SGDQ 2014 Feedback Thread

Loerwyn

2014-07-10 01:44:23 pm

Quote from BobTGoldfish:

EDit: If you wanna hide it? pop out the stream and close the source page.

That's what I was doing, at least. But ignoring a problem doesn't solve it.

luigimeister

Edit history:

luigimeister: 2014-07-10 02:00:01 pm

2014-07-10 01:58:45 pm

Likes SoM far too much

Quote from Loerwyn:

That's what I was doing, at least. But ignoring a problem doesn't solve it.

Neither does whining about it in a thread where most of us agree that twitch chat is cancerous. There's no good way to get people to stop being assholes in twitch chat, other than sub mode which has a lot of the same problems as disabling the chat. Disabling twitch chat would ruin a portion of the experience for a good portion of the audience that donates. Whether we like the cancer or not, twitch chat is something a lot of people enjoy having for hype/emote spam/whatever (me included) so them's the breaks.

Edit: It'd be nice if we could get off this topic and get on something more constructive

Loerwyn

2014-07-10 02:05:31 pm

Quote from luigimeister:

Neither does whining about it in a thread where most of us agree that twitch chat is cancerous. There's no good way to get people to stop being assholes in twitch chat, other than sub mode which has a lot of the same problems as disabling the chat. Disabling twitch chat would ruin a portion of the experience for a good portion of the audience that donates. Whether we like the cancer or not, twitch chat is something a lot of people enjoy having for hype/emote spam/whatever (me included) so them's the breaks.

No need to make it personal by accusing me of "whining". I'm thinking of suggestions for ways to mitigate the damage the Twitch chat can do or to help think of ways where the more problematic behaviour can be toned down. It's clear it would be a Herculean task, but that doesn't mean there's no merit in trying to find a way to at least think about working at the problem. We shouldn't have to accept that people act like jerks, or that they make misogynistic comments, or that they continue to refer to a particular speedrunner by a name he has stated he doesn't like. That should not be accepted behaviour, and it should not be the norm. It might very well be that unless Twitch overhauls their chat client that there is no true way to police it or even manage it, but when we consider the potential performance/bandwidth issues it creates for some users or how it may reflect badly on SDA/SRL/*DGQ, then it is worth discussing.

There are benefits to having the Twitch chat, and I won't deny that it does help bring in the money, but that doesn't mean it should be handwaved.

But yes, like the WR/PB topic, there doesn't seem to be much more mileage in this particular discussion tonight.

[quote="luigimeister"]
Neither does whining about it in a thread where most of us agree that twitch chat is cancerous. There's no good way to get people to stop being assholes in twitch chat, other than sub mode which has a lot of the same problems as disabling the chat. Disabling twitch chat would ruin a portion of the experience for a good portion of the audience that donates. Whether we like the cancer or not, twitch chat is something a lot of people enjoy having for hype/emote spam/whatever (me included) so them's the breaks.[/quote]
No need to make it personal by accusing me of "whining". I'm thinking of suggestions for ways to mitigate the damage the Twitch chat can do or to help think of ways where the more problematic behaviour can be toned down. It's clear it would be a Herculean task, but that doesn't mean there's no merit in trying to find a way to at least think about working at the problem. We shouldn't have to accept that people act like jerks, or that they make misogynistic comments, or that they continue to refer to a particular speedrunner by a name he has stated he doesn't like. That should not be accepted behaviour, and it should not be the norm. It might very well be that unless Twitch overhauls their chat client that there is no true way to police it or even manage it, but when we consider the potential performance/bandwidth issues it creates for some users or how it may reflect badly on SDA/SRL/*DGQ, then it is worth discussing.

There are benefits to having the Twitch chat, and I won't deny that it does help bring in the money, but that doesn't mean it should be handwaved.

But yes, like the WR/PB topic, there doesn't seem to be much more mileage in this particular discussion tonight.

Jackafur

2014-07-10 02:08:50 pm

My complaint is attendees. I think alot of peoples behavior is absurdly inappropriate. I am of the opinion that alot of people do NOT belong at gdqs. It is very obvious that some people have no respect for the marathon or the cause. I dont have a problem with drinking/getting high/having a good time However alot of you dont know how to act. I can't even believe how much drama a charity marathon can produce. You make the whole scene/community look really bad. I think alot of us need to grow a dick and tell some of these people how it is. I find it funny how much people treat this like some shitty spring break vacation and completely forget that it is a charity event. By all means have a good time but leave your dumb shit AT THE FUCKING DOOR. Dont let personal drama mix with the event. please. Also is it really hard to throw your shit away in the practice room? It was always left a mess for SDA crew to clean up.

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Also If you dont want some one on your couch or in your audience tell them. You dont need someone to enforce this for you. You dont have to be rude either. I told a handful of people in the seats during my run if I wasnt friends with them I dont want them in my seats/couch/on stream.

My complaint is attendees. I think alot of peoples behavior is absurdly inappropriate. I am of the opinion that alot of people do NOT belong at gdqs. It is very obvious that some people have no respect for the marathon or the cause. I dont have a problem with drinking/getting high/having a good time However alot of you dont know how to act. I can't even believe how much drama a charity marathon can produce. You make the whole scene/community look really bad. I think alot of us need to grow a dick and tell some of these people how it is. I find it funny how much people treat this like some shitty spring break vacation and completely forget that it is a charity event. By all means have a good time but leave your dumb shit AT THE FUCKING DOOR. Dont let personal drama mix with the event. please. Also is it really hard to throw your shit away in the practice room? It was always left a mess for SDA crew to clean up.

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Also If you dont want some one on your couch or in your audience tell them. You dont need someone to enforce this for you. You dont have to be rude either. I told a handful of people in the seats during my run if I wasnt friends with them I dont want them in my seats/couch/on stream.

Heavy Troopa

2014-07-10 02:11:09 pm

Loerwyn this conversation is clearly going nowhere please stop

BobTGoldfish

2014-07-10 02:18:20 pm

Quote from Jackafur:

I told a handful of people in the seats during my run if I wasn't friends with them I dont want them in my seats/couch/on stream.

I thought the rule was runner has control of the couch? i didn't know runners could dictate who could sit in the chairs behind the couch.

Loerwyn

2014-07-10 02:19:53 pm

Quote from Heavy Troopa:

Loerwyn this conversation is clearly going nowhere please stop

Sure, consider me stopped on that front. I just don't think making personal comments or trying to play down people's concerns is productive.

We all have our own views and suggestions, and some can be implemented whilst others cannot. Some are things the *DGQ team can do, others will require other partners (e.g. Twitch) to make changes on their end. But what we can do is all group together and try to come up with ways in which we achieve these things, whether it's by discussing the limitations of Twitch chat, the behaviour of the couch, what we think is acceptable behaviour from runners and so on. By doing that - by combining our ideas and perspectives as runners, attendees, viewers and so on - we can hopefully find ways to improve things for everyone involved. And whilst the viewers aren't as involved in the actual creation of the event itself (well, in general), they are important because they're the audience. The audience who donate a huge chunk of the money and spread the word about the event. No audience, no event.

And I think that path would be a lot smoother if we were civil towards each other.

But that's just me.

[quote="Heavy Troopa"]Loerwyn this conversation is clearly going nowhere please stop[/quote]
Sure, consider me stopped on that front. I just don't think making personal comments or trying to play down people's concerns is productive.

We all have our own views and suggestions, and some can be implemented whilst others cannot. Some are things the *DGQ team can do, others will require other partners (e.g. Twitch) to make changes on their end. But what we can do is all group together and try to come up with ways in which we achieve these things, whether it's by discussing the limitations of Twitch chat, the behaviour of the couch, what we think is acceptable behaviour from runners and so on. By doing that - by combining our ideas and perspectives as runners, attendees, viewers and so on - we can hopefully find ways to improve things for everyone involved. And whilst the viewers aren't as involved in the actual creation of the event itself (well, in general), they are important because they're the audience. The audience who donate a huge chunk of the money and spread the word about the event. No audience, no event.

And I think that path would be a lot smoother if we were civil towards each other.

But that's just me.

