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

Rakuen

Edit history:

Rakuen: 2011-01-13 12:51:45 am

2011-01-13 12:30:11 am

Weegee Time

Quote:

Seriously, focus on suggestions that actually increase money for donations please. Suggestions like about the prizes, random raffles, etc. are much more effective and useful than ones complaining about how your personal viewing experience wasn't as good as it could have been or how we ignored your comment in chat because we didn't have enough mods.

Well, to kind of spin this a bit, you're right, it doesn't matter very much how one single person's viewing experience went. There's no way to cater to everyone, and no matter what we do someone will always be able to find something to complain about. However, you can't stifle those complaints. What happens when a bunch of people all end up having the same issue? That means we've established a pattern, and we're the constant. We have to cater to the greatest common denominator. If a bunch of viewers' experiences are impacted in the same way, not only does it make us look bad, but it also makes them unhappy. Let's face it, an unhappy viewer is less likely to donate to or promote for our cause. Figuring out ways to improve the viewing experience ensures donations, and is just as important as finding other ways to get people to donate.

I think your idea for a suggestion box would be a good way to get feedback from our donaters. I see the average viewer as being more likely to fill that out than register for some forums. We could also leverage social networking to try and get some opinions.

[quote]Seriously, focus on suggestions that actually increase money for donations please.  Suggestions like about the prizes, random raffles, etc. are much more effective and useful than ones complaining about how your personal viewing experience wasn't as good as it could have been or how we ignored your comment in chat because we didn't have enough mods.[/quote]
Well, to kind of spin this a bit, you're right, it doesn't matter very much how one single person's viewing experience went.  There's no way to cater to everyone, and no matter what we do someone will always be able to find something to complain about.  However, you can't stifle those complaints.  What happens when a bunch of people all end up having the same issue?  That means we've established a pattern, and we're the constant.  We have to cater to the greatest common denominator.  If a bunch of viewers' experiences are impacted in the same way, not only does it make us look bad, but it also makes them unhappy.  Let's face it, an unhappy viewer is less likely to donate to or promote for our cause.  Figuring out ways to improve the viewing experience ensures donations, and is just as important as finding other ways to get people to donate.

I think your idea for a suggestion box would be a good way to get feedback from our donaters.  I see the average viewer as being more likely to fill that out than register for some forums.  We could also leverage social networking to try and get some opinions.

Paraxade

2011-01-13 12:46:42 am

Quote from dballin:

2) People on site need to pay attention to the chats more. The chat really wanted people at the marathon to pay attention to them. Most of the time it was for donation updates or other stuff that we did constantly like donation comments, but other times it was legit stuff like GO CATCH A DROWZEE!!! for 5 minutes without being read.

2) We weren't able to answer certain questions or bring info to the people running the game/commentary which is why we need people on site to do this as well.

Hrrm. What if we had a separate channel with just the chat mods and people on-site, for the mods to relay specific things from the chat directed at the runner/commentator? This would unfortunately make the mods' jobs a little more difficult, but it would help ensure that most of the people who are trying to request a donation challenge or ask a question get heard, since it's probably easier for the chat moderators to pay attention than it is for people who are actually there.

Rakuen

2011-01-13 12:51:23 am

Weegee Time

Private staff chat is a great idea, and I don't think it would be difficult to manage assuming everyone's using an external client. Actually, it'd probably be easier, because instead of having to guess who to relay a message to based on who's spoken recently/who's probably up, it could just get dumped into there and whoever is available can attend to it.

LLCoolDave

2011-01-13 01:03:55 am

Big surprise, we actually HAD a channel just for that, it's just that somehow except for Mercury and moooh none of the other people on site where really ever in there. It would help a lot for next year to have a set account for the Donations and Commentary PCs with which they are logged into the chat. Often times relaying a message was a bunch of guesswork because there was no way to know as who (or if at all) those systems were logged in at all. I usually ended up copy pasting the same thing to 4 different people hoping one of them would read it in time.

Axel Ryman

2011-01-13 01:23:33 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

Quote from Aftermath:

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 >_>

The problem with this is that when we practiced for the marathon, we didn't try doing such challenges cause the goal was speed. Granted sometime before we may have done it, but who knows when we last did it. Afterall, I'm not sure how many times Carcinogen practiced a No Damage run of Resident Evil. Granted a number of the challenges given were a bit...extreme per se(Halo on Legendary for example), we won't know how things will go until we actually try to do it. If anything, the runner should be allowed to accept the challenge, but depending on the challenge as well as the amount of time it costs, it can be rejected.

A couple ideas I got for future marathons is making a chat specifically for challenges(This way runners do not miss them) as well as a page to keep track of Donation Wars(Character naming, challenges, etc) that is available for public view. I didn't mind being in the commentator seat(Albeit I was nervous and didn't do too much of a good job imo), but seeing how people repeatedly asked for something shortly after being read was annoying.

[quote="Aftermath"]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 >_>
[/quote]

The problem with this is that when we practiced for the marathon, we didn't try doing such challenges cause the goal was speed. Granted sometime before we may have done it, but who knows when we last did it. Afterall, I'm not sure how many times Carcinogen practiced a No Damage run of Resident Evil. Granted a number of the challenges given were a bit...extreme per se(Halo on Legendary for example), we won't know how things will go until we actually try to do it. If anything, the runner should be allowed to accept the challenge, but depending on the challenge as well as the amount of time it costs, it can be rejected.

A couple ideas I got for future marathons is making a chat specifically for challenges(This way runners do not miss them) as well as a page to keep track of Donation Wars(Character naming, challenges, etc) that is available for public view. I didn't mind being in the commentator seat(Albeit I was nervous and didn't do too much of a good job imo), but seeing how people repeatedly asked for something shortly after being read was annoying.

tomatobob

2011-01-13 02:01:31 am

Quote from Bromazepam:

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.

They promoted it fine, they mentioned speeddemosarchive.com as the proper place to view the marathon and to donate fairly often. That was really the only appropriate way to get SDA's name out with out being a complete tool, and since it was pretty much what they did last year it seems the results are actually pretty good. And honestly, how cares if people watching are interested in SDA at all? It's a charity marathon, as long as people are aware of what's going on and why whether or not the decide SDA is a place of interest to them is up to them and, at the moment, unimportant. There are plenty of other times over the course of the year to whore out SDA anyway, a few days of self restraint is good for you.

