SGDQ 2015 Feedback Thread

sumichu

Edit history:

sumichu: 2015-08-15 07:08:52 pm

sumichu: 2015-08-15 07:08:44 pm

2015-08-15 07:06:17 pm

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

It's that time again! About two weeks after a GDQ event, we post up the feedback thread to hear from onsite attendees, volunteers, and stream viewers. As a reminder, please read through this topic and replies to avoid needing to repeat yourself (but feel free to leave additional relevant thoughts), and please keep feedback and discussion constructive.

The Hotel
The hotel did not finish their renovations on schedule, and as a result, some people had to be temporarily relocated. Furthermore, facilities such as the gym and pool were inaccessible. We have brought up with the hotel that this was very disappointing. Should we decide to return to Minnesota (and this hotel), it is highly unlikely that we would encounter this problem.

Our marathon spaces for each event are dependent on what the hotel can offer us. Thankfully, we were able to reserve the entire bottom floor as marathon space, accessible by escalators from the lobby and elevators from the remaining floors of the hotel.

We (and the hotel, even without our feedback) realized that the elevators were on the slower side. This is most likely due to the hotel having only two elevators (and one service elevator) servicing 21 floors. It is an unavoidable situation, but something we will keep in mind if we look at this hotel again in the future.

The Location
A lot of establishments in the general vicinity closed around 6, due to the downtown business area that the hotel was located in. We mentioned this during the hotel search. One of the businesses mentioned the hotel usually alerts the businesses nearby of the fact that there would be high foot traffic in the area, but it didn't happen this time for some reason. The hotel, at our request, extended its restaurant's hours as late as they could and brought on extra staff to deal with the high volume of people.

We also want to establish that we do not have any specific plans for the next SGDQ’s location. There is a lot of benefit to staying in Minnesota. We will be looking there, as well as other states further south and west. At this time, we have no intention of migrating to the east any further than Minnesota.

The Marathon Room and Stream Setup
We changed the room layout based on feedback that the runners were "hidden" from the audience and also implemented a dual-couch setup. The dual couches started off as a joke, but we had a lot of positive feedback so far. We’ll look into this again at future events.

Event setup was unfortunately suboptimal once again, as we had extremely delicate plans for moving our equipment into the venue from many states away. The result was far less time for setup than we wanted, and left us with less time to test and perfect our setup before the event. This also hampered Power Up Audio’s ability to mix the audio, as they had to learn and adapt on the fly.

Game setup took a bit longer in the beginning of the week while our tech team and Power Up Audio got used to working with each other. We are looking for ways that we can have the next run's runner(s) and commentators prepped for their run prior to setup so that we can cut down on setup times. A portion of the downtime was filled with interviews (your feedback/thoughts on these would be much appreciated as well).

Power Up Audio
We brought on Power Up Audio to provide 24/7 audio engineering support, and we feel that they really helped our marathon's audio. We had a lot of positive feedback during the event regarding their mixing talents, particularly with race game audio and balancing commentary. They are ready and willing to accept feedback.

The Stream Layout
Based on feedback from AGDQ, the layouts were changed to make better use of the space given, especially for races and sponsors. One of the biggest improvements to the layout is that we added game incentives and their amounts into the rotation. We also implemented a foot pedal for individual runs so that the runner can stop the timer on their own.

There were several technical issues with the layouts during the event, most of them related to the overall complexity of the software involved and the poor performance of OBS’s Browser Plugin. However, we do not think this hampered the event in any significant way.

As a side note, the layouts have been open-sourced: https://github.com/GamesDoneQuick/sgdq15-layouts

Registration
There was a bit of delay on registration for onsite attendees opening on the first day; part of this was due to changes we absolutely needed to make to our system. We will lay out the process for registration prior to AGDQ to further streamline the process for people to get in and out faster.

NOTE: One of the things we noticed is that a rather large percentage of the runners do not register prior to the event. As this greatly affected our attendee cap, we will be implementing a new step in the game submission process.

After the final games list is posted, you must register and pay to attend the event before your accepted game is placed in the schedule.

We are also going to stop accepting onsite registrations. You must register and pay to attend each event online by the registration due date.

The Shuttle
A lot of people were unable to locate the shuttle at the airport. In the future, we will try to elaborate further on where people should go to get picked up.

---

Staff members will be answering relevant questions and responding to feedback. If there is anything sensitive that you wish to discuss, please feel free to PM me or CoolMatty.

Thread title:

It's that time again!  About two weeks after a GDQ event, we post up the feedback thread to hear from onsite attendees, volunteers, and stream viewers.  As a reminder, please read through this topic and replies to avoid needing to repeat yourself (but feel free to leave additional relevant thoughts), and please keep feedback and discussion constructive.

[b][size="16"][u]The Hotel[/u][/size][/b]
The hotel did not finish their renovations on schedule, and as a result, some people had to be temporarily relocated.  Furthermore, facilities such as the gym and pool were inaccessible.  We have brought up with the hotel that this was very disappointing. Should we decide to return to Minnesota (and this hotel), it is highly unlikely that we would encounter this problem.

Our marathon spaces for each event are dependent on what the hotel can offer us.  Thankfully, we were able to reserve the entire bottom floor as marathon space, accessible by escalators from the lobby and elevators from the remaining floors of the hotel.

We (and the hotel, even without our feedback) realized that the elevators were on the slower side.  This is most likely due to the hotel having only two elevators (and one service elevator) servicing 21 floors. It is an unavoidable situation, but something we will keep in mind if we look at this hotel again in the future.

[b][size="16"][u]The Location[/u][/size][/b]
A lot of establishments in the general vicinity closed around 6, due to the downtown business area that the hotel was located in.  We mentioned this during the hotel search.  One of the businesses mentioned the hotel usually alerts the businesses nearby of the fact that there would be high foot traffic in the area, but it didn't happen this time for some reason.  The hotel, at our request, extended its restaurant's hours as late as they could and brought on extra staff to deal with the high volume of people.

We also want to establish that we do not have any specific plans for the next SGDQ’s location. There is a lot of benefit to staying in Minnesota. We will be looking there, as well as other states further south and west. At this time, we have no intention of migrating to the east any further than Minnesota.

[b][size="16"][u]The Marathon Room and Stream Setup[/u][/size][/b]
We changed the room layout based on feedback that the runners were "hidden" from the audience and also implemented a dual-couch setup. The dual couches started off as a joke, but we had a lot of positive feedback so far. We’ll look into this again at future events.

Event setup was unfortunately suboptimal once again, as we had extremely delicate plans for moving our equipment into the venue from many states away. The result was far less time for setup than we wanted, and left us with less time to test and perfect our setup before the event. This also hampered Power Up Audio’s ability to mix the audio, as they had to learn and adapt on the fly.

Game setup took a bit longer in the beginning of the week while our tech team and Power Up Audio got used to working with each other.  We are looking for ways that we can have the next run's runner(s) and commentators prepped for their run prior to setup so that we can cut down on setup times.  A portion of the downtime was filled with interviews (your feedback/thoughts on these would be much appreciated as well).

[b][size="16"][u]Power Up Audio[/u][/size][/b]
We brought on Power Up Audio to provide 24/7 audio engineering support, and we feel that they really helped our marathon's audio. We had a lot of positive feedback during the event regarding their mixing talents, particularly with race game audio and balancing commentary. They are ready and willing to accept feedback.