Vegita4Life

Edit history:

Vegita4Life: 2014-07-10 02:24:14 pm

2014-07-10 02:20:19 pm

Quote from Jackafur:

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Because Rom invited input from both viewers and attendees? Perhaps I misunderstood your statement

kariohki

2014-07-10 02:22:58 pm

Quote from BobTGoldfish:

Quote from Jackafur:

I told a handful of people in the seats during my run if I wasn't friends with them I dont want them in my seats/couch/on stream.

I thought the rule was runner has control of the couch? i didn't know runners could dictate who could sit in the chairs behind the couch.

I've seen it said that the first row behind the couch is sort of a couch-extension, but can't remember if there is clear rules on if the runner can say who sits there as well.

Jackafur

2014-07-10 02:24:21 pm

Quote from Vegita4Life:

Quote from Jackafur:

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Because Rom invited input from both viewers and attendees?

yea and i think alot of viewers and attendees dont have any business adding their input. that's my input.

mashystrr

2014-07-10 02:25:42 pm

As a viewer/donator, there's really only one thing that bothered me that hasn't been brought up yet. On the donation page, it had a spot to tell you which prizes you were eligible for when you donated except that it took FOREVER to update. I know I waited at least 15-30 minutes into runs waiting for it to update before ultimately donating because I SHOULD be eligible for the correct prizes (who knows?).

Also, a minor gripe, but the donation tracker wouldn't let me allocate cents toward challenges/choices. When I'm donating $5.02 or $50.20 throughout the marathon, I want to be able to allocate the whole amount and not just $5 here or $50 there. IIRC, I was able to do it last year after a whole bunch pms and browser changes, but I think that should be something that is better integrated into the tracker itself.

Cool Matty

2014-07-10 02:26:20 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

It probably wasn't explicit, it will be next time:

Any seat in the couch area (aka, not projector seats) is governed by the runner. Basically, anyone who's close enough to the runner to disturb/interfere with their run, or commentate on it.

Wymorn

2014-07-10 02:32:59 pm

Rank 1 Goatborn

Quote from Jackafur:

Quote from Vegita4Life:

Quote from Jackafur:

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Because Rom invited input from both viewers and attendees?

yea and i think alot of viewers and attendees dont have any business adding their input. that's my input.

Viewers and attendees have valuable feedback as well, but it may be limited to things unrelated to operations.

Vegita4Life

Edit history:

Vegita4Life: 2014-07-10 04:13:37 pm

2014-07-10 04:09:26 pm

Quote from Wymorn:

Quote from Jackafur:

Quote from Vegita4Life:

Quote from Jackafur:

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Because Rom invited input from both viewers and attendees?

yea and i think alot of viewers and attendees dont have any business adding their input. that's my input.

Viewers and attendees have valuable feedback as well, but it may be limited to things unrelated to operations.

I reread Romscout's OP and didn't find anywhere on it where he invited viewers to chime in in this topic. I should have reread it before posting the first time. It took the better part of the day at work to make completely through the topic and I must have made up the viewer comment option. Sorry everyone.

ShadowWraith

Edit history:

ShadowWraith: 2014-07-10 04:25:38 pm

ShadowWraith: 2014-07-10 04:23:40 pm

ShadowWraith: 2014-07-10 04:23:00 pm

ShadowWraith: 2014-07-10 04:21:52 pm

ShadowWraith: 2014-07-10 04:21:13 pm

2014-07-10 04:20:07 pm

.

Regarding Twitch Chat:

Yeah, it sucks. There will never realistically be a way for moderators to comb through a 50k+ participant chat and ban every single offender. CBenni's bot was a lifesaver in that regard, but there were points when I had to add 'riot' and 'grill' to the autoban filters because of how much stupid spam there was. I'm fine with people doing the Kappa clapping stuff or spamming some FrankerZs but when the chat is a wall of YSG ON COUCH OR RIOT or OMG A GRILL then the chat is just completely worthless to anyone outside of ctrl+c/ctrl+v funsies. Sorry, not interested. Anyway, we will be looking at alternative methods of handling twitch chat since a moderation team+automatic ban bot just weren't cutting it for the worst parts. Suggestions are welcome IN PM. This topic is for feedback on how the marathon was handled, and the chat was mostly handled offsite.

I will however say that compared to AGDQ's chat, this one was a lot tamer, which is a step in the right direction.

Regarding Quakenet Chat:

I'm going to take the blame for this one. Quakenet IRC is always a far mellower experience and I dropped the ball on getting moderators sorted for it. I'll be a lot more hands on with setting up a moderation team and guidelines for AGDQ'15 so any issues with uneven or heavy handed moderation should vanish.

The only issue I have has already been mentioned; having a dedicated on-site contact for moderators to contact in case of surprise developer/stream issues/donation issues/whatever.

Oh, and CBenni was amazing. He picked up a huge amount of slack that I caused with my lack of presence (due to moving country a month prior and still getting stuff sorted here) and deserves a hell of a lot of praise for the amount of work he put into making the chat experience smoother.

[b]Regarding Twitch Chat[/b]:

Yeah, it sucks. There will never realistically be a way for moderators to comb through a 50k+ participant chat and ban every single offender. CBenni's bot was a lifesaver in that regard, but there were points when I had to add 'riot' and 'grill' to the autoban filters because of how much stupid spam there was. I'm fine with people doing the Kappa clapping stuff or spamming some FrankerZs but when the chat is a wall of YSG ON COUCH OR RIOT or OMG A GRILL then the chat is just completely worthless to anyone outside of ctrl+c/ctrl+v funsies. Sorry, not interested. Anyway, we will be looking at alternative methods of handling twitch chat since a moderation team+automatic ban bot just weren't cutting it for the worst parts. Suggestions are welcome [b]IN PM[/b]. This topic is for feedback on how the marathon was handled, and the chat was mostly handled offsite.

I will however say that compared to AGDQ's chat, this one was a lot tamer, which is a step in the right direction.

[b]Regarding Quakenet Chat[/b]:

I'm going to take the blame for this one. Quakenet IRC is always a far mellower experience and I dropped the ball on getting moderators sorted for it. I'll be a lot more hands on with setting up a moderation team and guidelines for AGDQ'15 so any issues with uneven or heavy handed moderation should vanish.

The only issue I have has already been mentioned; having a dedicated on-site contact for moderators to contact in case of surprise developer/stream issues/donation issues/whatever.

Oh, and CBenni was amazing. He picked up a huge amount of slack that I caused with my lack of presence (due to moving country a month prior and still getting stuff sorted here) and deserves a hell of a lot of praise for the amount of work he put into making the chat experience smoother.

romscout

2014-07-10 04:42:09 pm

that Metroidvania guy

Plenty of stuff being brought up in these posts was either sufficiently addressed by a staff member or covered in the OP, so I'm going to mostly focus on new stuff being brought up. If your issue isn't addressed in this post, it doesn't mean I didn't read it. If you have been keeping up with the thread and feel that I should have replied but didn't, you're welcome to bring it up again to me.

GDQ Monitor:

I talked about this with Cool Matty while bonus stream was still going. It definitely got old super fast this marathon, and it didn't quite have the charm from when it spontaneously became a thing last AGDQ. In its current state, it should be used very infrequently at best. I think Cool Matty decided anything gimmicky he does with it will be reserved for the last day of the next marathon.

As for the suggestions of having the monitor re-purposed, I think it would be better to focus on improving layouts for transitions and conveying important information through those. We can have dedicated screens for showing marathon statistics, showing info about the websites/communities present at the marathon, giving more love to our major sponsors (rather than always having their logos jumbled together), and doing all this stuff through a layout would be a lot cleaner than pointing a camera at a monitor. We don't need to be super professional in everything we do, but that honestly just looks tacky if you are trying to do anything serious.

Estimates:

Yea, I agree that for future game submissions, we should just have runners tell us their worst case scenario time and deal with the additional anticipated time ourselves instead of adding it onto the estimate. That's an easy fix. Making sure shorter categories have proper estimates to match is also an easy fix. Even just writing down the runs coming up for a game and their estimates and putting it by the stream setup would do the job.

Donation Comments from Community Members:

Unfortunately there is no easy solution to this other than having a host on the mic who is intimate with the given game's community and hoping they make good judgment calls. If we start messing with stuff like flags in the comments, there will be abuse and even more issues that come from it. Usually the games where this is a relevant issue have gigantic floods of donations, and it's hard for someone to scope out a particular community member's comment even if they're looking for it sometimes. I understand the frustration, though.

