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

2011-01-12 04:02:50 am

While the mods did a great job of keeping the chat clean, personally I nearly stopped watching the marathon in disgust early on due to the prejudiced, insulting and sexist chat comments directed at the runners and other people in the room. I'd advise against a screen with a direct feed of the chat, in fact if I were writing this during the first day of the run, I'd advise against letting the chat be visible alongside the streams at all. There were people I wanted to tell about the marathon, but who might also associate the content of the chat with SDA. But of course there's nothing you can really do about this... you can't exactly kick someone before their comment is made.

But yeah, awesome work everyone, this is just a quibble.

ktwo

2011-01-12 05:00:28 am

Funnily enough, the flu hit me hard pretty much by the time the marathon started, but by the end of it, after many hours of watching, I have now almost fully recovered. So sda not only helps in defeating cancer, but has also a positive effect on fighting the flu. Smiley

A lot of the things I will mention have already been said, but I think it's valuable to repeat some things as they can be subjective and more voices will therefore give more weight.

Before going into my suggestions for how to top this at the next event, just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you for pulling off such an earthshaking success. And thanks to Mike for keeping his promise of including the no-warp Snake Rattle 'n Roll run. I can't imagine anyone was disappointed by Feasel's performance on that one. Ok, here's the meat...

* The "people in the room". Seriously, shut the f-k up or get the f-k out... Except for the runner and the commentators, I expect the remaining people to make the place look alive and also to set the atmosphere by looking interested (not sleepy) and to show some feelings when the runner pulls off tight manoeuvers etc. It was pretty darn impossible to hear what was being said the first couple of days. It was much better at the second half. Good job by Mike (and Emptyeye too I think) for raising the voice a couple of times. Also, everything that was said at the second row was often difficult to hear, so if you absolutely has something to say, speak up or have the commentator repeat it. Finally, on a couple of occasions, questions from the chat were read out which generated 10 or so simultanous answers. They were probably all correct and I know it's just human to be excited when there is a question you know the answer to, but as a viewer I couldn't hear sh-t.

* Time schedule. Obviously a difficult chapter. I don't know in detail how this was set up or based on what assumptions, but there must be a million ways to set up buffers or offset this. Add a couple of minutes of setup time/player interviews between the runs. Or divide the marathon into sections. Between each section, add some bonus content (only activated if reached on time). Just as an example, it could be Andrew G pulling off some smb tricks or doing some of the shorter runs (in all honesty, it looked like Marble Madness or Excitebike were based more on talent than detailed preparations, so I guess not much training would have been lost had they not been run).

* Commentators. From good job to amazing. I'm feel sorry for some of the first ones that got their commentary partly ruined by the chatter. I feel especially sorry for the guy commenting the oot-race. I only watched the beginning (due to most races had a tendency to lag for me), but it was painful to see how he had written down stuff to prepare and then couldn't get his voice heard. SMK was hilarious (I know he was technically the runner, but wow) !!! Emptyeye is a natural. Josh, your Snake Rattle 'n Roll comments were the most informative I saw during the whole marathon. I checked the chat at the same time and everyone was screaming for more of your comments (despite chattering people in the background). General information about the game mechanics and stuff is interesting when you're about to watch a full run of a game you're not necessarily familiar with. That can easily be prepared beforehand too. (sorry for not mentioning the others, but I have not watched everything and these were the guys that stood out and that I know the name of)

* "Don't take people for idiots, just don't forget that it's what they are" (les inconnus). By judging from the chat, a lot of the people were drawn to the marathon without a detailed knowledge of speedrunning. You guys were good at repeating that it was a charity marathon and also regularly gave updates on biddings etc. But one HUGE omission was to promote sda much more than you did. What is the site about ? What's so special about it (verification, all the videos are available for download for free, independent site etc etc etc) ? Difference between TAS and console ? Maybe ask Mike one or two questions when he enters the room (no, I don't think everyone knows who he is) ? What does it take if people wanna make a speedrun of their own ? These things could be repeated regularly. I know the priority was the charity thing, but it's not like there was not time for other stuff too.

* Player focus. It's quite obvious that many of the speedrunners are more of the reserved type, but the fact is that during these days you were the heroes for quite a few people out there. I think it would have been cool before the run to introduce the runner and the game or (maybe preferable) during the setup of the next run have the commentator ask the runner how it went, plans for an actual submission, what runs the runner has on the site etc. Doesn't have to be more than a minute or two and should not waste any time at all.

* What's the donation requirement for having Seth Glass in the next lineup ? Grin

Finally, did I hear someone suggest Amped 2 (xbox) for the next event ? I think Mike replied, but I couldn't hear. If no one has made a run and claimed my bounty for it (see the bounty thread), I'll donate the bounty (100$) for having it in the marathon. Smiley

Finally, finally, I must repeat that it was an incredible event. Even if you don't listen to one single of my above suggestions, you're going to make a huge success next event as well.

Funnily enough, the flu hit me hard pretty much by the time the marathon started, but by the end of it, after many hours of watching, I have now almost fully recovered. So sda not only helps in defeating cancer, but has also a positive effect on fighting the flu. :)

A lot of the things I will mention have already been said, but I think it's valuable to repeat some things as they can be subjective and more voices will therefore give more weight.

