vulajin"](edit: disclaimer - I'm not staff and I don't organize volunteers in any capacity)

[quote] Shifts are always just a couple of hours, and the schedule is made after signups based on the availabilities that individuals provide. Trading shifts is also always okay. What part specifically dissuades you from volunteering? Would it help if the nature of what volunteers do (i.e. how many hours you get, which is generally 1-2 shifts of 3 hours each across the entire marathon) were clarified further, or if it were more clear that "newbies" are more than welcome to volunteer? We will absolutely continue to need more volunteers (though, in fairness, we'll see commensurately more at AGDQ since more people attend), so any further insight you can give will help.
[/quote]

Oh if I knew that I would have totally given a bit of my time to give the rest of you dudes a rest. I guess if I would have known the shift times more easily it would have made the difference.

When I volunteer for libraries or something there is usually a list of shift times and a white board and stuff, you know? A more open and explained announcement rather than a thread that I only saw once before going to SGDQ would have  made me down to do it. I always thought it was some long and hellish ordeal where you go up for like 12 hours at a time. Scary shit when I'm on vacation.

UberGoose

Edit history:

UberGoose: 2014-07-10 02:42:44 am

2014-07-10 02:39:30 am

I just want to drop my 2 cents in here about the PC setup. I mostly read the thread, but might have missed some things so sorry if I'm being redundant here.

First off, I don't think anyone can argue that the PC setup was not the best these events have ever had, but that doesn't mean it can be better. The main thing that I see a bit is the lack of practicing on the exact PC you are using for the run. This issue was supposed to be buffed out by the identical specs for all 3 computers, but it clearly still was an issue due to really finicky drivers (DS3 drivers still don't make any sense). The easy solution that I've brought up before is to just have every PC runner do at least 1 full run (or at least do important things in the case of a long game) on the exact PC they plan on using for the run in a timeframe that isn't too long before their run. Not really enforceable but at least it could be encouraged.

The argument of there isn't enough time doesn't make any sense since PC games most likely would never reach a critical mass where there is never not someone on a PC. Not to mention if we have the setup like SGDQ in the future, there will be 2 computers available to do the marathon run on, so there should always be time.

This is slightly more of a nitpick, so sorry if it doesn't really belong here, but if we can keep streamlining setup with small things then there hopefully won't be any runs deemed "bad" by the viewer base just because of tech issues.

Other than that, everything else aside from what's already stated went really well, hopefully we reach a point where eventually nothing goes wrong (haha... ha..). Keep up the good work guys!

edit: forgot something immediately
I don't think it's been an issue yet, but it very easily could be in the future, the PCs provided for the event itself should be used very little if not at all on games that aren't in the marathon. I understand some people don't have laptops to play other games, but I'm sure there will be some point where somebody wants to practice and sees someone already on the computer so they're discouraged from it.

I just want to drop my 2 cents in here about the PC setup. I mostly read the thread, but might have missed some things so sorry if I'm being redundant here.

First off, I don't think anyone can argue that the PC setup was not the best these events have ever had, but that doesn't mean it can be better. The main thing that I see a bit is the lack of practicing on the exact PC you are using for the run. This issue was supposed to be buffed out by the identical specs for all 3 computers, but it clearly still was an issue due to really finicky drivers (DS3 drivers still don't make any sense). The easy solution that I've brought up before is to just have every PC runner do at least 1 full run (or at least do important things in the case of a long game) on the exact PC they plan on using for the run in a timeframe that isn't too long before their run. Not really enforceable but at least it could be encouraged.

The argument of there isn't enough time doesn't make any sense since PC games most likely would never reach a critical mass where there is never not someone on a PC. Not to mention if we have the setup like SGDQ in the future, there will be 2 computers available to do the marathon run on, so there should always be time.

This is slightly more of a nitpick, so sorry if it doesn't really belong here, but if we can keep streamlining setup with small things then there hopefully won't be any runs deemed "bad" by the viewer base just because of tech issues.

Other than that, everything else aside from what's already stated went really well, hopefully we reach a point where eventually nothing goes wrong (haha... ha..). Keep up the good work guys!

edit: forgot something immediately
I don't think it's been an issue yet, but it very easily could be in the future, the PCs provided for the event itself should be used very little if not at all on games that aren't in the marathon. I understand some people don't have laptops to play other games, but I'm sure there will be some point where somebody wants to practice and sees someone already on the computer so they're discouraged from it.

Edenal

2014-07-10 02:41:03 am

Hockey enthusiast

Badges

Going from what others have said about badges and my own personal experience. I'd say scrap them for AGDQ!

Instead get custom made bracelets. They cannot be lost once strapped on, they cannot be forged, you can combine several if needed for different purposes. For example staff + full event.
If you keep a tight control and security check over where you give them to attendees, it should be very easy to use them as access passes for special rooms and places.

RamblingJosh

2014-07-10 03:06:48 am

Many words! Handle it!

Speaking as a viewer here. I'll start with a random list of what impressions come to mind:

I was not personally bothered by video/layout woes. Audio was a bit annoying at times, but not overly so. I was more annoyed by the lack of category info. The use of music and interviews was great, but it still seems like we are only just beginning to fill the dead time. Overall SGDQ was a good event with some great moments, and it was clearly quite successful. I also thought the "meta donation incentive" for Siglemic's SM64 run was pretty genius. Gamers are extremely goal driven people.

I think the biggest thing it was lacking though, was hype. Unfortunately hype comes from a crazy number of places, and only so much of it can actually be controlled. It's already been touched on that the marathon area felt pretty empty and low energy. It also seemed like people checking their phones was pretty prevalent for some reason, too. I also found that the hosts played a huge role here. Hosts who were confident added a lot, while those who were stumbling over their words or overbearing just killed the mood. There is a lot to be said about game selection and scheduling too, but I think that could (and maybe should) be it's own thread. I mean just look at the discussion going on about a single time slot (ie. the finale).

Ultimately I think it all comes down to having fun, and it seemed like SGDQ2014 was lighter on fun than previous marathons, from my point of view. If the people on camera are having fun, the people at home will be too. Displaying the highest level of play doesn't equate to having the most fun. Not one of my highlights of SGDQ had anything to do with how fast the run w. Skilled play is absolutely entertaining too, even if the runner is kind of boring, but I think 90% of the viewerbase will prefer the former.

I guess I'm trying to say that more creativity in what's on stream is good. Not everyone was born entertaining, and that doesn't mean they don't deserve a chance to get into the marathon. But we absolutely can generate more hype by having more runs that are more than just a no-reset run infront of 50k viewers.

And that is the end of my 5AM Ramblings.

Speaking as a viewer here. I'll start with a random list of what impressions come to mind:

I was not personally bothered by video/layout woes. Audio was a bit annoying at times, but not overly so. I was more annoyed by the lack of category info. The use of music and interviews was great, but it still seems like we are only just beginning to fill the dead time. Overall SGDQ was a good event with some great moments, and it was clearly quite successful. I also thought the "meta donation incentive" for Siglemic's SM64 run was pretty genius. Gamers are extremely goal driven people.

I think the biggest thing it was lacking though, was hype. Unfortunately hype comes from a crazy number of places, and only so much of it can actually be controlled. It's already been touched on that the marathon area felt pretty empty and low energy. It also seemed like people checking their phones was pretty prevalent for some reason, too. I also found that the hosts played a huge role here. Hosts who were confident added a lot, while those who were stumbling over their words or overbearing just killed the mood. There is a lot to be said about game selection and scheduling too, but I think that could (and maybe should) be it's own thread. I mean just look at the discussion going on about a single time slot (ie. the finale).

Ultimately I think it all comes down to having fun, and it seemed like SGDQ2014 was lighter on fun than previous marathons, from my point of view. If the people on camera are having fun, the people at home will be too. Displaying the highest level of play doesn't equate to having the most fun. Not one of my highlights of SGDQ had anything to do with how fast the run w. Skilled play is absolutely entertaining too, even if the runner is kind of boring, but I think 90% of the viewerbase will prefer the former.

I guess I'm trying to say that more creativity in what's on stream is good. Not everyone was born entertaining, and that doesn't mean they don't deserve a chance to get into the marathon. But we absolutely can generate more hype by having more runs that are more than just a no-reset run infront of 50k viewers.

And that is the end of my 5AM Ramblings.

LeonPowPow

2014-07-10 03:15:12 am

I'll try and say things that haven't already been said a bunch.

Hotel Area: this was probably just a completely innocent oversight since on paper it looked like the hotel was surrounded by a lot of convenient food options, but finding out everything in the area other than the gas station was closed by 9 or 10PM was a bummer.

Couch area etiquette: Already mentioned by Rom but a few runners I had talked to had areas behind the couch used up by people they didn't know who had been there for several runs when they had friends wanting to sit behind and watch. I'm not sure if this is a communication issue or just the runners not wanting to tell people to go away, however.

The microphones were uncomfortable to use as a runner (it felt flimsy and prone to falling off, I know a bunch of runners I had talked to had similar remarks) however I can't disagree that the audio quality was great. A better way of making them be a more comfortable fit would probably be greatly appreciated.

I think a pre-game stream of some sort would be welcomed. Even if it's just some intermission VG music showing the people buzzing on the couches or a big timer until go time, something leading up to kick off would be good

The only other thing I can think of that doesn't boil down to hotel issues was that it was really hard to actually spectate the run as someone in the couch area. It was nice being able to be near your friends doing their runs, but not actually able to see the TV they're doing their run on (or the projector without looking rude on the gdq stream) was unfortunate

Finally my interaction with all the staff was great and just wanted to give all of those people love for doing the job ♥

I'll try and say things that haven't already been said a bunch.

Hotel Area: this was probably just a completely innocent oversight since on paper it looked like the hotel was surrounded by a lot of convenient food options, but finding out everything in the area other than the gas station was closed by 9 or 10PM was a bummer.

