Point out the blatantly obvious from a viewer's perspective [locked]

2011-01-15 01:04:43 pm

would definitely need to make a single chat on our irc server if we went that path.

2011-01-15 01:10:30 pm

Weegee Time

Also that would require a lot more bandwidth, wouldn't it? I'm not sure how much of the 4H Center's connection you were absorbing, but doubling the load might be a problem.

nate

2011-01-15 01:11:20 pm

it wouldn't have been. quadrupling it might.

Kotti

2011-01-16 05:59:38 am

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but I think you could have used some sort of list of things you could donate for (character names etc.) and how much has been donated already on the site. It didn't seem very practical that every now and then the commentator just mentioned that "you can donate for that, so far X has been donated to make it Y". I don't know anything about what it would take to set such system up or if it was worth it, but throwing it out there anyway.

RoboSparkle

2011-01-16 06:25:44 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Yeah, I think that's going to be the responsibility of the runner to decide what can reasonably be changed using donations, and then using a program to keep track of donations and auto-update a spreadsheet with the results. From what's been said so far, it looks like both will be implemented next time.

Mystery

2011-01-16 06:29:18 am

Quote from Kotti:

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but I think you could have used some sort of list of things you could donate for (character names etc.) and how much has been donated already on the site. It didn't seem very practical that every now and then the commentator just mentioned that "you can donate for that, so far X has been donated to make it Y". I don't know anything about what it would take to set such system up or if it was worth it, but throwing it out there anyway.

It has already been suggested, and a solution is in the works (see marathon donation app thread).

moooh

2011-01-16 11:54:07 am

Exoray

Some response from the other side of the other side (that means "on-site").

Covering two chats with 1.5k viewers in each was doable, although at times things flooded so fast that you had a hard time keeping up. Not to mention that I occasionally wanted to watch some of the runs and not just stare at the chat. When it went over into 3 rooms things got out of hand pretty quickly.

1 large irc chat room is not something that would work. There would be too many messages at the same time and you would be way more likely to miss a comment as well as being less able to find people's nicks in a mess that is always moving. I don't see the 1 minute limit as a solution either so I think we should keep going with separate chat rooms. On average we had at least 3 people on-site watching the chats at the same time (sometimes 5 during the day, sometimes 2 during the GY shifts). It will be difficult to cater to everyone's need of attention, even more so if the viewer count will go up next year. Upping the amount of on-site chat-watchers will up the amount of people in the runner room, and we'll end up getting even more background chatter, not to mention actually finding enough people to be able cover it around the clock. There's not really one solution for the chat problem that doesn't cause other problems.

As for prizes linked in the schedule, this is not difficult and we should really have done it since it would have saved us lots of time. The reason it wasn't done was that we didn't upload all the prize pics to that folder until sometime after the marathon had started. At that point we had noone around that could (and had the time) to link all the prizes to their corresponding picture, so we just went with posting links in the chat. This will definitely be fixed for next year.

Regarding swapping in a commentator knowledgeable about the current game: It would obviously have been great if we could always have someone who knew a lot about the current game being played and also available to commentate on it when needed. This was far from the case though. We had some games where people had prepared some notes of facts to mention and such but for the most of it, we ended up having to go with less specific commentating. There was a thread dedicated to creating those fact sheets, but we didn't manage to get everyone involved with it in time, maybe next year we'll be able to prepare some more notes.

The problem with slow game switching was partly due to not all consoles being plugged in at the same time (we didn't have enough splitters for such a setup) and the wiring being a total mess that only a few people understood (who also weren't always able to be in there at all times, for obvious reasons). THe other part was that some of the older consoles took some time to start up etc.

Some response from the other side of the other side (that means "on-site").

Covering two chats with 1.5k viewers in each was doable, although at times things flooded so fast that you had a hard time keeping up. Not to mention that I occasionally wanted to watch some of the runs and not just stare at the chat. When it went over into 3 rooms things got out of hand pretty quickly.

1 large irc chat room is not something that would work. There would be too many messages at the same time and you would be way more likely to miss a comment as well as being less able to find people's nicks in a mess that is always moving. I don't see the 1 minute limit as a solution either so I think we should keep going with separate chat rooms. On average we had at least 3 people on-site watching the chats at the same time (sometimes 5 during the day, sometimes 2 during the GY shifts). It will be difficult to cater to everyone's need of attention, even more so if the viewer count will go up next year. Upping the amount of on-site chat-watchers will up the amount of people in the runner room, and we'll end up getting even more background chatter, not to mention actually finding enough people to be able cover it around the clock. There's not really one solution for the chat problem that doesn't cause other problems.