Before going into my suggestions for how to top this at the next event, just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you for pulling off such an earthshaking success. And thanks to Mike for keeping his promise of including the no-warp Snake Rattle 'n Roll run. I can't imagine anyone was disappointed by Feasel's performance on that one. Ok, here's the meat...

* The "people in the room". Seriously, shut the f-k up or get the f-k out... Except for the runner and the commentators, I expect the remaining people to make the place look alive and also to set the atmosphere by looking interested (not sleepy) and to show some feelings when the runner pulls off tight manoeuvers etc. It was pretty darn impossible to hear what was being said the first couple of days. It was much better at the second half. Good job by Mike (and Emptyeye too I think) for raising the voice a couple of times. Also, everything that was said at the second row was often difficult to hear, so if you absolutely has something to say, speak up or have the commentator repeat it. Finally, on a couple of occasions, questions from the chat were read out which generated 10 or so simultanous answers. They were probably all correct and I know it's just human to be excited when there is a question you know the answer to, but as a viewer I couldn't hear sh-t.

* Time schedule. Obviously a difficult chapter. I don't know in detail how this was set up or based on what assumptions, but there must be a million ways to set up buffers or offset this. Add a couple of minutes of setup time/player interviews between the runs. Or divide the marathon into sections. Between each section, add some bonus content (only activated if reached on time). Just as an example, it could be Andrew G pulling off some smb tricks or doing some of the shorter runs (in all honesty, it looked like Marble Madness or Excitebike were based more on talent than detailed preparations, so I guess not much training would have been lost had they not been run).

* Commentators. From good job to amazing. I'm feel sorry for some of the first ones that got their commentary partly ruined by the chatter. I feel especially sorry for the guy commenting the oot-race. I only watched the beginning (due to most races had a tendency to lag for me), but it was painful to see how he had written down stuff to prepare and then couldn't get his voice heard. SMK was hilarious (I know he was technically the runner, but wow) !!! Emptyeye is a natural. Josh, your Snake Rattle 'n Roll comments were the most informative I saw during the whole marathon. I checked the chat at the same time and everyone was screaming for more of your comments (despite chattering people in the background). General information about the game mechanics and stuff is interesting when you're about to watch a full run of a game you're not necessarily familiar with. That can easily be prepared beforehand too. (sorry for not mentioning the others, but I have not watched everything and these were the guys that stood out and that I know the name of)

* "Don't take people for idiots, just don't forget that it's what they are" (les inconnus). By judging from the chat, a lot of the people were drawn to the marathon without a detailed knowledge of speedrunning. You guys were good at repeating that it was a charity marathon and also regularly gave updates on biddings etc. But one HUGE omission was to promote sda much more than you did. What is the site about ? What's so special about it (verification, all the videos are available for download for free, independent site etc etc etc) ? Difference between TAS and console ? Maybe ask Mike one or two questions when he enters the room (no, I don't think everyone knows who he is) ? What does it take if people wanna make a speedrun of their own ?  These things could be repeated regularly. I know the priority was the charity thing, but it's not like there was not time for other stuff too.

* Player focus. It's quite obvious that many of the speedrunners are more of the reserved type, but the fact is that during these days you were the heroes for quite a few people out there. I think it would have been cool before the run to introduce the runner and the game or (maybe preferable) during the setup of the next run have the commentator ask the runner how it went, plans for an actual submission, what runs the runner has on the site etc. Doesn't have to be more than a minute or two and should not waste any time at all.

* What's the donation requirement for having Seth Glass in the next lineup ? ;D

Finally, did I hear someone suggest Amped 2 (xbox) for the next event ? I think Mike replied, but I couldn't hear. If no one has made a run and claimed my bounty for it (see the bounty thread), I'll donate the bounty (100$) for having it in the marathon. :)

Finally, finally, I must repeat that it was an incredible event. Even if you don't listen to one single of my above suggestions, you're going to make a huge success next event as well.

neskamikaze

2011-01-12 05:07:48 am

That's a really good point about promoting SDA more, I don't think I heard much of that at all and that would have been great to get more people who came for the marathon to check out the site more and perhaps decide that they would like to contribute. Mike mentioned it a few times I remember but not all that much.
Also, about the other people in the room, apologies for looking sleepy and disinterested. We were definitely interested, but this destroyed the sleep schedules of everyone in attendance and almost all of us (especially after a couple of days) were extremely tired and fighting to stay awake.

Flip

2011-01-12 05:08:03 am

1-Up!

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

And blast my fairly blunt and straightforward typing style. Made this thread turn out kind of depressing.

It's got nothing to do with your "typing style." Fact of the matter is that you made a gripe thread an hour after the marathon ended.

guest1

2011-01-12 05:10:42 am

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Regarding OoT specifically, I don't want to get too much into it since I would like this thread to stay on general terms, but the fact that four people were running it made the cut scenes miniscule as you could watch another screen. Add in the explanations of how the run works made the cut scene dominated run very entertaining to watch. I could see the issue if only one person was running it.

Yea, watching 4 people mash through the same cutscene at different points of the cutscene vs. just one person mashing through the cutscene, when 2 of them from the start had basically no shot at winning the race, was really entertaining...

mike89

2011-01-12 05:15:41 am

SEGA Junkie

OK guys, this isn't the time to bitch about overrated game X or Y. It's to discuss improvements to future marathons, but having said that, I'm really not even sure this topic was a good idea so soon after the marathon, because while we know there are things to improve (and there's a lot), I think the best time to go over them is in the fullness of time after the recorded videos are released, and when we start planning for the next one. Which is basically what Flip said but less abruptly, lol.

