Speedrunner Roundtable July 10 at 9 PM EDT [locked]

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2013-07-08 07:15:24 pm

mikwuyma: 2013-07-08 07:06:27 pm

mikwuyma: 2013-07-06 03:17:59 pm

mikwuyma: 2013-07-05 02:51:02 pm

2013-07-03 10:08:22 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Some of you might remember the speedrunner roundtable Mike89 hosted back in November, and we want to try it again, but with some differences this time.

Where

It will be hosted on the SDA twitch page

When

Like the title says, next Wednesday, July 10 at 9 PM.

Who

Here's the list of people attending

me
Breakdown
Romscout
Mr. K
Sinister1
PJ
dram55
Cosmo

Cool Matty will be doing the tech for the roundtable.

What

Some things we were going to talk about.

-Some of the new stuff for easier submissions and the updated rules

Specific rules concerns:

1. How to accommodate for patches in PC games now? Since digital downloads are the norm, using the fastest version is usually an earlier version that isn't publically available. Also, DOSBOX

-More generalized SDA discussion topics

More specifically:

1. There are a lot of popular games on SDA not being updated as frequently, so how will we deal with this?
(Thanks to ktwo for this one, and yes I know I shortened your post a lot, sorry)
2. Changing older and newer console format on the forums?

-The new wiki project and recording guides and making them more visible.

More specifically:

-There is not a single place that is a one stop shop for information on speedrunning
-SDA is already an archives website, it makes sense that it should be a repository of information
-This matters because
-We'd like people who have already made wikis for their game to port it over
-The more people we have in the community the better the quality of speedruns we have in general
-Wiki will eventually be expanded to clearly explain all of SDA (rules, categories, verification) besides recording and strategy

Answer questions about gripes with the formatting
Answer questions about layout of game pages
Discuss why media wiki can be an effective way of putting information in despite its learning curve

-upcoming stuff in the future

-Cosmo's Leaderboards

-SGDQ and AGDQ

More specifically

[hidden]
1. Progress and status with both marathons.

2. Standout games and prizes at SGDQ.

-Marathon related questions

Specifically:

A. What is the general philosophy of how games are cut at the marathon?
B. Extension of A, will there be more risks taken with games, and how do you determine which games to take risks on?
C. Is there an appropriate way to offer previously cut game for future marathons? What's the best way to suggest such games (proof of viewership/donations, something like that?? )?
D. Can Mike address the possibility of favoritism (games being chosen because of the runner/how much Mike likes the game) in the selection process? If there is concerns of favoritism, what's the best way to handle that? I'm avoiding accusations here.
E. General discussion topic: is there a better way to choose games than a dictatorship ( Tongue

)? Voting is probably a bad idea, but perhaps there's other options?

How to keep marathons distinct from one another now that SGDQ has moved out of Essentia's house.

-Q and A session

Now I'm sure you guys have some topics of discussion and/or questions about the roundtable, so ask away.

Thread title:

Some of you might remember the [url=http://www.twitch.tv/mike89sda/c/1728351]speedrunner roundtable[/url] Mike89 hosted back in November, and we want to try it again, but with some differences this time.

[b]Where[/b]

It will be hosted on the [url=http://www.twitch.tv/speeddemosarchivesda]SDA twitch page[/url]

[b]When[/b]

Like the title says, next Wednesday, July 10 at 9 PM.

[b]Who[/b]

Here's the list of people attending

me
Breakdown
Romscout
Mr. K
Sinister1
PJ
dram55
Cosmo

Cool Matty will be doing the tech for the roundtable.

[b]What[/b]

Some things we were going to talk about.

-Some of the new stuff for easier submissions and the updated rules

Specific rules concerns:

[hidden]
1. How to accommodate for patches in PC games now? Since digital downloads are the norm, using the fastest version is usually an earlier version that isn't publically available. Also, DOSBOX
[/hidden]

-More generalized SDA discussion topics

More specifically:

[hidden]
1. There are a lot of popular games on SDA not being updated as frequently, so how will we deal with this?
(Thanks to ktwo for this one, and yes I know I shortened your post a lot, sorry)
2. Changing older and newer console format on the forums?
[/hidden]

-The new wiki project and recording guides and making them more visible.