Couch area etiquette: Already mentioned by Rom but a few runners I had talked to had areas behind the couch used up by people they didn't know who had been there for several runs when they had friends wanting to sit behind and watch. I'm not sure if this is a communication issue or just the runners not wanting to tell people to go away, however.

The microphones were uncomfortable to use as a runner (it felt flimsy and prone to falling off, I know a bunch of runners I had talked to had similar remarks) however I can't disagree that the audio quality was great. A better way of making them be a more comfortable fit would probably be greatly appreciated.

I think a pre-game stream of some sort would be welcomed. Even if it's just some intermission VG music showing the people buzzing on the couches or a big timer until go time, something leading up to kick off would be good

The only other thing I can think of that doesn't boil down to hotel issues was that it was really hard to actually spectate the run as someone in the couch area. It was nice being able to be near your friends doing their runs, but not actually able to see the TV they're doing their run on (or the projector without looking rude on the gdq stream) was unfortunate

Finally my interaction with all the staff was great and just wanted to give all of those people love for doing the job ♥

gyre

2014-07-10 03:27:04 am

Thanks to everyone taking the time to provide feedback. I've mostly been focusing on the tech feedback but it's really been helpful to hear what you're worried about most. None of the problems I've seen people mention are impossible to solve although some may be beyond the limited budget and manpower in the short term for the event. Knowing what bothers you helps prioritize those resources.

Some of the issues were predictable (composite video quality, comfort of the earset, stream layout, audio problems in the room, picture quality of the TVs) but others were a surprise. Apologies to people upset about the timing on the runs, the bad camera angles, or if you felt we didn't get your consoles hooked up quickly enough. About half the time those were probably my fault. I was the guy in the polo shirt often running the stream and running back and forth between the tech station and couch to do setup. There's a lot of invisible setup work happening before a run ends to get ready for the next one and in between runs. We might need to spend more effort on the visible setup work. We can order tasks differently to make the setup experience appear smoother. The biggest difference maker would be having more people on staff to reduce multitasking so please volunteer for whatever you can help with at future marathons.

A lot of the early problems were due to insufficient testing and a setup plan that didn't parallelize well. We were doing setup up to the minute the marathon went live (which was late) and some things simply couldn't be fixed until additional hardware was purchased. That was not fun. There's a lot of stuff that happened we can learn from. By the end of the week I felt like we had higher production quality than AGDQ which itself was better than past marathons. It gave Rom grief but I was happy that hours of budgeted time in the week for PC setup and tech delays went unused. Those hours went back into people playing games instead of watching us mess with cables.

Some specific proposals:

Composite video quality- The capture cards we used barfed on the poor Y/C separation provided by the passive converters. This was way worse than anticipated. The capture cards have less tolerance than even a cheap CRT which was probably designed with bad signals in mind. Unfortunately, I don't think dedicated composite cabling is a workable solution. It's more hardware that needs to be switched around and can break and the software we use does not handle the switching well either. A standalone comb filter in sequence with an upscaler would provide the highest quality but probably too expensive (around $600/line * X simultaneous TVs). We could supply good quality s-video cables for all the consoles that support it natively (around $10/each) instead of having runners bring their own cables. We also could get a decent filtering converter to replace the cheap passive ones (should be less than $50/line). I suspect the Radioshack splitters that are now sadly broken included a cross-talk filter which is why they looked decent in comparison.

TV picture quality- They all suffered from varying levels of brightness and color problems. The main TV turned itself off and changed inputs if it didn't have a signal for 15 seconds. Missing setup investment to torture test a large batch of TVs. We didn't have enough time to try them out and ended up picking some lemons.

Stream layout- Yes, professional help would be appreciated over trying to make scenes the morning of the marathon. This requires planning the list of scenes we need in advance. We can't make the layout design too rigid because there always seems to be last minute surprises needing custom scenes.

Earset comfort- These mics have really good audio quality when used correctly but are not designed for frequent swapping. I think Matty was planning to get an earclip which would make the setup more rigid and easier to put on if you've never used one. We also had problems with the mic either being too far away (lack of bass) or too close (pops and hissing). These sets shouldn't need a windscreen when adjusted correctly. But maybe we could put one on to reduce breath sounds with a bias towards being too close to simplify positioning. The audio quality with the mic in your mouth is better than having your sentences trail off.

Lav clips- We have spares. I reattached clips whenever I spotted one missing. Point it out to a tech person and we can fix this when there's free time. Avoid tearing the mic off or stepping on it and the clips will stay on more often.

Audio in the room- I thought Matty did an awesome job fixing this during the week. Another task that needed more setup investment. The donation and tech stations could use some low-powered speakers if they continue to be too far away to hear the runner and couch clearly. Running the primary TV sound through the mixer worked great but we need a better way of helping the runners adjust it. Could we use the mixer remote app to dial the volume while standing at the couch?

Box o' lavs- The mics left on the ground and on the couch got stepped on hard. The AGDQ lav box was ghetto but seemed to better encourage people to put the mics away. I tried clipping the mics to the tablecloth when not being used. The box was a more self-service approach.

Tables/risers- These were really cheap crap from the hotel. The tables had splinters. The stairs were not physically attached. We need to check out what they're providing and insist on better gear. The TVs were up too high which created camera angle problems. The bad side angle shots were because people disappeared behind the TVs when viewed from straight on.

Camera tripods- Thanks for the heart attack Sad

Don't put $3000 of video equipment on $30 of support. The 6' height limit with tilt on the wrong axis for our camera mounts limited the shot selection. The used pizza boxes might have been a better choice. I'd look for tripods with twist lock instead of flip locks on the legs, a separate head for future flexibility, and plenty of load capacity.

Tech station layout- We had the power and audio distribution between the streaming and recording PCs. The two PCs should be next to each other so that one person can comfortable watch both. We should also get headsets for all the seats to avoid having to walk from the stream PC to the mixer to check audio.

Cable mess- Another setup casualty. Having looms would be great but I'd settle for having enough time to get things laid down and taped in place with labels. The main line cables started with labels but they peeled off by the end of the week. Prior to the 4-way race Vulajin had to help me trace cables because they were all unplugged and the labels were on the floor. We also need to do a better job removing cables from behind the TVs when not in use. Lots of tangles, splitters plugged into themselves, and power cables running to nowhere during the week. Not relying on using cables from the runners would help with organization.

Breaking cables- I don't know if it was volunteers or runners causing the damage but if a cable does not fit, don't smash it in until the pins snap off. The audio cables also came apart from people tugging on them despite being taped. This was a pain to diagnose the first time it happened. We may need special badges for people allowed to touch the cables.

Timing runs- We frequently couldn't hear the runner or keep track of explanations on timing. The tech station can fix being able to hear the runner. Don't try to explain how the game should be timed. Just call time when you want the timer to stop. A heads up to get ready is nice. This gives by far the best results. Otherwise, we're basically left to guessing.

Scene switching- Not being able to preview or edit scenes before going live is a major failure of OBS. This exaggerates many problems with camera setup and cropping capture sources. We have to get this in whatever broadcast software we use next time.

Stream computer stability- Painful driver issues with the capture cards. Audio device setup is super confusing. Unexplained blue screens that seemed to be related to splitting the recording. This needs more aggressive testing prior to the marathon. Getting a discrete GPU fixed performance but there's still more problems to figure out before we can sleep through the night.

Text tool- We didn't fix anything from AGDQ so still a pain point. We need a better data format for handling races and complicated setups to avoid corrupted game entries. The window capture is flaky and needs special setup when the computer is restarted. I'd suggest rebuilding this as an OBS plugin rather than chroma keying but I'm not sure we're going to stick with OBS.

Wsplit- Similar issues as text tool although good enough to get by most of the time. Tends to break when the stream restarts. Another function that would be better as a plugin rather than window capture.

Better volunteer signup process/orientation/communication during the event- Love the ideas being suggested. We need to make it easier to help out.

Thanks to everyone taking the time to provide feedback.  I've mostly been focusing on the tech feedback but it's really been helpful to hear what you're worried about most.  None of the problems I've seen people mention are impossible to solve although some may be beyond the limited budget and manpower in the short term for the event.  Knowing what bothers you helps prioritize those resources.

Some of the issues were predictable (composite video quality, comfort of the earset, stream layout, audio problems in the room, picture quality of the TVs) but others were a surprise.  Apologies to people upset about the timing on the runs, the bad camera angles, or if you felt we didn't get your consoles hooked up quickly enough.  About half the time those were probably my fault.  I was the guy in the polo shirt often running the stream and running back and forth between the tech station and couch to do setup.  There's a lot of invisible setup work happening before a run ends to get ready for the next one and in between runs.  We might need to spend more effort on the visible setup work.  We can order tasks differently to make the setup experience appear smoother.  The biggest difference maker would be having more people on staff to reduce multitasking so please volunteer for whatever you can help with at future marathons.

A lot of the early problems were due to insufficient testing and a setup plan that didn't parallelize well.  We were doing setup up to the minute the marathon went live (which was late) and some things simply couldn't be fixed until additional hardware was purchased.  That was not fun.  There's a lot of stuff that happened we can learn from.  By the end of the week I felt like we had higher production quality than AGDQ which itself was better than past marathons.  It gave Rom grief but I was happy that hours of budgeted time in the week for PC setup and tech delays went unused.  Those hours went back into people playing games instead of watching us mess with cables.

Some specific proposals:

Composite video quality- The capture cards we used barfed on the poor Y/C separation provided by the passive converters.  This was way worse than anticipated.  The capture cards have less tolerance than even a cheap CRT which was probably designed with bad signals in mind.  Unfortunately, I don't think dedicated composite cabling is a workable solution.  It's more hardware that needs to be switched around and can break and the software we use does not handle the switching well either.  A standalone comb filter in sequence with an upscaler would provide the highest quality but probably too expensive (around $600/line * X simultaneous TVs).  We could supply good quality s-video cables for all the consoles that support it natively (around $10/each) instead of having runners bring their own cables.  We also could get a decent filtering converter to replace the cheap passive ones (should be less than $50/line).  I suspect the Radioshack splitters that are now sadly broken included a cross-talk filter which is why they looked decent in comparison.