Aftermath

2011-01-12 05:19:10 am

Quits halfway

I wasn't bothered at all by the scheduling conflicts. I had to work and stuff, and missed out on some stuff I wanted to watch, but it should really be a non-issue since everything is going to be uploaded later. Sure, you won't be able to participate in chat or get shoutouts, but if you want that, just go to #sda...

It was quite rare (from what I saw), but I agree with Funkdoc that donations for stuff that would slow the runner down was a little annoying. Unless it's something pre-planned, or the runner definitely can do it (Tyrant Knife fight in RE1), it should be rejected. I think this could be remedied by more SDA promotion, as others suggested. Challenge runs where you get a star in SM64 without turning left should be saved for youtube >_>

Other than that, the background chatter was the only issue I'd request being improved. It really did get quite noisy at some points, even when the runner was clearly trying to speak. Not quite on the same topic, but I do remember last year people suggesting runners or knowledgeable people coming up with a page of stuff to mention during the run. This would mean that the runner doesn't necessarily have to talk during their run, a commentator that doesn't know much about the game doesn't feel uncomfortable in the chair, and viewers might know what to look out for. Obviously, this works out in some games much better than others, but for something like Banjo-Kazooie, which isn't as trick-intensive as SotN (I think?), you could go over the history of speedruns with it, or something.

But yeah. Overwhelmingly, the marathon was amazing to watch and really made me want to get back into speedrunning the games I've planned it for. Thanks to everyone involved, I thought you all did a great job, considering how chaotic it must have been at times.

Also, OoT isn't worth arguing about.

I wasn't bothered at all by the scheduling conflicts. I had to work and stuff, and missed out on some stuff I wanted to watch, but it should really be a non-issue since everything is going to be uploaded later. Sure, you won't be able to participate in chat or get shoutouts, but if you want that, just go to #sda...

It was quite rare (from what I saw), but I agree with Funkdoc that donations for stuff that would slow the runner down was a little annoying. Unless it's something pre-planned, or the runner definitely can do it (Tyrant Knife fight in RE1), it should be rejected. I think this could be remedied by more SDA promotion, as others suggested. Challenge runs where you get a star in SM64 without turning left should be saved for youtube >_>

Other than that, the background chatter was the only issue I'd request being improved. It really did get quite noisy at some points, even when the runner was clearly trying to speak. Not quite on the same topic, but I do remember last year people suggesting runners or knowledgeable people coming up with a page of stuff to mention during the run. This would mean that the runner doesn't necessarily have to talk during their run, a commentator that doesn't know much about the game doesn't feel uncomfortable in the chair, and viewers might know what to look out for. Obviously, this works out in some games much better than others, but for something like Banjo-Kazooie, which isn't as trick-intensive as SotN (I think?), you could go over the history of speedruns with it, or something.

But yeah. Overwhelmingly, the marathon was amazing to watch and really made me want to get back into speedrunning the games I've planned it for. Thanks to everyone involved, I thought you all did a great job, considering how chaotic it must have been at times.

Also, OoT isn't worth arguing about.

Bromazepam

2011-01-12 05:19:43 am

Steam addict

Quote from ktwo:

* "Don't take people for idiots, just don't forget that it's what they are" (les inconnus). By judging from the chat, a lot of the people were drawn to the marathon without a detailed knowledge of speedrunning. You guys were good at repeating that it was a charity marathon and also regularly gave updates on biddings etc. But one HUGE omission was to promote sda much more than you did. What is the site about ? What's so special about it (verification, all the videos are available for download for free, independent site etc etc etc) ? Difference between TAS and console ? Maybe ask Mike one or two questions when he enters the room (no, I don't think everyone knows who he is) ? What does it take if people wanna make a speedrun of their own ? These things could be repeated regularly. I know the priority was the charity thing, but it's not like there was not time for other stuff too.

Quote from neskamikaze:

That's a really good point about promoting SDA more, I don't think I heard much of that at all and that would have been great to get more people who came for the marathon to check out the site more and perhaps decide that they would like to contribute. Mike mentioned it a few times I remember but not all that much.
Also, about the other people in the room, apologies for looking sleepy and disinterested. We were definitely interested, but this destroyed the sleep schedules of everyone in attendance and almost all of us (especially after a couple of days) were extremely tired and fighting to stay awake.

This is actually very true. Even though I had never posted on the forums before today, I already knew SDA very well, how the site works and all, and from watching last year's marathon I was able to recognize most people, but if I think about it even after watching about 85 hours of stream if I didn't know all that, I still wouldn't know it now.

While maybe plugging the site might look a bit out of place since the charity is the main purpose of it, remember that more SDA aficionados ==> more viewers next year.

[quote="ktwo"]

* "Don't take people for idiots, just don't forget that it's what they are" (les inconnus). By judging from the chat, a lot of the people were drawn to the marathon without a detailed knowledge of speedrunning. You guys were good at repeating that it was a charity marathon and also regularly gave updates on biddings etc. But one HUGE omission was to promote sda much more than you did. What is the site about ? What's so special about it (verification, all the videos are available for download for free, independent site etc etc etc) ? Difference between TAS and console ? Maybe ask Mike one or two questions when he enters the room (no, I don't think everyone knows who he is) ? What does it take if people wanna make a speedrun of their own ?  These things could be repeated regularly. I know the priority was the charity thing, but it's not like there was not time for other stuff too.