[b][size="16"][u]The Stream Layout[/u][/size][/b]
Based on feedback from AGDQ, the layouts were changed to make better use of the space given, especially for races and sponsors.  One of the biggest improvements to the layout is that we added game incentives and their amounts into the rotation.  We also implemented a foot pedal for individual runs so that the runner can stop the timer on their own.

There were several technical issues with the layouts during the event, most of them related to the overall complexity of the software involved and the poor performance of OBS’s Browser Plugin. However, we do not think this hampered the event in any significant way.

As a side note, the layouts have been open-sourced: [url]https://github.com/GamesDoneQuick/sgdq15-layouts[/url]

[b][size="16"][u]Registration[/u][/size][/b]
There was a bit of delay on registration for onsite attendees opening on the first day; part of this was due to changes we absolutely needed to make to our system.  We will lay out the process for registration prior to AGDQ to further streamline the process for people to get in and out faster.

[b][size=”14”]NOTE:[/size][/b] One of the things we noticed is that a rather large percentage of the runners do not register prior to the event.  As this greatly affected our attendee cap, we will be implementing a new step in the game submission process.

[b]After the final games list is posted, you must register and pay to attend the event before your accepted game is placed in the schedule.[/b]

We are also going to [b]stop accepting onsite registrations[/b].  You must register and pay to attend each event online by the registration due date.

[b][size="16"][u]The Shuttle[/u][/size][/b]
A lot of people were unable to locate the shuttle at the airport.  In the future, we will try to elaborate further on where people should go to get picked up.

---

Staff members will be answering relevant questions and responding to feedback.  If there is anything sensitive that you wish to discuss, please feel free to PM me or CoolMatty.

BystanderTim

2015-08-15 07:21:13 pm

Not to be an asshole and make this all about me. I thought everything at the event was truly fantastic. The only issue i could really point out was the quality of the actual game of my run. Playing in windowed mode at 1280 by 720 caused my game to not take a monitor capture very well, however I was not aware of this. This ended up with my entire run's actual gameplay becoming very pixelated, something along the lines of a 500 bitrate stream. This is my only real "complain" as I had a huge blast for my first GDQ.

Glaceon

Edit history:

Glaceon: 2015-08-15 07:29:37 pm

Glaceon: 2015-08-15 07:28:34 pm

2015-08-15 07:26:35 pm

I'm sure that the whole drama with the Crash 2 run has been brought to your attention multiple times but you should really start putting in some kind of precautions to make sure stuff like it can't happen next time. Interrupting a run to tell a runner to just calm down is disruptive, I understand, but something more discreet like a teleprompter or something could prevent something like this from happening in the future.

I'm not sure if the reason the audience was spaced so far back was so stuff like the interruption by the girl talking about cancer during Runnerguy's run but I feel like both the camera angles were terrible, not showing enough of the runner's faces at times, and the audience was spaced so far back it just felt kind of alien and different from other GDQs. Earlier GDQs felt like just a bunch of likeminded people sitting in a room having fun, this felt kind of like a presentation to a theater or something. Far more formal and professional than the others. I'm not saying that stepping away from professionalism as the event grows bigger is an inherently bad thing either, just try to strike a balance between the two. I loved the kind of pleasant atmosphere the previous AGDQs had, but I feel like it's kind of getting too commercialized now.

Just a lot of stuff about dealing with unforseen problems, usually involved with audience members, or runners. Just people being weird or otherwise causing drama. It happens every year and as this event grows bigger and more renowned it should be dealt with with more care and foresight for such things. At the end of the day drama like this happens like every single time a GDQ comes around and this kind of stuff can severely damage the reputation of it in the long run.

I had some other issues with some specific runs but those are subjective and I shouldn't speak for everyone, so I won't mention it. Apart from that GDQ was fine this year. Just a tad underwhelming.

I'm sure that the whole drama with the Crash 2 run has been brought to your attention multiple times but you should really start putting in some kind of precautions to make sure stuff like it can't happen next time.  Interrupting a run to tell a runner to just calm down is disruptive, I understand, but something more discreet like a teleprompter or something could prevent something like this from happening in the future.

I'm not sure if the reason the audience was spaced so far back was so stuff like the interruption by the girl talking about cancer during Runnerguy's run but I feel like both the camera angles were terrible, not showing enough of the runner's faces at times, and the audience was spaced so far back it just felt kind of alien and different from other GDQs.  Earlier GDQs felt like just a bunch of likeminded people sitting in a room having fun, this felt kind of like a presentation to a theater or something.  Far more formal and professional than the others.  I'm not saying that stepping away from professionalism as the event grows bigger is an inherently bad thing either, just try to strike a balance between the two.  I loved the kind of pleasant atmosphere the previous AGDQs had, but I feel like it's kind of getting too commercialized now.

Just a lot of stuff about dealing with unforseen problems, usually involved with audience members, or runners.  Just people being weird or otherwise causing drama.  It happens every year and as this event grows bigger and more renowned it should be dealt with with more care and foresight for such things.  At the end of the day drama like this happens like every single time a GDQ comes around and this kind of stuff can severely damage the reputation of it in the long run.

I had some other issues with some specific runs but those are subjective and I shouldn't speak for everyone, so I won't mention it.  Apart from that GDQ was fine this year.  Just a tad underwhelming.

Forstride

2015-08-15 07:29:13 pm

Didn't attend the event, but I felt like the stream layout and marathon room setup were much more engaging than previous GDQs, at least based off of the stream. You couldn't see a lot of the audience due to lighting, and being so far from the camera, but it seemed far better than AGDQ this year (The runner couch being closed off from the rest of the marathon room was really weird honestly, coming from someone who ran a game at AGDQ this year).

The stream layout itself was probably the best of any GDQ. Nothing more to say about it other than it was good. Tongue

darkman78

2015-08-15 07:34:03 pm

Definitely a lot of positives for SGDQ. The exclusive basement for marathon space was probably the coolest thing about the layout. You never had to deal with random people or passing through any crowds (or being next to a certain pyramid scheme convention), I loved the privacy of it. Really hope future hotels have the potential for something like this. I think the rest of the hotel points are pretty much my thoughts as well.

I think the real problem with the location wasn't necessarily that places closed at 6, it was that the affordable places closed at 6, leaving you with either pizza delivery or really expensive meals. I definitely spent way more on food this year than I have at any other GDQ, and I was only there half the time. Hopefully if we stay in Minnesota, Minneapolis has more options for you guys to look at since it's much more of a touristy area.

Wanted to say BIG improvement on the stream room TV selection for this marathon. It definitely seemed like they were tested beforehand, so no one had to deal with a really bad TV like the one I played on at AGDQ.

Really big fan of the dual couch setup. I really liked that when we started crowding around for runs and not just sitting on the couch that staff embraced that and let us do it. I know many people, both attendee and stream viewer, have been commentating about the mood and atmosphere of the room lately. At least from an attendee perspective, I really felt a lot more comfy and had a much better time hanging around the B couch than I did sitting in a front row chair for recent GDQs. I hope that is something that is kept.

Layouts looked great, no real complaints on that.

My biggest concern about requiring runners to pay and attend before run is on the schedule is how will you handle when people have to drop out for whatever reason it is? I'm not really sure what ended up happening on ESA's end and whether there were any issues with their implementation of a similar rule, but I do think procedures need to be fleshed out for this new rule. I don't have a problem with it per say if it is handled correctly and I know it's early, but I do hope that staff are actually discussing the boundaries and how they will handle refunds in the event of runners not being able to attend.

Overall I thought SGDQ was probably the best marathon yet from an organizational and execution standpoint. Big fan of coming back to Minnesota, maybe not necessarily the same hotel, but I did enjoy my time in the area and would not mind coming back again.