Whenever something like this was brought to my attention, I did my best to go to the donation station or host station and make sure they were aware of a special comment needing to be read. For most runs with major communities, I was around but not directly involved in the run's commentary/couch (the only exceptions at this marathon really being MMX and LADX). If you have a special attachment to the game's community and want to make sure your comment is read in a timely manner, you are always welcome to tweet at me and bring it to my attention, and I can communicate with other volunteers/staff from there.

I always have my phone on when I'm not on camera, and I usually respond in a timely manner even if I'm busy. This stuff has been cleared up with me multiple times at previous events, and it's a simple enough problem that it can continue being done that way. I won't always be awake of course (contrary to popular belief), so perhaps if we just had something to indicate who the "go-to contact" for a given time period is for the entire community ahead of time, this can guarantee everything goes smoother. Adding anything to the donation structure for something so specific I think would be a waste of time/energy. I'm sorry to everyone who had a particularly special comment to their speedfriends that didn't get read, though. I totally understand the disappointment.

Communication between on-site staff and off-site volunteers (social media/IRC):

This relates to what I was just talking about with contacting me directly. Mike89, although you felt there was no clear way of contacting me while you were on Twitter, pretty much everyone else who needed to bring up an issue while on that account DM'd me and we sorted things out quickly. I always have access to Twitter no matter where I am. Like I said previously, making sure you all have some "go-to contact" scheduled for certain times of the day will probably make all the social media volunteers a little more comfortable and less hesitant with bringing up problems. It's something I'll talk about with staff before the next event.

As for IRC, we theoretically should have someone at the donation tracking station who is ready to go on the main marathon account in the IRC at all times. We were scrapping together a lot of the volunteer work this SGDQ due to not being prepared enough in advance, though, so I can see why it might have become an issue. I think for future events, we'll just make sure to schedule multiple people to the station and have one of them designated as the IRC contact. As long as we prepare ahead of time and actually enforce this, we shouldn't have any communication errors there.

Professional help with tech:

There are plenty of professionals who have offered help recently, and I am having a lot of conversations about the future with them. Just keep in mind that simply having professionals on board doesn't magically fix everything though. Some of the issues include:

1. It is hard to grasp exactly how a GDQ runs until you attend one. Even if you remind them, a lot of people won't fully understand what it means to require a major stream running 24/7 for a week straight, because that's kind of ridiculous.

2. Once they realize how much work is involved, they are a lot less likely to want to help on a volunteer basis and will charge ridiculous rates. Let's be optimistic and suppose help is offered at only $100/hour, which would be amazing. Even then, we're blowing over half of what the total SGDQ budget ended up being between all costs. Is it worth it? We'd almost certainly need to raise the attendance fee to match. It's a tough question.

3. Even if we have some of the best production teams out there, that doesn't magically make everything perfect anyway. There were some pretty extreme audio issues at the start of TI4 this week, and that's with some of the best in the business. No matter who is behind the tech station, there will be issues that the staff needs to work as a team to resolve.

There are of course plenty more things to consider, but those are just some quick things that jumped to mind while I've been talking with people lately. I'm certainly not opposed to getting help from outside of the community for pretty much anything if they support the cause, but it's never as simple as "now you're here, so everything's perfect, yay!". Discussions will take time, and even if we end up having outside help for tech at AGDQ or next SGDQ, there will still almost inevitably be things to talk about for improvement.

Documentation for volunteers:

We actually did this a bit better at AGDQ than SGDQ because we weren't rushing as much to get things started. I think this is another one of those things that we really need a dedicated person to try and focus on well in advance of the event starting. It's one of those things that is just minor enough that the busiest staff members might forget about it, but important enough that there is ultimately no excuse for forgetting. Perhaps it can be Murph who focuses on it since he will be in charge of the volunteer schedule, or someone else if they are willing. We'll see, but it is definitely a necessity to make sure everything is well-documented at this point.

Stream Layouts:

I kind of touched on this in the OP but not in great detail. Basically, these need an overhaul and we're aware of that. I have been reading all of the suggestions in the thread, and there have been some good ones. Since the layouts should be done well in advance this time, I think we should (and will) make it a point to have a thread showing what's up with those so we can have feedback from the community in advance, just like we did with the room layout before last AGDQ. Speaking of which, we didn't do that before this event because we were scrambling in the last couple weeks more than I had hoped. We won't make that mistake again, and I imagine there will be a thread about the room layout before next AGDQ since we will be making some minor changes.

More love for prizes:

Yes. We dropped the ball on it. Whether it's getting a picture on the screen or showing it on the camera, this needs to be done better. I will take blame for at least some of this since I took it upon myself to be in charge of prize submissions and didn't end up doing a great job since I became too busy with event logistics. This is yet another instance of "we need someone else dedicated to handling this" so that we don't have to do as much work for it right as the event starts. I know there are a lot of people in our community who want to help the events become better, so don't worry, I'll reach out to you. For that matter, if you think handling prize submissions and organizing some stuff we can use on stream for them is your thing, don't hesitate to bug me about it!

Runner interviews:

They had mixed reception at SGDQ, but that was partially because it was a brand new thing we hadn't done before. I think this is certainly a good way to fill time if we are starting to get ridiculously ahead of schedule again for whatever reason, but I think keeping them kind of casual and without a rigid schedule and agenda is the way to go. We can go back and look at what went right and what went wrong with the few of these we tried, but I don't think getting rid of them completely is the answer. As much as some people bitch about just wanting more runs, it's not like they'd be seeing anything besides sponsor logos anyway during that time, so whatever. Seriously though Pie, if you're going to do one again, please choose a better shirt than that tank top. :p

Pre-game show thing:

Unlike the interviews, this would take a massive amount of planning to make it work well. On top of some skepticism that the staff had, part of the reason this was rejected was because there really wasn't enough aspects of it that had been planned out by the week of the marathon. There is a lot to consider with this concept: first and foremost, what does it actually add to the stream? It's easy enough to say "it adds hype!", but you can do that by putting almost anything before the event starts. Even a countdown timer can do the job there.

I would hope if the people interested in doing this want it to be done at AGDQ, you have a thorough discussion with Mike about specific goals you have in mind and what you want the viewers and attendees to get out of it. Without proper considerations, the odds of having this be a trainwreck and actually making people less excited for the event are actually pretty high. Can it work? Maybe. But it's not as simple as just flipping on a camera and rolling with it.

Trying new things with the game schedule:

The notion that we always just stick to the same stuff is a little funny since the last few events have all had a plethora of new games that have never been featured in marathons before. Part of the reason this happens is because the runs that people actually remember long after the event is over are a lot of the classics that make it in almost every time.

If you look at the SGDQ schedule and compare it to the previous AGDQ's, it is objectively worse as far as popularity goes but the end result was still a lot of donations (granted, with a heavy drive during one of the most popular blocks). I at least feel comfortable with taking risks and trying different games to showcase more of the community, because I think we will continue to see success no matter what we stick throughout most of the week. What I could have done better was making sure to spread out some of the more "hype" games throughout the week so people had more of a reason to stick around the stream room and support runners.

As for new types of runs, I think a relay race would be pretty cool and well received. Obviously the only risk there is having something be too long, but we can work on it. It is a much better idea than trying to convey something complicated like a bingo or puzzle goal, which are things I don't see happening anytime in the near future. If you have a good idea for something, don't hesitate to bring it up during game selection time. Stuff like "2 players 1 controller" was born purely out of the runners, and I'm sure there are always a few wacky things to try every marathon if someone wants to speak up about them.

Finale game/time:

As I said in the OP, I took a stupid risk with having the finale be so late, and it really didn't end up working that well. It will have to be MUCH earlier at AGDQ. That being said, a shift to ending on the most hype run ever in prime time I think is pushing a little too much to the extreme. While that's a great way to guarantee excitement in the room, if we're doing a good job and are finishing at a reasonable time then there will be plenty of excitement anyway.

The core issue here is that we need to remember first and foremost that this is still a charity event and not just a speedrunning showcase. We are not only catering to our community and their desires, but also a huge number of people outside of the community who tune in and just want to support a good cause, which is the majority of donors. If we end with a big race that has nonstop action and requires a lot of commentary, there will be a lot less donation comments read and this will likely end up resulting in less donations for a finale than usual. Whether the game is a JRPG or not, having at least some downtime in the last game for donation comments is important.