[/quote]

[quote="neskamikaze"]That's a really good point about promoting SDA more, I don't think I heard much of that at all and that would have been great to get more people who came for the marathon to check out the site more and perhaps decide that they would like to contribute. Mike mentioned it a few times I remember but not all that much.
Also, about the other people in the room, apologies for looking sleepy and disinterested. We were definitely interested, but this destroyed the sleep schedules of everyone in attendance and almost all of us (especially after a couple of days) were extremely tired and fighting to stay awake.[/quote]

This is actually very true. Even though I had never posted on the forums before today, I already knew SDA very well, how the site works and all, and from watching last year's marathon I was able to recognize most people, but if I think about it even after watching about 85 hours of stream if I didn't know all that, I still wouldn't know it now.

While maybe plugging the site might look a bit out of place since the charity is the main purpose of it, remember that more SDA [i]aficionados[/i] ==> more viewers next year.

guest1

2011-01-12 05:23:29 am

Ktwo. Where to start. Your line about our "charity thing" says it all about your priorities and you seem pretty fucking bitter for no reason. Telling people to shut the fuck up in the room when people have been staying awake for 20 or 30 hours at a time? Telling people to stay focused on every run and "look excited" when we are working so fucking hard, are so tired, and are honestly doing our best? Seriously man, you need to get your priorities straight. This is for charity first, for sda/speedrunning a very, very distant second. Absolutely 0 of your suggestions have anything to do with gaining more donations and raising a greater amount of money for "the charity thing."

guest5

2011-01-12 05:37:13 am

You guys should try making more than just chump change at these events. Perhaps give away a PS3 and an XBox in addition to a Wii. Also make sure the main commentator carries a megaphone with them so that you can raise money by having them yell into sleeping people's ears with it. I think you should really try to make $100,000 dollars so that your charity money can maybe make some kind of progress next time. Good luck.

Kirua

2011-01-12 06:12:23 am

Wow, guest5 is heavily trolling...

This thread seems a bit brutal as it comes very quickly after the end, but I think everybody knows that the marathon was a huge success, just looking at the donation total. So, to everybody who contributed or organized it, don't take it personnally, because mistakes (sometimes very obvious ones) are brought up. It's just us nerds wanting everything to be perfect. That's the speedrunner way of thinking, after all. Polishing more and more.

RoboSparkle

2011-01-12 06:21:19 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

(Warning: Long Post. Sorry, kinda got away from me a bit...)

As a Brit, I found the scheduling to be almost perfect for me personally Smiley

I've been clearing out and getting ready to move, so it was great to have something different and exciting to watch, and thank you very much! I have missed games due to the given schedule not matching mine perfectly, but given that it will all be uploaded, I'm not too worried about that.

I did find that the stream killed my browser periodically, and seeing it go down at the worst possible time was very frustrating. I have no idea what the cause of this is, but next marathon you need to be prepared to handle the traffic of 3000+ viewers at any given time. It seems like you weren't expecting that many people to get the stream (maybe your marketing ploy was too successful?). This was especially apparent during the races. In OoT, Jiano's was fine, but the others were quite laggy at times. I also could not remember who was on which screen, and that could easily have been added to the topic on the chat.

I think the biggest thing you could improve is the level of interactivity, to make us feel a much bigger part of the marathon. Especially donating for things like names, difficulties, etc. The runner should plan exactly what aspects can be changed without massively altering the time (live use of Namingway in FF4 was an excellent example of this), but there should be some means of us easily keeping track of how much is being donated to which cause (e.g. a live table showing how much had been donated to Mario 64 vs. Majora's Mask, which characters to use in Metal Slug 3, etc), as that would end a lot of questions, and, I believe, encourage more donations to that.

For donating to extra challenges (I'm thinking mainly of Kirby here, there are probably other examples), this should be left to a bonus feed, rather than delaying the next game. If there was a feed running in the practice room, then we'd have the option of not watching the main game, but instead watching the next runner practice his/her difficult sequence break or something. I think there's a lot of entertainment potential there!

Remember, as has been mentioned, the speedrunning should always come second, and if the runner is willing and able to accept a challenge that will add, say, $100 to the kitty, then he should always take the cash!

I also feel that the level of commentary was excellent overall. I think possibly there should be more preparation from the runner and commentator(s) about what to say (sorry I'm asking quite a lot from the prep side and you already work very hard!). Someone mentioned earlier about taking into account the nature of the runner and run (chatty vs. serious, prep-based runs vs. skill-based runs) and work to complement each other better. Appropriate use of Serious Time helped to build up the tension, too Smiley

Focusing on the Prevent Cancer Foundation, I think that level of promo was done very well, and I took a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing Mew single-handedly defeat Cancer Cheesy

Keeping the main goal at the forefront of the marathon was a good move, and next marathon should also make sure the main theme takes priority over everything else.

I also saw most of the SMG2 run and from that it was very obvious that you were going to annihilate your donation target. I think you could have got more donations from setting your initial target higher. Next year's target should be at least $50k to start with. As far as the prizes go, it wasn't always obvious what the prizes were, and most of the time you tried to show a prize on the screen, the feed went completely white and I thought it had frozen again! If you have a better system for showing that, hopefully you should encourage more of the $5 donations. Also, I didn't know there were big prizes being given out at the end for ALL $5+ donations (maybe I wasn't paying attention), but if this were made clearer, you should see an increase, too!

