Speedrun Community Survey

Edit history:

tonic: 2017-10-25 10:25:05 am

2017-06-26 11:59:38 am

Hi everyone. With the help of a few others, I've put together a community speedrun survey to briefly poll about certain topics. You can finish the survey quickly by answering multiple choice & scale questions, or you can write-in longer answers. The survey will be open for ~2-3 weeks, and the results will be analyzed via a report.

Please take a look and fill out if you're interested, and help spread the word. We'd like to have as much exposure as possible. Thanks!

https://goo.gl/forms/oMkIsQrdR217gLx23

-----

The survey analysis is complete. Thanks for the support and spreading the word.

Survey analysis: https://goo.gl/5msNXE
Survey questions & responses: https://goo.gl/wEJykD
YouTube playlist (audio recording): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY6fxDYF5YLZbxIpfWYps-EW_aNZXAlxl

Thread title:

LotBlind

2017-07-11 03:44:23 am

Is this still gonna run for how long? I just told some people about it. Also is it too late to put a note about it on our front page in the next update (which might be another week away minimum)?

Afterwards, we'd be interested in seeing the report of course!

tonic

Edit history:

tonic: 2017-07-11 06:55:51 am

2017-07-11 06:55:04 am

This survey will close on Friday, July 14th. Results will be posted at a later time.

Certainly feel free to post on your front page if it fits the timeline, though it sounds like it might be too tight. Thanks though.

Flip

2017-07-11 01:02:57 pm

1-Up!

Thanks for compiling this. I said as much in the survey but I hope this data is able to be used to improve the speedrunning community.

tonic

2017-07-14 02:36:32 pm

Certainly. Today's the last day, please respond if you would like to.

PvtCb

2017-07-15 09:09:30 am

This is not the giant

Any way I could sneak on in for this? SDA front page only gave 3 days of notice for the survey

LotBlind

2017-07-15 09:46:41 am

SDA front page didn't have to give any days' notice for the survey.

PvtCb

2017-07-15 10:38:33 am

This is not the giant

They didn't have to (and I'm glad they did) but as I don't check the front page too often I missed the survey deadline

tonic

2017-10-20 10:21:07 am

Hello - the analysis is finally complete, and will be available this Sunday 10/22/17 at 6PM EDT. The results will be read aloud and reviewed on my stream, and the link to the write-up (100+ page document) will be posted here sometime after. To those of you who completed the survey from here, thanks for doing so & for your patience, and stop by the stream if you're interested in the results.

LotBlind

2017-10-20 10:58:10 am

If anyone wants something like this announced on the front page (believe me it's gonna be noticed more), you can just PM a green name. We have the news tip feature too. I'm assuming you want this to be done with the stream so I already edited it into the update coming out tomorrow.

tonic

2017-10-20 11:07:35 am

The exposure would be helpful. Feel free to announce, thank you.

tonic

2017-10-23 08:58:12 am

The survey analysis is complete. Thanks for the support and spreading the word.

Survey analysis: https://goo.gl/5msNXE
Survey questions & responses: https://goo.gl/wEJykD
YouTube playlist (audio recording): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY6fxDYF5YLZbxIpfWYps-EW_aNZXAlxl

LotBlind

2017-10-23 01:54:23 pm

Is there no official forum for continuing the discussion? The YT comments section is not a good choice...

Tigger77

2017-10-24 03:13:54 am

I survived MIKE-Fest 1

Wow, this is a really interesting read, (not through the hole thing yet).

Thanks for doing it!!!

also I second @LotBlinds question.

burningsteel

2017-10-29 01:04:22 pm

Soulless Killing Machine

i found one typo.

"...but also be realistic about modern practicality and to asses whether or not an effort...". Should be assess.

burningsteel

Edit history:

burningsteel: 2017-10-29 02:22:04 pm

burningsteel: 2017-10-29 02:21:26 pm

burningsteel: 2017-10-29 02:00:30 pm

2017-10-29 01:55:19 pm

Soulless Killing Machine

Hah. It seems I am in the minority in thinking SDA is the gold standard.

Here are some points.

1) For myself, I have near no interaction with others regarding the games I have run or are messing with so there really is no "game community" for me. I only recently learned of speedrun.com and Discord and whatnot, but they have not had an effect on what I do anyway. It is not that I do not want any interaction, but the games I play have no community since they are relatively unknown.

2) Value of SDA. SDA to me is a place to look at really high quality runs that usually have interesting commentary. Speedrun.com tends to have lots of low-quality runs even for the "WR" holders. Many times I have viewed runs on there only to be left disappointed, and feel almost like I was wasting my time. SRC seems to be at its best with very active games where if you watch a run you can be almost be assured it is good.

3) The speedrun live events or whatever they are called that are put on tend to be fun to watch. Although it seems to be getting so "commercial". You cannot say this, do not do that. Why some of the most amusing runners get banned is a mystery to me. And honestly I do not care about cursing. Racist or inciting violence of course should not be a allowed, but everything else should be a-ok.