TV picture quality- They all suffered from varying levels of brightness and color problems.  The main TV turned itself off and changed inputs if it didn't have a signal for 15 seconds.  Missing setup investment to torture test a large batch of TVs.  We didn't have enough time to try them out and ended up picking some lemons.

Stream layout- Yes, professional help would be appreciated over trying to make scenes the morning of the marathon.  This requires planning the list of scenes we need in advance.  We can't make the layout design too rigid because there always seems to be last minute surprises needing custom scenes.

Earset comfort- These mics have really good audio quality when used correctly but are not designed for frequent swapping.  I think Matty was planning to get an earclip which would make the setup more rigid and easier to put on if you've never used one.  We also had problems with the mic either being too far away (lack of bass) or too close (pops and hissing).  These sets shouldn't need a windscreen when adjusted correctly.  But maybe we could put one on to reduce breath sounds with a bias towards being too close to simplify positioning.  The audio quality with the mic in your mouth is better than having your sentences trail off.

Lav clips- We have spares.  I reattached clips whenever I spotted one missing.  Point it out to a tech person and we can fix this when there's free time.  Avoid tearing the mic off or stepping on it and the clips will stay on more often.

Audio in the room- I thought Matty did an awesome job fixing this during the week.  Another task that needed more setup investment.  The donation and tech stations could use some low-powered speakers if they continue to be too far away to hear the runner and couch clearly.  Running the primary TV sound through the mixer worked great but we need a better way of helping the runners adjust it.  Could we use the mixer remote app to dial the volume while standing at the couch?

Box o' lavs- The mics left on the ground and on the couch got stepped on hard.  The AGDQ lav box was ghetto but seemed to better encourage people to put the mics away.  I tried clipping the mics to the tablecloth when not being used.  The box was a more self-service approach.

Tables/risers- These were really cheap crap from the hotel.  The tables had splinters.  The stairs were not physically attached.  We need to check out what they're providing and insist on better gear.  The TVs were up too high which created camera angle problems.  The bad side angle shots were because people disappeared behind the TVs when viewed from straight on.

Camera tripods- Thanks for the heart attack :(  Don't put $3000 of video equipment on $30 of support.  The 6' height limit with tilt on the wrong axis for our camera mounts limited the shot selection.  The used pizza boxes might have been a better choice.  I'd look for tripods with twist lock instead of flip locks on the legs, a separate head for future flexibility, and plenty of load capacity.

Tech station layout- We had the power and audio distribution between the streaming and recording PCs.  The two PCs should be next to each other so that one person can comfortable watch both.  We should also get headsets for all the seats to avoid having to walk from the stream PC to the mixer to check audio.

Cable mess- Another setup casualty.  Having looms would be great but I'd settle for having enough time to get things laid down and taped in place with labels.  The main line cables started with labels but they peeled off by the end of the week.  Prior to the 4-way race Vulajin had to help me trace cables because they were all unplugged and the labels were on the floor.  We also need to do a better job removing cables from behind the TVs when not in use.  Lots of tangles, splitters plugged into themselves, and power cables running to nowhere during the week.  Not relying on using cables from the runners would help with organization.

Breaking cables- I don't know if it was volunteers or runners causing the damage but if a cable does not fit, don't smash it in until the pins snap off.  The audio cables also came apart from people tugging on them despite being taped.  This was a pain to diagnose the first time it happened.  We may need special badges for people allowed to touch the cables.

Timing runs- We frequently couldn't hear the runner or keep track of explanations on timing.  The tech station can fix being able to hear the runner.  Don't try to explain how the game should be timed.  Just call time when you want the timer to stop.  A heads up to get ready is nice.  This gives by far the best results.  Otherwise, we're basically left to guessing.

Scene switching- Not being able to preview or edit scenes before going live is a major failure of OBS.  This exaggerates many problems with camera setup and cropping capture sources.  We have to get this in whatever broadcast software we use next time.

Stream computer stability- Painful driver issues with the capture cards.  Audio device setup is super confusing.  Unexplained blue screens that seemed to be related to splitting the recording.  This needs more aggressive testing prior to the marathon.  Getting a discrete GPU fixed performance but there's still more problems to figure out before we can sleep through the night.

Text tool- We didn't fix anything from AGDQ so still a pain point.  We need a better data format for handling races and complicated setups to avoid corrupted game entries.  The window capture is flaky and needs special setup when the computer is restarted.  I'd suggest rebuilding this as an OBS plugin rather than chroma keying but I'm not sure we're going to stick with OBS.

Wsplit- Similar issues as text tool although good enough to get by most of the time.  Tends to break when the stream restarts.  Another function that would be better as a plugin rather than window capture.

Better volunteer signup process/orientation/communication during the event- Love the ideas being suggested.  We need to make it easier to help out.

LeonPowPow

2014-07-10 03:30:44 am

People should probably get talked at more for breaking the clip on mics though. It seems silly to me that there's a bunch of mics/$ being wasted because people don't look where they're walking in the couch area or people can't be arsed to put the mics somewhere safe from being trampled on when done with them

mike89

2014-07-10 03:52:00 am

SEGA Junkie

Alright I've got the feeling this is gonna be a monster post so hang on to your hats. First, some replies to earlier suggestions:

Quote from Vulajin:

- For that matter, we need way more printed documentation across the host, admin, and tech stations. We need a full copy of the original marathon schedule, the volunteer schedule, and what games are on what systems, what donation incentives might affect the schedule, and when there's bonus content in the schedule. There should also be Google docs containing all this info, but the hard copies are important and we should make sure that we keep them together if possible. (The volunteer schedule at the tech station fell apart and was lost to the winds at some point - that ended up sucking a lot in really dumb, minor ways.)

I remember doing up "cheat sheets" for each admin station (host, donation processing, tech... yeah, simpler days) as far back as AGDQ 2012. Does this just not happen any more?

Obviously the orientations people get are important, but having something to refer to in the moment is equally so.

Quote from Golden:

I'd also add that while the interviews are a good thing, I hope to also see the inclusion of a pre-game show at AGDQ. Spike and I would have gladly organized that this time around to generate interest, and it was weird to sort of get the okay to do it a few weeks in advance only to then be turned down. Hopefully this is something we can try to organize for AGDQ, because I think it would add to the event in a good way (contrary to what some "people in the industry" think).

Can't +1 this suggestion enough. Obviously it means having everything ready to stream an hour earlier, but think how many people are sitting there waiting for the stream to start by then? I think the biggest advantage this would create is that the runner with the opening run isn't shafted viewer-wise. It didn't happen here, surprisingly, but in marathons past the first run has been over well before gaining any kind of viewer momentum.

Quote from Aaron_Haynes:

One thing I would suggest is multiple timers for races, or a split timer method. It always feels strange when the winner calls time and the timer just keeps going until the last person finishes. There must be some method for this that isn't a logistical headache.

I feel like I suggest this one every year, but one workaround would be to have a race split file, "race2" "race3" "race4" for the amount of runners in the race, title the splits "1st", "2nd", etc, and split when each runner finishes. It requires a little more space for the timer (and might create a slight issue if there's a non-finisher, as in Super Metroid - can you pass over the last split?) but would be interesting information that would persist throughout the remainder of a race.

Quote from spikevegeta:

4. Set-up Days: I know a lot has been said about you all just didn't have the time because of multiple issues. My biggest I would like to see is more of the runners/hosts/commentators/volunteers involvement in set-up. I work in Theater, where before we actually put on a play, we have what's called a "Cue-to-Cue", where a week before(in this case probably day before) we actually go live before the viewing audience, we make sure everything works for everything involved(Go stand in that light, make sure we can hear you, Can you fit in that costume, etc.) I think if people are up-set about any difficulties that went down during their run, they would have the oppurtunity at a future GDQ to show up the day before and go up, get mic'd up, do a part of their run, see if they can hear the host, how the TV/TV's are, how the run looks on stream, etc. I'm not saying do it for every run, but this could help to gauge general issues that can be improved for all runs. I think getting the community more involved will help us find more compatibility across the board. This would help people like hosts and general volunteers more as well, because they can try stuff out the night before, giving us the opportunity to figure a lot more stuff out.

I think this would be a massive boon as well. Interestingly, I think we've done it once before - AGDQ'11! I remember Trekhaak doing a practice run of Banjo Kazooie while nate and Lag were troubleshooting stuff in the background.

Would it make sense to actually stream this process? I'm still thinking this over in my head, but I'm leaning towards yes right now - it makes sense to simulate authentic marathon conditions as much as possible, and might also elicit suggestions from the other side of the fence.

Quote from Veegie:

Now, a more marathon-centric suggestion vis-a-vis reading donations from each game's community members/friends of the runner/what have you: I'm not sure how the donation tracker works on a functional level, particularly on the donation station's end, but one thing that might work is to give each runner some sort of "priority code word" that they can then give to other members of their speedgame's community. Something as simple as "[runner name][arbitrary numbers]".

Those people with the code word could then include it in their donation comment, and depending on how the donation tracker is implemented, it could either do some sort of an alert, or donation station volunteers could simply periodically search recent donations for the code word. Sorry if this is worded stupidly, but I think it could work as a fairly low-tech solution to a problem that I'm sure some people would like to be solved. Again, that all depends on how the donation tracker is implemented.

That's actually a really cool idea and I've not heard of anything like that before. The main issues would be a) you need a new one for virtually every run (although it's obviously the runner's responsibility to ensure people know about it), b) would over-focusing on these cause other donors to feel frozen out? And is this actually a problem? and c) if people who are demonstrably not part of said community get a hold of this tag (eg. if it gets accidentally read out on stream, the entire purpose is lost). These issues could be worked through of course, but it's probably a lower priority than some of the other stuff here.

