SGDQ 2016 Feedback and Critique

2016-07-29 11:29:23 pm

Quote from Cool Matty:

Quote from Ghoul02:

The bug in the tracker that prevented volunteers from assigning runners choice was maddening to deal with.

What issue was this? Wyrm and I haven't heard of it before now. Maybe UA was informed but we're really curious about this.

I believe he's referring to the privileges given to just donation station, and the fact that they can't assign donations to things like runner's/announcer's choice, like head donation can.

Wyrm

2016-07-29 11:41:17 pm

Quote from ChurchnSarge:

Quote from Cool Matty:

Quote from Ghoul02:

The bug in the tracker that prevented volunteers from assigning runners choice was maddening to deal with.

What issue was this? Wyrm and I haven't heard of it before now. Maybe UA was informed but we're really curious about this.

I believe he's referring to the privileges given to just donation station, and the fact that they can't assign donations to things like runner's/announcer's choice, like head donation can.

If this was the case, then it actually was a "bug" and we noticed after the event that the permissioning groups we had set did not have the correct permissions assigned to them. These should be fixed by the next event. This issue honestly also should have been addressed at the event given the fact I was there and was troubleshooting the tracker. We could put a more direct line between the donation volunteers/host with us tracker folk given that most of the interaction with the tracker comes from these two roles.

[quote="ChurchnSarge"][quote="Cool Matty"][quote="Ghoul02"]
The bug in the tracker that prevented volunteers from assigning runners choice was maddening to deal with.[/quote]

What issue was this? Wyrm and I haven't heard of it before now. Maybe UA was informed but we're really curious about this.[/quote]

I believe he's referring to the privileges given to just donation station, and the fact that they can't assign donations to things like runner's/announcer's choice, like head donation can. [/quote]

If this was the case, then it actually was a "bug" and we noticed after the event that the permissioning groups we had set did not have the correct permissions assigned to them. These should be fixed by the next event. This issue honestly also should have been addressed at the event given the fact I was there and was troubleshooting the tracker. We could put a more direct line between the donation volunteers/host with us tracker folk given that most of the interaction with the tracker comes from these two roles.

Habreno

2016-07-30 07:53:44 am

Dates definitely sounded suboptimal and it's slightly disheartening to hear they'll probably be around the same time next year. I'm likely in the minority here, but having a summer job at an amusement park, holiday weekends are not "free extra days off" but things you have to put in for before the season starts.

As I didn't go this year or watch it, I can't really critique the event itself, but I suppose it's time to start planning for next year.

TheMG2

2016-07-30 08:08:05 am

I gotta agree with Ghoul about the Indie block, it needs to be broken up a lot. Unless all of the indie game runners could only run that one day, you'd be far better off spreading them out. If you spread them out more, you'd have people more likely to watch them in between other games they want to see, versus turning off the stream for a block of games that are honestly completely unrelated to each other aside from the fact that they're indie.

DarkAries

2016-07-31 08:42:20 am

Overall things were good. In comparison to last year I much preferred the layout at the other hotel. It was just perfect, you had the central hub with registration and the eating area, then could go behind left or right for the other rooms, straight if you wanted stream room. Obviously the room sizes left something to be desired but it's going to be hard to top that. One big part I didn't like was the fact everything was so spaced out here. There wasn't even a map for the rooms. Unlike last year's lan room which was great and felt like a part of the marathon, this year it just felt like a public library. You got up there, people were just playing games or doing whatever. No projector with the stream which made it seem like the room was an after thought. Also as it was on a completely different floor you didn't have as much people popping in and out for casual talk etc.

The casual/tournament/pinball/arcade section (I'm just going to refer to it as the games section going forward if I have to) also had the same issue. You had to walk out of your way to head into the games aream which then had no stream projector of any kind. I mean there you can kind of live without the stream so it's whatever. But it just felt like a completely different place in comparison to the event. It also meant any time you had to get to World 9 for a remote to the tv or anything else, the long walk back and forth began. It also isolated anybody who was foreign or without a data plan. Half of event was in a seperate area, with zero wifi. Actually there was wifi just not for atendee usage. This sucked. Of course most people hung out in the games area because pinball and arcade is not something you easily have at home for most people. And now you have zero way of contacting your group of friends without data. This made planing anything super annoying as you would have to walk back to the other half of the event to get crappy but atleast works wifi.

This year I did like the venue better as a whole though. The fact there were so many food options within walking distance, along with a target was great. It allowed everybody to be as frugal as they want or need to be. The discord server was also an amazing idea. I really liked the fact everybody was able to share what they found or knew about the area, what restaurants people tried etc. This helped so much and I hope it continues for other events. Shoutouts to CBenni who fixed my issue of it not authenticating me for the attendee discord rooms. You the best.

Parking was odd. My roommate got us the 7 vouchers for parking and we assumed it was for just a 24 hour period. It infact was not. At one point while leaving the venue it said I owed like 70usd or something for the 2-3 days I was parked, one ticket covered it all. I ended up leaving the venue with like 3 or 4 extra tickets that I'm sure somebody else could of used. While the parking garage itself was much nicer then last year, the ticket system this year paled in comparison to how easy parking was last year. You just paid the amount and got an in/out ticket so you were good to go. Obviously it's not something that can easily be fixed or changed but still wanted to comment on it.

Unlike last year where I actually spent a good amount of time in the eating area, I was barely in it this year. Probably because it was a seperate room and was also shared with the boardgames. I dunno about board games and food mixing together but sure. Again last year this portion was just better and I don't think there is much that can be done about it again. The fact there were so many more food options and even the ability to do some light grocery shopping probably also changed the way people used the eating/casual area in comparison to last year.

I mean it looks like a wrote alot but all things considering, I did like the event and just wanted to share my thoughts about everything. Hoping to maybe get some answers on why the event was as broken apart as it was but otherwise, fun times with fun people and hope to see more of it next year.

Overall things were good. In comparison to last year I much preferred the layout at the other hotel. It was just perfect, you had the central hub with registration and the eating area, then could go behind left or right for the other rooms, straight if you wanted stream room. Obviously the room sizes left something to be desired but it's going to be hard to top that.  One big part I didn't like was the fact everything was so spaced out here. There wasn't even a map for the rooms.  Unlike last year's lan room which was great and felt like a part of the marathon, this year it just felt like a public library. You got up there, people were just playing games or doing whatever. No projector with the stream which made it seem like the room was an after thought. Also as it was on a completely different floor you didn't have as much people popping in and out for casual talk etc.

The casual/tournament/pinball/arcade section (I'm just going to refer to it as the games section going forward if I have to) also had the same issue.  You had to walk out of your way to head into the games aream which then had no stream projector of any kind. I mean there you can kind of live without the stream so it's whatever. But it just felt like a completely different place in comparison to the event.  It also meant any time you had to get to World 9 for a remote to the tv or anything else, the long walk back and forth began. It also isolated anybody who was foreign or without a data plan. Half of event was in a seperate area, with zero wifi. Actually there was wifi just not for atendee usage.  This sucked. Of course most people hung out in the games area because pinball and arcade is not something you easily have at home for most people. And now you have zero way of contacting your group of friends without data. This made planing anything super annoying as you would have to walk back to the other half of the event to get crappy but atleast works wifi.

This year I did like the venue better as a whole though. The fact there were so many food options within walking distance, along with a target was great. It allowed everybody to be as frugal as they want or need to be.  The discord server was also an amazing idea.  I really liked the fact everybody was able to share what they found or knew about the area, what restaurants people tried etc. This helped so much and I hope it continues for other events. Shoutouts to CBenni who fixed my issue of it not authenticating me for the attendee discord rooms. You the best.

Parking was odd. My roommate got us the 7 vouchers for parking and we assumed it was for just a 24 hour period. It infact was not. At one point while leaving the venue it said I owed like 70usd or something for the 2-3 days I was parked, one ticket covered it all. I ended up leaving the venue with like 3 or 4 extra tickets that I'm sure somebody else could of used. While the parking garage itself was much nicer then last year, the ticket system this year paled in comparison to how easy parking was last year. You just paid the amount and got an in/out ticket so you were good to go. Obviously it's not something that can easily be fixed or changed but still wanted to comment on it.

Unlike last year where I actually spent a good amount of time in the eating area, I was barely in it this year. Probably because it was a seperate room and was also shared with the boardgames. I dunno about board games and food mixing together but sure.  Again last year this portion was just better and I don't think there is much that can be done about it again. The fact there were so many more food options and even the ability to do some light grocery shopping probably also changed the way people used the eating/casual area in comparison to last year.