Seems like a lot of the complaints and suggestions here are about the "SDA-ness" of the runs, I can understand why, but it's also important to note that that the marathon really isn't for SDA. Run quality is important and obviously the speed of the run is important, but a dumb donation challenge here and there is fine as long as the runner is prepared to undertake the challenge and accepts it willingly. And I actually really liked that some more casual runs were included, watching a bunch of more serious runs can be a bit exhausting, especially when you get one where the runner gets slapped with awful luck and you start feeling bad because there's really nothing they can do about it and they're just getting more and more frustrated. It's not nearly as taxing on the viewer as it is on the runner of course, but a kinda goofy casual run now and then breaks the tension nicely. More importantly, the audience responds to goofiness, most of them aren't speed runners and seeing a game played well and still relatively fast while the players themselves seem more relaxed and willing to do things they wouldn't dream of in a more serious run is nice. It's also a good time for the commentators to mention the ongoing contests and update biding wars without feeling like they could be distracting the runner or intruding on some of the runner's commentary. Gets the viewers in more of a donating mood.

I'm not saying to sacrifice any serious runs or to cut down on play quality or anything but having things like Piano-game, Castle Crashers, Kirby Super Star, Lego Star Wars, and the occasional race (not the the races were necessarily casual) sprinkled strategically throughout the marathon is actually a good way to relax viewers and get them more in the mindset to donate. I felt like that was one of the more improved things over last year's show, throwing a little change of pace to the viewers. I think they hit about the right number of them actually.

[quote="Bromazepam"]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.[/quote]
They promoted it fine, they mentioned speeddemosarchive.com as the proper place to view the marathon and to donate fairly often. That was really the only appropriate way to get SDA's name out with out being a complete tool, and since it was pretty much what they did last year it seems the results are actually pretty good. And honestly, how cares if people watching are interested in SDA at all? It's a charity marathon, as long as people are aware of what's going on and why whether or not the decide SDA is a place of interest to them is up to them and, at the moment, unimportant. There are plenty of other times over the course of the year to whore out SDA anyway, a few days of self restraint is good for you.

Seems like a lot of the complaints and suggestions here are about the "SDA-ness" of the runs, I can understand why, but it's also important to note that that the marathon really isn't [i]for[/i] SDA. Run quality is important and obviously the speed of the run is important, but a dumb donation challenge here and there is fine as long as the runner is prepared to undertake the challenge and accepts it willingly. And I actually really liked that some more casual runs were included, watching a bunch of more serious runs can be a bit exhausting, especially when you get one where the runner gets slapped with awful luck and you start feeling bad because there's really nothing they can do about it and they're just getting more and more frustrated. It's not nearly as taxing on the viewer as it is on the runner of course, but a kinda goofy casual run now and then breaks the tension nicely. More importantly, the audience responds to goofiness, most of them aren't speed runners and seeing a game played well and still relatively fast while the players themselves seem more relaxed and willing to do things they wouldn't dream of in a more serious run is nice. It's also a good time for the commentators to mention the ongoing contests and update biding wars without feeling like they could be distracting the runner or intruding on some of the runner's commentary. Gets the viewers in more of a donating mood.

I'm not saying to sacrifice any serious runs or to cut down on play quality or anything but having things like Piano-game, Castle Crashers, Kirby Super Star, Lego Star Wars, and the occasional race (not the the races were necessarily casual) sprinkled strategically throughout the marathon is actually a good way to relax viewers and get them more in the mindset to donate. I felt like that was one of the more improved things over last year's show, throwing a little change of pace to the viewers. I think they hit about the right number of them actually.

Josh the Funkdoc

2011-01-13 11:37:42 am

spread the dirt to the populace

yeah, i was probably being way too serious practicing safe strats etc., and of course i was extremely visibly nervous during pianovania! next year i'll be more willing to go crazy if the cv games make it back in, and also take donations for weird routes in cv3, and be much more relaxed.

the thing is that i wanted to no-death all 3 games in a row, but now i realize that probably wouldn't be what the viewers respond to most...

VorpalEdge

Edit history:

VorpalEdge: 2011-01-13 02:40:50 pm

VorpalEdge: 2011-01-13 02:40:15 pm

2011-01-13 02:39:33 pm

welcome to the machine

tbob's not fakeposting? impossible!

A lot of the complaining about the schedule is unwarranted, I think. We kinda assumed that we were going to go over time at some point, but not by nearly that much. It's not like we could switch the order of games around just because Ocarina/SM64 are So Popular (tm) or something; that'd just be even more confusing to viewers and I'd frankly hate to be the person to tell someone that he's going to have to stay up several more hours because some other game is More Important than his. Keeping the schedule under control is a better idea.

The main things that I think need to be fixed for the marathon are expectations for the runners. practice, practice practice. I know it's kinda weird hearing this from me (and I swear I'll break at least :38 next year), but the halo rule needs to come into effect. If someone's running a new game, they need to seriously devote months to it, and if they're picking up a new game, they need to spend a fair amount of time getting back in the swing of things. I'd be up for a soft limit of only a few games per runner, as while I'm not going to name names, there are a couple players who I feel bit off more than they could chew (but at the same time there were some who had several games and did well at all of them, so it's not necessarily a hard limit) and who didn't have enough practice time to adequately cover all their games.

I also didn't like the more casual runs much. I know high-level play is possible in kirby super star, so come on. Sad

Apparently a lot of people did though, so whatever. it didn't ruin the marathon.

finally, i'm going to try for rka hard next marathon. no promises, but since mike89 is generous enough to give me his money...

tbob's not fakeposting?  impossible!

A lot of the complaining about the schedule is unwarranted, I think.  We kinda assumed that we were going to go over time at some point, but not by nearly that much.  It's not like we could switch the order of games around just because Ocarina/SM64 are [i]So Popular (tm)[/i] or something; that'd just be even more confusing to viewers and I'd frankly hate to be the person to tell someone that he's going to have to stay up several more hours because some other game is More Important than his.  Keeping the schedule under control is a better idea.

The main things that I think need to be fixed for the marathon are expectations for the runners.  practice, practice practice.  I know it's kinda weird hearing this from me (and I swear I'll break at least :38 next year), but the halo rule needs to come into effect.  If someone's running a new game, they need to seriously devote months to it, and if they're picking up a new game, they need to spend a fair amount of time getting back in the swing of things.  I'd be up for a soft limit of only a few games per runner, as while I'm not going to name names, there are a couple players who I feel bit off more than they could chew (but at the same time there were some who had several games and did well at all of them, so it's not necessarily a hard limit) and who didn't have enough practice time to adequately cover all their games.