On this note in particular, lioran actually contacted me during the Super Metroid run to get some particular donations read during that game. I'm sorry it took so long, but we did get there in the end! So it can work, if the donation station knows particularly what they're looking for. (And if the lines of communication are working, but we'll get there in a bit...)

------

Right, now stuff from me in particular:

Twitter!
I haven't heard any particular feedback about how this went, so for now I'm going to go with the old adage that "no news is good news". For the most part I tried to keep it pretty similar to AGDQ. Having Studio on board helped immensely, since I think having pictures from on site built up excitement and engagement.
Contests - I saw there was one for Shovel Knight codes late in the piece (wasn't actually part of that myself, I was at work at the time). I'd have done my own one again (much like this one we did for AGDQ) but I got short changed $130 in my pay that week and wasn't able to donate anything, so I didn't really have an incentive to offer. I feel like these are good for engagement though so I'd like to keep doing them in the future.
The team - I didn't pay enough attention to timezones when I picked my team, and pretty much everyone on the team went to sleep the moment I had to go to work on a couple of days! So we lost a few hours of coverage, but other than that I think we were 24/7 for the rest of the event.
Promoting runners - I feel like this is one of the main vehicles we can do promotion of the runners through, and I'd like input on the best way to do it. Normally when I say what the next run is I'll link to the runner's Twitter and to gamesdonequick.com (I didn't do this nearly enough this time though, apologies!), but I tend not to have room to link the runner's stream on top of everything else. Instead, I tend to link to it at the end if the run was received particularly positively (which does not mean whether the run was WR-pace or not). My logic for that is it comes off as kind of tone deaf to ask people to follow the runner after a run with low energy, but then if you link everyone but those runners, they become conspicuous by their absence. If you read through that little rant and have feedback for me, let me know! I'd love to make that part of the experience more beneficial for everyone.

The one issue I had with Twitter is that there are certain questions I get asked that I simply can't give a response to without either being on site or in contact with someone who is. At times the latter was difficult to find (although this improved as the marathon went on), so I'd like to suggest something to improve that:

Create a volunteer role specifically for being a point of contact
When we're moderating chat, we get really frustrated when blind Freddy can see an issue with the stream and we can't get in contact with anyone for half an hour or more to improve it. (Disclaimer: this happens proportionally more often to me, since the easiest time for me to watch is during stream late-night hours.) Having a designated point-of-contact volunteer addresses this problem, and not tying it in with an existing admin role ensures that all the other work that needs to be done to keep the marathon running isn't left behind as a result. Even if you can't find someone right away, if it's not urgent you can just leave a TXT file open for the next person onto that post. For example, at AGDQ I received three separate requests on Twitter to do interviews with the staff and runners, and I'm not entirely sure they got followed up on simply because it was a few days later before we could get those messages to the right people.

And now that I mention moderating chat...

The Quakenet team needs to be looked at
Let's be honest, in the Quakenet chat we've got a pretty cushy job. I really only have two non-negotiables when I moderate: spambots, and anyone who wants to insult any of the runners/attendees. There's no place for that.

That being said, we have no business simply removing (or threatening to remove) discussion we're uncomfortable with, eg. stream layout, audio issues, etc. I apologise if this happened to anyone who shows up in this thread. If you block that kind of discussion, you're just contributing to the idea that we're not willing to hear criticism (which this thread should avert in spades!), and you shouldn't be representing this community. I'll be talking more specifically to ShadowWraith about my concerns later.

Just on those kind of issues, by the way...

Use the stream footage, not the mixer, to test audio levels
To be blunt, viewers don't give a shit that the audio sounds great in the mixer, if it doesn't on the stream. Even if this process takes a few extra seconds (and a nearby laptop or something), it's a much preferable result to what happened for multiple runs early on. And it would save us receiving a lot of whining!

And one final thing to consider when you're looking over these suggestions:

Prove to the viewers you're listening!
Ultimately, people giving their concerns don't want the event to fail, they just want it to be the best it can. So show that you're listening! Do a roundtable stream, with a bunch of staff on Skype or whatever program we use these days, and let loose on a bunch of issues. One thing I keep hearing about, for instance, is that the world record for a run should appear on the stream somewhere. Should it? I don't know, but let's see what viewers actually want! Make the case for and against, and put it to a poll, whether that's recorded by a bot in the stream, or on Strawpoll, whatever. Have a few people put together layout suggestions, give the stream links to imgur galleries and get them to vote which one they like best! You can do this for just about every concern that's been put to the stream, and it would certainly show people that we're not shying away from criticism, we're embracing it and using it to make the event even better.

If I come across a little sharp, I don't really mean to: but if you couldn't tell from that last part, the public perception of us being stubborn and resistant to change really bothers me, because I know we're better than that. Let's step it up for AGDQ'15!

Alright I've got the feeling this is gonna be a monster post so hang on to your hats. First, some replies to earlier suggestions:

[quote="Vulajin"]- For that matter, we need [i]way[/i] more printed documentation across the host, admin, and tech stations. We need a full copy of the original marathon schedule, the volunteer schedule, and what games are on what systems, what donation incentives might affect the schedule, and when there's bonus content in the schedule. There should [i]also[/i] be Google docs containing all this info, but the hard copies are important and we should make sure that we keep them together if possible. (The volunteer schedule at the tech station fell apart and was lost to the winds at some point - that ended up sucking a lot in really dumb, minor ways.)[/quote]

I remember doing up "cheat sheets" for each admin station (host, donation processing, tech... yeah, simpler days) as far back as AGDQ 2012. Does this just not happen any more?

Obviously the orientations people get are important, but having something to refer to in the moment is equally so.

[quote="Golden"]I'd also add that while the interviews are a good thing, I hope to also see the inclusion of a pre-game show at AGDQ. Spike and I would have gladly organized that this time around to generate interest, and it was weird to sort of get the okay to do it a few weeks in advance only to then be turned down. Hopefully this is something we can try to organize for AGDQ, because I think it would add to the event in a good way (contrary to what some "people in the industry" think).[/quote]

Can't +1 this suggestion enough. Obviously it means having everything ready to stream an hour earlier, but think how many people are sitting there waiting for the stream to start by then? I think the biggest advantage this would create is that the runner with the opening run isn't shafted viewer-wise. It didn't happen here, surprisingly, but in marathons past the first run has been over well before gaining any kind of viewer momentum.

[quote="Aaron_Haynes"]One thing I would suggest is multiple timers for races, or a split timer method. It always feels strange when the winner calls time and the timer just keeps going until the last person finishes. There must be some method for this that isn't a logistical headache.[/quote]

I feel like I suggest this one every year, but one workaround would be to have a race split file, "race2" "race3" "race4" for the amount of runners in the race, title the splits "1st", "2nd", etc, and split when each runner finishes. It requires a little more space for the timer (and might create a slight issue if there's a non-finisher, as in Super Metroid - can you pass over the last split?) but would be interesting information that would persist throughout the remainder of a race.

[quote="spikevegeta"]4. Set-up Days: I know a lot has been said about you all just didn't have the time because of multiple issues. My biggest I would like to see is more of the runners/hosts/commentators/volunteers involvement in set-up. I work in Theater, where before we actually put on a play, we have what's called a "Cue-to-Cue", where a week before(in this case probably day before) we actually go live before the viewing audience, we make sure everything works for everything involved(Go stand in that light, make sure we can hear you, Can you fit in that costume, etc.) I think if people are up-set about any difficulties that went down during their run, they would have the oppurtunity at a future GDQ to show up the day before and go up, get mic'd up, do a part of their run, see if they can hear the host, how the TV/TV's are, how the run looks on stream, etc. I'm not saying do it for every run, but this could help to gauge general issues that can be improved for all runs. I think getting the community more involved will help us find more compatibility across the board. This would help people like hosts and general volunteers more as well, because they can try stuff out the night before, giving us the opportunity to figure a lot more stuff out.[/quote]

I think this would be a massive boon as well. Interestingly, I think we've done it once before - AGDQ[b]'11[/b]! I remember Trekhaak doing a practice run of Banjo Kazooie while nate and Lag were troubleshooting stuff in the background.

Would it make sense to actually stream this process? I'm still thinking this over in my head, but I'm leaning towards yes right now - it makes sense to simulate authentic marathon conditions as much as possible, and might also elicit suggestions from the other side of the fence.

[quote="Veegie"]Now, a more marathon-centric suggestion vis-a-vis reading donations from each game's community members/friends of the runner/what have you: I'm not sure how the donation tracker works on a functional level, particularly on the donation station's end, but one thing that might work is to give each runner some sort of "priority code word" that they can then give to other members of their speedgame's community. Something as simple as "[runner name][arbitrary numbers]".

Those people with the code word could then include it in their donation comment, and depending on how the donation tracker is implemented, it could either do some sort of an alert, or donation station volunteers could simply periodically search recent donations for the code word. Sorry if this is worded stupidly, but I think it could work as a fairly low-tech solution to a problem that I'm sure some people would like to be solved. Again, that all depends on how the donation tracker is implemented.[/quote]

That's actually a really cool idea and I've not heard of anything like that before. The main issues would be a) you need a new one for virtually every run (although it's obviously the runner's responsibility to ensure people know about it), b) would over-focusing on these cause other donors to feel frozen out? And is this actually a problem? and c) if people who are demonstrably not part of said community get a hold of this tag (eg. if it gets accidentally read out on stream, the entire purpose is lost). These issues could be worked through of course, but it's probably a lower priority than some of the other stuff here.

On this note in particular, lioran actually contacted me during the Super Metroid run to get some particular donations read during that game. I'm sorry it took so long, but we did get there in the end! So it can work, if the donation station knows particularly what they're looking for. (And if the lines of communication are working, but we'll get there in a bit...)