I mean it looks like a wrote alot but all things considering, I did like the event and just wanted to share my thoughts about everything. Hoping to maybe get some answers on why the event was as broken apart as it was but otherwise, fun times with fun people and hope to see more of it next year.

sumichu

2016-07-31 02:57:53 pm

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Quote from DarkAries:

Hoping to maybe get some answers on why the event was as broken apart as it was but otherwise, fun times with fun people and hope to see more of it next year.

Thanks for your feedback. It's much appreciated.

When we choose locations, we balance a lot of things such as food availability, room availability (they have to be able to house ~1400 attendees during the entire week-long event), reasonable room rates, and they have to have enough space to house all of our event rooms, in addition to other things like distance from airport, accessibility via public transit, etc.

They also have to be open to having us for an entire week.

For this event, we chose to deal with the layout of the hotel, given that the other qualifications we were looking for were met, and having most rooms on the same floor was helpful.

In a perfect world, we'd have an event space with everything on the same floor and accessible from the same hallway, but we will likely always be dealing with some give and take when choosing a venue. Sad

We can definitely work on a map for the next event to alleviate issues with strange layouts.

[quote="DarkAries"]
Hoping to maybe get some answers on why the event was as broken apart as it was but otherwise, fun times with fun people and hope to see more of it next year.[/quote]

Thanks for your feedback.  It's much appreciated.

When we choose locations, we balance a lot of things such as food availability, room availability (they have to be able to house ~1400 attendees during the entire week-long event), reasonable room rates, and they have to have enough space to house all of our event rooms, in addition to other things like distance from airport, accessibility via public transit, etc.

They also have to be open to having us for an entire week.

For this event, we chose to deal with the layout of the hotel, given that the other qualifications we were looking for were met, and having most rooms on the same floor was helpful.

In a perfect world, we'd have an event space with everything on the same floor and accessible from the same hallway, but we will likely always be dealing with some give and take when choosing a venue. :(

We can definitely work on a map for the next event to alleviate issues with strange layouts.

Emptyeye

2016-07-31 04:59:23 pm

Talk to the Hand

E-mailed some feedback to Matty (Who replied already--thanks for the prompt response), but just want to highlight this in particular in public:

Organization and the lead-up to the event. Holy crap. I was wrong. For all the talk about wanting things to change from AGDQ2016, I was skeptical that any meaningful change would actually take place. But y'all knocked it out of the park this time around. Deadlines were hit, suggestions were implemented, and as a whole, everything was incredibly smooth and drama-free, particularly the submissions process. Whatever changes you made to that process either on the actual submission end, or the feedback end, helped HUGELY with making things more professional. Kudos to the staff for that.

SarkMan

2016-07-31 05:44:32 pm

Greetings,

Just wanted to throw a quick thank you to the folks that made all this possible. Specifically the constantly updating schedule was on point. As I like to donate during the Diablo block if there is one, seeing that the Diablo 2 run was pushed back a few hours meant that i didn't have to set an alarm to make the donation in time. And little things like that help make the event that much more enjoyable to watch. So a huge thank you to those who kept this event on track and running smoothly, you're doing great work.

-Sark

frozentreasure

2016-07-31 08:17:55 pm

Good, I can ask the question that's been on my mind for a few weeks.

Staff/producers/etc.: what would you have done if Behemoth had also died in the Super Metroid run?

Why is it that Super Metroid alone is allowed to completely ignore marathon-safe strats or safety saves; the kind of thing that virtually every other runner and run makes a concession for specifically because it is in a marathon setting?

The idea that everyone should just accept it because the run is brutal like that is the worst excuse I think I've ever heard. Many runs are brutal and can result in resets 80% of the way through, and in a lot of cases that's in the order of hours lost, not minutes. In a setting with thousands of people watching and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bid war that runs for the entire marathon, to actively increase the possibility that the result of the bid war may not be seen in-game is utterly asinine.

These events have been running for years, this is a no-brainer. There is literally no reason to not have mandated that the runners just take a safety save before the big risk points, because there's no way it would dampen the hype of the race or run more than all four runners dying and then one person loading up a backup save before Mother Brain just to make sure everyone gets to see the ending, if that contingency was even put in place in the first place.

The event is partially to give the wide-facing public a glimpse into the world of speedrunning and to make speedrunning as accessible as possible to people unfamiliar with it. Multiple people in this thread already have said that using unsafe strats and aiming for PB or WR times isn't appropriate, yet the biggest run of the entire week throws all that out. The two-person race from AGDQ '15 fell on its face because it turned into a normal run halfway through, and still the lesson wasn't learned. The reverse boss order run went perfectly fine, and it had backup saves for all the major failure points.

And before I get the response I know is coming from at least one person: it doesn't matter that, in the end, Behemoth did succeed, and that it was a triumphant moment where he pulled through when everyone else succumbed, and that you almost couldn't plan it better. The point still stands that safer strats need to be called for at future events for the sake of the marathon, and the Super Metroid community/anyone else who would grumble about that needs to get over itself and accept what basically everyone else does.

Good, I can ask the question that's been on my mind for a few weeks.

Staff/producers/etc.: what would you have done if Behemoth had also died in the Super Metroid run?

Why is it that Super Metroid alone is allowed to completely ignore marathon-safe strats or safety saves; the kind of thing that virtually every other runner and run makes a concession for [i]specifically because it is in a marathon setting[/i]?

The idea that everyone should just accept it because the run is brutal like that is the worst excuse I think I've ever heard. Many runs are brutal and can result in resets 80% of the way through, and in a lot of cases that's in the order of hours lost, not minutes. In a setting with thousands of people watching and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bid war that runs for the entire marathon, to actively increase the possibility that the result of the bid war may not be seen in-game is utterly asinine.

These events have been running for years, this is a no-brainer. There is literally no reason to not have mandated that the runners just take a safety save before the big risk points, because there's no way it would dampen the hype of the race or run more than all four runners dying and then one person loading up a backup save before Mother Brain just to make sure everyone gets to see the ending, if that contingency was even put in place in the first place.

The event is partially to give the wide-facing public a glimpse into the world of speedrunning and to make speedrunning as accessible as possible to people unfamiliar with it. Multiple people in this thread already have said that using unsafe strats and aiming for PB or WR times isn't appropriate, yet the biggest run of the entire week throws all that out. The two-person race from AGDQ '15 fell on its face because it turned into a normal run halfway through, and still the lesson wasn't learned. The reverse boss order run went perfectly fine, and it had backup saves for all the major failure points.

And before I get the response I know is coming from at least one person: it doesn't matter that, in the end, Behemoth [i]did[/i] succeed, and that it was a triumphant moment where he pulled through when everyone else succumbed, and that you almost couldn't plan it better. The point still stands that safer strats need to be called for at future events for the sake of the marathon, and the Super Metroid community/anyone else who would grumble about that needs to get over itself and accept what basically everyone else does.

sumichu

2016-07-31 09:12:21 pm

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Quote from frozentreasure:

Why is it that Super Metroid alone is allowed to completely ignore marathon-safe strats or safety saves; the kind of thing that virtually every other runner and run makes a concession for specifically because it is in a marathon setting?

We agree that a safety save before Mother Brain would have been nice (there is a save right before it). It's not mentioned explicitly in our guidelines, though it does say to please account for mistakes. We have stressed marathon-safe routing for a long time, but I do want to note that we may not expect a safety save for every risky place (for instance, Sweetnumb died to Ridley; the save before that is a 3-minute backtrack to lower norfair, to my knowledge).

We'll look into ways to better word marathon-safe routing having safety saves for risky situations. We by no means encourage runners to avoid marathon-safe strats based on the game they play.

LeonPowPow

2016-07-31 09:54:52 pm

I attended the event with my only prior experience (apart from viewing) being SGDQ 2014 in Denver and the word-of-mouth I hear from friends who have attended the other venues.

Edit:
Upon reading it looks like there isn't a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said. I was a major fan of the venue and from all my long term friends who have been to several GDQs and being there myself, it sounds like it was one of the best fits GDQ has found. The only real, true negative about the venue I can muster up is the poor Wi-Fi reception, but given that's just a coverage and not an actual bandwidth issue from all I observed, that doesn't sound like an impossible to negotiate fix.