I also didn't like the more casual runs much.  I know high-level play is possible in kirby super star, so come on. :(  Apparently a lot of people did though, so whatever.  it didn't ruin the marathon.

finally, i'm going to try for rka hard next marathon.  no promises, but since mike89 is generous enough to give me his money...

stanski

Edit history:

stanski: 2011-01-13 03:10:55 pm

2011-01-13 03:06:15 pm

wise fwom yo gwave

\

Quote from Josh the Funkdoc:

yeah, i was probably being way too serious practicing safe strats etc., and of course i was extremely visibly nervous during pianovania! next year i'll be more willing to go crazy if the cv games make it back in, and also take donations for weird routes in cv3, and be much more relaxed.

the thing is that i wanted to no-death all 3 games in a row, but now i realize that probably wouldn't be what the viewers respond to most...

Personally, I don't really run the game based on what other people want to see, I just do runs based on the way I pretty much always run through the game. I changed one trick and was even nervous about changing that, idk personally i just see it as personal preference as to how you want to run through the game. I just do it the same way every time i play the game so that way i don't really have to make decisions about which tricks to include.

i also was dissapointed in kirby superstar. I'm a pretty big kirby fan, have experience messing around with speedrunning lots of the different games, and have a lot of experience with that game, and heard that people pretty much had never played the game/hadn't played it much recently and were playing it for the marathon...

\[quote="Josh the Funkdoc"]yeah, i was probably being way too serious practicing safe strats etc., and of course i was extremely visibly nervous during pianovania!  next year i'll be more willing to go crazy if the cv games make it back in, and also take donations for weird routes in cv3, and be much more relaxed.

the thing is that i wanted to no-death all 3 games in a row, but now i realize that probably wouldn't be what the viewers respond to most...[/quote]

Personally, I don't really run the game based on what other people want to see, I just do runs based on the way I pretty much always run through the game. I changed one trick and was even nervous about changing that, idk personally i just see it as personal preference as to how you want to run through the game. I just do it the same way every time i play the game so that way i don't really have to make decisions about which tricks to include.

i also was dissapointed in kirby superstar. I'm a pretty big kirby fan, have experience messing around with speedrunning lots of the different games, and have a lot of experience with that game, and heard that people pretty much had never played the game/hadn't played it much recently and were playing it for the marathon...

Arrow

2011-01-13 03:37:32 pm

Now a hit show on the CW

I think the bottom line is that everyone who commits to running a game(s) needs to decide beforehand what challenges they're willing to accept (willingness implies that they've practiced for it), and then factor in as much time as doing the challenge would require when they give their estimate. If you're the kind of person who is only going to practice the game with fastest completion in mind, that's fine - you can still accept challenges based around objectives you are already intending to try, such as beating X time, or having no deaths. For other types of runs, if you're willing to complete bonus objectives, play on a higher difficulty, play blindfolded, etc., make sure you account for this when giving your estimate.

Flip

2011-01-13 04:22:27 pm

1-Up!

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Quote from stanski:

If we were really serious about it, we really should have polled the average viewers/given those who donated a suggestion box to write in for after the marathon (i.e. they could have not only sent a comment, but also a suggestion for what they would like to see done differently).

I like this idea. Since we have their email address, why not send them an email soliciting comment?

Stanksi's idea: good
this idea: bad.

At this point (post-marathon) the best way to deter this year's viewers/donators from returning next year would be to spam their email after the event. Lets face it, most of them will view an email like that as spam and will think poorly of us for it.

I stand by my observation that this is a gripe thread because there has been much more complaining than suggesting like the title implies. Regardless, there have been a few decent suggestions. The best of which is a dedicated website for bid-tracking. I actually brought this up at the marathon but it was too late by then to implement. Look for this in the future. Also I anticipate that SMK will return next year with a new and improved donation app. The one this year actually worked great imo. I was on it for a while on a few different occasions and while it can be improved, I think some people are too hard on it. While I'm on it, -1 points to chip-in for not properly updating the donate list and making us miss some people.

Obviously we didnt keep to the schedule. From a donation standpoint, it hardly matters, because a longer marathon takes in more money. Whether or not it offsets more potential revenue from "popular" games staying in prime-time is debatable (though it really shouldn't be debated). Next year we'll make it more clear that we need REAL TIME time estimates with cushions. I actually did this, buy obviously many people didn't.

As for the commentary stream- on the whole we did a decent job of trying to give the runner/ commentator priority to speak. I don't think it's really worth complaining about too much, though, because it really comes down to preference. Different people want different things (thats including viewers and people in the room). UA already said he was thankful for the commentary coming from inside the room. For me, I preferred to have some chatter in the room while I ran Wario. Other runners were the same. Serious time was in place so that people who needed silence could have it.

FYI, Mike informed me that he edited that guest1 post from my laptop at the marathon. Figured you deserved an explanation for that.

[quote="Darkwing Duck"][quote="stanski"]

If we were really serious about it, we really should have polled the average viewers/given those who donated a suggestion box to write in for after the marathon (i.e. they could have not only sent a comment, but also a suggestion for what they would like to see done differently).  [/quote]

I like this idea.  Since we have their email address, why not send them an email soliciting comment?
[/quote]
Stanksi's idea: good
this idea: bad.

At this point (post-marathon) the best way to deter this year's viewers/donators from returning next year would be to spam their email after the event.  Lets face it, most of them will view an email like that as spam and will think poorly of us for it.

I stand by my observation that this is a gripe thread because there has been much more complaining than suggesting like the title implies.  Regardless, there have been a few decent suggestions.  The best of which is a dedicated website for bid-tracking.  I actually brought this up at the marathon but it was too late by then to implement.  Look for this in the future.  Also I anticipate that SMK will return next year with a new and improved donation app.  The one this year actually worked great imo.  I was on it for a while on a few different occasions and while it can be improved, I think some people are too hard on it.  While I'm on it, -1 points to chip-in for not properly updating the donate list and making us miss some people.

Obviously we didnt keep to the schedule.  From a donation standpoint, it hardly matters, because a longer marathon takes in more money.  Whether or not it offsets more potential revenue from "popular" games staying in prime-time is debatable (though it really shouldn't be debated).  Next year we'll make it more clear that we need REAL TIME time estimates with cushions.  I actually did this, buy obviously many people didn't.

As for the commentary stream- on the whole we did a decent job of trying to give the runner/ commentator priority to speak.  I don't think it's really worth complaining about too much, though, because it really comes down to preference.  Different people want different things (thats including viewers and people in the room).  UA already said he was thankful for the commentary coming from inside the room.  For me, I preferred to have some chatter in the room while I ran Wario.  Other runners were the same.  Serious time was in place so that people who needed silence could have it.