Also, it doesn't always have to be a JRPG that finishes the show. When I made the SGDQ 2013 schedule, I stuck Twilight Princess at the end because none of the JRPG submissions seemed like suitable candidates to end a marathon. Popular JRPGs tend to have a lot of good traits that make them good for finishers, such as having plenty of incentives to push for and having that downtime for donation comments that I was talking about, but this doesn't mean they will always be guaranteed that slot. It is really hard to say what the candidates are for any slot until game submissions actually happen, though; I can't possibly predict what will be in the marathon until I see what we have to work with.

Second Stream:

We didn't really have the manpower at SGDQ to even consider this, but we might at AGDQ. Mike and I have pretty similar feelings about what a second stream should be: I think it will work great with a much lighter setup and focusing on some planned behind the scenes stuff like more runner interviews, some of the tourneys we have, or just giving a feel of what it's like to be at the event in general. If you start trying to push it to be a second full blown speedrunning stream, a lot of problems could arise.

If we have 2 full blown speedrunning streams, one will inevitably become the "lesser stream". Even if Twitch decided to promote all the streams (unlikely, since they won't do it for ESA), one will end up with a lot less viewers and it will be unfair that people were stuck on that stream when they've worked as hard as anyone else who got their games on the more popular one. The ESA staff has great intentions with making sure more of the community is showcased, but I don't think it applies as well to GDQs with where they currently stand. I don't want to showcase twice as much of the community during an event if half of them feel like they were stuck on the "B-Stream".

This is of course putting aside the fact that if we wanted to do a second speedrun stream properly, we would want something pretty comparable to the setup we have for the first one. We are a long way from that right now, so I don't think it's worth bringing up anytime soon. I certainly hope ESA has great success with its second stream and we learn some things from it that we can apply to improve GDQs, but I think if we have another stream at AGDQ it will be what I mentioned 2 paragraphs ago.

Showing WR/predicted time/whatever in stream layout:

Runners have weighed in on this pretty well already, so not much to say here that isn't a rehash. Making the estimate closer to the actual predicted time of the run will definitely be implemented, but anything else adds unnecessary pressure to the runner and gives chat more ammunition to be rude. If you need a guide to tell you whether you just watched a good run, I don't think you were into the run enough or the runner didn't end up communicating well enough to the audience. Having extra numbers on the screen isn't going to help anyone enjoy the run.

Twitch Chat:

First of all, it was a huge mistake not to have chat go into sub-only for Oracle of Seasons and a couple other points. It was horrible and I apologize for not focusing on things well enough at that time to make the call. I think for the majority of the event though, it's just like a few people have said: the chat is a lot of noise, and it goes so fast that it's not like anyone is going to be judgmental of particular things that were able to be read for 1/10th of a second.

Chat doesn't really affect our relationship with our sponsors or the charity that much, even though that's a pretty common concern. The only thing it could possibly affect negatively is potential donors who are turned off by how chat is behaving, so it's still something to keep in mind and try to improve with better bot control and other stuff like that. And as much as I hate having to go sub-only, we saw during the marathon that sometimes it is absolutely necessary, and I need to be more on the ball about when it should happen. I think with our current viewership though, putting chat into sub-only full time is not a good option yet. Mike might feel differently, but I haven't talked to him much about it yet.

There are some other things to go over, but a lot were covered well by other posts already and I unfortunately am going to be busy for the next few hours. Again, if there was anything that wasn't brought up that you feel I really should have addressed, feel free to bug me about it.

Plenty of stuff being brought up in these posts was either sufficiently addressed by a staff member or covered in the OP, so I'm going to mostly focus on new stuff being brought up. If your issue isn't addressed in this post, it doesn't mean I didn't read it. If you have been keeping up with the thread and feel that I should have replied but didn't, you're welcome to bring it up again to me.

[b]GDQ Monitor:[/b]
[hidden]I talked about this with Cool Matty while bonus stream was still going. It definitely got old super fast this marathon, and it didn't quite have the charm from when it spontaneously became a thing last AGDQ. In its current state, it should be used very infrequently at best. I think Cool Matty decided anything gimmicky he does with it will be reserved for the last day of the next marathon.

As for the suggestions of having the monitor re-purposed, I think it would be better to focus on improving layouts for transitions and conveying important information through those. We can have dedicated screens for showing marathon statistics, showing info about the websites/communities present at the marathon, giving more love to our major sponsors (rather than always having their logos jumbled together), and doing all this stuff through a layout would be a lot cleaner than pointing a camera at a monitor. We don't need to be super professional in everything we do, but that honestly just looks tacky if you are trying to do anything serious.[/hidden]

[b]Estimates:[/b]
[hidden]Yea, I agree that for future game submissions, we should just have runners tell us their worst case scenario time and deal with the additional anticipated time ourselves instead of adding it onto the estimate. That's an easy fix. Making sure shorter categories have proper estimates to match is also an easy fix. Even just writing down the runs coming up for a game and their estimates and putting it by the stream setup would do the job.[/hidden]

[b]Donation Comments from Community Members:[/b]
[hidden]Unfortunately there is no easy solution to this other than having a host on the mic who is intimate with the given game's community and hoping they make good judgment calls. If we start messing with stuff like flags in the comments, there will be abuse and even more issues that come from it. Usually the games where this is a relevant issue have gigantic floods of donations, and it's hard for someone to scope out a particular community member's comment even if they're looking for it sometimes. I understand the frustration, though.

Whenever something like this was brought to my attention, I did my best to go to the donation station or host station and make sure they were aware of a special comment needing to be read. For most runs with major communities, I was around but not directly involved in the run's commentary/couch (the only exceptions at this marathon really being MMX and LADX). If you have a special attachment to the game's community and want to make sure your comment is read in a timely manner, you are always welcome to tweet at me and bring it to my attention, and I can communicate with other volunteers/staff from there.

I always have my phone on when I'm not on camera, and I usually respond in a timely manner even if I'm busy. This stuff has been cleared up with me multiple times at previous events, and it's a simple enough problem that it can continue being done that way. I won't always be awake of course (contrary to popular belief), so perhaps if we just had something to indicate who the "go-to contact" for a given time period is for the entire community ahead of time, this can guarantee everything goes smoother. Adding anything to the donation structure for something so specific I think would be a waste of time/energy. I'm sorry to everyone who had a particularly special comment to their speedfriends that didn't get read, though. I totally understand the disappointment.[/hidden]

[b]Communication between on-site staff and off-site volunteers (social media/IRC):[/b]
[hidden]This relates to what I was just talking about with contacting me directly. Mike89, although you felt there was no clear way of contacting me while you were on Twitter, pretty much everyone else who needed to bring up an issue while on that account DM'd me and we sorted things out quickly. I always have access to Twitter no matter where I am. Like I said previously, making sure you all have some "go-to contact" scheduled for certain times of the day will probably make all the social media volunteers a little more comfortable and less hesitant with bringing up problems. It's something I'll talk about with staff before the next event.

As for IRC, we theoretically should have someone at the donation tracking station who is ready to go on the main marathon account in the IRC at all times. We were scrapping together a lot of the volunteer work this SGDQ due to not being prepared enough in advance, though, so I can see why it might have become an issue. I think for future events, we'll just make sure to schedule multiple people to the station and have one of them designated as the IRC contact. As long as we prepare ahead of time and actually enforce this, we shouldn't have any communication errors there.[/hidden]

[b]Professional help with tech:[/b]
[hidden]There are plenty of professionals who have offered help recently, and I am having a lot of conversations about the future with them. Just keep in mind that simply having professionals on board doesn't magically fix everything though. Some of the issues include:

1. It is hard to grasp exactly how a GDQ runs until you attend one. Even if you remind them, a lot of people won't fully understand what it means to require a major stream running 24/7 for a week straight, because that's kind of ridiculous.

2. Once they realize how much work is involved, they are a lot less likely to want to help on a volunteer basis and will charge ridiculous rates. Let's be optimistic and suppose help is offered at only $100/hour, which would be amazing. Even then, we're blowing over half of what the total SGDQ budget ended up being between all costs. Is it worth it? We'd almost certainly need to raise the attendance fee to match. It's a tough question.