As for prizes linked in the schedule, this is not difficult and we should really have done it since it would have saved us lots of time. The reason it wasn't done was that we didn't upload all the prize pics to that folder until sometime after the marathon had started. At that point we had noone around that could (and had the time) to link all the prizes to their corresponding picture, so we just went with posting links in the chat. This will definitely be fixed for next year.

Regarding swapping in a commentator knowledgeable about the current game: It would obviously have been great if we could always have someone who knew a lot about the current game being played and also available to commentate on it when needed. This was far from the case though. We had some games where people had prepared some notes of facts to mention and such but for the most of it, we ended up having to go with less specific commentating. There was a thread dedicated to creating those fact sheets, but we didn't manage to get everyone involved with it in time, maybe next year we'll be able to prepare some more notes.

The problem with slow game switching was partly due to not all consoles being plugged in at the same time (we didn't have enough splitters for such a setup) and the wiring being a total mess that only a few people understood (who also weren't always able to be in there at all times, for obvious reasons). THe other part was that some of the older consoles took some time to start up etc.

usernameguy

Edit history:

usernameguy: 2011-01-16 01:18:47 pm

usernameguy: 2011-01-16 12:44:52 pm

2011-01-16 12:44:14 pm

One suggestion in re: the IRC rooms (I'm probably ditto'ing an earlier suggestion):

Have two rooms, one for folks registered in this forum, one for folks not registered.

It's technically possible to pull off, if a little twiddly. And I think it solves the complaints about the IRC rooms. Basically, they were choked with people who floated in via Reddit or Slashdot etc etc. They don't know as much about speedrunning, which is fine. Moderate the heck out of the registered IRC room, and if people want a more sophisticated outlook on the event? Simple - register.

Josh the Funkdoc

2011-01-16 01:31:43 pm

spread the dirt to the populace

yeah, if we really are about charity first with this (and we should be!), we need to simulcast on ustream + jtv next time. i dont think adding any others would really be necessary...nico i guess but that works so differently and there seem to be so many extra issues with that so im not sure if it would be worth it.

nate

Edit history:

nate: 2011-01-16 03:47:31 pm

2011-01-16 03:47:19 pm

this is responding a little bit to something moooh said. while still at the marathon i asked some people about for next year just having a single set of female av cables (yellow, red, white) for each tv. then, when it's time to switch systems, you just plug the new system into those cables. no system switchboxes at all. i think this would be better because no matter how hard we try, there are always going to be systems not plugged in to the switchboxes (people bring them in only right before they're about to do their run, etc), and even with five systems plugged in to two switchboxes with the inputs labeled, it's still not going to be as easy as just finding the av cable coming out of the system and plugging it in manually. the switchboxes were a good idea in theory but they didn't actually save us any time overall. so unless anyone has a better idea that's how it's going to be next year. just that one lead that every system plugs into for that tv. time to change systems is always the same no matter who is doing it or which system.

dballin

2011-01-16 03:51:23 pm

Balls jerky

Simple solutions are wonderful. I like simple!

feasel

2011-01-16 04:03:01 pm

difficult and stupidly random

I like the idea of doing away with switch boxes. When I was doing my Snake Rattle n Roll run (and during the NES games that followed) there were all sorts of wavy lines and distortion of the picture. Swapping NESes didn't fix it. (though the next day everything was fine again -- same NES, same TV).
It wasn't until later that I realized that at least one other system had been left on (the SNES) and in retrospect i think interference from other systems plugged into the switch box was the most likely explanation. So, there's another reason to prefer Nate's idea.

nate

Edit history:

nate: 2011-01-16 04:04:47 pm

2011-01-16 04:04:09 pm

yeah we did have interference problems but i never figured out what it was (other than the time we changed the nes ac adaptor and it fixed some of the distortion but not all of it). never considered the switchboxes. could have easily been it.

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-16 07:25:22 pm

Not a walrus

Swapping out to an official Nintendo power supply fixed it immediately, so I suspect it was a grounding issue of some sort.