I don't know if you had this (lack of research, sorry!) but if there wasn't, there should be a means for us to donate prizes before the marathon. There are a huge number of talented and creative individuals on this forum, and I bet more than a few of them would be willing to give up time to help prevent cancer by making a piece of art or donating something wonderful to reward the viewers' genorosity!

Finally, because it really hasn't been (and can't be) said enough: You guys were absolutely incredible! Everybody who gave up their time to practice, to prepare, to make the journey, to give up work and/or school, to create those brilliant prizes, to keep us entertained with their brilliant speedruns and the chatter. Awesomeasaurus! Makes my mere earthly money i donated seem rather pitiful in comparison... Wink

(Warning: Long Post.  Sorry, kinda got away from me a bit...)

As a Brit, I found the scheduling to be almost perfect for me personally :)  I've been clearing out and getting ready to move, so it was great to have something different and exciting to watch, and thank you very much!  I have missed games due to the given schedule not matching mine perfectly, but given that it will all be uploaded, I'm not too worried about that.

I did find that the stream killed my browser periodically, and seeing it go down at the worst possible time was very frustrating.  I have no idea what the cause of this is, but next marathon you need to be prepared to handle the traffic of 3000+ viewers at any given time.  It seems like you weren't expecting that many people to get the stream (maybe your marketing ploy was too successful?).  This was especially apparent during the races.  In OoT, Jiano's was fine, but the others were quite laggy at times.  I also could not remember who was on which screen, and that could easily have been added to the topic on the chat.

I think the biggest thing you could improve is the level of interactivity, to make us feel a much bigger part of the marathon.  Especially donating for things like names, difficulties, etc.  The runner should plan exactly what aspects can be changed without massively altering the time (live use of Namingway in FF4 was an excellent example of this), but there should be some means of us easily keeping track of how much is being donated to which cause (e.g. a live table showing how much had been donated to Mario 64 vs. Majora's Mask, which characters to use in Metal Slug 3, etc), as that would end a lot of questions, and, I believe, encourage more donations to that.

For donating to extra challenges (I'm thinking mainly of Kirby here, there are probably other examples), this should be left to a bonus feed, rather than delaying the next game.  If there was a feed running in the practice room, then we'd have the option of not watching the main game, but instead watching the next runner practice his/her difficult sequence break or something.  I think there's a lot of entertainment potential there!

Remember, as has been mentioned, the speedrunning should always come second, and if the runner is willing and able to accept a challenge that will add, say, $100 to the kitty, then he should always take the cash!

I also feel that the level of commentary was excellent overall.  I think possibly there should be more preparation from the runner and commentator(s) about what to say (sorry I'm asking quite a lot from the prep side and you already work very hard!).  Someone mentioned earlier about taking into account the nature of the runner and run (chatty vs. serious, prep-based runs vs. skill-based runs) and work to complement each other better.  Appropriate use of Serious Time helped to build up the tension, too :)

Focusing on the Prevent Cancer Foundation, I think that level of promo was done very well, and I took a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing Mew single-handedly defeat Cancer :D  Keeping the main goal at the forefront of the marathon was a good move, and next marathon should also make sure the main theme takes priority over everything else.

I also saw most of the SMG2 run and from that it was very obvious that you were going to annihilate your donation target.  I think you could have got more donations from setting your initial target higher.  Next year's target should be at least $50k to start with. As far as the prizes go, it wasn't always obvious what the prizes were, and most of the time you tried to show a prize on the screen, the feed went completely white and I thought it had frozen again!  If you have a better system for showing that, hopefully you should encourage more of the $5 donations.  Also, I didn't know there were big prizes being given out at the end for ALL $5+ donations (maybe I wasn't paying attention), but if this were made clearer, you should see an increase, too!

I don't know if you had this (lack of research, sorry!) but if there wasn't, there should be a means for us to donate prizes before the marathon.  There are a huge number of talented and creative individuals on this forum, and I bet more than a few of them would be willing to give up time to help prevent cancer by making a piece of art or donating something wonderful to reward the viewers' genorosity!

Finally, because it really hasn't been (and can't be) said enough:  You guys were absolutely incredible! Everybody who gave up their time to practice, to prepare, to make the journey, to give up work and/or school, to create those brilliant prizes, to keep us entertained with their brilliant speedruns and the chatter. Awesomeasaurus!  Makes my mere earthly money i donated seem rather pitiful in comparison... ;)

ktwo

2011-01-12 06:54:05 am

Guest1, I'm not sure if you're trolling or not, but I will reply at least once and see how it goes.

I'm not bitter. I said on several occasions in my post that the marathon was awesome. I also donated for the "charity thing". You think you know about me and my priorities by trying to read between the lines and then extrapolating from that ? Well, keep up the good work, you're doing great...

As for the rest, if you don't see how improving the quality of the stream will lead to more viewers and in the end generate more donations, then I don't know what else to say. (on the other hand, it's your right to disagree with all of the suggestions I made, which I also expect you to vehemently do now - be my guest, it's all subjective opinions anyways)

Carl Sagan

2011-01-12 09:09:39 am

Wow, there certainly are a lot of biased personal opinions being thrown around here as if they are somehow obvious or well-informed. I don't think a lot of the people commenting know that last year's marathon was so much smaller -- they already increased their initial goal by 5x by going from $5,000 last year to $25,000 this year!