The hotel was extremely nice. The rooms were well furnished, I haven't heard stories about the hotel doing weird additional charges on people's credit cards (SGDQ 2014), the rooms came with nice TVs and fridges (SGDQ 2014 again), the costs were very good considering the quality of rooms we got. I really liked it and would recommend it again in the future.

One suggestion I have if we do this venue or one like it next year - provide maps and/or have a large map displayed in a central area that's impossible to miss (e.g next to the registration desk and the front entrance to the marathon room would've been perfect). I know much of this was communicated out in emails and postings on the SDA forum, but there are always going to be a lot of attendees who are going to slip through the cracks and miss the information efforts and I felt a lot of people showed up to the hotel being largely in the dark about the services and venues provided on-site or nearby. Not a whole lot of people I talked to knew about the gym/sauna/pool/hot tub that was free for guests. Most people seemed to know about the arcade and pinball rooms but very few seemed to know about the PC room. Almost no one I talked to knew about the skyway next to the pinball room entrance leading to a massive corporate mall complex that offered hundreds of food (and not just cheap fast food) options within a 5 minute walk of the SGDQ registration desk without ever having to leave the confines of the hotel (I feel this would especially have been useful knowledge for all of the people who were uncomfortable going out in the urban location that are voicing their experiences there as a con for the locale).

I planned to add a lot more than this but most of the sentiments I had have already been expressed Sad

I attended the event with my only prior experience (apart from viewing) being SGDQ 2014 in Denver and the word-of-mouth I hear from friends who have attended the other venues.

[b]Edit:[/b]
Upon reading it looks like there isn't a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said. I was a major fan of the venue and from all my long term friends who have been to several GDQs and being there myself, it sounds like it was one of the best fits GDQ has found. The only real, true negative about the venue I can muster up is the poor Wi-Fi reception, but given that's just a coverage and not an actual bandwidth issue from all I observed, that doesn't sound like an impossible to negotiate fix.

The hotel was extremely nice. The rooms were well furnished,  I haven't heard stories about the hotel doing weird additional charges on people's credit cards (SGDQ 2014), the rooms came with nice TVs and fridges (SGDQ 2014 again), the costs were very good considering the quality of rooms we got. I really liked it and would recommend it again in the future.

One suggestion I have if we do this venue or one like it next year - provide maps and/or have a large map displayed in a central area that's impossible to miss (e.g next to the registration desk and the front entrance to the marathon room would've been perfect). I know much of this was communicated out in emails and postings on the SDA forum, but there are always going to be a lot of attendees who are going to slip through the cracks and miss the information efforts and I felt a lot of people showed up to the hotel being largely in the dark about the services and venues provided on-site or nearby. Not a whole lot of people I talked to knew about the gym/sauna/pool/hot tub that was free for guests. Most people seemed to know about the arcade and pinball rooms but very few seemed to know about the PC room. Almost no one I talked to knew about the skyway next to the pinball room entrance leading to a massive corporate mall complex that offered hundreds of food (and not just cheap fast food) options within a 5 minute walk of the SGDQ registration desk without ever having to leave the confines of the hotel (I feel this would especially have been useful knowledge for all of the people who were uncomfortable going out in the urban location that are voicing their experiences there as a con for the locale).

I planned to add a lot more than this but most of the sentiments I had have already been expressed :(

TheMG2

2016-08-01 05:46:41 am

Quote from frozentreasure:

Good, I can ask the question that's been on my mind for a few weeks.

Staff/producers/etc.: what would you have done if Behemoth had also died in the Super Metroid run?

Why is it that Super Metroid alone is allowed to completely ignore marathon-safe strats or safety saves; the kind of thing that virtually every other runner and run makes a concession for specifically because it is in a marathon setting?

The idea that everyone should just accept it because the run is brutal like that is the worst excuse I think I've ever heard. Many runs are brutal and can result in resets 80% of the way through, and in a lot of cases that's in the order of hours lost, not minutes. In a setting with thousands of people watching and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bid war that runs for the entire marathon, to actively increase the possibility that the result of the bid war may not be seen in-game is utterly asinine.

These events have been running for years, this is a no-brainer. There is literally no reason to not have mandated that the runners just take a safety save before the big risk points, because there's no way it would dampen the hype of the race or run more than all four runners dying and then one person loading up a backup save before Mother Brain just to make sure everyone gets to see the ending, if that contingency was even put in place in the first place.

The event is partially to give the wide-facing public a glimpse into the world of speedrunning and to make speedrunning as accessible as possible to people unfamiliar with it. Multiple people in this thread already have said that using unsafe strats and aiming for PB or WR times isn't appropriate, yet the biggest run of the entire week throws all that out. The two-person race from AGDQ '15 fell on its face because it turned into a normal run halfway through, and still the lesson wasn't learned. The reverse boss order run went perfectly fine, and it had backup saves for all the major failure points.

And before I get the response I know is coming from at least one person: it doesn't matter that, in the end, Behemoth did succeed, and that it was a triumphant moment where he pulled through when everyone else succumbed, and that you almost couldn't plan it better. The point still stands that safer strats need to be called for at future events for the sake of the marathon, and the Super Metroid community/anyone else who would grumble about that needs to get over itself and accept what basically everyone else does.

From what I heard Behemoth just didn't think to save before mother brain. Not that that's really a valid excuse for nobody to use any sort of safety strats but yeah.

[quote="frozentreasure"]Good, I can ask the question that's been on my mind for a few weeks.

Staff/producers/etc.: what would you have done if Behemoth had also died in the Super Metroid run?

Why is it that Super Metroid alone is allowed to completely ignore marathon-safe strats or safety saves; the kind of thing that virtually every other runner and run makes a concession for [i]specifically because it is in a marathon setting[/i]?

The idea that everyone should just accept it because the run is brutal like that is the worst excuse I think I've ever heard. Many runs are brutal and can result in resets 80% of the way through, and in a lot of cases that's in the order of hours lost, not minutes. In a setting with thousands of people watching and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bid war that runs for the entire marathon, to actively increase the possibility that the result of the bid war may not be seen in-game is utterly asinine.

These events have been running for years, this is a no-brainer. There is literally no reason to not have mandated that the runners just take a safety save before the big risk points, because there's no way it would dampen the hype of the race or run more than all four runners dying and then one person loading up a backup save before Mother Brain just to make sure everyone gets to see the ending, if that contingency was even put in place in the first place.

The event is partially to give the wide-facing public a glimpse into the world of speedrunning and to make speedrunning as accessible as possible to people unfamiliar with it. Multiple people in this thread already have said that using unsafe strats and aiming for PB or WR times isn't appropriate, yet the biggest run of the entire week throws all that out. The two-person race from AGDQ '15 fell on its face because it turned into a normal run halfway through, and still the lesson wasn't learned. The reverse boss order run went perfectly fine, and it had backup saves for all the major failure points.

And before I get the response I know is coming from at least one person: it doesn't matter that, in the end, Behemoth [i]did[/i] succeed, and that it was a triumphant moment where he pulled through when everyone else succumbed, and that you almost couldn't plan it better. The point still stands that safer strats need to be called for at future events for the sake of the marathon, and the Super Metroid community/anyone else who would grumble about that needs to get over itself and accept what basically everyone else does.[/quote]
From what I heard Behemoth just didn't think to save before mother brain. Not that that's really a valid excuse for nobody to use any sort of safety strats but yeah.

thecooley

2016-08-01 02:55:23 pm

My husband and I drove over 14 hours to attend our first GDQ event. We’ve watched several GDQs at home, but it was really awesome to experience in person. I’ve tried to balance the pros and cons in my comments, because truly, the experience was 99% positive.

Hotel/Cost/Breakfast:
The hotel was excellent! Nice, spacious, clean rooms for a great price. We loved that there were so many reasonable food options within easy walking distance. Hell’s Kitchen was so good; we went there twice. Having a fridge in the room and Target close by meant that we ate breakfast super cheap and were able to keep snacks around for when we didn’t really have time for a meal. The hotel restaurant had decent food, and we appreciated the GDQ attendee discount. We had a good time exploring the Skyway connections to all the nearby buildings, where we discovered even more places to eat and several random shopping opportunities. We did notice that quick/cheap evening food choices tended to be a little sparse, but we opted to just split an appetizer and entrée at a sit down restaurant. We did not go out late at night, so I can’t attest to the perception of it being a rough area. We are not city-dwellers, but still felt perfectly comfortable walking around during the day. Having the event in MN was great because it wasn’t face-meltingly hot.