PS: I'm definitely not biased at all when I say yes to more interviews! Hopefully we find a way to eventually go beyond the stream room for interviews, although I understand the technical problems with it so I won't be sad if it doesn't happen. I also wouldn't be opposed to having like random interviews with attendees that aren't necessarily playing games during really busy periods of the marathon (IE: weekends).

Definitely a lot of positives for SGDQ. The exclusive basement for marathon space was probably the coolest thing about the layout. You never had to deal with random people or passing through any crowds (or being next to a certain pyramid scheme convention), I loved the privacy of it. Really hope future hotels have the potential for something like this. I think the rest of the hotel points are pretty much my thoughts as well.

I think the real problem with the location wasn't necessarily that places closed at 6, it was that the affordable places closed at 6, leaving you with either pizza delivery or really expensive meals. I definitely spent way more on food this year than I have at any other GDQ, and I was only there half the time. Hopefully if we stay in Minnesota, Minneapolis has more options for you guys to look at since it's much more of a touristy area.

Wanted to say BIG improvement on the stream room TV selection for this marathon. It definitely seemed like they were tested beforehand, so no one had to deal with a really bad TV like the one I played on at AGDQ.

Really big fan of the dual couch setup. I really liked that when we started crowding around for runs and not just sitting on the couch that staff embraced that and let us do it. I know many people, both attendee and stream viewer, have been commentating about the mood and atmosphere of the room lately. At least from an attendee perspective, I really felt a lot more comfy and had a much better time hanging around the B couch than I did sitting in a front row chair for recent GDQs. I hope that is something that is kept.

Layouts looked great, no real complaints on that.

My biggest concern about requiring runners to pay and attend before run is on the schedule is how will you handle when people have to drop out for whatever reason it is? I'm not really sure what ended up happening on ESA's end and whether there were any issues with their implementation of a similar rule, but I do think procedures need to be fleshed out for this new rule. I don't have a problem with it per say if it is handled correctly and I know it's early, but I do hope that staff are actually discussing the boundaries and how they will handle refunds in the event of runners not being able to attend.

Overall I thought SGDQ was probably the best marathon yet from an organizational and execution standpoint. Big fan of coming back to Minnesota, maybe not necessarily the same hotel, but I did enjoy my time in the area and would not mind coming back again.

PS: I'm definitely not biased at all when I say yes to more interviews! Hopefully we find a way to eventually go beyond the stream room for interviews, although I understand the technical problems with it so I won't be sad if it doesn't happen. I also wouldn't be opposed to having like random interviews with attendees that aren't necessarily playing games during really busy periods of the marathon (IE: weekends).

NotSoNewby

2015-08-15 07:36:37 pm

To be completely honest, I thought everything was very good. The hotel was top notch (even if not fully renovated). The location was just fine! Although some food options closed early, there were still a bunch of great bars and restaurants open very late. Marathon room and practice/casual rooms were perfectly sized and we'll equipped. I would Definitely go with the same hotel again next year if anyone was thinking of holding it in Minneapolis again. 10/10 experience for my second GDQ.

Cutefluffybunny

Edit history:

Cutefluffybunny: 2015-08-15 07:48:16 pm

2015-08-15 07:38:41 pm

Pros

-Audio set up was really nice, for both runs I commentated on I could clearly hear runner/game/donation reader all well balanced. We (me/other commentators/runner/donation reader) could all tell when another person was talking so there was less talking over each other

-Plenty of space in the marathon area, plenty of TVs, never had trouble finding a spot to sit down and game

-Hotel bar knew how to mix a drink

-erbert and gerbert's

Edit: the pc lan room was SICK please bring that back

Cons

-Everything (not literally everything but still) closed at 5-6, some stuff closed at like 3, the food situation in general was much better than AGDQ 2015, but still worse than A/SGDQ 2014 imo

-Could see literally no gameplay for doom 64 on the projectors (The feed looked fine on the TV behind the couch though)

-elevators were pretty terrible

-no free breakfast

-Badge? badge? badge? badges? badge?

I still had fun thanks

StingerPA

2015-08-15 07:41:53 pm

All of this is from a viewer's perspective.

Camera: The camera itself was a nice improvement over the AGDQ camera in terms of just being a better piece of equipment, but I feel like it captured TOO much. The audience is nice to see, but I'd rather see the runner better. 95% of the time, it was zoomed too far out and you couldn't really make out the runners or couch at all. At some points, I could only tell who was who because I had actually met them at previous events. Cropping it so it can be zoomed in and keep the camera from anti-aliasing needs to be a priority. At least now the equipment is solid and improvements can be made.

Schedule: One thing that could make the schedule more accurate is adding in an "Introduction" before the first official game. It keeps the setup time for the 2nd game accurate, and also shows when exactly the first game really did start rather than saying, "Yoshi's Island started at 12:00, even though it was closer to 12:20 (or whatever the actual time was)."

Audio: I think the audio guys said it best themselves at the end of SGDQ. They were a little rough starting off, but got significantly better by the end. I'm looking forward to hopefully having these guys around for more events to come, especially now that they know what they're getting into.

Setup times: I kinda feel like these were worse than previous marathons in terms of how much sheer time between runs. The interviews were nice, but I recall tech people saying they couldn't set up during the interviews because of having to set up the interview as well. It's almost like the interviews were a separate game where there was setup for interviews, and then setup after interviews, but none inbetween. Obviously the best thing to have would to be able to have the next game ready to go after an interview is finished, but if this isn't possible, I'd honestly prefer fewer interviews if it means shorter times between games.

Layouts:

I'm going to preface this by saying these were the best layouts yet, so I'll be a little more nitpicky than I might've been otherwise. Good job to the designers.

Overall:
Positives: Love the rotating sponsor box, and donation incentives/prizes scrolling at the bottom. Huge improvements over AGDQ's massive space misuse where sponsors/incentives/prizes were concerned. Prize images and minimum bids being visible on the setup scene was a good idea since that keeps them from being shown too much and the impact being lost. One thing I liked about the race layouts was having separate timers for both runners. I think it took a little bit to work these out properly, but looked great after that was done.

Negatives: I've got 2 main complaints that remained consistent on each layout. First of all, the MSF/DWB logo was rarely visible, only when it scrolled by on the bottom line. It really needs to be more visible so that it's more accessible to newcomers to the stream where the donations are going. Past GDQs had the charity's logo visible at all times, and the charity is the focus of the marathon stream.

Second, the timer was really tiny on nearly every layout. Most of the layouts have had significant space above and below where the runner name/timer were located, plus there was room to the left and right inside those boxes so it still fit very easily into the same horizontal space.

Specific Layouts:

1P HD: Only complaint here was the location of the GDQ logo on the right side. I feel like that space could've been used better, whether it was enlarging the timer, putting the MSF logo permanently onscreen, maybe something else I'm not thinking of right now. But it really wasn't necessary because the GDQ logo is already in the bottom left corner for the entire event.

2P SD: Huge improvement over AGDQ. Both game screens were much larger than before.

3P SD: Still not sure about having the 3 game feeds side-by-side-by-side. I'd think you could get bigger feeds by doing it like the 4 player layout, except use the open corner for sponsors, timer, category, etc. I checked the VODs on youtube, and took screenshots of both to show the (admittedly small) difference, and set them together here: http://imgur.com/GHlvIrP

All of this is from a viewer's perspective.