------

Right, now stuff from me in particular:

[b]Twitter![/b]
I haven't heard any particular feedback about how this went, so for now I'm going to go with the old adage that "no news is good news". For the most part I tried to keep it pretty similar to AGDQ. Having Studio on board helped immensely, since I think having pictures from on site built up excitement and engagement.
Contests - I saw there was one for Shovel Knight codes late in the piece (wasn't actually part of that myself, I was at work at the time). I'd have done my own one again (much like [url=http://pastebin.com/g5NVsWYu]this one[/url] we did for AGDQ) but I got short changed $130 in my pay that week and wasn't able to donate anything, so I didn't really have an incentive to offer. I feel like these are good for engagement though so I'd like to keep doing them in the future.
The team - I didn't pay enough attention to timezones when I picked my team, and pretty much everyone on the team went to sleep the moment I had to go to work on a couple of days! So we lost a few hours of coverage, but other than that I think we were 24/7 for the rest of the event.
Promoting runners - I feel like this is one of the main vehicles we can do promotion of the runners through, and I'd like input on the best way to do it. Normally when I say what the next run is I'll link to the runner's Twitter and to gamesdonequick.com (I didn't do this nearly enough this time though, apologies!), but I tend not to have room to link the runner's stream on top of everything else. Instead, I tend to link to it at the end if the run was received particularly positively (which [i]does not mean whether the run was WR-pace or not[/i]). My logic for that is it comes off as kind of tone deaf to ask people to follow the runner after a run with low energy, but then if you link everyone but those runners, they become conspicuous by their absence. If you read through that little rant and have feedback for me, let me know! I'd love to make that part of the experience more beneficial for everyone.

The one issue I had with Twitter is that there are certain questions I get asked that I simply can't give a response to without either being on site or in contact with someone who is. At times the latter was difficult to find (although this improved as the marathon went on), so I'd like to suggest something to improve that:

[b]Create a volunteer role specifically for being a point of contact[/b]
When we're moderating chat, we get really frustrated when blind Freddy can see an issue with the stream and we can't get in contact with anyone for half an hour or more to improve it. (Disclaimer: this happens proportionally more often to me, since the easiest time for me to watch is during stream late-night hours.) Having a designated point-of-contact volunteer addresses this problem, and not tying it in with an existing admin role ensures that all the other work that needs to be done to keep the marathon running isn't left behind as a result. Even if you can't find someone right away, if it's not urgent you can just leave a TXT file open for the next person onto that post. For example, at AGDQ I received three separate requests on Twitter to do interviews with the staff and runners, and I'm not entirely sure they got followed up on simply because it was a few days later before we could get those messages to the right people.

And now that I mention moderating chat...

[b]The Quakenet team needs to be looked at[/b]
Let's be honest, in the Quakenet chat we've got a pretty cushy job. I really only have two non-negotiables when I moderate: spambots, and anyone who wants to insult any of the runners/attendees. There's no place for that.

That being said, we have no business simply removing (or threatening to remove) discussion we're uncomfortable with, eg. stream layout, audio issues, etc. I apologise if this happened to anyone who shows up in this thread. If you block that kind of discussion, you're just contributing to the idea that we're not willing to hear criticism (which this thread should avert in spades!), and you shouldn't be representing this community. I'll be talking more specifically to ShadowWraith about my concerns later.

Just on those kind of issues, by the way...

[b]Use the stream footage, not the mixer, to test audio levels[/b]
To be blunt, viewers don't give a shit that the audio sounds great in the mixer, if it doesn't on the stream. Even if this process takes a few extra seconds (and a nearby laptop or something), it's a much preferable result to what happened for multiple runs early on. And it would save us receiving a lot of whining!

And one final thing to consider when you're looking over these suggestions:

[b]Prove to the viewers you're listening![/b]
Ultimately, people giving their concerns don't want the event to fail, they just want it to be the best it can. So show that you're listening! Do a roundtable stream, with a bunch of staff on Skype or whatever program we use these days, and let loose on a bunch of issues. One thing I keep hearing about, for instance, is that the world record for a run should appear on the stream somewhere. Should it? I don't know, but let's see what viewers actually want! Make the case for and against, and put it to a poll, whether that's recorded by a bot in the stream, or on Strawpoll, whatever. Have a few people put together layout suggestions, give the stream links to imgur galleries and get them to vote which one they like best! You can do this for just about every concern that's been put to the stream, and it would certainly show people that we're not shying away from criticism, we're embracing it and using it to make the event even better.

If I come across a little sharp, I don't really mean to: but if you couldn't tell from that last part, the public perception of us being stubborn and resistant to change really bothers me, because I know we're better than that. Let's step it up for AGDQ'15!

UraniumAnchor

2014-07-10 04:19:46 am

Not a walrus

Quote from mike89:

I remember doing up "cheat sheets" for each admin station (host, donation processing, tech... yeah, simpler days) as far back as AGDQ 2012. Does this just not happen any more?

There were, but they could always be improved. Several times things that were on said cheat sheets were completely forgotten so it's not like they're a magic pill, either.

Quote from mike89:

Can't +1 this suggestion enough. Obviously it means having everything ready to stream an hour earlier, but think how many people are sitting there waiting for the stream to start by then? I think the biggest advantage this would create is that the runner with the opening run isn't shafted viewer-wise. It didn't happen here, surprisingly, but in marathons past the first run has been over well before gaining any kind of viewer momentum.

If we can actually get everything ready in time then I think this is a workable idea. Problem is we've only started "on time" once that I can remember, at AGDQ2014. So this puts more pressure on that.

Quote from mike89:

Quote from Aaron_Haynes:

One thing I would suggest is multiple timers for races, or a split timer method. It always feels strange when the winner calls time and the timer just keeps going until the last person finishes. There must be some method for this that isn't a logistical headache.

I feel like I suggest this one every year, but one workaround would be to have a race split file, "race2" "race3" "race4" for the amount of runners in the race, title the splits "1st", "2nd", etc, and split when each runner finishes. It requires a little more space for the timer (and might create a slight issue if there's a non-finisher, as in Super Metroid - can you pass over the last split?) but would be interesting information that would persist throughout the remainder of a race.

I know both WSplit and whatever we used at SGDQ2013 (Llanfair, I think?) have a skip button, so we could do this. The reason we didn't is because it's just one more of those things that fell by the wayside when everything was going wrong during setup days. I still want to do this but have just never had the time to set it up ahead of time.

Quote from mike89:

I think this would be a massive boon as well. Interestingly, I think we've done it once before - AGDQ'11! I remember Trekhaak doing a practice run of Banjo Kazooie while nate and Lag were troubleshooting stuff in the background.

Would it make sense to actually stream this process? I'm still thinking this over in my head, but I'm leaning towards yes right now - it makes sense to simulate authentic marathon conditions as much as possible, and might also elicit suggestions from the other side of the fence.

I've definitely done some test streaming on, say, my own stream, just to make sure things are working. Didn't do it this time for reasons I hope are obvious. One concern I have with this is that people might not realize they're on live camera and say/do something questionable.

Quote from mike89:

Use the stream footage, not the mixer, to test audio levels
To be blunt, viewers don't give a shit that the audio sounds great in the mixer, if it doesn't on the stream. Even if this process takes a few extra seconds (and a nearby laptop or something), it's a much preferable result to what happened for multiple runs early on. And it would save us receiving a lot of whining!

This was less an issue of "we think it's fine" and more an issue of "this is the best we can do without sitting down for an hour and tweaking the settings" (which is what we ended up doing while the stream was "down"), though I can see why people interpreted it as the former, especially since I was pretty sick of explaining it over and over. Once we got all the compression envelopes (curves? Not sure what the technical term is here) set up the audio complaints mostly vanished (except for maybe the room seeming too quiet!).

Quote from mike89:

And one final thing to consider when you're looking over these suggestions:

Prove to the viewers you're listening!
Ultimately, people giving their concerns don't want the event to fail, they just want it to be the best it can. So show that you're listening! Do a roundtable stream, with a bunch of staff on Skype or whatever program we use these days, and let loose on a bunch of issues. One thing I keep hearing about, for instance, is that the world record for a run should appear on the stream somewhere. Should it? I don't know, but let's see what viewers actually want! Make the case for and against, and put it to a poll, whether that's recorded by a bot in the stream, or on Strawpoll, whatever. Have a few people put together layout suggestions, give the stream links to imgur galleries and get them to vote which one they like best! You can do this for just about every concern that's been put to the stream, and it would certainly show people that we're not shying away from criticism, we're embracing it and using it to make the event even better.

If I come across a little sharp, I don't really mean to: but if you couldn't tell from that last part, the public perception of us being stubborn and resistant to change really bothers me, because I know we're better than that. Let's step it up for AGDQ'15!

The problem is that a significant portion of the suggestions I see in these threads are things the event staff doesn't want or doesn't think are workable, so maybe that ends up looking like we're not listening, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about that. Regarding "WR being on the stream", specifically, I know a lot of runners and staff think that's a bad idea and is almost entirely irrelevant in a marathon setting (moreso for some games than others, given RNG, safety strats, donation incentives, etc). Plus if we're going to squeeze more info onto the layout (and we are, soon as we decide where to put it), there's things with far more priority than that.

[quote="mike89"]I remember doing up "cheat sheets" for each admin station (host, donation processing, tech... yeah, simpler days) as far back as AGDQ 2012. Does this just not happen any more?[/quote]

There were, but they could always be improved. Several times things that were on said cheat sheets were completely forgotten so it's not like they're a magic pill, either.

[quote="mike89"]Can't +1 this suggestion enough. Obviously it means having everything ready to stream an hour earlier, but think how many people are sitting there waiting for the stream to start by then? I think the biggest advantage this would create is that the runner with the opening run isn't shafted viewer-wise. It didn't happen here, surprisingly, but in marathons past the first run has been over well before gaining any kind of viewer momentum.[/quote]

If we can actually get everything ready in time then I think this is a workable idea. Problem is we've only started "on time" once that I can remember, at AGDQ2014. So this puts more pressure on that.