More specifically:

[hidden]-There is not a single place that is a one stop shop for information on speedrunning
-SDA is already an archives website, it makes sense that it should be a repository of information
-This matters because
-We'd like people who have already made wikis for their game to port it over
-The more people we have in the community the better the quality of speedruns we have in general
-Wiki will eventually be expanded to clearly explain all of SDA (rules, categories, verification) besides recording and strategy

Answer questions about gripes with the formatting
Answer questions about layout of game pages
Discuss why media wiki can be an effective way of putting information in despite its learning curve[/hidden]

-upcoming stuff in the future

-Cosmo's Leaderboards

-SGDQ and AGDQ

More specifically

[hidden]
1. Progress and status with both marathons.

2. Standout games and prizes at SGDQ.

-Marathon related questions

Specifically:

[hidden]
A. What is the general philosophy of how games are cut at the marathon? 
B. Extension of A, will there be more risks taken with games, and how do you determine which games to take risks on?
C. Is there an appropriate way to offer previously cut game for future marathons? What's the best way to suggest such games (proof of viewership/donations, something like that?? )?
D. Can Mike address the possibility of favoritism (games being chosen because of the runner/how much Mike likes the game) in the selection process? If there is concerns of favoritism, what's the best way to handle that? I'm avoiding accusations here.
E. General discussion topic: is there a better way to choose games than a dictatorship ( :P )? Voting is probably a bad idea, but perhaps there's other options?

How to keep marathons distinct from one another now that SGDQ has moved out of Essentia's house.
[/hidden]

-Q and A session

Now I'm sure you guys have some topics of discussion and/or questions about the roundtable, so ask away.

PJ

Edit history:

PJ: 2013-07-03 10:20:50 pm

2013-07-03 10:20:43 pm

Is PJ

Since I am attending, I suggest we rename this to "Scheduled TwitchTV outage".

Omnigamer

2013-07-03 10:51:58 pm

All the things

Quote from PJ:

Since I am attending, I suggest we rename this to "Scheduled TwitchTV outage".

SInce you were on the list, I just assumed this would be broadcast via string attached to cups. Except someone would forget the cups.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2013-07-04 03:00:11 am

Yagamoth: 2013-07-04 02:54:11 am

2013-07-04 02:48:24 am

INTJ

Suggestion for topics:

Acceptance of old DOS games via the use of DOSBOX with a defined setup for each game
- The basic idea is, that while gog.com provides older DOS games with a defined DOSBOX setup, they will not be able(!) to sell every game we'd like to run and the DOSBOX component is nothing but a predefined configuration setup for each game
- Further, the general idea of not allowing emulators makes sense for consoles, since all consoles should be running at the performance which makes it easier to verify. For DOS games however, there was never a defined PC setup/hardware configuration/BIOS to begin with. Even DOS-versions could vary. So in that sense, an "original" PC does not exist (besides the fact, that recording from such a machine would be a really tricky setup).

Edit: Oh, right
Categories.. Although I probably should read up first what SDAs current stance on the matter is. Where can I find that?

Edit2: Found it
But that's not necessarily something for the Roundtable discussion I guess.

Good luck on that roundtable, that is too early in the morning for me to watch ^^

Suggestion for topics:

Acceptance of old DOS games via the use of DOSBOX with a defined setup for each game
- The basic idea is, that while gog.com provides older DOS games with a defined DOSBOX setup, they will not be able(!) to sell every game we'd like to run and the DOSBOX component is nothing but a predefined configuration setup for each game
- Further, the general idea of not allowing emulators makes sense for consoles, since all consoles should be running at the performance which makes it easier to verify. For DOS games however, there was never a defined PC setup/hardware configuration/BIOS to begin with. Even DOS-versions could vary. So in that sense, an "original" PC does not exist (besides the fact, that recording from such a machine would be a really tricky setup).