3. Even if we have some of the best production teams out there, that doesn't magically make everything perfect anyway. There were some pretty extreme audio issues at the start of TI4 this week, and that's with some of the best in the business. No matter who is behind the tech station, there will be issues that the staff needs to work as a team to resolve.

There are of course plenty more things to consider, but those are just some quick things that jumped to mind while I've been talking with people lately. I'm certainly not opposed to getting help from outside of the community for pretty much anything if they support the cause, but it's never as simple as "now you're here, so everything's perfect, yay!". Discussions will take time, and even if we end up having outside help for tech at AGDQ or next SGDQ, there will still almost inevitably be things to talk about for improvement.[/hidden]

[b]Documentation for volunteers:[/b]
[hidden]We actually did this a bit better at AGDQ than SGDQ because we weren't rushing as much to get things started. I think this is another one of those things that we really need a dedicated person to try and focus on well in advance of the event starting. It's one of those things that is just minor enough that the busiest staff members might forget about it, but important enough that there is ultimately no excuse for forgetting. Perhaps it can be Murph who focuses on it since he will be in charge of the volunteer schedule, or someone else if they are willing. We'll see, but it is definitely a necessity to make sure everything is well-documented at this point.[/hidden]

[b]Stream Layouts:[/b]
[hidden]I kind of touched on this in the OP but not in great detail. Basically, these need an overhaul and we're aware of that. I have been reading all of the suggestions in the thread, and there have been some good ones. Since the layouts should be done well in advance this time, I think we should (and will) make it a point to have a thread showing what's up with those so we can have feedback from the community in advance, just like we did with the room layout before last AGDQ. Speaking of which, we didn't do that before this event because we were scrambling in the last couple weeks more than I had hoped. We won't make that mistake again, and I imagine there will be a thread about the room layout before next AGDQ since we will be making some minor changes.[/hidden]

[b]More love for prizes:[/b]
[hidden]Yes. We dropped the ball on it. Whether it's getting a picture on the screen or showing it on the camera, this needs to be done better. I will take blame for at least some of this since I took it upon myself to be in charge of prize submissions and didn't end up doing a great job since I became too busy with event logistics. This is yet another instance of "we need someone else dedicated to handling this" so that we don't have to do as much work for it right as the event starts. I know there are a lot of people in our community who want to help the events become better, so don't worry, I'll reach out to you. For that matter, if you think handling prize submissions and organizing some stuff we can use on stream for them is your thing, don't hesitate to bug me about it![/hidden]

[b]Runner interviews:[/b]
[hidden]They had mixed reception at SGDQ, but that was partially because it was a brand new thing we hadn't done before. I think this is certainly a good way to fill time if we are starting to get ridiculously ahead of schedule again for whatever reason, but I think keeping them kind of casual and without a rigid schedule and agenda is the way to go. We can go back and look at what went right and what went wrong with the few of these we tried, but I don't think getting rid of them completely is the answer. As much as some people bitch about just wanting more runs, it's not like they'd be seeing anything besides sponsor logos anyway during that time, so whatever. Seriously though Pie, if you're going to do one again, please choose a better shirt than that tank top. :p [/hidden]

[b]Pre-game show thing:[/b]
[hidden]Unlike the interviews, this would take a massive amount of planning to make it work well. On top of some skepticism that the staff had, part of the reason this was rejected was because there really wasn't enough aspects of it that had been planned out by the week of the marathon. There is a lot to consider with this concept: first and foremost, what does it actually add to the stream? It's easy enough to say "it adds hype!", but you can do that by putting almost anything before the event starts. Even a countdown timer can do the job there.

I would hope if the people interested in doing this want it to be done at AGDQ, you have a thorough discussion with Mike about specific goals you have in mind and what you want the viewers and attendees to get out of it. Without proper considerations, the odds of having this be a trainwreck and actually making people [i]less[/i] excited for the event are actually pretty high. Can it work? Maybe. But it's not as simple as just flipping on a camera and rolling with it.[/hidden]

[b]Trying new things with the game schedule:[/b]
[hidden]The notion that we always just stick to the same stuff is a little funny since the last few events have all had a plethora of new games that have never been featured in marathons before. Part of the reason this happens is because the runs that people actually remember long after the event is over are a lot of the classics that make it in almost every time.

If you look at the SGDQ schedule and compare it to the previous AGDQ's, it is objectively worse as far as popularity goes but the end result was still a lot of donations (granted, with a heavy drive during one of the most popular blocks). I at least feel comfortable with taking risks and trying different games to showcase more of the community, because I think we will continue to see success no matter what we stick throughout most of the week. What I could have done better was making sure to spread out some of the more "hype" games throughout the week so people had more of a reason to stick around the stream room and support runners.

As for new types of runs, I think a relay race would be pretty cool and well received. Obviously the only risk there is having something be too long, but we can work on it. It is a much better idea than trying to convey something complicated like a bingo or puzzle goal, which are things I don't see happening anytime in the near future. If you have a good idea for something, don't hesitate to bring it up during game selection time. Stuff like "2 players 1 controller" was born purely out of the runners, and I'm sure there are always a few wacky things to try every marathon if someone wants to speak up about them.[/hidden]

[b]Finale game/time:[/b]
[hidden]As I said in the OP, I took a stupid risk with having the finale be so late, and it really didn't end up working that well. It will have to be MUCH earlier at AGDQ. That being said, a shift to ending on the most hype run ever in prime time I think is pushing a little too much to the extreme. While that's a great way to guarantee excitement in the room, if we're doing a good job and are finishing at a reasonable time then there will be plenty of excitement anyway.

The core issue here is that we need to remember first and foremost that this is still a charity event and not just a speedrunning showcase. We are not only catering to our community and their desires, but also a huge number of people outside of the community who tune in and just want to support a good cause, which is the majority of donors. If we end with a big race that has nonstop action and requires a lot of commentary, there will be a lot less donation comments read and this will likely end up resulting in less donations for a finale than usual. Whether the game is a JRPG or not, having at least some downtime in the last game for donation comments is important.

Also, it doesn't always have to be a JRPG that finishes the show. When I made the SGDQ 2013 schedule, I stuck Twilight Princess at the end because none of the JRPG submissions seemed like suitable candidates to end a marathon. Popular JRPGs tend to have a lot of good traits that make them good for finishers, such as having plenty of incentives to push for and having that downtime for donation comments that I was talking about, but this doesn't mean they will always be guaranteed that slot. It is really hard to say what the candidates are for any slot until game submissions actually happen, though; I can't possibly predict what will be in the marathon until I see what we have to work with.[/hidden]

[b]Second Stream:[/b]
[hidden]We didn't really have the manpower at SGDQ to even consider this, but we might at AGDQ. Mike and I have pretty similar feelings about what a second stream should be: I think it will work great with a much lighter setup and focusing on some planned behind the scenes stuff like more runner interviews, some of the tourneys we have, or just giving a feel of what it's like to be at the event in general. If you start trying to push it to be a second full blown speedrunning stream, a lot of problems could arise.

If we have 2 full blown speedrunning streams, one will inevitably become the "lesser stream". Even if Twitch decided to promote all the streams (unlikely, since they won't do it for ESA), one will end up with a lot less viewers and it will be unfair that people were stuck on that stream when they've worked as hard as anyone else who got their games on the more popular one. The ESA staff has great intentions with making sure more of the community is showcased, but I don't think it applies as well to GDQs with where they currently stand. I don't want to showcase twice as much of the community during an event if half of them feel like they were stuck on the "B-Stream".

This is of course putting aside the fact that if we wanted to do a second speedrun stream properly, we would want something pretty comparable to the setup we have for the first one. We are a long way from that right now, so I don't think it's worth bringing up anytime soon. I certainly hope ESA has great success with its second stream and we learn some things from it that we can apply to improve GDQs, but I think if we have another stream at AGDQ it will be what I mentioned 2 paragraphs ago.[/hidden]

[b]Showing WR/predicted time/whatever in stream layout:[/b]
[hidden]Runners have weighed in on this pretty well already, so not much to say here that isn't a rehash. Making the estimate closer to the actual predicted time of the run will definitely be implemented, but anything else adds unnecessary pressure to the runner and gives chat more ammunition to be rude. If you need a guide to tell you whether you just watched a good run, I don't think you were into the run enough or the runner didn't end up communicating well enough to the audience. Having extra numbers on the screen isn't going to help anyone enjoy the run.[/hidden]

[b]Twitch Chat:[/b]
[hidden]First of all, it was a huge mistake not to have chat go into sub-only for Oracle of Seasons and a couple other points. It was horrible and I apologize for not focusing on things well enough at that time to make the call. I think for the majority of the event though, it's just like a few people have said: the chat is a lot of noise, and it goes so fast that it's not like anyone is going to be judgmental of particular things that were able to be read for 1/10th of a second.