Camera: The camera itself was a nice improvement over the AGDQ camera in terms of just being a better piece of equipment, but I feel like it captured TOO much.  The audience is nice to see, but I'd rather see the runner better.  95% of the time, it was zoomed too far out and you couldn't really make out the runners or couch at all.  At some points, I could only tell who was who because I had actually met them at previous events.  Cropping it so it can be zoomed in and keep the camera from anti-aliasing needs to be a priority.  At least now the equipment is solid and improvements can be made.

Schedule: One thing that could make the schedule more accurate is adding in an "Introduction" before the first official game.  It keeps the setup time for the 2nd game accurate, and also shows when exactly the first game really did start rather than saying, "Yoshi's Island started at 12:00, even though it was closer to 12:20 (or whatever the actual time was)."

Audio: I think the audio guys said it best themselves at the end of SGDQ.  They were a little rough starting off, but got significantly better by the end.  I'm looking forward to hopefully having these guys around for more events to come, especially now that they know what they're getting into.

Setup times: I kinda feel like these were worse than previous marathons in terms of how much sheer time between runs.  The interviews were nice, but I recall tech people saying they couldn't set up during the interviews because of having to set up the interview as well.  It's almost like the interviews were a separate game where there was setup for interviews, and then setup after interviews, but none inbetween.  Obviously the best thing to have would to be able to have the next game ready to go after an interview is finished, but if this isn't possible, I'd honestly prefer fewer interviews if it means shorter times between games.

Layouts:

I'm going to preface this by saying these were the best layouts yet, so I'll be a little more nitpicky than I might've been otherwise.  Good job to the designers.

Overall:
Positives: Love the rotating sponsor box, and donation incentives/prizes scrolling at the bottom.  Huge improvements over AGDQ's massive space misuse where sponsors/incentives/prizes were concerned. Prize images and minimum bids being visible on the setup scene was a good idea since that keeps them from being shown too much and the impact being lost. One thing I liked about the race layouts was having separate timers for both runners.  I think it took a little bit to work these out properly, but looked great after that was done.

Negatives: I've got 2 main complaints that remained consistent on each layout.  First of all, the MSF/DWB logo was rarely visible, only when it scrolled by on the bottom line.  It really needs to be more visible so that it's more accessible to newcomers to the stream where the donations are going.  Past GDQs had the charity's logo visible at all times, and the charity is the focus of the marathon stream.

Second, the timer was really tiny on nearly every layout.  Most of the layouts have had significant space above and below where the runner name/timer were located, plus there was room to the left and right inside those boxes so it still fit very easily into the same horizontal space.

Specific Layouts:

1P HD: Only complaint here was the location of the GDQ logo on the right side.  I feel like that space could've been used better, whether it was enlarging the timer, putting the MSF logo permanently onscreen, maybe something else I'm not thinking of right now. But it really wasn't necessary because the GDQ logo is already in the bottom left corner for the entire event.

2P SD: Huge improvement over AGDQ.  Both game screens were much larger than before.

3P SD: Still not sure about having the 3 game feeds side-by-side-by-side.  I'd think you could get bigger feeds by doing it like the 4 player layout, except use the open corner for sponsors, timer, category, etc.  I checked the VODs on youtube, and took screenshots of both to show the (admittedly small) difference, and set them together here: http://imgur.com/GHlvIrP

kirkq

Edit history:

kirkq: 2015-08-15 07:46:34 pm

2015-08-15 07:44:44 pm

Die Hard 2013.

Thanks to staff for doing the stressful jobs while many of us were just hanging out and playing games all week.

Hotel renovations were suboptimal, but I thought the hotel was reasonably accommodating, especially with the restaurant hours/menu. Having a couple sandwich shops in the vicinity during the day was also cool. I think getting full breakfast for the week would be more ideal, even if it costs the attendees a bit more.

Given that this is a 24 hour event and the varying age of attendees, I strongly advocate for moving to a safer area for future events. I think this is more important than any lack of convenience at past events.

Henneko

Edit history:

Henneko: 2015-08-15 09:25:36 pm

Henneko: 2015-08-15 09:00:55 pm

2015-08-15 07:47:18 pm

Yo,

Gotta say, coming out from the UK, I was a little nervous about it all. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at SGDQ.

The hotel and hotel staff were really nice, shoutouts to Alice at reception, what a babe.
I volunteered for the relocation and that side of things was dealt with very efficiently and I didn't have any problems whatsoever getting to and from the venue from the Holiday Inn. I thought the stream room was pretty nifty and the console practice room was nice also.
The sound and tech guys were all really helpful and a joy to talk to and be around - based Kevin @ powerup audio. I'm really glad I made it out in the end, thanks for a great time.

As for some of the negatives...
The PC practice room had a ton of issues with external controllers that, to my knowledge, never got fixed. Ultimately it wasn't much of an issue because the private practice had no such problem but I believe it was something to do with the fact they were essentially bare builds (but even when installing the necessary drivers, the PCs weren't having any of it)

I think also it wasn't necessarily clear what the second couch was for, I would've presumed it was reserved for close friends of the runner who don't really know the game but this wasn't always the case (I admit I may be misinformed on this and it was stated somewhere though, but this is what I experienced for the Halo 3 run at least)

Also my run was a bag of dicks but it seemed to go down okay with people so whatever

Yo,

Gotta say, coming out from the UK, I was a little nervous about it all. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at SGDQ.

The hotel and hotel staff were really nice, shoutouts to Alice at reception, what a babe. 
I volunteered for the relocation and that side of things was dealt with very efficiently and I didn't have any problems whatsoever getting to and from the venue from the Holiday Inn. I thought the stream room was pretty nifty and the console practice room was nice also. 
The sound and tech guys were all really helpful and a joy to talk to and be around - based Kevin @ powerup audio. I'm really glad I made it out in the end, thanks for a great time.

As for some of the negatives...
The PC practice room had a ton of issues with external controllers that, to my knowledge, never got fixed. Ultimately it wasn't much of an issue because the private practice had no such problem but I believe it was something to do with the fact they were essentially bare builds (but even when installing the necessary drivers, the PCs weren't having any of it)

I think also it wasn't necessarily clear what the second couch was for, I would've presumed it was reserved for close friends of the runner who don't really know the game but this wasn't always the case (I admit I may be misinformed on this and it was stated somewhere though, but this is what I experienced for the Halo 3 run at least)

Also my run was a bag of dicks but it seemed to go down okay with people so whatever

Graviton

2015-08-15 07:52:39 pm

Quote:

Given that this is a 24 hour event and the varying age of attendees, I strongly advocate to moving to a safer area for future events.

I agree with this. Lots of people with tons of money on them are going to be venturing outside late at night for the few food options still open at these events. If it isn't a strong consideration already, it should be.

Casusby

Edit history:

Casusby: 2015-08-15 08:01:41 pm

Casusby: 2015-08-15 07:59:23 pm

Casusby: 2015-08-15 07:58:29 pm

2015-08-15 07:54:10 pm

One of the biggest issues leading up to this SGDQ is one of the most easily fixed issues, which is communication from the organizers.

The game submission system and the schedule construction/modifications were the most glaring examples of this. Supposed deadlines were given out to the community saying that these things would be done by this time, but when that time came around everything was silent. Now it's obvious that things happen and things will get delayed, however to not even give an update to people in a reasonable time is unacceptable.