Edit: Oh, right
Categories.. Although I probably should read up first what SDAs current stance on the matter is. Where can I find that?

Edit2: Found it
But that's not necessarily something for the Roundtable discussion I guess.

Good luck on that roundtable, that is too early in the morning for me to watch ^^

CyberBotX

2013-07-04 11:48:10 am

Insane Killer Robot

I'm almost going to piggy-back off of Yagamoth, but another topic suggestion would be some discussion on what to do about PC games from Steam, since Steam auto-patches to the latest version and thus speedrun tricks found in earlier versions could be rendered undoable.

Onin

2013-07-04 12:57:53 pm

^Same thing happens to games on GOG, you can choose not to update but the old version won't be accessible unless you upload it yourself, and well, that'd be piracy. It's becoming a universal issue. I have no idea whether I'm even allowed to continue running Unepic on the version that has all the useful bugs, cause I don't know if it's available to download anywhere.

Lenophis

Edit history:

Lenophis: 2013-07-04 01:31:50 pm

2013-07-04 01:28:33 pm

0-10

Quote from Yagamoth:

- The basic idea is, that while gog.com provides older DOS games with a defined DOSBOX setup, they will not be able(!) to sell every game we'd like to run and the DOSBOX component is nothing but a predefined configuration setup for each game

Sadly, not all games on GoG are stable when running, so even this would need further clarification or tweaking, provided they ever get accepted.

ProfessorBroman

2013-07-04 02:06:33 pm

Quote from CyberBotX:

I'm almost going to piggy-back off of Yagamoth, but another topic suggestion would be some discussion on what to do about PC games from Steam, since Steam auto-patches to the latest version and thus speedrun tricks found in earlier versions could be rendered undoable.

Quote from Onin:

^Same thing happens to games on GOG, you can choose not to update but the old version won't be accessible unless you upload it yourself, and well, that'd be piracy. It's becoming a universal issue. I have no idea whether I'm even allowed to continue running Unepic on the version that has all the useful bugs, cause I don't know if it's available to download anywhere.

I'd like to second this issue (or third it) its become a massive problem and its something that likely needs a unified solution. Lots of really fun games are being relegated to the unrunnable pile because of these updates. One solution I've found is keeping a full backup of a working version of the game and then developing a patch going forward from there. Its what we had to do for Borderlands 2 and I'm starting to wish I'd have backed up almost every game I've ever bought on steam. I think the real issue comes down to being able to distribute the runable version of the game without falling into the piracy trap. It think self made patches are a solution, but they are certainly not easy to execute.

[quote="CyberBotX"]I'm almost going to piggy-back off of Yagamoth, but another topic suggestion would be some discussion on what to do about PC games from Steam, since Steam auto-patches to the latest version and thus speedrun tricks found in earlier versions could be rendered undoable.[/quote]
[quote="Onin"]^Same thing happens to games on GOG, you can choose not to update but the old version won't be accessible unless you upload it yourself, and well, that'd be piracy. It's becoming a universal issue. I have no idea whether I'm even allowed to continue running Unepic on the version that has all the useful bugs, cause I don't know if it's available to download anywhere.[/quote]
I'd like to second this issue (or third it) its become a massive problem and its something that likely needs a unified solution.  Lots of really fun games are being relegated to the unrunnable pile because of these updates.  One solution I've found is keeping a full backup of a working version of the game and then developing a patch going forward from there.  Its what we had to do for Borderlands 2 and I'm starting to wish I'd have backed up almost every game I've ever bought on steam.  I think the real issue comes down to being able to distribute the runable version of the game without falling into the piracy trap.  It think self made patches are a solution, but they are certainly not easy to execute.

presjpolk

Edit history:

presjpolk: 2013-07-04 02:07:46 pm

2013-07-04 02:07:23 pm

HELLO!

Depending on the contents of those self-made patches they could also be illegal to distribute. So that does sound like a very difficult issue.

ProfessorBroman

Edit history:

ProfessorBroman: 2013-07-04 02:15:37 pm

ProfessorBroman: 2013-07-04 02:09:53 pm

2013-07-04 02:09:28 pm

Quote from presjpolk:

Depending on the contents of those self-made patches they could also be illegal to distribute.