4) Future of SDA. Hmm. This is not something I can just come up with on the fly. But a couple points brought up might be worth consideration.

a) Emulators - Accurate emulators might be the way to go in the future. For instance I have gone through 3 sega cds and several hundred dollars, and I am not holding much more hope for these. Without being able to play on the actual console means I won't be able to submit to SDA. And as time progresses working consoles will become more rare and expensive.

b) Some comments in that survey mentioned how the site was archaic. Well, I think I would have to really compare the platforms people use. One thing is that the site is not exactly "flashy" or whatever. Also, no IRC.

c) Very long verification times. This seems to have improved a lot recently. But some games just sit there, probably because of the obscurity of them. Along with submissions if there was more info or resources for them it might make verification faster.

d) Timing. Not completely familiar with all the timing nuances, but there seem to be good arguments for exceptions. Like Sonic as mentioned with the unusual feature that potentially beating a level as fast as possible can result in a slower real time.

e) Effort. I think the main thing is that people do not particularly like extra effort. If it is hard or takes more to get the same thing they could do elsewhere, most probably will go the easier route. Being able to click a couple buttons and the ability to copy-paste a link with optional comments is what most people will do. So in that regard speedrun.com and the like will always be more popular.

f) Possibly accept streams. This would reduce needed effort on the side of the players. It seems like they have one program that combines the various audio and video streams into one video. Trying to get just the video might be beyond what the player would be willing to do or even know how to do.

g) Change the order of the verification process. When someone submits a game, it can go to the game page, BUT it needs to be made very clear that it has not been verified and can be removed at any time. The ones that have been verified can have a gold star or something next to them. This would increase activity I believe, and lots of people myself included like seeing changes and activity.

Hah.  It seems I am in the minority in thinking SDA is the gold standard.

Here are some points.

1) For myself, I have near no interaction with others regarding the games I have run or are messing with so there really is no "game community" for me.  I only recently learned of speedrun.com and Discord and whatnot, but they have not had an effect on what I do anyway.  It is not that I do not want any interaction, but the games I play have no community since they are relatively unknown.

2) Value of SDA.  SDA to me is a place to look at really high quality runs that usually have interesting commentary.  Speedrun.com tends to have lots of low-quality runs even for the "WR" holders.  Many times I have viewed runs on there only to be left disappointed, and feel almost like I was wasting my time.  SRC seems to be at its best with very active games where if you watch a run you can be almost be assured it is good.

3) The speedrun live events or whatever they are called that are put on tend to be fun to watch.  Although it seems to be getting so "commercial".  You cannot say this, do not do that.  Why some of the most amusing runners get banned is a mystery to me.  And honestly I do not care about cursing.  Racist or inciting violence of course should not be a allowed, but everything else should be a-ok.

4) [b]Future of SDA[/b].   Hmm.  This is not something I can just come up with on the fly.  But a couple points brought up might be worth consideration.

a) Emulators - Accurate emulators might be the way to go in the future.  For instance I have gone through 3 sega cds and several hundred dollars, and I am not holding much more hope for these.  Without being able to play on the actual console means I won't be able to submit to SDA. And as time progresses working consoles will become more rare and expensive.

b) Some comments in that survey mentioned how the site was archaic.  Well, I think I would have to really compare the platforms people use.  One thing is that the site is not exactly "flashy" or whatever.  Also, no IRC.

c) Very long verification times.  This seems to have improved a lot recently.  But some games just sit there, probably because of the obscurity of them.  Along with submissions if there was more info or resources for them it might make verification faster.

d) Timing.  Not completely familiar with all the timing nuances, but there seem to be good arguments for exceptions.  Like Sonic as mentioned with the unusual feature that potentially beating a level as fast as possible can result in a slower real time.

e) Effort.  I think the main thing is that people do not particularly like extra effort.  If it is hard or takes more to get the same thing they could do elsewhere, most probably will go the easier route.  Being able to click a couple buttons and the ability to copy-paste a link with optional comments is what most people will do.  So in that regard speedrun.com and the like will always be more popular.

f) Possibly accept streams.  This would reduce needed effort on the side of the players.  It seems like they have one program that combines the various audio and video streams into one video.  Trying to get just the video might be beyond what the player would be willing to do or even know how to do.

g) Change the order of the verification process.  When someone submits a game, it can go to the game page, BUT it needs to be made very clear that it has not been verified and can be removed at any time.  The ones that have been verified can have a gold star or something next to them.  This would increase activity I believe, and lots of people myself included like seeing changes and activity.

LotBlind

2017-10-30 05:54:48 am

Just to note: we're [I'm] reviewing all the feedback in the responses, and any posts in this thread, and will publish that reply here and possibly elsewhere as well. Expect this to take a week at least.

LotBlind

2017-12-31 10:59:00 am

Response here:

https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/sdas_response_to_stuff_that_came_up_in_the_speedrunning_survey.html