[hidden="For ktwo"]FYI, Mike informed me that he edited that guest1 post from my laptop at the marathon.  Figured you deserved an explanation for that.[/hidden]

hmm

2011-01-13 04:27:50 pm

Viewer thoughts. Nothing negative, mainly suggestions.

No matter how much planning could go into runs etc there's no possible way to prepare for getting virtually no sleep anyway and then having a game you planned on playing delayed by several hours. Maybe grouping runs or spacing them out enough to establish a sleep pattern might help (sure it won't!).

A couple of commentators... didn't. I can't remember specific games (Sat-Sun) but one of them just sat there sometimes reading the donations screen once every 10 minutes. Granted he didn't look at ease being sat there but since the commentator is basically hyping the event and drumming up donations it's important.

I appreciate it's hard enough to moderate several thousand people in chat when they're alternating between being creepy and debating which Final Fantasy was best every 5 minutes, but maybe consider an alternative chat room for non-English speakers? Despite the comment earlier that you're playing North American games for a North American audience you had a large steady amount of viewers during peak Europe hours and a lot of people who came in not speaking English were subjected to either xenophobic comments or just kicked. Now they could have been trolling or they could have been potential lost donations.

Overall it was great to watch and surprisingly smooth giving the lack of sleep from everyone and how much bigger it was compared to last year.

Viewer thoughts. Nothing negative, mainly suggestions.

No matter how much planning could go into runs etc there's no possible way to prepare for getting virtually no sleep anyway and then having a game you planned on playing delayed by several hours. Maybe grouping runs or spacing them out enough to establish a sleep pattern might help (sure it won't!).

A couple of commentators... didn't. I can't remember specific games (Sat-Sun) but one of them just sat there sometimes reading the donations screen once every 10 minutes. Granted he didn't look at ease being sat there but since the commentator is basically hyping the event and drumming up donations it's important.

I appreciate it's hard enough to moderate several thousand people in chat when they're alternating between being creepy and debating which Final Fantasy was best every 5 minutes, but maybe consider an alternative chat room for non-English speakers? Despite the comment earlier that you're playing North American games for a North American audience you had a large steady amount of viewers during peak Europe hours and a lot of people who came in not speaking English were subjected to either xenophobic comments or just kicked. Now they could have been trolling or they could have been potential lost donations.

Overall it was great to watch and surprisingly smooth giving the lack of sleep from everyone and how much bigger it was compared to last year.

Darkwing Duck

2011-01-13 04:43:52 pm

Highly Evolved

Quote from Flip:

Quote from Darkwing Duck:

Quote from stanski:

If we were really serious about it, we really should have polled the average viewers/given those who donated a suggestion box to write in for after the marathon (i.e. they could have not only sent a comment, but also a suggestion for what they would like to see done differently).

I like this idea. Since we have their email address, why not send them an email soliciting comment?

Stanksi's idea: good
this idea: bad.

At this point (post-marathon) the best way to deter this year's viewers/donators from returning next year would be to spam their email after the event. Lets face it, most of them will view an email like that as spam and will think poorly of us for it.

Not if done as sort of a thank you for donating to support the cause. Have the meat of the email be of gratitude that the individual donated, and then comment that if the individual has any comment or suggestion that may make the marathon a bigger success for subsequent years, please feel free to reply to the email. Or something of that nature. Only emails I got were from Paypal verifying payment, and ChipIn with the receipt.

[quote="Flip"][quote="Darkwing Duck"][quote="stanski"]

If we were really serious about it, we really should have polled the average viewers/given those who donated a suggestion box to write in for after the marathon (i.e. they could have not only sent a comment, but also a suggestion for what they would like to see done differently).  [/quote]

I like this idea.  Since we have their email address, why not send them an email soliciting comment?
[/quote]
Stanksi's idea: good
this idea: bad.

At this point (post-marathon) the best way to deter this year's viewers/donators from returning next year would be to spam their email after the event.  Lets face it, most of them will view an email like that as spam and will think poorly of us for it.
[/quote]
Not if done as sort of a thank you for donating to support the cause.  Have the meat of the email be of gratitude that the individual donated, and then comment that if the individual has any comment or suggestion that may make the marathon a bigger success for subsequent years, please feel free to reply to the email.  Or something of that nature.  Only emails I got were from Paypal verifying payment, and ChipIn with the receipt.

stanski

2011-01-13 04:51:58 pm

wise fwom yo gwave

Yea I don't know how to appeal more to non-english speakers, but that definitely should be something we should think about: a huge amount of our donations were from european donators. Just watch the stream, every other name a native english speaker couldn't pronounce at all. This just shows me that there may be a need to write the schedule in another language/make sure and advertise the marathon to those on non-english websites. Obviously this requires someone to volunteer for it and maybe this actually happened and i didn't know about it, because we really seemed to get a lot of european donations.

dballin

2011-01-13 05:01:06 pm

Balls jerky

This originated as a reply to a PM Mike sent me since I said I was going to pm him but never did. I decided just to post here in hopes there might be some kind of constructive discussion. I'm answering questions asked/statements made if you were wondering why it's structured this way.

I know people were checking the chat, but there were still a ton of times when they weren't. Moooh did a good job and a couple other people did also, but that's a small percentage of the people that were there. People were constantly complaining, but if we implement the donation totals and the challenge suggestion pages we could probably eliminate a ton of the complaints. I have no faith in people being able to seek that information out on their own, but anyone could link those pages into the chat instead of having to bug people at the marathon about it. This would also free up some of the talking time since I made the point about how many people had legitimate things to say. I know the main noise/talking over the runner problem wasn't background chatter (most of the time) even if the average viewer didn't.

I suggested that we streamline the game switching process, but I'm not really sure if we want to have rapid fire gaming or spend a few minutes wrapping up donations, plugging the charity/sda, showing off the prizes, etc. It seems to me like we had a lot of trouble being able to do all of that at the same time. Some games had a metric ton of commentary and explanation whereas others had next to none. It's probably gonna be a fine line balancing what's going on in the run and everything else. I'm kinda starting to see why TSG focus mainly on commentary since it's so hard to do both. Perhaps next year we should actually implement Tigger's idea and make sure we have game background and sda history (if any) lined up or know how much explanation there will be during the run so the commentator will have relevant things to say and can expect when they have to shut up.

Once nate encodes the whole thing and uploads it (I do NOT evny that man) we can all go over it again and see exactly what went right and what went wrong. I know personally that I didn't see half the marathon so things that I thought never happened might have happened when I wasn't watching. Other things happened more often when certain people were there eg the twitter contest was mentioned all the time when MZ was in the room, but not so much when she was sleeping. We should probably have one of those big easel pages listing out everything we need to be talking about so there's no confusion when someone new takes over and we don't forget. I'm sure you know how easy that is to do when you've been up for 24+ hours.