People might say that we should just expect such things and simply accept them but I feel that is a terrible attitude to have when you are aiming to have continued growth at your event. Organizer attitudes shouldn't be dismissive or flippant or worse, willingly ignorant about missing their own deadlines. When the schedule was being shifted around to finally reflect all the drops that happened, there was no communication that things were happening and some people grew concerned because the schedule was fully public. CoolMatty said "We will make an announcement when the drops and changes are up to date." and no such announcement was made. Certainly the schedule is fluid up to, if not during the event, but even something say "OK, most of the big changes are done now, but more will probably happen." would have been appreciated.

For some individuals, it may not seem like a big deal at all, but keeping people in the loop is just beneficial for every runner and attendee and takes less than 140 characters on a twitter account. Assuming everyone should just know just because that's how it's always been is bordering arrogance.

About Crash 2, for how serious the on-site staff seemed to take it after the fact, why was nothing done during the run? A senior staff member was reading donations and surely there were more around in the background, yet no one said a thing to try to change what was happening. What's wrong with telling the guy to tone it down and preventing the commentary from getting as bad as it got?

None of this is to take away from the overall success of the event, which everyone involved should be lauded for. From a charity and entertainment standpoint, the event delivered and then some. But it can be better from many aspects.

One of the biggest issues leading up to this SGDQ is one of the most easily fixed issues, which is communication from the organizers.

The game submission system and the schedule construction/modifications were the most glaring examples of this. Supposed deadlines were given out to the community saying that these things would be done by this time, but when that time came around everything was silent. Now it's obvious that things happen and things will get delayed, however to not even give an update to people in a reasonable time is unacceptable.

People might say that we should just expect such things and simply accept them but I feel that is a terrible attitude to have when you are aiming to have continued growth at your event. Organizer attitudes shouldn't be dismissive or flippant or worse, willingly ignorant about missing their own deadlines. When the schedule was being shifted around to finally reflect all the drops that happened, there was no communication that things were happening and some people grew concerned because the schedule was fully public. CoolMatty said "We will make an announcement when the drops and changes are up to date." and no such announcement was made. Certainly the schedule is fluid up to, if not during the event, but even something say "OK, most of the big changes are done now, but more will probably happen." would have been appreciated.

For some individuals, it may not seem like a big deal at all, but keeping people in the loop is just beneficial for every runner and attendee and takes less than 140 characters on a twitter account. Assuming everyone should just know just because that's how it's always been is bordering arrogance.

About Crash 2, for how serious the on-site staff seemed to take it after the fact, why was nothing done during the run? A senior staff member was reading donations and surely there were more around in the background, yet no one said a thing to try to change what was happening. What's wrong with telling the guy to tone it down and preventing the commentary from getting as bad as it got?

None of this is to take away from the overall success of the event, which everyone involved should be lauded for. From a charity and entertainment standpoint, the event delivered and then some. But it can be better from many aspects.

Cool Matty

Edit history:

Cool Matty: 2015-08-15 07:54:25 pm

2015-08-15 07:54:17 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Quote from Cutefluffybunny:

-Could see literally no gameplay for doom 64 on the projectors (The feed looked fine on the TV behind the couch though)

This will probably remain an unfortunate reality, because the game is just ridiculously dark. We had to balance making the projectors visible (keep in mind these are already VERY bright projectors, not your standard home theater setups) and keeping the lighting on for the people viewing at home.

Quote from StingerPA:

All of this is from a viewer's perspective.

Camera: The camera itself was a nice improvement over the AGDQ camera in terms of just being a better piece of equipment, but I feel like it captured TOO much. The audience is nice to see, but I'd rather see the runner better. 95% of the time, it was zoomed too far out and you couldn't really make out the runners or couch at all. At some points, I could only tell who was who because I had actually met them at previous events. Cropping it so it can be zoomed in and keep the camera from anti-aliasing needs to be a priority. At least now the equipment is solid and improvements can be made.

One of the key issues here is that we often have shots that are very wide, such as people sitting on the sides of the couch. That was the main reason why the camera was zoomed out in the first place. The aliasing was a strange artifact that did not appear at home, not sure why it showed up, but we couldn't fix it there. It will be investigated and fixed before the next event.

Quote:

Schedule: One thing that could make the schedule more accurate is adding in an "Introduction" before the first official game. It keeps the setup time for the 2nd game accurate, and also shows when exactly the first game really did start rather than saying, "Yoshi's Island started at 12:00, even though it was closer to 12:20 (or whatever the actual time was)."

The pre-show was supposed to happen prior to 12:00, but unfortunately was delayed.

Quote:

Setup times: I kinda feel like these were worse than previous marathons in terms of how much sheer time between runs. The interviews were nice, but I recall tech people saying they couldn't set up during the interviews because of having to set up the interview as well. It's almost like the interviews were a separate game where there was setup for interviews, and then setup after interviews, but none inbetween. Obviously the best thing to have would to be able to have the next game ready to go after an interview is finished, but if this isn't possible, I'd honestly prefer fewer interviews if it means shorter times between games.

The comment about setup during interviews wasn't entirely true. A great deal of setup happens during the interviews, that's their purpose. However, our most significant setup delay that remains is editing layouts. We are hamstrung by software at the moment, while we wait for OBS MP to implement the necessary features to fix this. We are completely at their mercy for this.

Quote from Henneko:

As for some of the negatives...
The PC practice room had a ton of issues with external controllers that, to my knowledge, never got fixed. Ultimately it wasn't much of an issue because the private practice had no such problem but I believe it was something to do with the fact they were essentially bare builds (but even when installing the necessary drivers, the PCs weren't having any of it)

I wish someone had informed me of this! This is something that is easily fixed, but only if staff is notified.

[quote="Cutefluffybunny"]
-Could see literally no gameplay for doom 64 on the projectors (The feed looked fine on the TV behind the couch though)

[/quote]

This will probably remain an unfortunate reality, because the game is just ridiculously dark. We had to balance making the projectors visible (keep in mind these are already VERY bright projectors, not your standard home theater setups) and keeping the lighting on for the people viewing at home.

[quote="StingerPA"]All of this is from a viewer's perspective.

Camera: The camera itself was a nice improvement over the AGDQ camera in terms of just being a better piece of equipment, but I feel like it captured TOO much.  The audience is nice to see, but I'd rather see the runner better.  95% of the time, it was zoomed too far out and you couldn't really make out the runners or couch at all.  At some points, I could only tell who was who because I had actually met them at previous events.  Cropping it so it can be zoomed in and keep the camera from anti-aliasing needs to be a priority.  At least now the equipment is solid and improvements can be made.
[/quote]

One of the key issues here is that we often have shots that are very wide, such as people sitting on the sides of the couch. That was the main reason why the camera was zoomed out in the first place. The aliasing was a strange artifact that did not appear at home, not sure why it showed up, but we couldn't fix it there. It will be investigated and fixed before the next event.

[quote]
Schedule: One thing that could make the schedule more accurate is adding in an "Introduction" before the first official game.  It keeps the setup time for the 2nd game accurate, and also shows when exactly the first game really did start rather than saying, "Yoshi's Island started at 12:00, even though it was closer to 12:20 (or whatever the actual time was)."[/quote]

The pre-show was supposed to happen prior to 12:00, but unfortunately was delayed.

[quote]
Setup times: I kinda feel like these were worse than previous marathons in terms of how much sheer time between runs.  The interviews were nice, but I recall tech people saying they couldn't set up during the interviews because of having to set up the interview as well.  It's almost like the interviews were a separate game where there was setup for interviews, and then setup after interviews, but none inbetween.  Obviously the best thing to have would to be able to have the next game ready to go after an interview is finished, but if this isn't possible, I'd honestly prefer fewer interviews if it means shorter times between games.
[/quote]

The comment about setup during interviews wasn't entirely true. A great deal of setup happens during the interviews, that's their purpose. However, our most significant setup delay that remains is editing layouts. We are hamstrung by software at the moment, while we wait for OBS MP to implement the necessary features to fix this. We are completely at their mercy for this.