[quote="mike89"][quote="Aaron_Haynes"]One thing I would suggest is multiple timers for races, or a split timer method. It always feels strange when the winner calls time and the timer just keeps going until the last person finishes. There must be some method for this that isn't a logistical headache.[/quote]

I feel like I suggest this one every year, but one workaround would be to have a race split file, "race2" "race3" "race4" for the amount of runners in the race, title the splits "1st", "2nd", etc, and split when each runner finishes. It requires a little more space for the timer (and might create a slight issue if there's a non-finisher, as in Super Metroid - can you pass over the last split?) but would be interesting information that would persist throughout the remainder of a race.[/quote]

I know both WSplit and whatever we used at SGDQ2013 (Llanfair, I think?) have a skip button, so we could do this. The reason we didn't is because it's just one more of those things that fell by the wayside when everything was going wrong during setup days. I still want to do this but have just never had the time to set it up ahead of time.

[quote="mike89"]I think this would be a massive boon as well. Interestingly, I think we've done it once before - AGDQ[b]'11[/b]! I remember Trekhaak doing a practice run of Banjo Kazooie while nate and Lag were troubleshooting stuff in the background.

Would it make sense to actually stream this process? I'm still thinking this over in my head, but I'm leaning towards yes right now - it makes sense to simulate authentic marathon conditions as much as possible, and might also elicit suggestions from the other side of the fence.[/quote]

I've definitely done some test streaming on, say, my own stream, just to make sure things are working. Didn't do it this time for reasons I hope are obvious. One concern I have with this is that people might not realize they're on live camera and say/do something questionable.

[quote="mike89"][b]Use the stream footage, not the mixer, to test audio levels[/b]
To be blunt, viewers don't give a shit that the audio sounds great in the mixer, if it doesn't on the stream. Even if this process takes a few extra seconds (and a nearby laptop or something), it's a much preferable result to what happened for multiple runs early on. And it would save us receiving a lot of whining![/quote]

This was less an issue of "we think it's fine" and more an issue of "this is the best we can do without sitting down for an hour and tweaking the settings" (which is what we ended up doing while the stream was "down"), though I can see why people interpreted it as the former, especially since I was pretty sick of explaining it over and over. Once we got all the compression envelopes (curves? Not sure what the technical term is here) set up the audio complaints mostly vanished (except for maybe the room seeming too quiet!).

[quote="mike89"]And one final thing to consider when you're looking over these suggestions:

[b]Prove to the viewers you're listening![/b]
Ultimately, people giving their concerns don't want the event to fail, they just want it to be the best it can. So show that you're listening! Do a roundtable stream, with a bunch of staff on Skype or whatever program we use these days, and let loose on a bunch of issues. One thing I keep hearing about, for instance, is that the world record for a run should appear on the stream somewhere. Should it? I don't know, but let's see what viewers actually want! Make the case for and against, and put it to a poll, whether that's recorded by a bot in the stream, or on Strawpoll, whatever. Have a few people put together layout suggestions, give the stream links to imgur galleries and get them to vote which one they like best! You can do this for just about every concern that's been put to the stream, and it would certainly show people that we're not shying away from criticism, we're embracing it and using it to make the event even better.

If I come across a little sharp, I don't really mean to: but if you couldn't tell from that last part, the public perception of us being stubborn and resistant to change really bothers me, because I know we're better than that. Let's step it up for AGDQ'15![/quote]

The problem is that a significant portion of the suggestions I see in these threads are things the event staff doesn't want or doesn't think are workable, so maybe that ends up looking like we're not listening, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about that. Regarding "WR being on the stream", specifically, I know a lot of runners and staff think that's a bad idea and is almost entirely irrelevant in a marathon setting (moreso for some games than others, given RNG, safety strats, donation incentives, etc). Plus if we're going to squeeze more info onto the layout (and we are, soon as we decide where to put it), there's things with far more priority than that.

Sir VG

2014-07-10 04:26:13 am

Fucking Weeaboo

Suggestion for how to deal with the WR stuff I just thought up. It would also help possibly with supplimental info about the game. Pardon if it's seems weird or whatever.

How about on the GDQ page, you include the current game title, along with a pop out box that includes a few things about the game, such as current known WR, a link to buy it (return our love to the developers) if possible, and a small paragraph or two about the game, maybe like strats and such?

This way they can see that info without needing to break away from the stream page. All of the info can be prepared ahead of time and it's easily accessible to the viewer. And the focus of commentary can change without having to say some important yet not necessary to repeat 15x info.

Sorry if it seems half baked. It just popped in my head so I'm typing it down.

UraniumAnchor

2014-07-10 04:29:44 am

Not a walrus

I'm definitely all for ancillary info being available on a page somewhere (the less stream clutter the better, imo), the question is getting somebody to actually put that sort of thing together.

Anyway, I should have been in bed hours ago so I'll take a look at this thread again tomorrow.

rust45

2014-07-10 04:29:56 am

Uninteresting Speedrunner

I skimmed through the thread and I'd like to give my two cents on the stream room.

I liked it. It was nice that there was a lot of space that wasn't visible on stream where people could not be distracting to the run. I like the idea of only having a couple rows of seats behind the couch and all other seating is off stream. One of my main problems is AGDQ 13 and SGDQ 13 were the fact that you could see people entering and leaving the stream room and that's just overly distracting. Future GDQs I feel should have a similar setup to SGDQ 14 with a couple of rows behind the couch and the entrance off camera at all times. Also, even if the empty room was a hype killer, I feel like it shouldn't be that much of an issue for the stream as it seemed to be. Just don't show the crowd seats inbetween games if it's empty. I do agree that it was a little dark and maybe a little cold in there but honestly the AC was really nice on the couch (SS couch was really cramped and I'm very thankful for that AC).

I also heard there were issues with people streaming off of the convention wi-fi. I actually didn't know this was an issue until it was brought up to me regarding others. The problem I see there is that if we weren't supposed to stream off of that internet, there should have been some signage or person telling people that. I'm not sure if it will be an issue at future GDQs but I'm just throwing it out there.

And last note: The party python was amazing and everyone that didn't like it is just a hater.

I skimmed through the thread and I'd like to give my two cents on the stream room.

I liked it. It was nice that there was a lot of space that wasn't visible on stream where people could not be distracting to the run. I like the idea of only having a couple rows of seats behind the couch and all other seating is off stream. One of my main problems is AGDQ 13 and SGDQ 13 were the fact that you could see people entering and leaving the stream room and that's just overly distracting. Future GDQs I feel should have a similar setup to SGDQ 14 with a couple of rows behind the couch and the entrance off camera at all times. Also, even if the empty room was a hype killer, I feel like it shouldn't be that much of an issue for the stream as it seemed to be. Just don't show the crowd seats inbetween games if it's empty. I do agree that it was a little dark and maybe a little cold in there but honestly the AC was really nice on the couch (SS couch was really cramped and I'm very thankful for that AC).

I also heard there were issues with people streaming off of the convention wi-fi. I actually didn't know this was an issue until it was brought up to me regarding others. The problem I see there is that if we weren't supposed to stream off of that internet, there should have been some signage or person telling people that. I'm not sure if it will be an issue at future GDQs but I'm just throwing it out there.

And last note: The party python was amazing and everyone that didn't like it is just a hater.

Dragondarch

2014-07-10 04:30:36 am

Pudding%

Quote from Gyre:

Scene switching- Not being able to preview or edit scenes before going live is a major failure of OBS. This exaggerates many problems with camera setup and cropping capture sources. We have to get this in whatever broadcast software we use next time.

Actually, you can use the Preview Stream button to do exactly that without going live. It doesn't help for audio stuff, since like Mike89 said that should be tested using the stream itself, but it allows you to fidget with the layout without actually going live.

The only other thing I want to add, which is definitely less important that a lot of the concerns that have been mentioned already:
In between the food/practice area there was a large white sign that said "No food in the practice area (water allowed)."
The thing that concerns me here is that "water allowed" doesn't specify the container it's in. Personally, I'm more concerned with something spilling on the consoles/TVs/other equipment than anything, and cups of water are relatively easy to knock over.
My workplace has a rule regarding food/drink in the work areas:
Food allowed only if it's individually wrapped, such as hard candies, etc.
Drinks only allowed if they're in closed containers.

I'm personally fine with banning food altogether - less mess to potentially clean up.
For drinks, I honestly want to say that so long as it's in a closed container AND it's not unattended it's OK. Unattended containers/bottles are still subject to disposal, and open containers (cups, soda cans, etc.) would also be thrown out. Again, I'm more concerned with how easy it would be to spill rather than what the beverage actually is.

Other than that, everything else I'd thought of has already been said.

[quote="Gyre"]Scene switching- Not being able to preview or edit scenes before going live is a major failure of OBS.  This exaggerates many problems with camera setup and cropping capture sources.  We have to get this in whatever broadcast software we use next time.[/quote]Actually, you can use the Preview Stream button to do exactly that without going live. It doesn't help for audio stuff, since like Mike89 said that should be tested using the stream itself, but it allows you to fidget with the layout without actually going live.

The only other thing I want to add, which is definitely less important that a lot of the concerns that have been mentioned already:
In between the food/practice area there was a large white sign that said "No food in the practice area (water allowed)."
The thing that concerns me here is that "water allowed" doesn't specify the container it's in. Personally, I'm more concerned with something spilling on the consoles/TVs/other equipment than anything, and cups of water are relatively easy to knock over.
My workplace has a rule regarding food/drink in the work areas:
Food allowed only if it's individually wrapped, such as hard candies, etc.
Drinks only allowed if they're in closed containers.

I'm personally fine with banning food altogether - less mess to potentially clean up.
For drinks, I honestly want to say that so long as it's in a closed container AND it's not unattended it's OK. Unattended containers/bottles are still subject to disposal, and open containers (cups, soda cans, etc.) would also be thrown out. Again, I'm more concerned with how easy it would be to spill rather than what the beverage actually is.