Parking was great in terms of convenience and location. We were a little unsure about the vouchers. We never could figure out if it was a per day thing, or per entry/exit. We didn’t drive every day, but whenever we left, they only asked for one voucher. We had 2 or 3 vouchers left that we would have been glad to share with someone if we knew they needed it. Without the vouchers, $17 a day is steep.

The hotel wi-fi sucked. I know it can’t be helped when 1500 devices connect to the network at once, but still. Is there a way to supplement it during high capacity events? Having the stream projected in the hospitality room was good. I didn’t have to drain my phone battery or my data trying to watch while I was eating.

Event:
The stream room layout was really good. It was easy to get in and out, and I felt like most of the room had a reasonable viewing angle. The chairs hurt my butt after an hour or so, but that’s probably going to be a hotel conference room standard. From a short person’s perspective, I would have liked the projector screens to be mounted a bit higher. I always tried to be in the first five rows, because after that, the bottom of the screen ended up behind someone’s head. Shoutout to a couple of tall dudes who were so sweet about trying not to block my view when they sat down. Honestly, just about everyone I interacted with during the whole event was so nice.

I had absolutely no idea there was a LAN room on the 3rd floor until I read about it in this thread. Luckily we don’t mind wandering around, so we found all the rooms on the 2nd floor. I’m glad someone put signs on all the doors identifying the rooms, but a map at the beginning of the event would have been awesome.

It could just be me being a noob, but I didn’t really understand the function of all the rooms. I knew to stay out of the practice rooms since I’m not a runner, but I didn’t really know what to do in the casual room. Was that all set up for people to bring their own systems and games? Someone said something about checking equipment out from World9, but it was hard to tell if that was just for runners. If this was published somewhere I missed it completely.

I LOVED THE PINBALL ROOM. Other than the stream room, that’s where I spent most of my time. I could just hug the whole pinball crew. Those guys were amazing. The arcade selection was pretty meh, but I made the rounds on each game just to say I tried it. I wish there could have been a stream projector in that area, but it was pretty small, so I understand it being logistically impossible.

Thanks to everyone who brought and shared tabletop games! We discovered several new ones that were a lot of fun.

Names on badges should be larger and easier to read. I don’t know a lot of faces, but instantly recognize the names of many runners. I felt like a doofus having to ask people who they were and what game they ran. (Yes, I’m that weirdo who talks to people in elevators, sorry)

Communication during the event:
Apparently there was a lot of stuff going on that we never knew about until someone happened to post a pic to Twitter after the fact. I tried to build a Twitter list of people who seemed to be in-the-know, but it didn’t really help, and nobody was posting here on the forum. For example, there was a puzzle speedrun in the tabletop room that I would have loved to be a part of, but didn’t know until it was over. The giant SMS race in the casual room would have been cool to watch. What was I missing in terms of communication? Was it all word-of-mouth or true spontaneity? If these events weren’t open to the community at large, that’s fine too. I just couldn’t help but feeling like I was always missing something. At least there were signs about the cake. Ha.

Game schedule:
There was too much Mega Man, even broken out into two blocks on different days. I know that’s a popular series, but TBH, that’s when we chose to go to Mall of America. The Disney block was good this year (glad to see Quackshot this time), and the Elder Scrolls block made me so happy. Several of the good NES and Genesis games ended up in the crazy early morning hours for some reason. I’m old, but not old enough to get up that early.

Great job to whoever was getting the VODs posted so quickly! Other than a few having audio sync problems at first, it was great to catch up on the games from overnight.

I’m kind of torn over the encore game. I’d planned to be in the stream room for the finale, but after another game got added, we just went to bed and missed out. I’m glad it helped reach the donation goal, at least.

Overall, I felt the event was well organized, the production quality was the highest it’s ever been, and everyone seemed to have a good time. We want to come back next year for sure!

My husband and I drove over 14 hours to attend our first GDQ event. We’ve watched several GDQs at home, but it was really awesome to experience in person. I’ve tried to balance the pros and cons in my comments, because truly, the experience was 99% positive.

[b]Hotel/Cost/Breakfast:[/b]
The hotel was excellent! Nice, spacious, clean rooms for a great price. We loved that there were so many reasonable food options within easy walking distance. Hell’s Kitchen was so good; we went there twice. Having a fridge in the room and Target close by meant that we ate breakfast super cheap and were able to keep snacks around for when we didn’t really have time for a meal. The hotel restaurant had decent food, and we appreciated the GDQ attendee discount. We had a good time exploring the Skyway connections to all the nearby buildings, where we discovered even more places to eat and several random shopping opportunities. We did notice that quick/cheap evening food choices tended to be a little sparse, but we opted to just split an appetizer and entrée at a sit down restaurant. We did not go out late at night, so I can’t attest to the perception of it being a rough area. We are not city-dwellers, but still felt perfectly comfortable walking around during the day. Having the event in MN was great because it wasn’t face-meltingly hot.

Parking was great in terms of convenience and location. We were a little unsure about the vouchers. We never could figure out if it was a per day thing, or per entry/exit. We didn’t drive every day, but whenever we left, they only asked for one voucher. We had 2 or 3 vouchers left that we would have been glad to share with someone if we knew they needed it. Without the vouchers, $17 a day is steep.

The hotel wi-fi sucked. I know it can’t be helped when 1500 devices connect to the network at once, but still. Is there a way to supplement it during high capacity events? Having the stream projected in the hospitality room was good. I didn’t have to drain my phone battery or my data trying to watch while I was eating.

[b]Event:[/b]
The stream room layout was really good. It was easy to get in and out, and I felt like most of the room had a reasonable viewing angle. The chairs hurt my butt after an hour or so, but that’s probably going to be a hotel conference room standard. From a short person’s perspective, I would have liked the projector screens to be mounted a bit higher. I always tried to be in the first five rows, because after that, the bottom of the screen ended up behind someone’s head. Shoutout to a couple of tall dudes who were so sweet about trying not to block my view when they sat down. Honestly, just about everyone I interacted with during the whole event was so nice.

I had absolutely no idea there was a LAN room on the 3rd floor until I read about it in this thread. Luckily we don’t mind wandering around, so we found all the rooms on the 2nd floor. I’m glad someone put signs on all the doors identifying the rooms, but a map at the beginning of the event would have been awesome.

It could just be me being a noob, but I didn’t really understand the function of all the rooms. I knew to stay out of the practice rooms since I’m not a runner, but I didn’t really know what to do in the casual room. Was that all set up for people to bring their own systems and games? Someone said something about checking equipment out from World9, but it was hard to tell if that was just for runners. If this was published somewhere I missed it completely.

I LOVED THE PINBALL ROOM. Other than the stream room, that’s where I spent most of my time. I could just hug the whole pinball crew. Those guys were amazing. The arcade selection was pretty meh, but I made the rounds on each game just to say I tried it. I wish there could have been a stream projector in that area, but it was pretty small, so I understand it being logistically impossible.

Thanks to everyone who brought and shared tabletop games! We discovered several new ones that were a lot of fun.

Names on badges should be larger and easier to read. I don’t know a lot of faces, but instantly recognize the names of many runners. I felt like a doofus having to ask people who they were and what game they ran. (Yes, I’m that weirdo who talks to people in elevators, sorry)

[b]Communication during the event:[/b]
Apparently there was a lot of stuff going on that we never knew about until someone happened to post a pic to Twitter after the fact. I tried to build a Twitter list of people who seemed to be in-the-know, but it didn’t really help, and nobody was posting here on the forum. For example, there was a puzzle speedrun in the tabletop room that I would have loved to be a part of, but didn’t know until it was over. The giant SMS race in the casual room would have been cool to watch. What was I missing in terms of communication? Was it all word-of-mouth or true spontaneity? If these events weren’t open to the community at large, that’s fine too. I just couldn’t help but feeling like I was always missing something. At least there were signs about the cake. Ha.

[b]Game schedule:[/b]
There was too much Mega Man, even broken out into two blocks on different days. I know that’s a popular series, but TBH, that’s when we chose to go to Mall of America. The Disney block was good this year (glad to see Quackshot this time), and the Elder Scrolls block made me so happy. Several of the good NES and Genesis games ended up in the crazy early morning hours for some reason. I’m old, but not old enough to get up that early.

Great job to whoever was getting the VODs posted so quickly! Other than a few having audio sync problems at first, it was great to catch up on the games from overnight.