[quote="Henneko"]
As for some of the negatives...
The PC practice room had a ton of issues with external controllers that, to my knowledge, never got fixed. Ultimately it wasn't much of an issue because the private practice had no such problem but I believe it was something to do with the fact they were essentially bare builds (but even when installing the necessary drivers, the PCs weren't having any of it)[/quote]

I wish someone had informed me of this! This is something that is easily fixed, but only if staff is notified.

BroBuzz

Edit history:

BroBuzz: 2015-08-16 12:15:32 am

BroBuzz: 2015-08-15 07:58:41 pm

BroBuzz: 2015-08-15 07:58:19 pm

2015-08-15 07:57:25 pm

1. Schedule/game lineup was bad. A lot of the good runs were at ass o'clock (Donkey Kong 64, Mario & Luigi) while games that've been featured in marathons heavily before (Mega Man, Zelda) almost always had better timeslots. I'm not against have marathons stables, but there should be a better balance.
2. Hotel was good outside of the shitty elevators.
3. Thought the location was great outside of food joints closing early.
4. Marathon layout was very good. No complaints besides not being able to see Doom 64 on the projector screens.
5. Way too many stream monsters at the event. Felt like 90% of attendees weren't actual speedrunners and just spectators. GDQs might as well be conventions at this point sadly.
6. Did there need to be blocks for everything? Stuff like the "silly block" was unnecessary.

Had a great time overall though. Hope SGDQ stays in the Midwest area.

boredeathly

2015-08-15 08:00:47 pm

Hi, I'm bored

I'd like to say thanks to the staff for all of their hard work in another successful event.

I gushed at one of the Powerup Audio guys for like 5 minutes when he came into the practice room during Chrono Trigger about how good of a job they had done all marathon. I really hope they'd like to come back for future GDQs, and I'd be perfectly willing to pay more on the registration fee if they needed funds to continue helping out with marathons.

The donation processing interface continues to improve every event and my two shifts went really smoothly. Having SMK walk by and request new features for it and hear 'oh yea I could whip that up' was also really neat.

That's all I've got that won't be said by other people

Antilles58

2015-08-15 08:02:42 pm

#FailFish

This was my second GDQ in person (attended last year's in Denver) and my first time as a volunteer. In general, I'd say that everything was marvelous, and I have no complaints about the event itself. Having the whole basement was optimal - the registration/commons area was a great central meeting place, the hotel and staff were wonderful and accommodating, and the marathon room and stream layouts were fantastic, too. Multiple practice/casual rooms was amazing, too. You guys did a great job welcoming me and helping me feel like I could contribute as a volunteer right away, so I appreciated that a great deal. Only minor nits about the event were the obvious problem with the 2 escalators, and the lack of food options as well. One can only eat so many sandwiches (though E&G was phenomenal). I think there might have been a bit more sponsor-provided food last year, too - given the restaurant situation, that might've helped this year.

The biggest problem with the event, by far, was the communication and missed deadlines with the game submission/registration processes. In particular, the announcement of the games list was handled very poorly. To have it scheduled to come out on a Friday and then not announce until the end of the day that it would be delayed felt pretty inconsiderate, as I know I wasn't the only person who was refreshing like mad the whole day. The worst part about it was that when the new date came the following Monday, the games list was pushed back another week. It seems to me that if a delay would have been significant enough to warrant another week of time, then that delay could have been recognized and announced quite a bit earlier. Similar problems occurred with the registration release.

Next time, I'd say don't make a promise about a date unless you're sure you can hit it - and keep people apprised on the status much sooner. Even random tweets in the interim that let us know you're still on track would be great (don't worry about spam - most of us get much worse spam than status updates from GDQ). Heck use the GDQMonitor account if you have to.

But really, that was a minor blip in the process. Ultimately it all worked out and was a truly fantastic event.

However, my BIGGEST request is that you PLEASE consider coming back to Denver next year!! There are definitely other hotels in the area that would work great for the marathon - and our city can definitely handle the influx of people at all hours of the night. I'll help look, host people, whatever it takes!!!! /shameless begging

This was my second GDQ in person (attended last year's in Denver) and my first time as a volunteer.  In general, I'd say that everything was marvelous, and I have no complaints about the event itself.  Having the whole basement was optimal - the registration/commons area was a great central meeting place, the hotel and staff were wonderful and accommodating, and the marathon room and stream layouts were fantastic, too.  Multiple practice/casual rooms was amazing, too. You guys did a great job welcoming me and helping me feel like I could contribute as a volunteer right away, so I appreciated that a great deal.  Only minor nits about the event were the obvious problem with the 2 escalators, and the lack of food options as well.  One can only eat so many sandwiches (though E&G was phenomenal).  I think there might have been a bit more sponsor-provided food last year, too - given the restaurant situation, that might've helped this year.

The biggest problem with the event, by far, was the communication and missed deadlines with the game submission/registration processes.  In particular, the announcement of the games list was handled very poorly.  To have it scheduled to come out on a Friday and then not announce until the end of the day that it would be delayed felt pretty inconsiderate, as I know I wasn't the only person who was refreshing like mad the whole day.  The worst part about it was that when the new date came the following Monday, the games list was pushed back another week.  It seems to me that if a delay would have been significant enough to warrant another week of time, then that delay could have been recognized and announced quite a bit earlier.  Similar problems occurred with the registration release.

Next time, I'd say don't make a promise about a date unless you're sure you can hit it - and keep people apprised on the status much sooner.  Even random tweets in the interim that let us know you're still on track would be great (don't worry about spam - most of us get much worse spam than status updates from GDQ).  Heck use the GDQMonitor account if you have to.

But really, that was a minor blip in the process.  Ultimately it all worked out and was a truly fantastic event.

However, my BIGGEST request is that you PLEASE consider coming back to Denver next year!! There are definitely other hotels in the area that would work great for the marathon - and our city can definitely handle the influx of people at all hours of the night.  I'll help look, host people, whatever it takes!!!! /shameless begging

TheMG2

2015-08-15 08:08:28 pm

I feel that the interviews should be mixed with other things like filming around the practice/casual/tournament rooms so you can show off the backroom stuff a lot of people don't see on the streams. Ask around what people are doing.

A lot of the pre-marathon communication this year felt really poor, especially in regards to schedule. It took forever for requested changes to get made. I know one runner who dropped out who was never notified by GDQ that their message was even received.

I am extremely confused by Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga's timeslot, and would like that explained a little.

Graviton

Edit history:

Graviton: 2015-08-16 12:02:14 pm

Graviton: 2015-08-15 08:14:52 pm

2015-08-15 08:13:51 pm

Quote:

This will probably remain an unfortunate reality, because the game is just ridiculously dark. We had to balance making the projectors visible (keep in mind these are already VERY bright projectors, not your standard home theater setups) and keeping the lighting on for the people viewing at home.

I'm speaking more from a curiosity standpoint than a frustrated one, but is the capture setup simply unable to make Doom 64 look as it does using traditional capture cards in conjunction with simple AmarecTV adjustments? I did everything in my power to try and calibrate the game beforehand by posting about this potential problem in the forums well in advance, along with spending two hours with the tech crew on setup day. I think because of the time crunch that everyone was busy training the volunteers, so I wasn't able to see if the capture setup could actually make the game watchable. Maybe UA had it figured out after he told me he would handle it, but he wasn't around when my run began and nobody else there had a good idea of what to do it seems.