Chat doesn't really affect our relationship with our sponsors or the charity that much, even though that's a pretty common concern. The only thing it could possibly affect negatively is potential donors who are turned off by how chat is behaving, so it's still something to keep in mind and try to improve with better bot control and other stuff like that. And as much as I hate having to go sub-only, we saw during the marathon that sometimes it is absolutely necessary, and I need to be more on the ball about when it should happen. I think with our current viewership though, putting chat into sub-only full time is not a good option yet. Mike might feel differently, but I haven't talked to him much about it yet.[/hidden]

There are some other things to go over, but a lot were covered well by other posts already and I unfortunately am going to be busy for the next few hours. Again, if there was anything that wasn't brought up that you feel I really should have addressed, feel free to bug me about it.

BaronHaynes

2014-07-10 04:55:56 pm

Strange days, incredible days

Twitch Chat
I'd imagine the majority watching SGDQ are decent people who are interested in it, but the chat doesn't reflect this at all. Tune it at any random time and it's likely to be mocking the event, the host, the runners, the game, and anyone on camera they happen to target. I never saw a game where the chat wasn't gawking at someone, making fun of them, and obsessing over everything they did. It's the official outlet for commenting on the event, it loads automatically next to the game, and anyone casually tuning in is going to think this is what the community is like.

Yes, chat is never going to be a place for real discussion, since with 40-80k people it just moves too fast. At its best, it's a instant reaction vehicle for amplifying the hype of the best moments, or being a shared experience for people who stick around for a lot of the marathon. When the host or the runner engages them, a lot of the negativity drops off and they get into the event (Brittany's hosting during Billy Hatcher did this pretty well). So it's not impossible for it to be worthwhile. It just doesn't work if the environment defaults to hostility and shitting on the event and the people there whenever the excitement dies down at all.

I don't know if this comes up in discussions with the organizers, but I get the impression there was a decision made to drop a bot in there for offensive keywords and copypasta and otherwise ignore it. "What can you do? It's Twitch chat" is something I heard a lot on Quakenet and Twitter. The problem is, it's the first outlet anyone sees one the website for commenting on the event, and what they're most likely to see is a bunch of people jeering at someone on the couch for the duration of the run. Either it's time to do something to promote a better chat environment (and that's a bigger discussion), or it's time for sub-only mode, IMO, but doing nothing isn't working. Twitch chat reflects badly on the event in its current state.

IRC Chat
No complaints, much easier to talk about stuff in here and a lot less negativity. Whatever Twitch chat's problems, I remember the early marathons when there was only the one chat, and it got really toxic. I think it's good to have a chat for hype and a chat for discussion, as long as both are doing what they should be.

Twitter
Like with AGDQ, Twitter was used in a really smart way, and was probably the most constructive way to talk about the marathon as it was happening. Keep that going.

Audio/Video
-The game feed issue has been addressed, so I won't pile on, except to say let's please, please avoid that kind of thing in the future. A full day of testing and some backup options on-site as was mentioned.

-Same with audio, coordinate the room setup better so the couch and host can hear each other, and have someone watching the stream to hear what the 80,000 at home are hearing, so nothing persists for entire games without getting noticed. There needs to be someone on site watching the stream who can bring up any issues with tech staff (or the runner/couch) quickly. If not, then someone watching chat and checking when there's a flood of "can't hear the runner".

-The audio was fixed a few days in and most of the early marathon problems stopped, so I just wanted to say good job for that. I think most of us wouldn't mind longer setup between games if it means we could guarantee a smoother show. Just have to find something to fill the gap.

Presentation
-The hosting was better than at AGDQ, with a lot less dead air, especially between games. I felt like donation comments, site plugs, and charity plugs were well-balanced, although like others have mentioned, prizes didn't get shown or talked about nearly enough.

-I liked the interviews, or at least the first one I saw. I'm not sure it was useful to interview runners a day after their runs for casual viewers, but it was neat for those of us who were marathoning the marathon. More content like this, planned out in advance (delegate to someone!) could give the event more variety.

-It would be cool to try out some prerecorded content like Gildersneeze's bumpers from AGDQ (although they should be broadcast to the room as well, it was strange to see them run and no one on camera react to them afterward). Maybe show highlights from some past marathons if there's a really long setup block, or if we're ahead of schedule. Hard to know how to structure this, especially with a lot of different people working tech and hosting, but as the events grow, putting on a bigger show could bring in more viewers and more donations.

-A pre-game show like Golden and Spike were talking about could be really strong as well. Give them an hour to talk about the schedule, briefly interview whoever's hanging around, talk about (and show) the best moments from previous marathons.

Couch Cam
-Echoing Golden and bjw here on the MM6 race. If an expensive camera falls down, that's definitely not good and it needs to be looked at, but get the cheap one up to keep the show going. That was DarkTerrex's only run and he was on camera for 30 seconds.

-I think the best camera setup at a marathon was probably AGDQ 2013. It helped that the room was smaller and more intimiate, with the red couch and brighter colors. The presentation of the runner couch and the room on camera is something that feels a bit neglected since these moved to larger venues this year. The dark room, muted colors, wide shots showing empty chairs off to the side...doesn't seem like a huge deal, but it's being shown for 160 straight hours, and if you stare at anything that long you notice flaws about it. I miss the big LLK banner against the back wall. Maybe get a big backdrop behind the first few rows of chairs behind the couch and hang it from that, so the room doesn't seem to stretch off into infinity.

-That said, I liked seeing the angles get changed periodically. AGDQ2014 had the same angle for a lot of the event from what I remember.

Layouts
-It's been noted that many of them weren't good. Would it help to create a bunch of templates ahead of time, accounting for multiple screens, multiple cameras, additional info or displaying prizes? This is something I think should be workshopped and talked about on the forum in between GDQs, let people suggest layouts or critique the old ones, let the community do the legwork for this ahead of time.

-The MMX2 race layout was really good.

Runs
-The room seemed really quiet this year, and the big viewing area being off to the side seemed kind of awkward. When the host/runner encouraged people to cheer or be more active, it felt more alive. I dunno if it's the room itself or people being cautious or what, but let's see some more energy!

-The runner (or couch) commentary makes the game in a big way. You can have a really impressive run at a marathon, but if it's not a well-known game and no one's explaining what's happening, viewers don't really know what to make of it. The least watchable game can be hyped up by good commentary and a strong play-by-play, and vice-versa. This is something the organizers can (and I assume do) consider when making the schedule, but it's also something the runner should think about when selecting their couch or preparing their run. If a speedrun is all you want to do, we can see that on your stream, but at a GDQ you're also putting on a show. Think about how you want to present your run in addition to practicing it.

That turned into kind of a general thinkpiece rather than a specific critique, but it struck me this year how the quality of the game or entertainment value of the run on its own mattered less in how well things were received, even as those are treated as the deciding factor for what gets cut from the schedule. You don't have to be a showman, good commentary alone makes for a strong marathon run, even if things don't go perfectly in the game.

Races
Some really good, some blowouts. The nature of live races is that you can't predict what'll happen, so it's hard to say "more races" or "less races". Although Romscout vs. Dacidbro in SOTN is a good example of how a race can be entertaining even when it's a blowout, if the racers are treating it more as "cool, we both get to run this game," and check in and see how each other are doing.

Suggestions
-How about rebroadcasting the whole marathon at a future date, like a month before AGDQ or so? It'd be fun to relive it and talk about the best moments as they come up. Knowing what's going to happen changes the dynamic of chat quite a bit, and with a smaller crowd it'd be easier to moderate. Call it SGDQ 2014: Second Run, run some ads during it, get some extra money for tech stuff, hype up people for the upcoming marathon.