I’m kind of torn over the encore game. I’d planned to be in the stream room for the finale, but after another game got added, we just went to bed and missed out. I’m glad it helped reach the donation goal, at least.

Overall, I felt the event was well organized, the production quality was the highest it’s ever been, and everyone seemed to have a good time. We want to come back next year for sure!

Alventenie

2016-08-01 08:57:09 pm

Quote from thecooley:

Event:
The stream room layout was really good. It was easy to get in and out, and I felt like most of the room had a reasonable viewing angle. The chairs hurt my butt after an hour or so, but that’s probably going to be a hotel conference room standard. From a short person’s perspective, I would have liked the projector screens to be mounted a bit higher. I always tried to be in the first five rows, because after that, the bottom of the screen ended up behind someone’s head. Shoutout to a couple of tall dudes who were so sweet about trying not to block my view when they sat down. Honestly, just about everyone I interacted with during the whole event was so nice.

I know this was mentioned a few times in other posts. The projector screens themselves are adjustable height on the poles that hold them up. The difference from AGDQ to SGDQ this year is that AGDQ is in a ball room that has a high ceiling whereas SGDQ's stream room only had an 11 foot ceiling. This limits how high we can put the top of the projector screens and as such they were slightly lower than the height at AGDQ.

[quote="thecooley"]
[b]Event:[/b]
The stream room layout was really good. It was easy to get in and out, and I felt like most of the room had a reasonable viewing angle. The chairs hurt my butt after an hour or so, but that’s probably going to be a hotel conference room standard. From a short person’s perspective, I would have liked the projector screens to be mounted a bit higher. I always tried to be in the first five rows, because after that, the bottom of the screen ended up behind someone’s head. Shoutout to a couple of tall dudes who were so sweet about trying not to block my view when they sat down. Honestly, just about everyone I interacted with during the whole event was so nice.

[/quote]

I know this was mentioned a few times in other posts. The projector screens themselves are adjustable height on the poles that hold them up. The difference from AGDQ to SGDQ this year is that AGDQ is in a ball room that has a high ceiling whereas SGDQ's stream room only had an 11 foot ceiling. This limits how high we can put the top of the projector screens and as such they were slightly lower than the height at AGDQ.

Escasnored

2016-08-01 11:47:13 pm

Congratulations on another successful event! As an at-home viewer, I have to say this GDQ was noticeably the most polished one yet.

The commercials for Doctors Without Borders were brilliant. I especially liked the one showcasing how VR was helping them design new facilities.

With that said, there's always room for improvement!

The first thing I want to address was the issues with getting ahead and behind schedule at times. Admittedly, I've forgotten some of the specifics of what had happened now; but as I understand it, there was an extra hour or so of time that was filled with Puwexil's Illusion of Gaia run (which was fantastic). This caused the hour the event had "gained" to be "lost" instead due to it being a 2 hour run. For what it's worth, I think this was handled well this time; however, for future events, there could be some alternative methods to enable the marathon to get back on schedule.

Between different streams/chats we've floated around different ideas. For instance, members of staff could keep a few short 20-30 minute runs in their pocket in case the event gets too far ahead of schedule. While this is certainly "possible", I'm sure it would put a bit more strain on you guys than necessary.

Another idea that was discussed was the idea of having an impromptu or prerecorded "Get Yourself Speedrunning" segment. You could take a game and just explore some of the common tricks and techniques (in the case of SM64, you could discuss BLJs, showoff and explain cannonless in Whomp's Fortress, etc.). Personally, I liked the GYS idea most of all.

Now, I'd like to extend my thanks to all of the mods for the GDQ Discord server. If we had an issue or someone was being toxic in chat, we could ping you guys and you would resolve the issue within a few minutes. That said, there were a few moments where I felt like there needed to be a more active moderator presence. I know many of you were on-site and busy with the event, as CBenni told us as much in chat once. I'd like to suggest bringing on a few more off-site moderators for the Discord chat who could just help fill in the gap. I'd be more than willing to help out next time!

Once again, thanks for putting on such a high-quality production! Serious shout outs to Power Up Audio and the rest of the tech crew!

Congratulations on another successful event! As an at-home viewer, I have to say this GDQ was noticeably the most polished one yet.

The commercials for Doctors Without Borders were brilliant. I especially liked the one showcasing how VR was helping them design new facilities.

With that said, there's always room for improvement!

The first thing I want to address was the issues with getting ahead and behind schedule at times. Admittedly, I've forgotten some of the specifics of what had happened now; but as I understand it, there was an extra hour or so of time that was filled with Puwexil's Illusion of Gaia run (which was fantastic). This caused the hour the event had "gained" to be "lost" instead due to it being a 2 hour run. For what it's worth, I think this was handled well this time; however, for future events, there could be some alternative methods to enable the marathon to get back on schedule.

Between different streams/chats we've floated around different ideas. For instance, members of staff could keep a few short 20-30 minute runs in their pocket in case the event gets too far ahead of schedule. While this is certainly "possible", I'm sure it would put a bit more strain on you guys than necessary.

Another idea that was discussed was the idea of having an impromptu or prerecorded "Get Yourself Speedrunning" segment. You could take a game and just explore some of the common tricks and techniques (in the case of SM64, you could discuss BLJs, showoff and explain cannonless in Whomp's Fortress, etc.). Personally, I liked the GYS idea most of all.

Now, I'd like to extend my thanks to all of the mods for the GDQ Discord server. If we had an issue or someone was being toxic in chat, we could ping you guys and you would resolve the issue within a few minutes. That said, there were a few moments where I felt like there needed to be a more active moderator presence. I know many of you were on-site and busy with the event, as CBenni told us as much in chat once. I'd like to suggest bringing on a few more off-site moderators for the Discord chat who could just help fill in the gap. I'd be more than willing to help out next time!

Once again, thanks for putting on such a high-quality production! Serious shout outs to Power Up Audio and the rest of the tech crew!

CBenni

2016-08-02 07:09:27 am

So, my off-site feedback:
Over the years, communication has risen to a level where it is never an issue anymore. Thats great! We never had to wait for anyone to do anything, things happened instantly. Huge shout out to all the headdonation people as well as Squishy and moblord for helping us deliver a fun experience!
However, Escasnored touched on this and I noticed this quite heavily: Moderators were severely understaffed this year. We had a whole row of no-shows, people who popped into chat once or twice at best and so on. On the other hand, we had some of the best event moderators on twitch, so it was still manageable, although we had to go emote-only once or twice since I was busy with real-life stuff :< We will have to advertise the mod applications in the different channels that we can, but thats something to discuss closer to AGDQ 2017.
As for Discord, I was extremely pleasantly surprised at how well it went. Aside from a few shitters, the entire community was great and positive, almost completely removing the need to mod at all (which, judging by the points made above, would have been impossible in the first place - we didnt have the man-power to do so). The fact that we use discord for the event was made long after moderator applications closed, so we didnt have a dedicated team of discord moderators, this is something I hope to change for future events.
The volunteer/attendee/runner roles were a nice touch, I doubt we wont use those again. Since I set it up just days before the event started, it was still somewhat underused, I believe we can fix that for future events.

Aside from that, the stream grows in production quality each year, theres really not much feedback to give, it was awesome!

So, my off-site feedback:
Over the years, communication has risen to a level where it is never an issue anymore. Thats great! We never had to wait for anyone to do anything, things happened instantly. Huge shout out to all the headdonation people as well as Squishy and moblord for helping us deliver a fun experience!
However, Escasnored touched on this and I noticed this quite heavily: Moderators were severely understaffed this year. We had a whole row of no-shows, people who popped into chat once or twice at best and so on. On the other hand, we had some of the best event moderators on twitch, so it was still manageable, although we had to go emote-only once or twice since I was busy with real-life stuff :< We will have to advertise the mod applications in the different channels that we can, but thats something to discuss closer to AGDQ 2017.
As for Discord, I was extremely pleasantly surprised at how well it went. Aside from a few shitters, the entire community was great and positive, almost completely removing the need to mod at all (which, judging by the points made above, would have been impossible in the first place - we didnt have the man-power to do so). The fact that we use discord for the event was made long after moderator applications closed, so we didnt have a dedicated team of discord moderators, this is something I hope to change for future events.
The volunteer/attendee/runner roles were a nice touch, I doubt we wont use those again. Since I set it up just days before the event started, it was still somewhat underused, I believe we can fix that for future events.