I think for a game that had two previous marathon runs in which it was extremely dark on stream, a bit more attention should have been spent assuring it wouldn't happen once again. I understand the fact that there was not a whole lot of time for everyone to get stuff ready, but at the very least I would like to have been informed before my run started that nothing further could be done to improve the brightness. That way I could at least point out specific things that would be hard to see on stream during my run. If the capture setup just can't do it for some reason, the scheduling committee probably shouldn't let the game in again... which would be a disappointing but probably necessary decision.

Regardless, thanks to Vulajin and the others who were manning the station during my run for trying their best to make the game look better on the spot.

[quote]This will probably remain an unfortunate reality, because the game is just ridiculously dark. We had to balance making the projectors visible (keep in mind these are already VERY bright projectors, not your standard home theater setups) and keeping the lighting on for the people viewing at home.[/quote]

I'm speaking more from a curiosity standpoint than a frustrated one, but is the capture setup simply unable to make Doom 64 look as it does using traditional capture cards in conjunction with simple AmarecTV adjustments? I did everything in my power to try and calibrate the game beforehand by posting about this potential problem in the forums well in advance, along with spending two hours with the tech crew on setup day. I think because of the time crunch that everyone was busy training the volunteers, so I wasn't able to see if the capture setup could actually make the game watchable. Maybe UA had it figured out after he told me he would handle it, but he wasn't around when my run began and nobody else there had a good idea of what to do it seems.

I think for a game that had two previous marathon runs in which it was extremely dark on stream, a bit more attention should have been spent assuring it wouldn't happen once again. I understand the fact that there was not a whole lot of time for everyone to get stuff ready, but at the very least I would like to have been informed before my run started that nothing further could be done to improve the brightness. That way I could at least point out specific things that would be hard to see on stream during my run. If the capture setup just can't do it for some reason, the scheduling committee probably shouldn't let the game in again... which would be a disappointing but probably necessary decision.

Regardless, thanks to Vulajin and the others who were manning the station during my run for trying their best to make the game look better on the spot.

CardsOfTheHeart

2015-08-15 08:17:35 pm

may use a few too many Kappas

I want to end this on a good note so I will list the bad first:

--Elevators: You know the situation was bad when other patrons were making jokes about it. Too much demand, nowhere near enough supply.

--Shuttle: Zero guidance as to where the shuttle was stopping at the airport. My flights on Saturday were delayed so late that I could not actually get in touch with a live person from Lorenz. I ended up taking a $40 cab ride to the hotel.

The okay:

--Food: I knew I would have to work around it. Thank goodness I never got tired of Subway. I do feel like I would have paid a premium on my registration fee to have outside catering available for most of the event.

--Pool: Mildly disappointed that it wasn't available. Honestly, though, I didn't think about it until after the event.

--Main console practice room: There were times where I felt that there were no TVs available to practice on and I was just too lazy to go to the private practice room. The casual room also seemed crowded every time I looked inside so I had no incentive to go in there, either.

--Marathon room: Very spacious so it was easy to go in there, get comfy, and watch runs. However, it was FREEZING COLD in there the entire time!

--Needing to wear headsets: The headsets were awkward to have to use, especially at host station where you were constantly hearing yourself. I also could not pay much attention, if any at all, to anything outside of the game audio during my run, though whether that was a product of the overall setup or my need to focus a bunch during my run is something I can't determine. Not sure there was a better solution, though.

--My volunteer schedule: I was glad to be able to work behind the scenes and see the insides of what goes into keeping these events running, but had I known that I would miss so much of the late-night fun by having to sleep to make various morning shifts, I would have objected to a few of them. Oh well. The more you know.

The good:

--Stream layout: Possibly the most professional-looking yet.

--Audio: Best setup yet. Would love to see a dedicated audio team for future GDQs.

--Private practice room: Genius. Really appreciated the privacy before my run.

--Host station: Having it that close to the couch allowed for more hosts to have a better rapport with the runner/couch than last year. I could see it during quite a few runs and feel it during Digimon World.

--Having an entire floor to ourselves: Kreygasm

I am really glad to have participated in this GDQ. I am concerned, however, that this hotel will not be big enough to serve future SGDQ's needs if we ended up hitting our attendance cap already. I can't imagine fitting any more people in there. Still, 10/10 would attend again.

I want to end this on a good note so I will list the bad first:

--Elevators: You know the situation was bad when [u]other patrons[/u] were making jokes about it. Too much demand, nowhere near enough supply.

--Shuttle: Zero guidance as to where the shuttle was stopping at the airport. My flights on Saturday were delayed so late that I could not actually get in touch with a live person from Lorenz. I ended up taking a $40 cab ride to the hotel.

The okay:

--Food: I knew I would have to work around it. Thank goodness I never got tired of Subway. I do feel like I would have paid a premium on my registration fee to have outside catering available for most of the event.

--Pool: Mildly disappointed that it wasn't available. Honestly, though, I didn't think about it until after the event.

--Main console practice room: There were times where I felt that there were no TVs available to practice on and I was just too lazy to go to the private practice room. The casual room also seemed crowded every time I looked inside so I had no incentive to go in there, either.

--Marathon room: Very spacious so it was easy to go in there, get comfy, and watch runs. However, it was FREEZING COLD in there the entire time!

--Needing to wear headsets: The headsets were awkward to have to use, especially at host station where you were constantly hearing yourself. I also could not pay much attention, if any at all, to anything outside of the game audio during my run, though whether that was a product of the overall setup or my need to focus a bunch during my run is something I can't determine. Not sure there was a better solution, though.

--My volunteer schedule: I was glad to be able to work behind the scenes and see the insides of what goes into keeping these events running, but had I known that I would miss so much of the late-night fun by having to sleep to make various morning shifts, I would have objected to a few of them. Oh well. The more you know.

The good:

--Stream layout: Possibly the most professional-looking yet.

--Audio: Best setup yet. Would love to see a dedicated audio team for future GDQs.

--Private practice room: Genius. Really appreciated the privacy before my run.

--Host station: Having it that close to the couch allowed for more hosts to have a better rapport with the runner/couch than last year. I could see it during quite a few runs and feel it during Digimon World.

--Having an entire floor to ourselves: Kreygasm

I am really glad to have participated in this GDQ. I am concerned, however, that this hotel will not be big enough to serve future SGDQ's needs if we ended up hitting our attendance cap already. I can't imagine fitting any more people in there. Still, 10/10 would attend again.

Countdown42

Edit history:

Countdown42: 2015-08-15 11:01:25 pm

Countdown42: 2015-08-15 08:36:40 pm

Countdown42: 2015-08-15 08:20:57 pm

Countdown42: 2015-08-15 08:19:39 pm

2015-08-15 08:19:09 pm

Well Graviton went in on day zero to set it up with the tech station, as it's maybe two mouse clicks in whatever capture software to fix the problem, and it wasn't. I would think that you'd want to prioritize the tens/hundreds of thousands of viewers at home that are giving you money rather than the hundred or so that were in the room at the moment watching the projector. Just a thought.

pros:
-Kasumi Yogi is one of the best things to happen to your organization
-PC LAN room owned do that every time
-starbucks in the hotel with a nice ass lady that opened at 4

Edit: Power Up Audio was awesome. They did fantastic work, and the guys were friendly as hell and were actively asking runners and the like outside the hotel restaurant about issues/fixes as well as going out of their way to introduce themselves and tell us about their company and the work they do. Definitely bring them back if possible.

dreganastra

2015-08-15 08:20:13 pm

I'd like to add that the interviews in between runs during set up were really fun, and really hope to see these return in the future.