Also, maybe a priority speaking list? Trying to get people not to talk over each other is gonna be a challenge. Half the runners are so damn quiet I couldn't hear them anyway to know that I was talking over them. I don't know what to do about that. Besides, of course, to implant Emptyeye volume chips into their brain. I think for the most part we do manage to keep that causal environment in the room that makes the event fun so I'm not sure how we could regulate speaking without killing a little bit of that.

This originated as a reply to a PM Mike sent me since I said I was going to pm him but never did. I decided just to post here in hopes there might be some kind of constructive discussion. I'm answering questions asked/statements made if you were wondering why it's structured this way.

I know people were checking the chat, but there were still a ton of times when they weren't. Moooh did a good job and a couple other people did also, but that's a small percentage of the people that were there. People were constantly complaining, but if we implement the donation totals and the challenge suggestion pages we could probably eliminate a ton of the complaints. I have no faith in people being able to seek that information out on their own, but anyone could link those pages into the chat instead of having to bug people at the marathon about it. This would also free up some of the talking time since I made the point about how many people had legitimate things to say. I know the main noise/talking over the runner problem wasn't background chatter (most of the time) even if the average viewer didn't.

I suggested that we streamline the game switching process, but I'm not really sure if we want to have rapid fire gaming or spend a few minutes wrapping up donations, plugging the charity/sda, showing off the prizes, etc. It seems to me like we had a lot of trouble being able to do all of that at the same time. Some games had a metric ton of commentary and explanation whereas others had next to none. It's probably gonna be a fine line balancing what's going on in the run and everything else. I'm kinda starting to see why TSG focus mainly on commentary since it's so hard to do both. Perhaps next year we should actually implement Tigger's idea and make sure we have game background and sda history (if any) lined up or know how much explanation there will be during the run so the commentator will have relevant things to say and can expect when they have to shut up.

Once nate encodes the whole thing and uploads it (I do NOT evny that man) we can all go over it again and see exactly what went right and what went wrong. I know personally that I didn't see half the marathon so things that I thought never happened might have happened when I wasn't watching. Other things happened more often when certain people were there eg the twitter contest was mentioned all the time when MZ was in the room, but not so much when she was sleeping. We should probably have one of those big easel pages listing out everything we need to be talking about so there's no confusion when someone new takes over and we don't forget. I'm sure you know how easy that is to do when you've been up for 24+ hours.

Also, maybe a priority speaking list? Trying to get people not to talk over each other is gonna be a challenge. Half the runners are so damn quiet I couldn't hear them anyway to know that I was talking over them. I don't know what to do about that. Besides, of course, to implant Emptyeye volume chips into their brain. I think for the most part we do manage to keep that causal environment in the room that makes the event fun so I'm not sure how we could regulate speaking without killing a little bit of that.

Rakuen

2011-01-13 07:20:27 pm

Weegee Time

Well, here's a few points of input on your post dballin.

Quote:

I know the main noise/talking over the runner problem wasn't background chatter (most of the time) even if the average viewer didn't.

There was one point toward the beginning of the marathon, I think on Friday, where everyone in the room were clearly having very separate conversations, and I could hear all of them. Sounded kind of like "Blarghabuoauwrljle." I think after that happened though, everyone figured out how to talk and not get picked up by the mic, so I agree that it wasn't really a problem.

Quote:

rapid fire gaming

While it would be good to get the transitions going a bit smoother and quicker, we don't want to go rapid fire. Beat the game, power off, swap, power on is really fast and will probably leave the viewers feeling whiplashed. They just watched a game getting beaten at a fast pace with high skill, and with many runs, clutch finales. They kind of need a moment to breathe and process before moving onto the next game.

Quote:

spend a few minutes wrapping up donations

Alright, little statistic. We had roughly 3200 donations spread out over roughly 123 hours. This gives us an average donation rate of 1 every 2.3 minutes. This by itself is a manageable pace, but donations aren't slow and steady. They spike. You might have no donations for a period of time, and then bam, you're getting flooded. A little look at the chipin timestamps might be in order to figure out where floods happen, and how we can deal with them. I think I know two of the spike causers though. First, people tend to donate at the end of a game, and there's not much you can do about this. Second, I have a feeling people wait until the last minute to donate for a prize or challenge. Since both of these almost always occur at the same time... it can get messy. Maybe if we move the cutoff time for challenges/prizes back by about 5 minutes, it would offset the floods enough so they can at least be processed. This would also allow us to know what we're doing before it needs to be done, instead of things getting held up while we look at donations at the exact moment it needs to be done.

Quote:

plugging the charity/sda

Plugging the charity/sda verbally is important, but there's a way to ease the responsibility: scripting. External IRC clients can be configured to autofire a message every X amount of time. This can be used to regularly mention things in the chat. Perhaps someone could make up a few scripts and we can have an SDAbot for next year? It might also help to have set times to do these things verbally, say every hour on the hour?

Quote:

showing off the prizes

I think prizes can be shown off at pretty much any time, it doesn't have to be done during some sort of downtime between runs. That said, what would help would be to have images of all the prizes uploaded somewhere beforehand, so people can look at them more at their leisure. This makes showing off the prize during the marathon a bit less of an issue. It also allows people to see what they might be donating toward in advance, or to check out a prize they might have missed during its showing. And of course, this would be really good for sketches, which didn't show up too well on the stream.

Quote:

Also, maybe a priority speaking list?

I was under the impression it was supposed to be player/assistant, commentator, then everyone else. If it's not, it probably should be. Of course, if someone has something especially pertinent to say, say it, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Quote:

We should probably have one of those big easel pages listing out everything we need to be talking about so there's no confusion when someone new takes over and we don't forget.

Sticky notes! Cheesy

Well, here's a few points of input on your post dballin.

[quote]I know the main noise/talking over the runner problem wasn't background chatter (most of the time) even if the average viewer didn't.[/quote]
There was one point toward the beginning of the marathon, I think on Friday, where everyone in the room were clearly having very separate conversations, and I could hear all of them.  Sounded kind of like "Blarghabuoauwrljle."  I think after that happened though, everyone figured out how to talk and not get picked up by the mic, so I agree that it wasn't really a problem.

[quote]rapid fire gaming[/quote]
While it would be good to get the transitions going a bit smoother and quicker, we don't want to go rapid fire.  Beat the game, power off, swap, power on is really fast and will probably leave the viewers feeling whiplashed.  They just watched a game getting beaten at a fast pace with high skill, and with many runs, clutch finales.  They kind of need a moment to breathe and process before moving onto the next game.