Other than that, everything else I'd thought of has already been said.

rust45

2014-07-10 04:34:49 am

Uninteresting Speedrunner

I agree with Dragondarch, I found it really silly that cups of water were allowed but not closed containers of drinks. Water can do just as much damage to consoles than a soda or energy drink. As long as the drink can be sealed so it won't spill if tipped over it should be fine.

VoltySquirrel

2014-07-10 04:55:02 am

Stream watcher here:
This has been brought up a couple of times but I feel like it does need to be said again: There are a few things that need to be filtered out of the chat whenever a woman's on camera. The Twitch chat always became instantly worse whenever a woman was running. I know you can't exactly 100% control what a 50k hivemind of the average gamer says, but if it's possible to curb this stuff then we should do it. Not only is it disgusting, it just plain reflects poorly on the event when half the people in chat are talking about how much they love the runner's boobs.

Loerwyn

2014-07-10 05:06:06 am

I sent an e-mail to both people listed on the SGDQ site, but I've had a few more thoughts and I'd like to add them here. FWIW, this was my first viewing of the livestream after starting to watch speedruns earlier this year (I've watched a few dozen hours of *DGQ recordings).

1. Runner/Couch Behaviour
Obviously a big subject, and one that is most noticeable (superceded only by tech issues, I'd say). If the runners are swearing or acting badly, there needs to be a way to contact them with a minimum of disruption. I also wonder if there should be some sort of screening process for runners. There's one run in particular I watched, and the vibe I got from a friend (who was also watching it) and the #SGDQ2014 hashtag was that there was a lot of annoyance that this runner seemed to have had not enough practice at said run, not to mention their frequent swearing and the admission the game was not "marathon friendly". I don't know how you would screen this, but I think it's worth a thought.

As for the couch, I've got a few points. Some people seemed to dominate that area, whether they were just behind the couch or even on it. It wasn't so noticeable due to the angle of the camera, but I saw some faces sat very close for long periods of time. This, to me, doesn't seem fair to the other attendees and of course we've since seen some comments about certain people disrupting or making other runners uncomfortable. If someone's there for a long period of time (say, 2hrs or 3 runs, whichever is sooner), they should be encouraged to move so that someone else can come in. And going to the couch itself? I think it should be the runner and their specified commentators only. There were runs where the runner's friends were being disruptive on the couch (constantly talking), making in-jokes and bizarre references or even fitting four or five of them on the couch, which was too many. I'd also like to suggest that the commentators are mentioned on the stream itself. I don't think a rollcall helps too much - I think it would be much more useful if this was arranged beforehand (with potential last-minute changes) so viewers could also look up the commentators if they wish, so for example it might say "Game X. Runner: Person Y. Commentator(s): Person 1, Person 2". I never worked out who, for example, assisted Cak with his run, and there was another commentator (and much to my annoyance I've forgotten which run it was in) I found to be interesting.

Also, did we really need so many HYPE! or "shoutouts to..." moments? It got kinda annoying very quickly. But maybe that's just me.

2. Host/Announcer
Generally I think this was well done, and reading this topic and seeing the "runner couldn't hear the host and vice versa" puts a lot of issues I had into perspective. There were a lot of donation interruptions, a lot of commentary interruptions, but I think that's been spoken about a lot. Reading this topic, I'd also agree with those saying the hosts should be getting better-screened messages, e.g. those "extra $$$ if you say my name correctly" donations. It's a bit distracting, and sometimes I found the hosts to basically stumble through the donations. Slow and steady, guys.

There was one thing that really got my goat, though. I don't know how many times I contacted the SDA twitter account and/or mentioned this in the hashtag, but the Humble Bundle script was really, really, really bad. One error in particular was perpetuated by the hosts, and I think I only heard it corrected once... only to go back to the erroneous one. Dust: An Elysian Tail was not in the SGDQ bundle, but Dustforce was. Both games, however, were run. I think it would have been a lot simpler if the SDGQ Bundle just didn't name the games or went for the simpler named titles - so again as an example, it might have been "We have a bundle in conjunction with the guys at Humble Bundle, where $25 will get you ten games that appear during this marathon. It includes Bleed and Psychonauts, and you can get it at humblebundle.com/sgdq". I also noticed at one point there was a reference to something like a Team Meat Collection, but being the pedant I am, actually it was Edmund McMillen's Basement Collection (Edmund being part of Team Meat, though these games largely (if not entirely) pre-date that).

3. Twitch Chat
I disappeared during writing this post and I came back and VoltySquirrel above me pretty much leads me into my next point. Twitch Chat is just no. No no no. I was in there before the event started and I just knew pretty much instantly it would not be a pleasant thing to experience. Either more mods or close it, and let chat happen elsewhere (maybe a moderated IRC). It does not reflect well for the hosting stream's chat to be a cesspit of puerile nonsense. But I have no idea if you could even moderate something like that. I avoided it by watching the stream via the pop-out window, but my ignoring the chat does not make it less of a problem.

4. Conclusion:
What I watched of this event was, on the whole, really good. There were technical issues, certainly, but it seems to me that the only real problems are communication and the behaviour of some guests and runners. Ground rules aren't much use if they're not enforced, and I think for the sake of fairness and good runs that the couch area in particular needs to be much more tightly controlled. The runner should be deciding pre-run who sits on the couch. I mean it's not nice to feel like you don't want to offend someone by asking them to move or be quiet during your run, but I felt some runs were made hard to watch by the behaviour of some people on or near the couch. I also agree with the point that the only person who should be listened to when calling time is the runner (unless they explicitly delegated that task during or before the run).

I feel like these topics can be a bit negative, but on the whole I really enjoyed what I watched and here's to the next event being even better!

I sent an e-mail to both people listed on the SGDQ site, but I've had a few more thoughts and I'd like to add them here. FWIW, this was my first viewing of the livestream after starting to watch speedruns earlier this year (I've watched a few dozen hours of *DGQ recordings).

[b]1. Runner/Couch Behaviour[/b]
Obviously a big subject, and one that is most noticeable (superceded only by tech issues, I'd say). If the runners are swearing or acting badly, there needs to be a way to contact them with a minimum of disruption. I also wonder if there should be some sort of screening process for runners. There's one run in particular I watched, and the vibe I got from a friend (who was also watching it) and the #SGDQ2014 hashtag was that there was a lot of annoyance that this runner seemed to have had not enough practice at said run, not to mention their frequent swearing and the admission the game was not "marathon friendly". I don't know how you would screen this, but I think it's worth a thought.

As for the couch, I've got a few points. Some people seemed to dominate that area, whether they were just behind the couch or even on it. It wasn't so noticeable due to the angle of the camera, but I saw some faces sat very close for long periods of time. This, to me, doesn't seem fair to the other attendees and of course we've since seen some comments about certain people disrupting or making other runners uncomfortable. If someone's there for a long period of time (say, 2hrs or 3 runs, whichever is sooner), they should be encouraged to move so that someone else can come in. And going to the couch itself? I think it should be the runner and their specified commentators only. There were runs where the runner's friends were being disruptive on the couch (constantly talking), making in-jokes and bizarre references or even fitting four or five of them on the couch, which was too many. I'd also like to suggest that the commentators are mentioned on the stream itself. I don't think a rollcall helps too much - I think it would be much more useful if this was arranged beforehand (with potential last-minute changes) so viewers could also look up the commentators if they wish, so for example it might say "Game X. Runner: Person Y. Commentator(s): Person 1, Person 2". I never worked out who, for example, assisted Cak with his run, and there was another commentator (and much to my annoyance I've forgotten which run it was in) I found to be interesting.

Also, did we really need so many HYPE! or "shoutouts to..." moments? It got kinda annoying very quickly. But maybe that's just me.

[b]2. Host/Announcer[/b]
Generally I think this was well done, and reading this topic and seeing the "runner couldn't hear the host and vice versa" puts a lot of issues I had into perspective. There were a lot of donation interruptions, a lot of commentary interruptions, but I think that's been spoken about a lot. Reading this topic, I'd also agree with those saying the hosts should be getting better-screened messages, e.g. those "extra $$$ if you say my name correctly" donations. It's a bit distracting, and sometimes I found the hosts to basically stumble through the donations. Slow and steady, guys.

There was one thing that really got my goat, though. I don't know how many times I contacted the SDA twitter account and/or mentioned this in the hashtag, but the Humble Bundle script was really, really, really bad. One error in particular was perpetuated by the hosts, and I think I only heard it corrected once... only to go back to the erroneous one. Dust: An Elysian Tail was not in the SGDQ bundle, but Dustforce was. Both games, however, were run. I think it would have been a lot simpler if the SDGQ Bundle just didn't name the games or went for the simpler named titles - so again as an example, it might have been "We have a bundle in conjunction with the guys at Humble Bundle, where $25 will get you ten games that appear during this marathon. It includes Bleed and Psychonauts, and you can get it at humblebundle.com/sgdq". I also noticed at one point there was a reference to something like a Team Meat Collection, but being the pedant I am, actually it was Edmund McMillen's Basement Collection (Edmund being part of Team Meat, though these games largely (if not entirely) pre-date that).

[b]3. Twitch Chat[/b]
I disappeared during writing this post and I came back and VoltySquirrel above me pretty much leads me into my next point. Twitch Chat is just no. No no no. I was in there before the event started and I just knew pretty much instantly it would not be a pleasant thing to experience. Either more mods or close it, and let chat happen elsewhere (maybe a moderated IRC). It does not reflect well for the hosting stream's chat to be a cesspit of puerile nonsense. But I have no idea if you could even moderate something like that. I avoided it by watching the stream via the pop-out window, but my ignoring the chat does not make it less of a problem.