Emptyeye

2011-01-16 09:47:46 pm

Talk to the Hand

Regarding naturally quiet runners:

For next year, if people who are naturally shy/quiet/whatever want, I could act as kind of a surrogate for them, since I'm naturally loud and all. Basically, presuming they have information that they want to get out there and don't actually like quiet, I would relay information to the audience regarding the game/tricks/etc.

Just a thought. And I wouldn't have to be the only one to do this.

Rakuen

2011-01-16 10:29:53 pm

Weegee Time

Yeah, sometimes it's very difficult to pull off a speedrun, but the tricks and strategies to use are still easy to understand and explain with a little effort and research. I'd by no means say it's an obligation, but for those who come to the event just to attend, getting a grasp of the strategies from a run to commentate on them would be a pretty awesome way to help. :]

Carcinogen

2011-01-16 11:14:51 pm

I think there should be only one console hooked up at a time as well, save for races or co-op with two consoles, in which case we work out another solution. As soon as the run is over, the runner needs to take their consoles and gtfo while the other runner gets set up... or at least wraps up the cords and unplugs the other system from the power strip. Other game systems draw power and cause interference, even while turned off, and having a mess of cords everywhere kinda sucks.

Sir VG

2011-01-16 11:31:21 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Quote from Carcinogen:

I think there should be only one console hooked up at a time as well, save for races or co-op with two consoles, in which case we work out another solution. As soon as the run is over, the runner needs to take their consoles and gtfo while the other runner gets set up... or at least wraps up the cords and unplugs the other system from the power strip. Other game systems draw power and cause interference, even while turned off, and having a mess of cords everywhere kinda sucks.

And only touch/remove consoles BETWEEN games, unless you have a damn good reason too. Having an accident like during CT and giving everybody a heart attack was not fun.

Unknown_Pleasures

2011-01-17 08:56:32 am

Overall I loved the marathon but I think you guys need to spread it out more seeing as how you're always running behind schedule. Also need more Shinobi from Mike next year.

puwexil

2011-01-17 10:18:43 am

Professional Second Banana

Quote from Rakuen:

Yeah, sometimes it's very difficult to pull off a speedrun, but the tricks and strategies to use are still easy to understand and explain with a little effort and research. I'd by no means say it's an obligation, but for those who come to the event just to attend, getting a grasp of the strategies from a run to commentate on them would be a pretty awesome way to help. :]

Agreed - I tried to do that as much as possible when I was in the streaming room and was highly familiar with the game being played. Castlevania 3/4, Blaster Master, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Final Fantasy IV were probably the games I had the most to say about at this marathon, both for speedrunning tricks and general trivia like differences between US and JP/EU versions. Maybe next time I'll collaborate with some of the runners whose games I know well, so I can be more prepared to talk during parts of the game that he/she needs to concentrate on.

Pootrain

2011-01-18 07:00:46 am

train kept rollin

Quote from Unknown_Pleasures:

Overall I loved the marathon but I think you guys need to spread it out more seeing as how you're always running behind schedule. Also need more Shinobi from Mike next year.

Wait, ran over schedule! when did this happen? If only I had read through 5 pages of thread telling me that!

PJ

2011-01-18 02:03:54 pm

Is PJ

Quote from Pootrain:

Quote from Unknown_Pleasures:

Overall I loved the marathon but I think you guys need to spread it out more seeing as how you're always running behind schedule. Also need more Shinobi from Mike next year.

Wait, ran over schedule! when did this happen? If only I had read through 5 pages of thread telling me that!

Yea, seriously. I was there and I didn't even know we were behind schedule. Luckily others were on top of things.

Sir VG

2011-01-18 03:04:13 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

We were never behind schedule. We just always adjusted the schedule. Tongue

Zealie

2011-01-18 03:21:04 pm

Here might be an actual useful addition: get an option or something with the schedule so that you can check it in different times for the lazy people and it gets especially difficult for the lesser gifted like myself. (internet has a lot of those)

So you could say, gimme GMT times biatch! or like CET NOW! or whatever tickles your fancy.

In other words, add more time zones for the schedule to make it even more internationally friendly and so.

dunnius

2011-01-18 04:02:14 pm

Intruding N313 and F014

Quote from Sir VG:

We were never behind schedule. We just always adjusted the schedule. Tongue

SDA Charity Marathon, sponsored by the Ministry of Truth Cheesy