I'm pretty sure several people are trolling, or just gigantic jerks. I know this is The Internet, but barreling into a thread attacking people is not the way to go about having a productive discussion.

That being said, I think there are a lot of good ideas in this thread, so hopefully the people whose ears matter are willing to sift through the garbage to find the more useful ones.

dballin

Edit history:

dballin: 2011-01-12 10:59:53 am

2011-01-12 10:07:18 am

Balls jerky

It's a good thing you guys can coherently type this stuff out. When Mike asked me before leaving on Sunday my answer was "durrrrrrr." I'd also been up for 30+ hours and facing a 6 hour drive home, but yeah I'll type out more stuff later from both a viewer's perspective and an attendee's.

I totally said this before reading the topic and now I'm questioning some people's ability to post coherent, well thought out, and constructive comments. Sad

Mystery

2011-01-12 10:21:41 am

Judging from some of the issues, it would seem that keeping to the schedule is something that you be improved next year. Both for the viewers and the attendees' sakes.
The most rational idea I've heard so far is to overestimate the time it takes to make the runs, and if there is time in-between, use some fillers. And if the run takes too long, pull the plug.
*shrug* I'm not the planner of the marathon, but this seems a good idea judging from what I've read so far.

Re comments, I'm going to have to agree. It was the same last year's marathon. When listening to the comment stream, I'm mostly interested in hearing comments about the run, not idle chit-chat. And the amount of conversations going around in the room makes it difficult to concentrate on what you want to hear. I don't know what the best solution for this is, though. People do have a right to talk and have fun and obviously, answering questions from the chat. But perhaps something can be thought of. I know you're at least aware of the issue by now if you've read through all of this.

Regarding the chats, isn't it better to split the chats into several smaller chats? It's an idea, only. But smaller chats are more manageable. With one or more moderators in all of them, it stands to reason, at least to me, that order could be kept and questions could be answered without a flood of people talking and asking at the same time. But I don't know how exactly you plan the donations stuff and questions in the commentator stream.

Lastly, I could only complain about the lack of bandwidth. Newer games look like blockfest, even on smaller screens. Obviously, bandwidth is a concern to some, but I'm not too fond of watching blockfests when watching games. Well, it's something to think of.

Finally, awesome work. This marathon went well above expectations, didn't it? Over $50 000 donations collected! Whoo! Awesomely done!
Looking forward to another marathon where, I hopefully, have more time to watch games.

Judging from some of the issues, it would seem that keeping to the schedule is something that you be improved next year. Both for the viewers and the attendees' sakes.
The most rational idea I've heard so far is to overestimate the time it takes to make the runs, and if there is time in-between, use some fillers. And if the run takes too long, pull the plug.
*shrug* I'm not the planner of the marathon, but this seems a good idea judging from what I've read so far.

Re comments, I'm going to have to agree. It was the same last year's marathon. When listening to the comment stream, I'm mostly interested in hearing comments about the run, not idle chit-chat. And the amount of conversations going around in the room makes it difficult to concentrate on what you want to hear. I don't know what the best solution for this is, though. People do have a right to talk and have fun and obviously, answering questions from the chat. But perhaps something can be thought of. I know you're at least aware of the issue by now if you've read through all of this.

Regarding the chats, isn't it better to split the chats into several smaller chats? It's an idea, only. But smaller chats are more manageable. With one or more moderators in all of them, it stands to reason, at least to me, that order could be kept and questions could be answered without a flood of people talking and asking at the same time. But I don't know how exactly you plan the donations stuff and questions in the commentator stream.

Lastly, I could only complain about the [i]lack[/i] of bandwidth. Newer games look like blockfest, even on smaller screens. Obviously, bandwidth is a concern to some, but I'm not too fond of watching blockfests when watching games. Well, it's something to think of.

Finally, awesome work. This marathon went well above expectations, didn't it? Over $50 000 donations collected! Whoo! Awesomely done!
Looking forward to another marathon where, I hopefully, have more time to watch games.

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-12 10:27:57 am

Not a walrus

First off, it was hard enough getting people to be able to moderate the chats as is, trying to get more of them while also allowing them to watch the marathon is going to be difficult.

Second, the lack of bandwith was in no way our fault, since we only send two streams to ustream. Any other issues are ustream's fault. Also I personally think it looked fine for the most part.

I dunno about others, but we tried to tone down on the random conversations this year. I actually appreciated the people behind me talking about the games because I was really concentrating and was super nervous throughout both my runs. Maybe next year I can be a little more relaxed about it and talk some more myself.

That said, we do have a lot of ideas to make it all better next year that haven't been mentioned on the forum yet.

UraniumAnchor

Edit history:

UraniumAnchor: 2011-01-14 10:41:28 am

2011-01-12 10:31:26 am

Not a walrus

Way to completely miss the point of what I said. Fuck off.

Edit: Mystery deleted his post so this looks schizophrenic now in addition to being angry, but I stand by what I said.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-12 10:39:17 am

Mystery: 2011-01-12 10:36:34 am

Mystery: 2011-01-12 10:36:10 am

Mystery: 2011-01-12 10:35:58 am

2011-01-12 10:35:21 am

And so we fall down to being rude when people are just voicing their opinions? Sheesh.
Like I said, the people who were in charge probably knows best and will post their ideas, needs and whatever else they think is necessary when they deem the time is right.
I am not presuming or saying anything should be done. I am voicing ideas and thoughts.