4. Conclusion:
What I watched of this event was, on the whole, really good. There were technical issues, certainly, but it seems to me that the only real problems are communication and the behaviour of some guests and runners. Ground rules aren't much use if they're not enforced, and I think for the sake of fairness and good runs that the couch area in particular needs to be much more tightly controlled. The runner should be deciding pre-run who sits on the couch. I mean it's not nice to feel like you don't want to offend someone by asking them to move or be quiet during your run, but I felt some runs were made hard to watch by the behaviour of some people on or near the couch. I also agree with the point that the only person who should be listened to when calling time is the runner (unless they explicitly delegated that task during or before the run).

I feel like these topics can be a bit negative, but on the whole I really enjoyed what I watched and here's to the next event being even better!

Reafexus

Edit history:

Reafexus: 2014-07-10 05:14:44 am

2014-07-10 05:12:43 am

A few things from a viewer.

WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.

How to Speedrun
Maybe add a link to the "How to Speedrun" faqs on the gamesdonequick page. There were quite a few comments asking about how to get started.

On Donations
The person reading the donations should know what the runner choice is before the run or at least know if the runner wants to be asked during their run. It was pretty regular that you'd waste a minute going back and forth not hearing each other asking what the runner's choice is. It should just be part of their prep. And related to when runners have time for donations to be read. Maybe they can have some sort of light or something they can turn on and off when it is ok to read donations. And maybe the other way too where the donation guy can tell/ask the runner/commentator to take a second or at least inform the donation guy when a good time to read donations might be.

On Prizes
When do they get pulled? I literally have not heard a single thing about them and the site does not have winners yet. There is no mention on the Gamesdonequick site or the marathon tracker. You can't play up prizes for a week and then forget about them completely. I am sure there is something going on in the background before you can pull them but that is not posted anywhere useful if it is somewhere. I would just like to know literally anything about them.

And also I wish their was some confirmation on what prizes I was eligible for as soon as I donate. Obviously there is something that does it otherwise you guys wouldn't be able to pull prizes at all. An email. Maybe add it to the bid's page on the marathon tracker since anybody can put the times together if they wanted anyway. Something so that I know that my donation was the correct amount to be eligible for the prize I want. I know this would probably take some real non-marathon focused work but I know I would feel a lot better.

A few things from a viewer.

WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.

How to Speedrun
Maybe add a link to the "How to Speedrun" faqs on the gamesdonequick page. There were quite a few comments asking about how to get started.

On Donations
The person reading the donations should know what the runner choice is before the run or at least know if the runner wants to be asked during their run. It was pretty regular that you'd waste a minute going back and forth not hearing each other asking what the runner's choice is. It should just be part of their prep. And related to when runners have time for donations to be read. Maybe they can have some sort of light or something they can turn on and off when it is ok to read donations. And maybe the other way too where the donation guy can tell/ask the runner/commentator to take a second or at least inform the donation guy when a good time to read donations might be.

On Prizes
When do they get pulled? I literally have not heard a single thing about them and the site does not have winners yet. There is no mention on the Gamesdonequick site or the marathon tracker. You can't play up prizes for a week and then forget about them completely. I am sure there is something going on in the background before you can pull them but that is not posted anywhere useful if it is somewhere. I would just like to know literally anything about them.

And also I wish their was some confirmation on what prizes I was eligible for as soon as I donate. Obviously there is something that does it otherwise you guys wouldn't be able to pull prizes at all. An email. Maybe add it to the bid's page on the marathon tracker since anybody can put the times together if they wanted anyway. Something so that I know that my donation was the correct amount to be eligible for the prize I want. I know this would probably take some real non-marathon focused work but I know I would feel a lot better.

Mikey McC

2014-07-10 05:29:31 am

Quote from Reafexus:

WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.

The problem with this is that the runs in the marathon often time use different, safer routes and strats than actual World Record attempts, and they are typically a bit longer because of this. If everyone went with flat out WR attempts in their runs during the marathon, you'd see a lot more mercy kills because of runs just failing to hit certain tricks and dying on the spot. So, supplying the World Record time is pretty useless because it's not an accurate comparison or frame of reference to the run they are doing, and honetly having the WR up there and seeing the runners fall so far behind those times would probably be more of a hype killer than anything.

Just remember these aren't WR attempts, these are showcases.

[quote="Reafexus"]WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.[/quote]
The problem with this is that the runs in the marathon often time use different, safer routes and strats than actual World Record attempts, and they are typically a bit longer because of this. If everyone went with flat out WR attempts in their runs during the marathon, you'd see a lot more mercy kills because of runs just failing to hit certain tricks and dying on the spot.  So, supplying the World Record time is pretty useless because it's not an accurate comparison or frame of reference to the run they are doing, and honetly having the WR up there and seeing the runners fall so far behind those times would probably be more of a hype killer than anything.

Just remember these aren't WR attempts, these are showcases.

Loerwyn

2014-07-10 05:35:57 am

Quote from Mikey McC:

Quote from Reafexus:

WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.

The problem with this is that the runs in the marathon often time use different, safer routes and strats than actual World Record attempts, and they are typically a bit longer because of this. If everyone went with flat out WR attempts in their runs during the marathon, you'd see a lot more mercy kills because of runs just failing to hit certain tricks and dying on the spot. So, supplying the World Record time is pretty useless because it's not an accurate comparison or frame of reference to the run they are doing, and honetly having the WR up there and seeing the runners fall so far behind those times would probably be more of a hype killer than anything.

Just remember these aren't WR attempts, these are showcases.

I don't know, I kinda agree and disagree - but each runner will still have a PB for a safer run. Or maybe they could average their successful practice runs. Basically there is little context unless you watch a certain game being run - e.g. that Cosmo has done OoT Any% (I think?) in about 18:20. But listing the PB and/or WRs somewhere (e.g. the schedule) would be useful to give some context as to whether a run was particularly strong or not.

[quote="Mikey McC"][quote="Reafexus"]WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.[/quote]
The problem with this is that the runs in the marathon often time use different, safer routes and strats than actual World Record attempts, and they are typically a bit longer because of this. If everyone went with flat out WR attempts in their runs during the marathon, you'd see a lot more mercy kills because of runs just failing to hit certain tricks and dying on the spot.  So, supplying the World Record time is pretty useless because it's not an accurate comparison or frame of reference to the run they are doing, and honetly having the WR up there and seeing the runners fall so far behind those times would probably be more of a hype killer than anything.

Just remember these aren't WR attempts, these are showcases.[/quote]
I don't know, I kinda agree and disagree - but each runner will still have a PB for a safer run. Or maybe they could average their successful practice runs. Basically there is little context unless you watch a certain game being run - e.g. that Cosmo has done OoT Any% (I think?) in about 18:20. But listing the PB and/or WRs somewhere (e.g. the schedule) would be useful to give some context as to whether a run was particularly strong or not.

Reafexus

2014-07-10 05:37:48 am

Quote from Mikey McC:

Quote from Reafexus:

WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.

The problem with this is that the runs in the marathon often time use different, safer routes and strats than actual World Record attempts, and they are typically a bit longer because of this. If everyone went with flat out WR attempts in their runs during the marathon, you'd see a lot more mercy kills because of runs just failing to hit certain tricks and dying on the spot. So, supplying the World Record time is pretty useless because it's not an accurate comparison or frame of reference to the run they are doing, and honetly having the WR up there and seeing the runners fall so far behind those times would probably be more of a hype killer than anything.

Just remember these aren't WR attempts, these are showcases.

Then put up their PB or a marathon PB, literally anything useful. Anything so that when they get up and all the attendees are congratulating them on being so close to their mysterious "time I am currently comparing this one to but can't tell the viewers because it is a marathon and the times aren't real and the points don't matter" the viewers aren't sitting with the thumbs up their butts wondering.

[quote="Mikey McC"][quote="Reafexus"]WR thing
I understand the not wanting the WR on the screen but every stream I watched the runner ends it with "That was a good time," and all I could think every time was COMPARED TO WHAT!? Were you seconds off? Minutes? Of the WR, your PB, your best friends last marathon time, your last marathon time? Viewers have literally no frame of reference to how well a run is going. We see a round about estimate but they are just estimates of if everything goes wrong. I understand the WR may be distracting but I know I wanted a frame of reference and apparently it is a popular opinion among viewers.[/quote]
The problem with this is that the runs in the marathon often time use different, safer routes and strats than actual World Record attempts, and they are typically a bit longer because of this. If everyone went with flat out WR attempts in their runs during the marathon, you'd see a lot more mercy kills because of runs just failing to hit certain tricks and dying on the spot.  So, supplying the World Record time is pretty useless because it's not an accurate comparison or frame of reference to the run they are doing, and honetly having the WR up there and seeing the runners fall so far behind those times would probably be more of a hype killer than anything.

Just remember these aren't WR attempts, these are showcases.[/quote]

Then put up their PB or a marathon PB, literally anything useful. Anything so that when they get up and all the attendees are congratulating them on being so close to their mysterious "time I am currently comparing this one to but can't tell the viewers because it is a marathon and the times aren't real and the points don't matter" the viewers aren't sitting with the thumbs up their butts wondering.

Worn_Traveler

2014-07-10 05:40:15 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

Generally the WR mentioning falls on the runner. If the runner wishes to mention it they will. If not, they don't. Sometimes the runner isn't even the one with the WR. I think the focus needs to be more on having good runs for charity and not if runner x pb'd or was close to WR. A good run is a good run and a bad run is a bad run. It's a bit subjective.

UberGoose

2014-07-10 05:42:15 am

The issue with showing a time (WR, PB, whatever) is that if a run is bad, it's that much worse when the viewers know. If a run doesn't go well and the viewer doesn't know the WR they just write it off as "mediocre" rather than "17 MINUTES OFF WR BAD SPEEDRUNNER." Obviously they won't react that way, but there could very easily be similarly terrible reactions if a WR time is known.

zastbat

Edit history:

zastbat: 2014-07-10 05:43:50 am

2014-07-10 05:43:23 am

Lord Of The Beards

Quote from UberGoose:

"17 MINUTES OFF WR BAD SPEEDRUNNER." Obviously they won't react that way

twitch chat most likely would react this way and as such wr on stream most likely not the best idea