Aside from that, the stream grows in production quality each year, theres really not much feedback to give, it was awesome!

burningsoup

Edit history:

burningsoup: 2016-08-02 03:47:52 pm

2016-08-02 12:39:47 pm

EDIT: Ignore #1, I just saw the updated Submission Guidelines and that looks like it's covered.

Really enjoyed this event from home since I couldn't attend. Setups were fast, the game selection was strong (though I think you could have cut some Mega Mans in favor of more unexpected choices), and overall it felt more fun all around than some previous GDQs.

A few comments from the viewer perspective:

1) I think there may need to be some more discretion regarding alternative categories as donation incentives. Kythol's Ty the Tasmanian Tiger run was a mess, not because he performed poorly, but because the Pacifist incentive was butchered. And sure, anyone can make mistakes due to nerves, but here's the thing: even if he had not killed random enemies, there were still Thunder Eggs routed into the speedrun that required him to kill enemies (plus the bosses). So it was never really going to be Pacifist in the first place. And that sort of thing really should have been ironed out in the submission process, or by watching his practice runs leading up to the event. When stuff like that happens, it doesn't feel fair to the people who donated to see it.

2) I know this one is a bit more of a complicated issue, but I think if a runner is ahead of their estimate, they should be allowed to show some quick glitches and things after their run ends. Keeping to the schedule is important, but (for example) tripl3ag3nt was 9 minutes ahead of estimate and was almost not allowed to show off the box glitch in Sonic 06. And later, Heinki was more than 10 minutes ahead of his estimate and it sounded like he wouldn't have been allowed to show off the glitched wall textures if he hadn't just gone for it. Again, I get that the schedule is sacred, but I think if runners are more than 5 minutes under estimate, they should be allowed to show off at least one quick thing.

Other than that, I just want to reiterate that the Super Metroid racers really do need to be strongly encouraged (if not required) to route in safety saves. And super-secret-last-minute donation incentives should either be factored into the schedule ahead of time or (as someone else mentioned) used as an "encore" after the big ending celebration. Again, though, overall a really fun marathon that once again ruined my sleep schedule with great runs and runners.

EDIT: Ignore #1, I just saw the updated Submission Guidelines and that looks like it's covered.

Really enjoyed this event from home since I couldn't attend. Setups were fast, the game selection was strong (though I think you could have cut some Mega Mans in favor of more unexpected choices), and overall it felt more fun all around than some previous GDQs.

A few comments from the viewer perspective:

1) I think there may need to be some more discretion regarding alternative categories as donation incentives. Kythol's Ty the Tasmanian Tiger run was a mess, not because he performed poorly, but because the Pacifist incentive was butchered. And sure, anyone can make mistakes due to nerves, but here's the thing: even if he had not killed random enemies, there were still Thunder Eggs routed into the speedrun that required him to kill enemies (plus the bosses). So it was never really going to be Pacifist in the first place. And that sort of thing really should have been ironed out in the submission process, or by watching his practice runs leading up to the event. When stuff like that happens, it doesn't feel fair to the people who donated to see it.

2) I know this one is a bit more of a complicated issue, but I think if a runner is ahead of their estimate, they should be allowed to show some quick glitches and things after their run ends. Keeping to the schedule is important, but (for example) tripl3ag3nt was 9 minutes ahead of estimate and was almost not allowed to show off the box glitch in Sonic 06. And later, Heinki was more than 10 minutes ahead of his estimate and it sounded like he wouldn't have been allowed to show off the glitched wall textures if he hadn't just gone for it. Again, I get that the schedule is sacred, but I think if runners are more than 5 minutes under estimate, they should be allowed to show off at least one quick thing.

Other than that, I just want to reiterate that the Super Metroid racers really do need to be strongly encouraged (if not required) to route in safety saves. And super-secret-last-minute donation incentives should either be factored into the schedule ahead of time or (as someone else mentioned) used as an "encore" after the big ending celebration. Again, though, overall a really fun marathon that once again ruined my sleep schedule with great runs and runners.

kcowolf

2016-08-03 05:59:06 am

Instead of requiring the Super Metroid runners to perform safety saves during the run, what if they were asked to have a couple of backup saves already on the cartridge before the run starts? Like one before Phantoon and one before Ridley. That way they wouldn't have to ruin a potential WR by being required to save during the run, but they would have somewhere to pick up from if they die.

bassdeluxe27

2016-08-03 12:39:41 pm

aka forte27

To start with, I had a massively positive experience this year. If I don't mention one of your topics, it means I have nothing to add, and it was adequate/good.

Location and Hotel:
I've been to 4 marathons now (SGDQ 2014, SGDQ 2015, AGDQ 2016 and this one). This was easily the best location experience I've had. The hotel was very nice, and the outside hotel options were excellent. Just the fact that there was a Target within a few blocks covered everything anyone could possibly need. The food options were great too. I did encounter some of the seedier areas, but it's important to travel in groups when you're in an active downtown area. If we return to this hotel, I'd ask that you emphasize traveling in groups when you send out the information email to attendees. This is common knowledge at many cons that take place in large cities, but this is the first time we've been in such an active location (from my experience), so I understand that people may not have been as prepared for it.

The only negative about the hotel was the reception/wifi, and you're doing the best you can with that.

Costs:
The costs were fine, especially since there was much more variety in food options.

Breakfast:
Honestly, I agree with you. I did the pastry thing one morning, and it was really unimpressive. I'd rather you just not bother with it if the hotels are going to give you trouble. The full breakfast at AGDQ 2016 was great, but something like this really didn't cover it well. I went out for breakfast every morning.

Arcade:
I'll agree generally that the arcade was a bit lighter than AGDQ, but I was still as happy as I could be. The inclusion of a shmup cabinet towards the end was nice too (I don't remember having that at AGDQ, so maybe we could add one?). The pinball tables were excellent.

Also, it's slightly inconvenient how far away the Arcade area was, but It makes sense to me that it should be separate from the stream room, considering the noise level. It wasn't too bad to me.

Also, please provide hand sanitizer. I got sick on Friday, and it sucked. For a room as "touch heavy" as an arcade, it really should have been a no-brainer to have Purel stations.

Event Layout:
I like how the event was laid out, although the LAN room was probably a bit further away than it needed to be. I agree that the signage for the locations of rooms needed to be improved.

My only comment (not complaint) would be related to the "hospitality room," and the trickiness surrounding food brought into that room. It was explained to me early in the week what the expectations were in that room (clean up after yourselves, or else), but I felt like others weren't aware of those expectations (even if it should be common sense). I missed my bus on Sunday morning and got to hang out for some extra time, and that room looked like a hurricane had run through it when I went up there. I was really disappointed to see that, and I wish I'd taken a picture for posterity. Is there a way to post more aggressive notes telling people to keep that room clean (because I worried about the hotel's reaction).

Note: The staff did the best they could with this room. While I may not know all the specifics, I know they really worked to bend some rules for us regarding our use of that room. Thank you for your work there.

Other Entertainment:
You mentioned a suggestion for a board game sponsor and a dedicated board game space. I'd love a dedicated space, but I'm not sure that a sponsor is required. It's certainly a popular activity, but the Board Game Crew has the game supply covered pretty well, and other people generally cover their own games fine as well. I'm not too worried about that personally.

Dates:
I'm gonna buck the trend here and say the dates were perfect for me. As an office drone, I have limited vacation days, so being able to lump a holiday in with this trip saved me some vacation time. If you have to schedule during July 4th again, I'm all for it (but I recognize I'm in the minority).

Final Notes:
I had an amazing time, and I'm pumped at how successful the marathon was as a whole. I mentioned a lot of things here, but very little of it is actually negative. Thanks again for another great marathon, and I'll see you in January.

To start with, I had a massively positive experience this year.  If I don't mention one of your topics, it means I have nothing to add, and it was adequate/good.

[b]Location and Hotel:[/b]
I've been to 4 marathons now (SGDQ 2014, SGDQ 2015, AGDQ 2016 and this one).  This was easily the best location experience I've had.  The hotel was very nice, and the outside hotel options were excellent.  Just the fact that there was a Target within a few blocks covered everything anyone could possibly need.  The food options were great too.  I did encounter some of the seedier areas, but it's important to travel in groups when you're in an active downtown area.  If we return to this hotel, I'd ask that you emphasize traveling in groups when you send out the information email to attendees.  This is common knowledge at many cons that take place in large cities, but this is the first time we've been in such an active location (from my experience), so I understand that people may not have been as prepared for it.