Anyway, I raised my thoughts, so over and out.

Aftermath

2011-01-12 10:45:29 am

Quits halfway

The only thing the mods at the marathon really need to read are the messages starting with "$10 if the runner..." which they actually did a pretty great job of reading, with only one exception coming to mind (something about a 1 star hercules throw in SM64). Of course, I like being an attention whore and it's great when the commentator reads something you wrote, but honestly, they probably want to focus on watching the run, so improving this aspect over how it was this year is a lot to ask, and really, since donation offers were picked up in both chats, doesn't seem all that necessary.

SMK

2011-01-12 10:56:42 am

@DarkwingDuck re: donations and stuff
I have to admit that I that having a web page for viewers to view bidding wars and such was probably the biggest thing that I was thinking to myself as I was working donations throughout. I'll post something of a postmortem in the donation app thread about this, but if something this this is done next year, it should be a distributed system where the donations will be entered into a server, and then we can set up a separate page that will read the current status from the server and display the current state of the all the bids (this won't even be that difficult to do if its set up correctly). This, in addition to automating the addition of the donations from the chip-in page (hooray for last-minute hacks) would probably have made everything related to this much, _much_ less painful that it was this year.

Bromazepam

2011-01-12 10:59:11 am

Steam addict

Quote from Mystery:

Regarding the chats, isn't it better to split the chats into several smaller chats? It's an idea, only. But smaller chats are more manageable. With one or more moderators in all of them, it stands to reason, at least to me, that order could be kept and questions could be answered without a flood of people talking and asking at the same time. But I don't know how exactly you plan the donations stuff and questions in the commentator stream.

I disagree. If the chat were divided in smaller ones, viewers would have a harder time talking about the stream. Even if the rooms were capped at 1500, only about 100 people were actually talking in them, making, admittedly, a lot of "noise". Dividing these 100 people in smaller groups would only hinder their ability to talk about what's happening.

Quote from Mystery:

Lastly, I could only complain about the lack of bandwidth. Newer games look like blockfest, even on smaller screens. Obviously, bandwidth is a concern to some, but I'm not too fond of watching blockfests when watching games. Well, it's something to think of.

I disagree. Even newer games looked fine to me. Maybe Ustream autoscales the bandwidth per user and you were getting very little? There were a couple of times when the commentary stream was showing some big compression artifacts to me.

Quote from Aftermath:

The only thing the mods at the marathon really need to read are the messages starting with "$10 if the runner..." which they actually did a pretty great job of reading, with only one exception coming to mind (something about a 1 star hercules throw in SM64). Of course, I like being an attention whore and it's great when the commentator reads something you wrote, but honestly, they probably want to focus on watching the run, so improving this aspect over how it was this year is a lot to ask, and really, since donation offers were picked up in both chats, doesn't seem all that necessary.

I disagree. It's nice to have the main commentator interact with the viewers and everything, otherwise we wouldn't have an open channel directly into the game room. The only thing that would matter is for priorities to be set, as I said before, where the runner has the top one when explaining something about the game, then the maint commentator when answering to chat or reading donations, finally other people who want to talk about the current run, or even something else (some nice stories were told during boring parts of some runs).

Quote from Bromazepam:

I disagree.
I disagree.
I disagree.

Wow, I did a lot of disagreeing in this post Cheesy

[quote="Mystery"]
Regarding the chats, isn't it better to split the chats into several smaller chats? It's an idea, only. But smaller chats are more manageable. With one or more moderators in all of them, it stands to reason, at least to me, that order could be kept and questions could be answered without a flood of people talking and asking at the same time. But I don't know how exactly you plan the donations stuff and questions in the commentator stream.
[/quote]

I disagree. If the chat were divided in smaller ones, viewers would have a harder time talking about the stream. Even if the rooms were capped at 1500, only about 100 people were actually talking in them, making, admittedly, a lot of "noise". Dividing these 100 people in smaller groups would only hinder their ability to talk about what's happening.

[quote="Mystery"]
Lastly, I could only complain about the [i]lack[/i] of bandwidth. Newer games look like blockfest, even on smaller screens. Obviously, bandwidth is a concern to some, but I'm not too fond of watching blockfests when watching games. Well, it's something to think of.
[/quote]

I disagree. Even newer games looked fine to me. Maybe Ustream autoscales the bandwidth per user and you were getting very little? There were a couple of times when the commentary stream was showing some big compression artifacts to me.

[quote="Aftermath"]The only thing the mods at the marathon really [b]need[/b] to read are the messages starting with "$10 if the runner..." which they actually did a pretty great job of reading, with only one exception coming to mind (something about a 1 star hercules throw in SM64). Of course, I like being an attention whore and it's great when the commentator reads something you wrote, but honestly, they probably want to focus on watching the run, so improving this aspect over how it was this year is a lot to ask, and really, since donation offers were picked up in both chats, doesn't seem all that necessary.[/quote]

I disagree. It's nice to have the main commentator interact with the viewers and everything, otherwise we wouldn't have an open channel directly into the game room. The only thing that would matter is for priorities to be set, as I said before, where the runner has the top one when explaining something about the game, then the maint commentator when answering to chat or reading donations, finally other people who want to talk about the current run, or even something else (some nice stories were told during boring parts of some runs).