Yeah, its very important for the patches to simply be bits and pieces of the game and not the full thing, but even then it is still an extremely sticky issue. I wish the distributers of these games would give the option to run the games on a previous patch as that would be the most simple solution. I should also note that with BL2 we had the luck of speaking with one of the Dev's who OK'ed what we were doing before we started distributing, but I'm sure not all game developers are as willing to work with their community or even want people to use "broken" versions of their game.

nate

2013-07-04 02:14:19 pm

has anyone tried asking them?

Onin

2013-07-04 03:00:44 pm

"Asking them" isn't a universal solution. It's great where it helps, but what if it doesn't?

nate

2013-07-04 03:07:52 pm

sorry, ignore the fact that my name is green (or red or whatever). just throwing out an idea for some people.

presjpolk

2013-07-04 03:26:38 pm

HELLO!

I agree that asking is a good idea on a game-by-game basis. Probably less likely to work for bigger publishers but it's worth trying.

Poxnor

2013-07-04 06:27:03 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

A big problem last time was questions being evaded by the SDA green-names. If you want this round-table to be more productive, you'll need to address the questions that are fielded, even if the answer is "fuck you." That's far better than pretending that questions weren't asked.

(Not trying to be the world's biggest asshole; just trying to point out what needs to change from last time.)

UraniumAnchor

2013-07-04 10:25:30 pm

Not a walrus

Which questions are you referring to? I'd be surprised if anybody was being deliberately evasive if it was a genuine question.

Poxnor

2013-07-04 10:38:04 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

Yikes, UA. Were so many questions just honestly missed?

There were a lot of questions people were asking about submission, verification, and streaming where it felt like the SDA staff were evading the questions. I guess it's possible that the questions honestly weren't seen, and it just seemed like the questions were being evaded.

But, a lot of people talked afterwards (sorry, back-room bitching) about how questions were evaded. I guess maybe just pay more attention to questions fielded in the chat this time. They were some of the most important questions last time.

Darkwing Duck

2013-07-04 10:54:41 pm

Highly Evolved

What I took from last round table is that the SDA staff spent 80% of the time blaming long submission process to verification when 80% of the questions were about everything BUT the verification part of the submission process.

The second I think I took was SDA staff didn't want to discuss the elephant in the room that part of the delay in the verification process was due to lack of ambition to spend the time necessary to get the stuff out in a timely manner. Why this was not acknowledged given its justification due to the sheer increase in volume of work and the seemingly archaic way SDA had been updating (can only say seemingly, since staff was extremely reluctant to go into the process, glossing over it), I don't know.

I guess to specify more, big question in the roundtable was, why are SDA submissions taking six plus months to post? Hours were spent on the verification part of the process, which was only the first half. Questions specified to why does it take three months from verification to posting. All I remember is something like a thirty second exposé on the steps that are taken. No discussion on what could be done to improve that part of the process, and everyone tried to shift topic back to verification.

This all ended up sort of moot, anyway, because of the overhaul.

I suppose what the viewers will want are answers that aren't akin to Col. Jessop's "I run my unit how I run my unit."

What I took from last round table is that the SDA staff spent 80% of the time blaming long submission process to verification when 80% of the questions were about everything BUT the verification part of the submission process.

The second I think I took was SDA staff didn't want to discuss the elephant in the room that part of the delay in the verification process was due to lack of ambition to spend the time necessary to get the stuff out in a timely manner.  Why this was not acknowledged given its justification due to the sheer increase in volume of work and the seemingly archaic way SDA had been updating (can only say seemingly, since staff was extremely reluctant to go into the process, glossing over it), I don't know.

I guess to specify more, big question in the roundtable was, why are SDA submissions taking six plus months to post?  Hours were spent on the verification part of the process, which was only the first half.   Questions specified to why does it take three months from verification to posting.  All I remember is something like a thirty second exposé on the steps that are taken.  No discussion on what could be done to improve that part of the process, and everyone tried to shift topic back to verification.