-A thing about donation reading: If the host (or comment filtering person) doesn't know you, or the runner hasn't told them to look for your name, you don't stand much of a chance of getting read. This is just how things have shook out as these events have gotten bigger. So during high-volume donation periods where there isn't much of a chance to read them, maybe it would be good to just do a rapid-fire reading of the names of people who've donated sometimes? That way you get acknowledged even if your comment doesn't get read.

Thanks for another really, really good marathon, everyone who was involved. Smiley

[u][b]Twitch Chat[/b][/u]
I'd imagine the majority watching SGDQ are decent people who are interested in it, but the chat doesn't reflect this at all. Tune it at any random time and it's likely to be mocking the event, the host, the runners, the game, and anyone on camera they happen to target. I never saw a game where the chat wasn't gawking at someone, making fun of them, and obsessing over everything they did. It's the official outlet for commenting on the event, it loads automatically next to the game, and anyone casually tuning in is going to think this is what the community is like.

Yes, chat is never going to be a place for real discussion, since with 40-80k people it just moves too fast. At its best, it's a instant reaction vehicle for amplifying the hype of the best moments, or being a shared experience for people who stick around for a lot of the marathon. When the host or the runner engages them, a lot of the negativity drops off and they get into the event (Brittany's hosting during Billy Hatcher did this pretty well). So it's not impossible for it to be worthwhile. It just doesn't work if the environment defaults to hostility and shitting on the event and the people there whenever the excitement dies down at all.

I don't know if this comes up in discussions with the organizers, but I get the impression there was a decision made to drop a bot in there for offensive keywords and copypasta and otherwise ignore it. "What can you do? It's Twitch chat" is something I heard a lot on Quakenet and Twitter. The problem is, it's the first outlet anyone sees one the website for commenting on the event, and what they're most likely to see is a bunch of people jeering at someone on the couch for the duration of the run. Either it's time to do something to promote a better chat environment (and that's a bigger discussion), or it's time for sub-only mode, IMO, but doing nothing isn't working. Twitch chat reflects badly on the event in its current state.

[u][b]IRC Chat[/b][/u]
No complaints, much easier to talk about stuff in here and a lot less negativity. Whatever Twitch chat's problems, I remember the early marathons when there was only the one chat, and it got really toxic. I think it's good to have a chat for hype and a chat for discussion, as long as both are doing what they should be.
 
[u][b]Twitter[/b][/u]
Like with AGDQ, Twitter was used in a really smart way, and was probably the most constructive way to talk about the marathon as it was happening. Keep that going.

[u][b]Audio/Video[/b][/u]
-The game feed issue has been addressed, so I won't pile on, except to say let's please, please avoid that kind of thing in the future. A full day of testing and some backup options on-site as was mentioned.

-Same with audio, coordinate the room setup better so the couch and host can hear each other, and have someone watching the stream to hear what the 80,000 at home are hearing, so nothing persists for entire games without getting noticed. There needs to be someone on site watching the stream who can bring up any issues with tech staff (or the runner/couch) quickly. If not, then someone watching chat and checking when there's a flood of "can't hear the runner".

-The audio was fixed a few days in and most of the early marathon problems stopped, so I just wanted to say good job for that. I think most of us wouldn't mind longer setup between games if it means we could guarantee a smoother show. Just have to find something to fill the gap.

[u][b]Presentation[/b][/u]
-The hosting was better than at AGDQ, with a lot less dead air, especially between games. I felt like donation comments, site plugs, and charity plugs were well-balanced, although like others have mentioned, prizes didn't get shown or talked about nearly enough.

-I liked the interviews, or at least the first one I saw. I'm not sure it was useful to interview runners a day after their runs for casual viewers, but it was neat for those of us who were marathoning the marathon. More content like this, planned out in advance (delegate to someone!) could give the event more variety.

-It would be cool to try out some prerecorded content like Gildersneeze's bumpers from AGDQ (although they should be broadcast to the room as well, it was strange to see them run and no one on camera react to them afterward). Maybe show highlights from some past marathons if there's a really long setup block, or if we're ahead of schedule. Hard to know how to structure this, especially with a lot of different people working tech and hosting, but as the events grow, putting on a bigger show could bring in more viewers and more donations.

-A pre-game show like Golden and Spike were talking about could be really strong as well. Give them an hour to talk about the schedule, briefly interview whoever's hanging around, talk about (and show) the best moments from previous marathons.

[u][b]Couch Cam[/b][/u]
-Echoing Golden and bjw here on the MM6 race. If an expensive camera falls down, that's definitely not good and it needs to be looked at, but get the cheap one up to keep the show going. That was DarkTerrex's only run and he was on camera for 30 seconds.

-I think the best camera setup at a marathon was probably AGDQ 2013. It helped that the room was smaller and more intimiate, with the red couch and brighter colors. The presentation of the runner couch and the room on camera is something that feels a bit neglected since these moved to larger venues this year. The dark room, muted colors, wide shots showing empty chairs off to the side...doesn't seem like a huge deal, but it's being shown for 160 straight hours, and if you stare at anything that long you notice flaws about it. I miss the big LLK banner against the back wall. Maybe get a big backdrop behind the first few rows of chairs behind the couch and hang it from that, so the room doesn't seem to stretch off into infinity.

-That said, I liked seeing the angles get changed periodically. AGDQ2014 had the same angle for a lot of the event from what I remember.

[u][b]Layouts[/b][/u]
-It's been noted that many of them weren't good. Would it help to create a bunch of templates ahead of time, accounting for multiple screens, multiple cameras, additional info or displaying prizes? This is something I think should be workshopped and talked about on the forum in between GDQs, let people suggest layouts or critique the old ones, let the community do the legwork for this ahead of time.

-The MMX2 race layout was really good.

[u][b]Runs[/b][/u]
-The room seemed really quiet this year, and the big viewing area being off to the side seemed kind of awkward. When the host/runner encouraged people to cheer or be more active, it felt more alive. I dunno if it's the room itself or people being cautious or what, but let's see some more energy!

-The runner (or couch) commentary makes the game in a big way. You can have a really impressive run at a marathon, but if it's not a well-known game and no one's explaining what's happening, viewers don't really know what to make of it. The least watchable game can be hyped up by good commentary and a strong play-by-play, and vice-versa. This is something the organizers can (and I assume do) consider when making the schedule, but it's also something the runner should think about when selecting their couch or preparing their run. If a speedrun is all you want to do, we can see that on your stream, but at a GDQ you're also putting on a show. Think about how you want to present your run in addition to practicing it.

That turned into kind of a general thinkpiece rather than a specific critique, but it struck me this year how the quality of the game or entertainment value of the run on its own mattered less in how well things were received, even as those are treated as the deciding factor for what gets cut from the schedule. You don't have to be a showman, good commentary alone makes for a strong marathon run, even if things don't go perfectly in the game.

[u][b]Races[/b][/u]
Some really good, some blowouts. The nature of live races is that you can't predict what'll happen, so it's hard to say "more races" or "less races". Although Romscout vs. Dacidbro in SOTN is a good example of how a race can be entertaining even when it's a blowout, if the racers are treating it more as "cool, we both get to run this game," and check in and see how each other are doing.

[u][b]Suggestions[/b][/u]
-How about rebroadcasting the whole marathon at a future date, like a month before AGDQ or so? It'd be fun to relive it and talk about the best moments as they come up. Knowing what's going to happen changes the dynamic of chat quite a bit, and with a smaller crowd it'd be easier to moderate. Call it SGDQ 2014: Second Run, run some ads during it, get some extra money for tech stuff, hype up people for the upcoming marathon.

-A thing about donation reading: If the host (or comment filtering person) doesn't know you, or the runner hasn't told them to look for your name, you don't stand much of a chance of getting read. This is just how things have shook out as these events have gotten bigger. So during high-volume donation periods where there isn't much of a chance to read them, maybe it would be good to just do a rapid-fire reading of the names of people who've donated sometimes? That way you get acknowledged even if your comment doesn't get read.

Thanks for another really, really good marathon, everyone who was involved. :)

Veegie

2014-07-10 05:36:32 pm

Quote from romscout:

Donation Comments from Community Members:
If we start messing with stuff like flags in the comments, there will be abuse and even more issues that come from it. Usually the games where this is a relevant issue have gigantic floods of donations, and it's hard for someone to scope out a particular community member's comment even if they're looking for it sometimes. I understand the frustration, though.