The only negative about the hotel was the reception/wifi, and you're doing the best you can with that.

[b]Costs:[/b]
The costs were fine, especially since there was much more variety in food options.

[b]Breakfast:[/b]
Honestly, I agree with you.  I did the pastry thing one morning, and it was really unimpressive.  I'd rather you just not bother with it if the hotels are going to give you trouble.  The full breakfast at AGDQ 2016 was great, but something like this really didn't cover it well.  I went out for breakfast every morning.

[b]Arcade:[/b]
I'll agree generally that the arcade was a bit lighter than AGDQ, but I was still as happy as I could be.  The inclusion of a shmup cabinet towards the end was nice too (I don't remember having that at AGDQ, so maybe we could add one?).  The pinball tables were excellent.

Also, it's slightly inconvenient how far away the Arcade area was, but It makes sense to me that it should be separate from the stream room, considering the noise level.  It wasn't too bad to me.

Also, [b]please provide hand sanitizer[/b].  I got sick on Friday, and it sucked.  For a room as "touch heavy" as an arcade, it really should have been a no-brainer to have Purel stations.

[b]Event Layout:[/b]
I like how the event was laid out, although the LAN room was probably a bit further away than it needed to be.  I agree that the signage for the locations of rooms needed to be improved.

My only comment (not complaint) would be related to the "hospitality room," and the trickiness surrounding food brought into that room.  It was explained to me early in the week what the expectations were in that room (clean up after yourselves, or else), but I felt like others weren't aware of those expectations (even if it should be common sense).  I missed my bus on Sunday morning and got to hang out for some extra time, and that room looked like a hurricane had run through it when I went up there.  I was really disappointed to see that, and I wish I'd taken a picture for posterity.  Is there a way to post more aggressive notes telling people to keep that room clean (because I worried about the hotel's reaction).

Note: The staff did the best they could with this room.  While I may not know all the specifics, I know they really worked to bend some rules for us regarding our use of that room.  Thank you for your work there.

[b]Other Entertainment:[/b]
You mentioned a suggestion for a board game sponsor and a dedicated board game space.  I'd love a dedicated space, but I'm not sure that a sponsor is required.  It's certainly a popular activity, but the Board Game Crew has the game supply covered pretty well, and other people generally cover their own games fine as well.  I'm not too worried about that personally.

[b]Dates:[/b]
I'm gonna buck the trend here and say the dates were perfect for me.  As an office drone, I have limited vacation days, so being able to lump a holiday in with this trip saved me some vacation time.  If you have to schedule during July 4th again, I'm all for it (but I recognize I'm in the minority).

[b]Final Notes:[/b]
I had an amazing time, and I'm pumped at how successful the marathon was as a whole.  I mentioned a lot of things here, but very little of it is actually negative.  Thanks again for another great marathon, and I'll see you in January.

ChurchnSarge

Edit history:

ChurchnSarge: 2016-08-03 08:54:41 pm

ChurchnSarge: 2016-08-03 08:54:08 pm

2016-08-03 08:53:50 pm

Quote from thecooley:

For example, there was a puzzle speedrun in the tabletop room that I would have loved to be a part of, but didn’t know until it was over.

In general, stuff like this and the SMS thing are organised by the respective communities. I can't talk for all of them, but in particular the puzzle race was organized by the Board Game Crew, and was really only mentioned to that group of people beforehand. I'm sure some of us may have mentioned something to some people. That being said I'm sure at the start one of us yelled something like "Hey anyone want to race completing a puzzle?" or something. It definitely wasn't exclusive, just wasn't really broadcast to everyone.

ChurchnSarge

2016-08-03 08:56:57 pm

Submissions, Registration, and Schedule
I think it ran really smoothly. I don't remember having any complaints. Solid work there.

Hotel
In terms of location, I really liked that fact that food was basically across the street. It makes going in large groups really easy, plus having a grocery store really close was amazing as well. I'm personally not a fan of the event being right next to public skyway, but I do think this problem was far less severe than last year's hotel.

BREAKFAST
I didn't bother until late in the marathon because I assumed it wasn't worth it due to the portion size. I usually didn't bother waking up for it and instead opted to either eat groceries or go to a restaurant. Late in the week I had to be up early for a shift so I decided to try it, and it was the most mediocre pastry I have ever had. I almost didn't even finish it.

Costs
I think the costs were fine. No real complaints about them.
In terms of higher registration fee, if you guys want to add more things that the community wants, I think that's fine to bump the price a bit. In terms of your suggestions, we already have a Squall, who I think at this point owns the every board game ever of all time. The selection we have available is already pretty big, and getting a sponsor for them probably would give us some new options, I think we already have a pretty wide selection already. I wouldn't say no to dedicated space however. I can't really comment on the arcade or anything else, because truth be told I don't spend much if any time there.

DATES
I think the dates are fine. I don't mind it being during a holiday. I

VOLUNTEERING
So, while I think everything went smoothly for the most part, I know that there were some roadbumps during the week. Our event has grown immensely over the years, both in attendance and viewer base, and I know that we try and focus on not saying anything inappropriate, (profanities, current events, etc) both on stream and on social media, but there were some times during the event where we let some stuff get through, specifically with current events.
I know that both Hannah and Ted did a very good job of staying on top of current events and making sure Head Donation station was updated, as well as the social media team, but unfortunately things like that are easy to miss in slack. I think that going forward it might be a good idea to have a list that gets updated with unmentionables (which I believe we had at SGDQ last year, if I remember correctly), that's available to the Donation station, Hosting station and the social media team. If we had something like that available that we can check regularly, it would help reduce the mishaps we have.

Experience at the event
Check-in was great. The event was awesome as always. Had a great week helping out and hanging out with the community. Can't describe how much fun I had that week. Always a pleasure to attend and help out.

[b]Submissions, Registration, and Schedule [/b]
I think it ran really smoothly. I don't remember having any complaints. Solid work there.
[b]
Hotel [/b]
In terms of location, I really liked that fact that food was basically across the street. It makes going in large groups really easy, plus having a grocery store really close was amazing as well. I'm personally not a fan of the event being right next to public skyway, but I do think this problem was far less severe than last year's hotel.

[b]BREAKFAST [/b]
I didn't bother until late in the marathon because I assumed it wasn't worth it due to the portion size. I usually didn't bother waking up for it and instead opted to either eat groceries or go to a restaurant. Late in the week I had to be up early for a shift so I decided to try it, and it was the most mediocre pastry I have ever had. I almost didn't even finish it.

[b]Costs [/b]
I think the costs were fine. No real complaints about them. 
In terms of higher registration fee, if you guys want to add more things that the community wants, I think that's fine to bump the price a bit. In terms of your suggestions, we already have a Squall, who I think at this point owns the every board game ever of all time. The selection we have available is already pretty big, and getting a sponsor for them probably would give us some new options, I think we already have a pretty wide selection already. I wouldn't say no to dedicated space however. I can't really comment on the arcade or anything else, because truth be told I don't spend much if any time there.

[b]DATES[/b]
 I think the dates are fine. I don't mind it being during a holiday. I

[b]VOLUNTEERING[/b]
So, while I think everything went smoothly for the most part, I know that there were some roadbumps during the week. Our event has grown immensely over the years, both in attendance and viewer base, and I know that we try and focus on not saying anything inappropriate, (profanities, current events, etc) both on stream and on social media, but there were some times during the event where we let some stuff get through, specifically with current events. 
I know that both Hannah and Ted did a very good job of staying on top of current events and making sure Head Donation station was updated, as well as the social media team, but unfortunately things like that are easy to miss in slack.  I think that going forward it might be a good idea to have a list that gets updated with unmentionables (which I believe we had at SGDQ last year, if I remember correctly), that's available to the Donation station, Hosting station and the social media team. If we had something like that available that we can check regularly, it would help reduce the mishaps we have.

[b]Experience at the event [/b]
Check-in was great. The event was awesome as always. Had a great week helping out and hanging out with the community. Can't describe how much fun I had that week. Always a pleasure to attend and help out.

hideflomein

2016-08-04 09:38:11 am

DWB
Was pleased to see them actively participating in the event. I tried the VR tent, and while the presentation was impressive, I think my head isn't built for the VR sets, as the goggles fogged up almost immediately.