[quote]spend a few minutes wrapping up donations[/quote]
Alright, little statistic.  We had roughly 3200 donations spread out over roughly 123 hours.  This gives us an average donation rate of 1 every 2.3 minutes.  This by itself is a manageable pace, but donations aren't slow and steady.  They spike.  You might have no donations for a period of time, and then bam, you're getting flooded.  A little look at the chipin timestamps might be in order to figure out where floods happen, and how we can deal with them.  I think I know two of the spike causers though.  First, people tend to donate at the end of a game, and there's not much you can do about this.  Second, I have a feeling people wait until the last minute to donate for a prize or challenge.  Since both of these almost always occur at the same time... it can get messy.  Maybe if we move the cutoff time for challenges/prizes back by about 5 minutes, it would offset the floods enough so they can at least be processed.  This would also allow us to know what we're doing [b]before[/b] it needs to be done, instead of things getting held up while we look at donations at the [b]exact moment[/b] it needs to be done.

[quote]plugging the charity/sda[/quote]
Plugging the charity/sda verbally is important, but there's a way to ease the responsibility: scripting.  External IRC clients can be configured to autofire a message every X amount of time.  This can be used to regularly mention things in the chat.  Perhaps someone could make up a few scripts and we can have an SDAbot for next year?  It might also help to have set times to do these things verbally, say every hour on the hour?

[quote]showing off the prizes[/quote]
I think prizes can be shown off at pretty much any time, it doesn't have to be done during some sort of downtime between runs.  That said, what would help would be to have images of all the prizes uploaded somewhere beforehand, so people can look at them more at their leisure.  This makes showing off the prize during the marathon a bit less of an issue.  It also allows people to see what they might be donating toward in advance, or to check out a prize they might have missed during its showing.  And of course, this would be [b]really[/b] good for sketches, which didn't show up too well on the stream.

[quote]Also, maybe a priority speaking list?[/quote]
I was under the impression it was supposed to be player/assistant, commentator, then everyone else.  If it's not, it probably should be.  Of course, if someone has something especially pertinent to say, say it, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

[quote]We should probably have one of those big easel pages listing out everything we need to be talking about so there's no confusion when someone new takes over and we don't forget.[/quote]
Sticky notes! :D

Emptyeye

2011-01-13 07:29:07 pm

Talk to the Hand

Okay, I've been reading this thread as new stuff has been posted. Just some of my own thoughts from my still-sleep-deprived brain (Last-minute wedding panics plus MAGFest aren't helping here).

First off, thanks to everyone who complimented my commentating skills. However I make it look, let me assure you that it's very much not natural for me to shift into that mode--it probably took me until day 3 or 4 to warm up to everything it entailed, such as realizing that yes, if need be, I can kind of project over the conversation in the room that isn't the runner talking and it won't be a big deal. Truth be told, Mike asked me "Why are you being quieter this year?" after a couple days, so it definitely took awhile to adjust despite my having done it last year.

Really, anyone brave enough to step up into the "main" commentary chair should be commended. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that most speedrunners are like myself--nerdy, shy, introverted. It just so happens that I was blessed with a loud voice, which covers a lot of that up when I do get warmed up. Really, it takes a lot to really get into the commentary mode, so everyone who tried should be commended for making the effort, as I know there were some people who were kind of there against their will, so to speak.

Like dballin, one of my concerns is the excessive use of regulation, or in my case, "Guys!" While I apparently had some people cursing me out on the chat (And in the marathon room) for "OVERPOWERING!!!", in hindsight, it was probably a good thing I did that, as I think it added an air of "Oh shit, 'Guys!' isn't even his full volume, I'm going to shut up now because I REALLY don't him doing that again!" Wink

But more seriously, it's difficult for me to strike the right balance of making people shut up so that I/the runner (Rakuen is correct, the priority was supposed to be runner/assistant, then "main" commentator, then anyone else) can get through what they want to say, without going into outright "police state" mode and killing some of the fun, casual vibe that we have in the room.

I guess the main actual suggestion, albeit one that we had no way of knowing would be necessary, would be more automation in the donation app. Of course, with a whole year to work on it, it should be even better than it was this year. The other thing from the perspective of people actually doing the commentary would be, as mentioned, some kind of master list of stuff to mention/plug from time to time (Like the Twitter contest, or commissions from MZ/Aitamen)...I personally had no idea what the Twitter contest was all about, which is, admittedly, my fault for not getting up to speed.

Still, in all, I think we did great, and here's no next year's being even better!

Okay, I've been reading this thread as new stuff has been posted. Just some of my own thoughts from my still-sleep-deprived brain (Last-minute wedding panics plus MAGFest aren't helping here).

First off, thanks to everyone who complimented my commentating skills. However I make it look, let me assure you that it's very much [b]not[/b] natural for me to shift into that mode--it probably took me until day 3 or 4 to warm up to everything it entailed, such as realizing that yes, if need be, I can kind of project over the conversation in the room that isn't the runner talking and it won't be a big deal. Truth be told, Mike asked me "Why are you being quieter this year?" after a couple days, so it definitely took awhile to adjust despite my having done it last year.

Really, anyone brave enough to step up into the "main" commentary chair should be commended. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that most speedrunners are like myself--nerdy, shy, introverted. It just so happens that I was blessed with a loud voice, which covers a lot of that up when I do get warmed up. Really, it takes a lot to really get into the commentary mode, so everyone who tried should be commended for making the effort, as I know there were some people who were kind of there against their will, so to speak.

Like dballin, one of my concerns is the excessive use of regulation, or in my case, "Guys!" While I apparently had some people cursing me out on the chat (And in the marathon room) for "[b]OVERPOWERING!!![/b]", in hindsight, it was probably a good thing I did that, as I think it added an air of "Oh shit, 'Guys!' isn't even his full volume, I'm going to shut up now because I REALLY don't him doing that again!" ;) But more seriously, it's difficult for me to strike the right balance of making people shut up so that I/the runner (Rakuen is correct, the priority was supposed to be runner/assistant, then "main" commentator, then anyone else) can get through what they want to say, without going into outright "police state" mode and killing some of the fun, casual vibe that we have in the room.

I guess the main actual suggestion, albeit one that we had no way of knowing would be necessary, would be more automation in the donation app. Of course, with a whole year to work on it, it should be even better than it was this year. The other thing from the perspective of people actually doing the commentary would be, as mentioned, some kind of master list of stuff to mention/plug from time to time (Like the Twitter contest, or commissions from MZ/Aitamen)...I personally had no idea what the Twitter contest was all about, which is, admittedly, my fault for not getting up to speed.