Thanks for the response, first of all. I understand the concern with abuse, but the idea was that the flag-word would (ideally) be kept a secret from all except the runner, community members that the runner trusts, and donation station volunteers. Generally speaking, the people being trusted within each community to make donations wouldn't be blabbing the flag-word all over the place (not the least of which because it would make their own legit donations less likely to be read).

And this would only be more effective during the large donation floods, putting emphasis on certain comments when that emphasis is needed the most. But I do understand that there are obviously limitations to the ability to screen donations (especially if it's not possible/feasible to search through the text of donation comments en masse for the flag-word). I appreciate the consideration either way.

[quote="romscout"][b]Donation Comments from Community Members:[/b]
If we start messing with stuff like flags in the comments, there will be abuse and even more issues that come from it. Usually the games where this is a relevant issue have gigantic floods of donations, and it's hard for someone to scope out a particular community member's comment even if they're looking for it sometimes. I understand the frustration, though.[/quote]
Thanks for the response, first of all. I understand the concern with abuse, but the idea was that the flag-word would (ideally) be kept a secret from all except the runner, community members that the runner trusts, and donation station volunteers. Generally speaking, the people being trusted within each community to make donations wouldn't be blabbing the flag-word all over the place (not the least of which because it would make their own legit donations less likely to be read).

And this would only be more effective during the large donation floods, putting emphasis on certain comments when that emphasis is needed the most. But I do understand that there are obviously limitations to the ability to screen donations (especially if it's not possible/feasible to search through the text of donation comments en masse for the flag-word). I appreciate the consideration either way.

UraniumAnchor

2014-07-10 05:42:33 pm

Not a walrus

I understand the reasoning behind a code word but if you think the internet is any kind of good at keeping secrets you are out of your mind. Wink

Definitely would like some way of being able to flag stuff like that, but I think a code word is a bad approach.

Veegie

2014-07-10 05:51:35 pm

Yeah, fair enough. =p My thinking was that most secrets are leaked because the secret in and of itself is something interesting or exciting. This is more of a password than a secret or spoiler, which is why I felt it would work well. But obviously, the risk of a leak always exists.

Axel Ryman

2014-07-10 05:51:48 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

I liked the idea of playing music during setup time before the run starts. Think we can get that more for the next GDQs?

CBenni

2014-07-10 05:53:29 pm

Whenever people talk about chat, they say that its best to shut it down. I highly disagree with that. Yes, its spammy, yes its offensive, but that can be dealt with. I think I will take this discussion to the background, but there are some changes I have in mind. At the same time, you need to give chat freedom. SGDQ was the smallest chat I moderated during the event, I know how BIG channels look like, at times, the top LoL chats were more chill than the SGDQ chat, without any slow mode set, at almost 200k viewers. The reason for this being that we let them spam what they wanted, but if the spam took a bad turn, we would decisively redirect it. Comparing it to a river works quite well: You cannot permanently stop it, you can only redirect it.
At the same time, the river is essential for life in the area around it - *GDQs arent the same without chat. "turning off" chat kills any hype there could be, since it takes away what makes twitch great, the "social" component of watching together, as opposed to uploading it as VODs. All I can say for sure that none of these events had become anywhere close this popular without chat, it is essential. There is few things that cannot be caught with a chat bot - we might consider r9k-like features to conquer copypasta spam.

An annoucement id like to make: raids. Raiding AGDQ chat should be fine, as long as its within the boundaries of chat. If your raid message contains ascii art, we might consider temporarily putting chat into raid mode, but youll have to talk to us in advance.

Whenever people talk about chat, they say that its best to shut it down. I highly disagree with that. Yes, its spammy, yes its offensive, but that can be dealt with. I think I will take this discussion to the background, but there are some changes I have in mind. At the same time, you need to give chat freedom. SGDQ was the smallest chat I moderated during the event, I know how BIG channels look like, at times, the top LoL chats were more chill than the SGDQ chat, without any slow mode set, at almost 200k viewers. The reason for this being that we let them spam what they wanted, but if the spam took a bad turn, we would decisively redirect it. Comparing it to a river works quite well: You cannot permanently stop it, you can only redirect it.
At the same time, the river is essential for life in the area around it - *GDQs arent the same without chat. "turning off" chat kills any hype there could be, since it takes away what makes twitch great, the "social" component of watching together, as opposed to uploading it as VODs. All I can say for sure that none of these events had become anywhere close this popular without chat, it is essential. There is few things that cannot be caught with a chat bot - we might consider r9k-like features to conquer copypasta spam.

An annoucement id like to make: raids. Raiding AGDQ chat should be fine, as long as its within the boundaries of chat. If your raid message contains ascii art, we might consider temporarily putting chat into raid mode, but youll have to talk to us in advance.

Studio

Edit history:

Studio: 2014-07-10 05:56:28 pm

2014-07-10 05:55:27 pm

This is for anyone that had their Twitch messed up on stream, but we'll make sure to have a double check post before AGDQ starts (even if it's just linking the Google doc we have it stored on and asking for runners to double check). There's always the possibility of human error but we'll try to minimize it.

I also think I identified a problem that resulted in some bad Twitch's, but I'll have to double check.

jetfirexx

2014-07-10 05:57:12 pm

Gotta go fast!

Just an idea for the donation comments, maybe the runners could provide a list of people in the community that won't be at *GDQ that are likely to donate in their run so the Host could look out for those names?

Reafexus

Edit history:

Reafexus: 2014-07-10 06:36:07 pm

Reafexus: 2014-07-10 06:34:53 pm

2014-07-10 06:32:54 pm

Quote from Vegita4Life:

Quote from Wymorn:

Quote from Jackafur:

Quote from Vegita4Life:

Quote from Jackafur:

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

Because Rom invited input from both viewers and attendees?

yea and i think alot of viewers and attendees dont have any business adding their input. that's my input.

Viewers and attendees have valuable feedback as well, but it may be limited to things unrelated to operations.

I reread Romscout's OP and didn't find anywhere on it where he invited viewers to chime in in this topic. I should have reread it before posting the first time. It took the better part of the day at work to make completely through the topic and I must have made up the viewer comment option. Sorry everyone.

Viewers were invited to provide feedback in the the tweet about the post. https://twitter.com/romscoutSDA/status/487020693536530432

***I asked this before but it got drowned out in WR talks. "We don't know yet" is an unfortunate answer but at least something.***
On Prizes
When do they get pulled? I have not heard a single thing about them and the site does not have winners yet so I assume they have not been pulled. There is no mention on the Gamesdonequick site or the marathon tracker. (I can move this to an avenue that is better suited to the question because I really do want to know.)

And I technically agree they were not HYPED enough but I know they were at least mentioned often enough and the Marathon tracker did have pictures of most of them at least so as a viewer without access to any data about their popularity vs being shown on screen I was made aware of 95% of the prizes I was eligible for.

[quote="Vegita4Life"][quote="Wymorn"][quote="Jackafur"][quote="Vegita4Life"][quote="Jackafur"]

Also I feel like people NOT involved in the marathon have no room to talk in this thread. I have no idea why some of you are adding your input because you are literally part of the problem.

[/quote]

Because Rom invited input from both viewers and attendees?
[/quote]

yea and i think alot of viewers and attendees dont have any business adding their input. that's my input. [/quote]
Viewers and attendees have valuable feedback as well, but it may be limited to things unrelated to operations.
[/quote]

I reread Romscout's OP and didn't find anywhere on it where he invited viewers to chime in in this topic. I should have reread it before posting the first time. It took the better part of the day at work to make completely through the topic and I must have made up the viewer comment option. Sorry everyone. [/quote]

Viewers were invited to provide feedback in the the tweet about the post. https://twitter.com/romscoutSDA/status/487020693536530432

***I asked this before but it got drowned out in WR talks.  "We don't know yet" is an unfortunate answer but at least something.***
On Prizes
When do they get pulled? I have not heard a single thing about them and the site does not have winners yet so I assume they have not been pulled. There is no mention on the Gamesdonequick site or the marathon tracker. (I can move this to an avenue that is better suited to the question because I really do want to know.)

And I technically agree they were not HYPED enough but I know they were at least mentioned often enough and the Marathon tracker did have pictures of most of them at least so as a viewer without access to any data about their popularity vs being shown on screen I was made aware of 95% of the prizes I was eligible for.