[quote="Bromazepam"]
I disagree.
I disagree.
I disagree.[/quote]
Wow, I did a lot of disagreeing in this post :D

Rakuen

2011-01-12 11:02:37 am

Weegee Time

Actually, on that challenge front, here's another idea pulled from Desert Bus for Hope. They had a system for viewers to submit challenges for them to do. It's just pretty much a series of text boxes where you can enter your name, some sort of contact, a donation amount, and what you want to be done. Then all that goes neatly into their system, where they can approve or deny challenge as they saw fit. It gets the requests out of the chat and in a single focused area where it's very easy to manage. I think if we have the ability to do this, we should.

I was really, really surprised by the amount of people who really wanted to hear the runner and about what he or she was doing during the run. Perhaps this is because my background is all TSG events, where everyone is only really concerned with what the commentator is doing. That said, I see this as a Good Thing. SMK had one of the best commentary sessions of the marathon. It wasn't just informative, but it was also fairly laid back as well. I think that's the goal we should strive for: informative but casual.

Splitting the chat up only works if we have the people to police them. It's actually easier for me to moderate one chat with 450 people than it is 3 chats with 150 people each, because in the latter case I have to keep tabbing back and forth and I miss things. Also, less people in the chat means the chat can also move very slowly, which was a common complaint in Chat 2 and (when we had it) Chat 3 at times.

Quote:

Fact of the matter is that you made a gripe thread an hour after the marathon ended.

On the other hand, starting the thread now allows everyone to get their thoughts out while the event is still fully fresh in their minds. It does create sort of an echo chamber, but if a lot of people are all parroting the same idea, then that just adds more weight to the suggestion. And yes, trolls will be trolls, welcome to the Internet. Wink

Actually, on that challenge front, here's another idea pulled from Desert Bus for Hope.  They had a system for viewers to submit challenges for them to do.  It's just pretty much a series of text boxes where you can enter your name, some sort of contact, a donation amount, and what you want to be done.  Then all that goes neatly into their system, where they can approve or deny challenge as they saw fit.  It gets the requests out of the chat and in a single focused area where it's very easy to manage.  I think if we have the ability to do this, we should.

I was really, really surprised by the amount of people who really wanted to hear the runner and about what he or she was doing during the run.  Perhaps this is because my background is all TSG events, where everyone is only really concerned with what the commentator is doing.  That said, I see this as a Good Thing.  SMK had one of the best commentary sessions of the marathon.  It wasn't just informative, but it was also fairly laid back as well.  I think that's the goal we should strive for: informative but casual.

Splitting the chat up only works if we have the people to police them.  It's actually easier for me to moderate one chat with 450 people than it is 3 chats with 150 people each, because in the latter case I have to keep tabbing back and forth and I miss things.  Also, less people in the chat means the chat can also move very slowly, which was a common complaint in Chat 2 and (when we had it) Chat 3 at times.

[quote]Fact of the matter is that you made a gripe thread an hour after the marathon ended.[/quote]
On the other hand, starting the thread now allows everyone to get their thoughts out while the event is still fully fresh in their minds.  It does create sort of an echo chamber, but if a lot of people are all parroting the same idea, then that just adds more weight to the suggestion.  And yes, trolls will be trolls, welcome to the Internet. ;)

RoboSparkle

2011-01-12 11:11:53 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Yeah, it's not going to be easy to plough through however many pages of suggestions we put here to find out what's going to be both practical and effective, but it'll be better than waiting a week to see if people can still remember anything that isn't obvious.

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-12 12:52:24 pm

Not a walrus

Quote from Mystery:

And so we fall down to being rude when people are just voicing their opinions? Sheesh.
Like I said, the people who were in charge probably knows best and will post their ideas, needs and whatever else they think is necessary when they deem the time is right.
I am not presuming or saying anything should be done. I am voicing ideas and thoughts.

Anyway, I raised my thoughts, so over and out.

It's more than your response indicated that you didn't read my post at all and I already don't like you. If you think we need more chat moderators then maybe you should offer to do so. Actually, don't, because you'd probably be horrible at it.

I think the moderators did a pretty good job keeping OVER THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE under control for 5 days, while also trying to sleep and enjoy the marathon themselves and whatever else. Yes, more mods would have been better, and I said that, but I think we were lucky to get what we did, which is why your asinine suggestion to 'find more moderators', right after I JUST SAID we had trouble finding people who could do it, annoyed me so heavily.

[quote="Mystery"]And so we fall down to being rude when people are just voicing their opinions? Sheesh.
Like I said, the people who were in charge probably knows best and will post their ideas, needs and whatever else they think is necessary when they deem the time is right.
I am not presuming or saying anything should be done. I am voicing ideas and thoughts.

Anyway, I raised my thoughts, so over and out.[/quote]

It's more than your response indicated that you didn't read my post at all and I already don't like you. If you think we need more chat moderators then maybe you should offer to do so. Actually, don't, because you'd probably be horrible at it.

I think the moderators did a pretty good job keeping OVER THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE under control for 5 days, while also trying to sleep and enjoy the marathon themselves and whatever else. Yes, more mods would have been better, and I said that, but I think we were lucky to get what we did, which is why your asinine suggestion to 'find more moderators', right after I JUST SAID we had trouble finding people who could do it, annoyed me so heavily.