Still, in all, I think we did great, and here's no next year's being even better!

dballin

Edit history:

dballin: 2011-01-13 08:40:27 pm

dballin: 2011-01-13 08:01:15 pm

dballin: 2011-01-13 07:57:37 pm

2011-01-13 07:55:54 pm

Balls jerky

I didn't really mean RAPID FIRE. It was the first thing I thought of. Smoother transitions are good. I was mainly concerned with like you said, at the end of a game we get a mass influx of donations either from people waiting til the last minute to score that prize or were to entranced by the run like what happened to me during the Trials HD run. Moving up the cutoff time in addition to automating the donation process would probably eliminate a lot of the issues we had running into the next game and interrupting the flow. We'd definitely have to do some LAST CALL announcements but I like it.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/marathon/prizes/

Too bad I totally forgot this existed during the marathon and so did everybody else apparently. There's all the pictures and some of the perlers in unblurry format. I don't know why we were trying to show them through the stream.

As for the IRC bot, if we can make it plug whatever we need it to and maybe throw the FAQ link in for good measure, that would be awesome. I love automation! I actually know very little about irc though. Trekhaak had to show me how to kick people from the chat. Sad

More communication between runner and commentator was what I was going for. Hey this run I'm gonna explain a lot of stuff or I don't have too much to say so do your own thing would go a long way in preventing cross talk. The commentator can't predict when the runner is going to want to say something and you don't know who's going to be talkative or not until they're in the seat.

I didn't really mean RAPID FIRE. It was the first thing I thought of. Smoother transitions are good. I was mainly concerned with like you said, at the end of a game we get a mass influx of donations either from people waiting til the last minute to score that prize or were to entranced by the run like what happened to me during the Trials HD run. Moving up the cutoff time in addition to automating the donation process would probably eliminate a lot of the issues we had running into the next game and interrupting the flow. We'd definitely have to do some LAST CALL announcements but I like it.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/marathon/prizes/

Too bad I totally forgot this existed during the marathon and so did everybody else apparently. There's all the pictures and some of the perlers in unblurry format. I don't know why we were trying to show them through the stream.

As for the IRC bot, if we can make it plug whatever we need it to and maybe throw the FAQ link in for good measure, that would be awesome. I love automation! I actually know very little about irc though. Trekhaak had to show me how to kick people from the chat. :(

More communication between runner and commentator was what I was going for. Hey this run I'm gonna explain a lot of stuff or I don't have too much to say so do your own thing would go a long way in preventing cross talk. The commentator can't predict when the runner is going to want to say something and you don't know who's going to be talkative or not until they're in the seat.

Aitamen

2011-01-13 08:21:53 pm

Bwahahaha... there WILL be domination!

^I kinda liked having the perlers there (People, for example, kept asking about SOPHIA, and most of the orders I've gotten were for/because of the SOPHIA, so from a business POV, it's exposure was fantastic). I mean, if someone pulled the EPOCH into frame (taking up about 2/3 the width of the couch) I think the impact would've been even bigger, haha.

Honestly, what I think might've been better would be if prizes were hyperlinked into the schedule. I don't know if that's doable, but if people are looking over games and go "hey, what are these prizes? *click*" it seems somewhat intuitive and quick.

I'm still catching up on sleep from the marathon, so excuse me if I don't make much sense.

Arrow

2011-01-14 03:02:32 am

Now a hit show on the CW

Quote from Emptyeye:

Really, anyone brave enough to step up into the "main" commentary chair should be commended. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that most speedrunners are like myself--nerdy, shy, introverted. It just so happens that I was blessed with a loud voice, which covers a lot of that up when I do get warmed up. Really, it takes a lot to really get into the commentary mode, so everyone who tried should be commended for making the effort, as I know there were some people who were kind of there against their will, so to speak.

To be honest, I didn't mind commentating at all, even though I'm generally shy. I wasn't really able to perceive the fact that there were thousands of people watching me from the other side of the webcam, even though I rationally knew this to be the case. Out of sight, out of mind, as it were. Unfortunately, I usually ended up in the commentating position during games I had never played before (like Cave Story and Kingdom Hearts 2), but I did the best I could in those situations. At least during the Lego Star Wars run, I knew a lot about Star Wars, if not the game itself Tongue

[quote="Emptyeye"]Really, anyone brave enough to step up into the "main" commentary chair should be commended. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that most speedrunners are like myself--nerdy, shy, introverted. It just so happens that I was blessed with a loud voice, which covers a lot of that up when I do get warmed up. Really, it takes a lot to really get into the commentary mode, so everyone who tried should be commended for making the effort, as I know there were some people who were kind of there against their will, so to speak.[/quote]
To be honest, I didn't mind commentating at all, even though I'm generally shy. I wasn't really able to perceive the fact that there were thousands of people watching me from the other side of the webcam, even though I rationally knew this to be the case. Out of sight, out of mind, as it were. Unfortunately, I usually ended up in the commentating position during games I had never played before (like Cave Story and Kingdom Hearts 2), but I did the best I could in those situations. At least during the Lego Star Wars run, I knew a lot about Star Wars, if not the game itself :P

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-14 10:44:25 am

Not a walrus

I wouldn't have known that from watching you, Arrow. You seemed to flow into it pretty naturally and I think you have a good voice for it. Emptyeye and Breakdown still win, but you're not that far behind. Wink

Breakdown

Edit history:

Breakdown: 2011-01-14 05:34:27 pm

2011-01-14 05:33:48 pm

Haters gonna hate

This seems like an appropriate thread to drop my first post with my spiffy new avatar (though the hatin' levels have dropped significantly the past couple pages, so props for that everybody).

To address a few things:

Anyone complaining about the schedule getting out of whack, telling anybody there that was a problem would be like telling me my DMC run would've better if I hadn't died a bunch. We're painfully, painfully aware of it and have started talking about ways to make it better even before the marathon had ended proper. While a set up cushion for games will help, a big chunk of making that better falls to the runners to be willing to admit shit can happen and while their estimate might sound good, a little extra padding is a good idea. And yes, Halo rule will be waiting in the wings next year (I honestly should've pulled the trigger on Halo this year, but I'd just gotten there and was pretty fried and it honestly never occurred to me). I imagine it was pretty frustrating for people trying to build a schedule around the one we posted, but in a lot cases I think it worked out fine for people who just dropped by, and it just meant more marathon to watch in the end. Still, if we post a schedule we should strive to stick to it, and we'll try harder to do so next time.