The audio was definitely the best it's ever been, and it was really noticeably good.

I would like to add the one thing I had a problem with was the layout for the 3 people races. the rest of the layouts I liked, but 3 person races the game feed was a little too small for my personal taste. I'd like to reiterate that this may be a personal thing so take that with a grain of salt.

The hosts this year were really good. Even in the graveyard shifts, I saw a post and it looked like the hosts were given some lessons and that the communication was better, so Keep this up, as it was really really good.

Enkaybee

Edit history:

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 09:03:47 pm

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 09:01:23 pm

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 08:45:13 pm

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 08:44:41 pm

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 08:42:31 pm

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 08:39:12 pm

Enkaybee: 2015-08-15 08:35:53 pm

2015-08-15 08:28:42 pm

twitch.tv/enkaybee

Quote from BroBuzz:

5. Way too many stream monsters at the event. Felt like 90% of attendees weren't actual speedrunners and just spectators. GDQs might as well be conventions at this point.

I agree with this sentiment (even though it is a gross exaggeration). However, as stated in the OP: "We are also going to stop accepting onsite registrations. You must register and pay to attend each event online by the registration due date."
I feel that this should help to cut back on people just walking in with the intention of nuthugging.

A few more comments:
Good:
+The hotel seemed to be very accommodating of our noise. I did not stay in the hotel, so maybe I don't have the whole story on that.
+The bars nearby were good. One of them had a waitress at it.
+The renovated hotel rooms were really nice. Like, REALLY nice!
+The hotel actively encouraged physical fitness - take the stairs folks!
+The food options were good (during the hours of 7 AM to 5 PM on weekdays).
+We didn't get murdered near Dominoes on Saturday night. +++++
+The practice and casual rooms were very well-equipped. They had everything! The casual room was hot though.
+Production quality on the stream, from what I saw, was very good except for the lack of game feed cropping the first few days. The interviews were a nice way to fill time between games. Audio was great. Layouts were great. Hosts were great.

Not so good:
-The scheduling of certain highly-anticipated games featuring two plumber brothers in a turn-based RPG format was bad.
-St Paul is a commuter city, so everything closes early. Walgreens closed at 5 PM. What?
-Setup times between games were, as ever, too long.
-Overflow and overbooking at the hotel. It must have been frustrating for those who got screwed by it. Hopefully next year they'll anticipate the size of the crowd better.

All things considered I thought the event was very successful. Though if it comes back to the twin cities next year, it might be worth considering a move to Minneapolis instead.

[quote="BroBuzz"]5. Way too many stream monsters at the event. Felt like 90% of attendees weren't actual speedrunners and just spectators. GDQs might as well be conventions at this point.[/quote]
I agree with this sentiment (even though it is a gross exaggeration). However, as stated in the OP: "We are also going to stop accepting onsite registrations.  You must register and pay to attend each event online by the registration due date."
I feel that this should help to cut back on people just walking in with the intention of nuthugging.

A few more comments:
Good:
+The hotel seemed to be very accommodating of our noise. I did not stay in the hotel, so maybe I don't have the whole story on that.
+The bars nearby were good. One of them had a waitress at it.
+The renovated hotel rooms were really nice. Like, REALLY nice!
+The hotel actively encouraged physical fitness - take the stairs folks!
+The food options were good (during the hours of 7 AM to 5 PM on weekdays).
+We didn't get murdered near Dominoes on Saturday night. +++++
+The practice and casual rooms were very well-equipped. They had everything! The casual room was hot though.
+Production quality on the stream, from what I saw, was very good except for the lack of game feed cropping the first few days. The interviews were a nice way to fill time between games. Audio was great. Layouts were great. Hosts were great.

Not so good:
-The scheduling of certain highly-anticipated games featuring two plumber brothers in a turn-based RPG format was bad.
-St Paul is a commuter city, so everything closes early. Walgreens closed at 5 PM. What?
-Setup times between games were, as ever, too long.
-Overflow and overbooking at the hotel. It must have been frustrating for those who got screwed by it. Hopefully next year they'll anticipate the size of the crowd better.

All things considered I thought the event was very successful. Though if it comes back to the twin cities next year, it might be worth considering a move to Minneapolis instead.

CyberBotX

2015-08-15 08:29:38 pm

Insane Killer Robot

I can only speak from an off-site viewer standpoint for this one.

Of the things that haven't been said yet, I'd like to say that I did like whoever from Power Up Audio was making the active audio during races be whoever was in the lead. It was a really nice touch. Otherwise, I have to agree with a lot of what was already said here, especially about liking the interviews between games.

Cool Matty

2015-08-15 08:30:14 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

I wanted to jump on the scheduling and communications complaint, because it's a serious one to us as well.

The rest of GDQ staff was informed about scheduling delays around the same time as we notified the public. We are NOT happy with that situation either, and we have made changes to ensure that this does not happen again. Deadlines were set with the full expectation that they would be met, and we were not aware until the last moment that it was not so. IF a deadline must be broken in the future, we will notify the public ahead of time. Also, we are improving runner communication in the future, including semi-automatic feedback from the submission system, but also doing everything we can to make sure the appropriate staff addresses any problems.

Dolfinh

2015-08-15 08:30:42 pm

Uhhhh 10

+ Game lineup was very good.
+ Practice Room / Casual Rooms were large, well equipped, and a ton of fun to be in.
+ Location was mostly good
+ Stream setup was great as both an audience member and a runner. No complains. You guys nailed it imo.
+ Good hosts.
+ Hotel rooms were nice, clean, and had plenty of space.
+ Staff was super helpful and kind despite some of the craziness happening during the week.
+ Plenty of food places nearby, just had to be aware of when things closed. I legitimately wish there were more fast food places nearby for quick snack runs but I would be 100% okay with this
location again.

?? Registration for runners? It was my fault for missing it but I know several other runners did not know they had to register online. I'm sure you guys had it all over the place.
?? The national anthem thing was... interesting. I'm sure some people enjoyed it but admittedly it kinda bothered me haha. The X2 Race itself was awesome.

- Hotel Renovation was not complete
- Communication about the shuttle was rough, as you know.

Otherwise guys good job. I thought I would only want to go to one GDQ but i will definitely be returning at some point in time. ^_^

+ Game lineup was very good.
+ Practice Room / Casual Rooms were large, well equipped, and a ton of fun to be in.
+ Location was mostly good 
+ Stream setup was great as both an audience member and a runner. No complains. You guys nailed it imo.
+ Good hosts.
+ Hotel rooms were nice, clean, and had plenty of space.
+ Staff was super helpful and kind despite some of the craziness happening during the week.
+ Plenty of food places nearby, just had to be aware of when things closed. I legitimately wish there were more fast food places nearby for quick snack runs but I would be 100% okay with this 
location again.

?? Registration for runners? It was my fault for missing it but I know several other runners did not know they had to register online. I'm sure you guys had it all over the place.
?? The national anthem thing was... interesting. I'm sure some people enjoyed it but admittedly it kinda bothered me haha. The X2 Race itself was awesome.

- Hotel Renovation was not complete
- Communication about the shuttle was rough, as you know.

Otherwise guys good job. I thought I would only want to go to one GDQ but i will definitely be returning at some point in time. ^_^