Hotel
The hotel was great, albeit a touch pricey. I liked the location - plenty of options within walking distance, and I'll echo the Target sentiments. Only seedy issue I ran into was at the Pizza Hut when a homeless guy came in, scrounged tables to steal tip money, and made off with a bottle of Hennessy from the bar. The event's layout was a little confusing at first, but I got the hang of it within the first day - all except the LAN room, which I didn't find until, like, Thursday. Wifi/Network was crap, but that was kind of expected - I ended up going over my data usage last month because of it, but it wasn't a big deal.

Breakfast
I didn't do the free pastry bit - looked measly for a breakfast anyway. Most people I spoke to about were unimpressed as well. The breakfast buffet, while pricey, was good. Most mornings, I walked a block down to the Einstein/Caribou place for a decent and affordable breakfast (though it was crowded with a lot of the 9-to-5 local crowd).

Costs
The deal with the hotel restaurant definitely helped with the costs. I thought the balance of hotel costs, travel costs, and registration fees was good.

Dates
I totally didn't mind it being over the 4th, as that was one less vacation day I had to take. Airfare costs were a bit higher due to the holiday, and the planes were pretty packed, but not a deal-breaker.

Volunteering
I absolutely loved volunteering during the event. It was so much fun working with all the staff and other volunteers. I will echo Church's comment about having a running tally of things to avoid and things to plug for the Hosting station. That said, when there were issues, at least during my shift, the producer on hand was usually pretty well on top of it in terms of communicating it to those who needed to know.

Experience
This was my first GDQ, and it definitely won't be my last. This was such an amazing experience, and I hope that I can attend more in the future. My 3DS was blowing up green the whole time, and I loved meeting so many people with similar interests and experiences. My one suggestion for future marathons is to have the names on the badges be a bit bigger and/or more legible from a distance - it got awkward meeting someone and leaning over to stare at their stomach area just to learn their names.

[b]DWB[/b]  
Was pleased to see them actively participating in the event. I tried the VR tent, and while the presentation was impressive, I think my head isn't built for the VR sets, as the goggles fogged up almost immediately.  
  
[b]Hotel[/b]  
The hotel was great, albeit a touch pricey. I liked the location - plenty of options within walking distance, and I'll echo the Target sentiments. Only seedy issue I ran into was at the Pizza Hut when a homeless guy came in, scrounged tables to steal tip money, and made off with a bottle of Hennessy from the bar. The event's layout was a little confusing at first, but I got the hang of it within the first day - all except the LAN room, which I didn't find until, like, Thursday. Wifi/Network was crap, but that was kind of expected - I ended up going over my data usage last month because of it, but it wasn't a big deal.
  
[b]Breakfast[/b]  
I didn't do the free pastry bit - looked measly for a breakfast anyway. Most people I spoke to about were unimpressed as well. The breakfast buffet, while pricey, was good. Most mornings, I walked a block down to the Einstein/Caribou place for a decent and affordable breakfast (though it was crowded with a lot of the 9-to-5 local crowd).  
  
[b]Costs[/b]  
The deal with the hotel restaurant definitely helped with the costs. I thought the balance of hotel costs, travel costs, and registration fees was good.  
  
[b]Dates[/b]  
I totally didn't mind it being over the 4th, as that was one less vacation day I had to take. Airfare costs were a bit higher due to the holiday, and the planes were pretty packed, but not a deal-breaker.

[b]Volunteering[/b]
I absolutely loved volunteering during the event. It was so much fun working with all the staff and other volunteers. I will echo Church's comment about having a running tally of things to avoid and things to plug for the Hosting station. That said, when there were issues, at least during my shift, the producer on hand was usually pretty well on top of it in terms of communicating it to those who needed to know.

[b]Experience[/b]
This was my first GDQ, and it definitely won't be my last. This was such an amazing experience, and I hope that I can attend more in the future. My 3DS was blowing up green the whole time, and I loved meeting so many people with similar interests and experiences. My one suggestion for future marathons is to have the names on the badges be a bit bigger and/or more legible from a distance - it got awkward meeting someone and leaning over to stare at their stomach area just to learn their names.

michael_goldfish

2016-08-04 09:52:35 pm

Two green and a figurine

I'm gonna keep my feedback rather short, but great job on the event! Had TONS of fun overall and would go to every event if I could afford it.

Favourite Things
Hotel rooms were really nice despite the wifi, beds and pillows were comfy, actual bathroom door unlike AGDQ 2015 and I'm still thankful for having a fridge.
Food was pretty close by including several restaurants, fast food and especially Target. The target super close by meant I could buy my own breakfast to keep in the hotel instead of relying on the vouchers.
The pinball was fantastic and I wish I spent more time on those machines. I would pay more for registration for more pinball machines alone. I didn't play the arcade much but I always saw a decent chunk of people having fun. The Arcade needs more Jubeat machines though, they were constantly busy.
The practice and casual rooms were really big (at least to me) and had a lot of TV's for use. The rooms were also well cooled which was much appreciated. World 9 Gaming was extremely useful as well and surprisingly easy to borrow games/consoles from; I would pay more for entry to increase their game and console amount as well.

Minor Criticism
The names on badges were indeed too small. Wasn't a deal-breaker of course but it was a noticable problem when talking to new people. I get the whole person-with-long-name thing but it was still an issue, honestly I'd rather read someone's name as two lines than have them all be super tiny.
It was tough to find where all the different rooms were if you hadn't been there already; I honestly didn't know the area with the arcade/casual room was there until day 2. Little maps or anything would be very helpful.

I'm gonna keep my feedback rather short, but great job on the event! Had TONS of fun overall and would go to every event if I could afford it.

[b]Favourite Things[/b]
Hotel rooms were really nice despite the wifi, beds and pillows were comfy, actual bathroom door unlike AGDQ 2015 and I'm still thankful for having a fridge.
Food was pretty close by including several restaurants, fast food and especially Target. The target super close by meant I could buy my own breakfast to keep in the hotel instead of relying on the vouchers.
The pinball was [i]fantastic[/i] and I wish I spent more time on those machines. I would pay more for registration for more pinball machines alone. I didn't play the arcade much but I always saw a decent chunk of people having fun. The Arcade needs more Jubeat machines though, they were constantly busy.
The practice and casual rooms were really big (at least to me) and had a lot of TV's for use. The rooms were also well cooled which was much appreciated. World 9 Gaming was extremely useful as well and surprisingly easy to borrow games/consoles from; I would pay more for entry to increase their game and console amount as well.

[b]Minor Criticism[/b]
The names on badges were indeed too small. Wasn't a deal-breaker of course but it was a noticable problem when talking to new people. I get the whole person-with-long-name thing but it was still an issue, honestly I'd rather read someone's name as two lines than have them all be super tiny.
It was tough to find where all the different rooms were if you hadn't been there already; I honestly didn't know the area with the arcade/casual room was there until day 2. Little maps or anything would be very helpful.

sumichu

2016-08-05 03:27:43 pm

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Quote from michael_goldfish:

I'm gonna keep my feedback rather short, but great job on the event! Had TONS of fun overall and would go to every event if I could afford it.
The names on badges were indeed too small. Wasn't a deal-breaker of course but it was a noticable problem when talking to new people. I get the whole person-with-long-name thing but it was still an issue, honestly I'd rather read someone's name as two lines than have them all be super tiny.

We're aware of this and trying to find a solution! Our printers have to accommodate names that are up to over 20 characters long. The automated process is to shrink all names to the size that every name would be visible at, but parsing someone's name in the middle may still make it difficult to read, but in a different way.

mike89

Edit history:

mike89: 2016-08-05 10:40:03 pm

2016-08-05 10:39:51 pm

SEGA Junkie

Quote from sumichu:

Quote from michael_goldfish:

I'm gonna keep my feedback rather short, but great job on the event! Had TONS of fun overall and would go to every event if I could afford it.
The names on badges were indeed too small. Wasn't a deal-breaker of course but it was a noticable problem when talking to new people. I get the whole person-with-long-name thing but it was still an issue, honestly I'd rather read someone's name as two lines than have them all be super tiny.

We're aware of this and trying to find a solution! Our printers have to accommodate names that are up to over 20 characters long. The automated process is to shrink all names to the size that every name would be visible at, but parsing someone's name in the middle may still make it difficult to read, but in a different way.

Would it be worthwhile having the badges laid out horizontally? That would help remove this as an issue, although it could possibly create new ones.