As for the "casual" runs, I do wish they'd been taken more seriously at least from a play standpoint. However, I wouldn't trade anything short of 4:59 SMB for Castle Crashers shovel antics now that it's happened, that whole run was just so damn fun to watch. So I guess I'm kinda on the fence on this one, but if anyone tries to pull something similar next year, you'd better be 9 different kinds of hilarious and have a partner(s) that can carry you. This year met that criteria on pretty much all fronts, so it was OK by me.

Really like the ideas about published prize and bidding lists. I think it should definitely be implemented, but I'm not the guy to do it.

As for commentary and background chatter, really the problem was when you get about 20 people in a tiny room with a kickass microphone it's kind of hard for every little conversation not to get picked up unless you're painfully aware of your noise level at all times, and that's not easy. Probably the most reliable fix would be to limit people in the room (we had a pretty sweet projector set up that didn't see a whole lot of attention, and made for a good way to just watch), but I can totally understand people wanting to actually be there for the runs, there really is no substitute, plus we wanted to promote a casual atmosphere as much as possible and a hard limit on people in the room would definitely take away from that. There's probably some sort of happy medium that could be found. Something worth discussing IMO.

I'm about out for now, but I'll keep an eye on this. Haters doing there straight up hating aside, this will be a good resource for next year, and no one should really take offense at the thread's appearance so after we killed the stream. Intentions were definitely good here I feel.

This seems like an appropriate thread to drop my first post with my spiffy new avatar (though the hatin' levels have dropped significantly the past couple pages, so props for that everybody).

To address a few things:

Anyone complaining about the schedule getting out of whack, telling anybody there that was a problem would be like telling me my DMC run would've better if I hadn't died a bunch.  We're painfully, painfully aware of it and have started talking about ways to make it better even before the marathon had ended proper.  While a set up cushion for games will help, a big chunk of making that better falls to the runners to be willing to admit shit can happen and while their estimate might sound good, a little extra padding is a good idea.  And yes, Halo rule will be waiting in the wings next year (I honestly should've pulled the trigger on Halo this year, but I'd just gotten there and was pretty fried and it honestly never occurred to me).  I imagine it was pretty frustrating for people trying to build a schedule around the one we posted, but in a lot cases I think it worked out fine for people who just dropped by, and it just meant more marathon to watch in the end.  Still, if we post a schedule we should strive to stick to it, and we'll try harder to do so next time.

As for the "casual" runs, I do wish they'd been taken more seriously at least from a play standpoint.  However, I wouldn't trade anything short of 4:59 SMB for Castle Crashers shovel antics now that it's happened, that whole run was just so damn fun to watch.  So I guess I'm kinda on the fence on this one, but if anyone tries to pull something similar next year, you'd better be 9 different kinds of hilarious and have a partner(s) that can carry you.  This year met that criteria on pretty much all fronts, so it was OK by me.

Really like the ideas about published prize and bidding lists.  I think it should definitely be implemented, but I'm not the guy to do it.

As for commentary and background chatter, really the problem was when you get about 20 people in a tiny room with a kickass microphone it's kind of hard for every little conversation not to get picked up unless you're painfully aware of your noise level at all times, and that's not easy.  Probably the most reliable fix would be to limit people in the room (we had a pretty sweet projector set up that didn't see a whole lot of attention, and made for a good way to just watch), but I can totally understand people wanting to actually be there for the runs, there really is no substitute, plus we wanted to promote a casual atmosphere as much as possible and a hard limit on people in the room would definitely take away from that.  There's probably some sort of happy medium that could be found.  Something worth discussing IMO.

I'm about out for now, but I'll keep an eye on this.  Haters doing there straight up hating aside, this will be a good resource for next year, and no one should really take offense at the thread's appearance so after we killed the stream.  Intentions were definitely good here I feel.

Guest

2011-01-14 06:38:00 pm

Hey everyone, just wanted to leave some marathon feedback. Obvious disappointing things were schedule slips but it wasn't unexpected as it happened last year. I didn't get to see all the games I wanted but I will be checking stuff out after it is posted so I will watch then. I got to see everything i wanted last year and that is just how it goes. My main comment is about the atmosphere/commentary situation. I like the way the marathons feel, when you watch the commentary stream there is always a good vibe happening and people chatting in the background was never too distracting. Stuff like shirtless Frezy, blind Mario Bros. pianotoads and Color a Dinosaur are the things that make the marathons and I wouldn't want it to change to the dry style that the speed gamers have. I was worried that the place was a bit sterile compared to last year's living room atmosphere but it soon livened up watching Cody Miller get anihilated at Halo on legendary.

My favorite part of the marathon was SOTN. I have never played a castlevania game but the closeness of the race and RANE missing his trick were just so exciting. I felt bad for RANE because he seemed to be always doing something when I watched but then he redeemed himself with a great close to the marathon.

Lastly congratulations on the success of the marathon and I know that my donation is going to a great cause but that it will also inspire everyone at SDA to come together and do it again giving me many days of speed running viewing pleasure.

Hey everyone, just wanted to leave some marathon feedback.  Obvious disappointing things were schedule slips but it wasn't unexpected as it happened last year.  I didn't get to see all the games I wanted but I will be checking stuff out after it is posted so I will watch then.  I got to see everything i wanted last year and that is just how it goes.  My main comment is about the atmosphere/commentary situation.  I like the way the marathons feel, when you watch the commentary stream there is always a good vibe happening and people chatting in the background was never too distracting.  Stuff like shirtless Frezy, blind Mario Bros. pianotoads and Color a Dinosaur are the things that make the marathons and I wouldn't want it to change to the dry style that the speed gamers have.  I was worried that the place was a bit sterile compared to last year's living room atmosphere but it soon livened up watching Cody Miller get anihilated at Halo on legendary.

My favorite part of the marathon was SOTN. I have never played a castlevania game but the closeness of the race and RANE missing his trick were just so exciting.  I felt bad for RANE because he seemed to be always doing something  when I watched but then he redeemed himself with a great close to the marathon.

Lastly congratulations on the success of the marathon and I know that my donation is going to a great cause but that it will also inspire everyone at SDA to come together and do it again giving me many days of speed running viewing pleasure.

Heidrage

2011-01-14 09:30:37 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Quote from stanski:

For the record I took altered beast seriously and was super pissed that we fucked up stage 5.

I think this can ago for a bunch of the runs really. I was sitting right in front of the couch and I heard both you and mike let out some words.

poopie

2011-01-15 12:48:34 pm

i think there are programs out there that allow you to "multicast", meaning you can send your signal to multiple streaming sites (ustream, nico, livestream, justintv). you may reach out to more people this way.