This all ended up sort of moot, anyway, because of the overhaul.

I suppose what the viewers will want are answers that aren't akin to Col. Jessop's "I run my unit how I run my unit."

puwexil

2013-07-04 10:56:59 pm

Professional Second Banana

Quote from Poxnor:

I guess it's possible that the questions honestly weren't seen, and it just seemed like the questions were being evaded.

That's precisely why we're encouraging people to submit questions for the roundtable in advance via this thread - both to ensure that as many as possible get answered and that the staff has time to do any discussion/research needed to provide accurate answers.

Lenophis

2013-07-05 09:17:55 am

0-10

If you believe that I would pre-empt you guys, and allow you to get your stories straight and justify stuff that has happened and will happen again, you're nuts. No. If I can keep Tuesday off, and if I believe this won't be another chapter of the Gool-Ol-Boys Sing-A-Long™, then maybe some good will come yet.

Omnigamer

2013-07-05 09:32:11 am

All the things

Quote from Lenophis:

If you believe that I would pre-empt you guys, and allow you to get your stories straight and justify stuff that has happened and will happen again, you're nuts. No. If I can keep Tuesday off, and if I believe this won't be another chapter of the Gool-Ol-Boys Sing-A-Long™, then maybe some good will come yet.

It sounds like you want this to be a grilling session rather than an opportunity to provide insight for the way forward.

Things happen; sometimes people get burned. There are plenty of mistakes to look back on and there are sure to be future mistakes going forward. We could spend a long time playing the finger-pointing game, or you can identify the mechanism or ambiguity for which you have a grievance and actually get something done.

Lenophis

2013-07-05 09:53:02 am

Sometimes the only way to move forward is a grilling session. Hard questions are going to be asked, and I hoped answered without bullshit. It's easy to bury corruption when there's no single point of focus.

Quote from Omnigamer:

Things happen; sometimes people get burned.

Which is the point. I'm hoping this doesn't happen to anyone else, ever again. I know this is a naive concept, but I can always hope.

nate

2013-07-05 10:01:44 am

i guess it would be helpful to relay the conversation that resulted in your run passing verification, assuming that's what you're thinking of here. personally i was impressed with how that turned out. policy was clarified. it doesn't seem likely to happen again in that same way.

"corruption" is a little strong. usually used to refer to people in power taking favors, etc. sda doesn't really operate like most organizations because there is little associated with power except drudgery ... keeping things running. i think this attitude of me against the world is helpful sometimes for motivating oneself but it honestly looks a little weird in this case. i mean maybe some people around here take things really seriously and hate people and set things up against them but i can't say that's me.

in any case, transparency is great. let's go for it.

Yagamoth

Edit history:

Yagamoth: 2013-07-05 10:13:02 am

2013-07-05 10:08:20 am

INTJ

I haven't watched the last roundtable. But keep in mind - deliberately ignoring topics is a valid approach if you want to have enough time to talk about the other topics. Preferably while openly stating that the topic is not being tackled right now since the other topics seem more important.
-> The roundtable can't and shouldn't focus on too many topics. This would lead to too little focus and in depth thought which could lead to poor and shallow decisions. The opposite case is obviously a concern as well.

Also as a general rule - Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
And to further explain this before anyone gets offended -> "Stupidity" in this context describes anything ranging from genuine naivety over conscious reasonable decision (with no given explanation) to actual stupidity.
In short - I like to believe that people always have their reasons for what they do without attributing evil.

Cool Matty

2013-07-05 10:12:53 am

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Quote from Lenophis:

Sometimes the only way to move forward is a grilling session. Hard questions are going to be asked, and I hoped answered without bullshit. It's easy to bury corruption when there's no single point of focus.

Don't expect a response if your attitude going into it is like your posting here. We are holding this to have a mature, adult conversation. Step off your anger platform and relax. Everyone's willing to answer the "hard questions" but only if you're not going to preface them by slamming SDA or whatever.

Ask questions like you want answers, not like you're on Fox News.