The Future of SDA

2015-01-24 08:23:21 am

All the things

Quote from JoystickFace:

> If you want to try and become a lucrative/popular streamer through speedrunning, best of luck, but I guarantee the idea of turning the community into a cash cow won't be a popular one.

That is not my goal

Pointing out the possibily of financial help for the best runners attending AGDO/SGDQ is my goal.

Also the posibility of some% of donation money going toward general speedrunning community adversising.

consiter it pointed out.

> please no.

yeh i thought that too. the speedrunning community IS A CASH COW. whether you like it or not. look at the million dollars GDQs raised. WHY ARENT WE A PART OF THAT

If that's what you really think, bring it up with the GDQ folks. It has no place in this discussion though.

Reiska

2015-01-24 08:46:57 am

Quote from JoystickFace:

> If you want to try and become a lucrative/popular streamer through speedrunning, best of luck, but I guarantee the idea of turning the community into a cash cow won't be a popular one.

That is not my goal

Pointing out the possibily of financial help for the best runners attending AGDO/SGDQ is my goal.

Also the posibility of some% of donation money going toward general speedrunning community adversising.

consiter it pointed out.

> please no.

yeh i thought that too. the speedrunning community IS A CASH COW. whether you like it or not. look at the million dollars GDQs raised. WHY ARENT WE A PART OF THAT

because if we were, GDQs wouldn't raise nearly that much. Tongue

Runners who need financial help to attend already can and do run donation drives on their personal streams to fund their travel expenses and whatnot.

AdHoc

Edit history:

AdHoc: 2015-01-24 08:57:22 am

AdHoc: 2015-01-24 08:51:08 am

AdHoc: 2015-01-24 08:49:48 am

2015-01-24 08:47:57 am

No one seems to have pointed to one of the most obvious solutions to SDA's struggles: simply give up.

Acknowledge the fact that speedrunning has become much bigger than what SDA can realistically handle, that SDA's model is not relevant anymore and does not satisfy the community as it used to, that it is unable to bear the shear load of runs, streams, communities and new frameworks that have emerged in and outside of its rigid boundaries, that the fast-paced nature of contemporary speedrunning is not compatible with old-boned fellows like us.

Surrender to the future with pride and honour, rather than desperately try to renew and amend a structure that will never be able to sustain the weight of the industry that speedrunning has become, rather than pathetically try to delude ourselves into thinking that there is something to save.

It's not a complete overhaul that SDA needs. A facelift won't help, you're old, deal with it. AKA the MySpace syndrome.

Let the kids move on with their lives, don't try to keep them at home forever! And let us blossom peacefully in our heaven of Quake-frenzy memories.

tl;dr
Close SDA with our heads up while it's still time, never forget and move on. RIP 1998-2015

No one seems to have pointed to one of the most obvious solutions to SDA's struggles: simply give up.

Acknowledge the fact that speedrunning has become much bigger than what SDA can realistically handle, that SDA's model is not relevant anymore and does not satisfy the community as it used to, that it is unable to bear the shear load of runs, streams, communities and new frameworks that have emerged in and outside of its rigid boundaries, that the fast-paced nature of contemporary speedrunning is not compatible with old-boned fellows like us.

Surrender to the future with pride and honour, rather than desperately try to renew and amend a structure that will never be able to sustain the weight of the industry that speedrunning has become, rather than pathetically try to delude ourselves into thinking that there is something to save.

It's not a complete overhaul that SDA needs. A facelift won't help, you're old, deal with it. AKA the MySpace syndrome.

Let the kids move on with their lives, don't try to keep them at home forever! And let us blossom peacefully in our heaven of Quake-frenzy memories.

tl;dr
Close SDA with our heads up while it's still time, never forget and move on. RIP 1998-2015

AlecK47

Edit history:

AlecK47: 2015-01-24 09:13:00 am

2015-01-24 09:11:34 am

Personally I think comparing SDA to myspace is inaccurate. Say all you want about the popularity of SRL or all the smaller game-based sites and other gathering places, because while they may draw people away from SDA to some extent, none of them is a direct competitor like FB was to myspace. There are also useful and wanted functions that aren't really fulfilled yet elsewhere in the community, which is an opportunity ripe for the taking, and why not use an already existing framework and known commodity as a platform for those functions (especially if that framework itself is improved in the process)?

I get your point, but I don't think it's either necessary or the right time to go nuclear like that. SDA is on firmer footing than myspace was after FB opened to everyone.

As for the whole esports thing, I think it's safe to say almost all of us speedrunners would rather have the community atmosphere we have now, as opposed to a more adversarial FGC/MOBA atmosphere. Even if we do want to make a living off it, and a lot of us actually don't, we don't want to sacrifice the community to do so. So although you may want the best for us JoystickFace, bear in mind that we might not want what you think is best; to the point that we might take a serious suggestion as a joke or even an insult, for example.

Personally I think comparing SDA to myspace is inaccurate.  Say all you want about the popularity of SRL or all the smaller game-based sites and other gathering places, because while they may draw people away from SDA to some extent, none of them is a direct competitor like FB was to myspace.  There are also useful and wanted functions that aren't really fulfilled yet elsewhere in the community, which is an opportunity ripe for the taking, and why not use an already existing framework and known commodity as a platform for those functions (especially if that framework itself is improved in the process)?

I get your point, but I don't think it's either necessary or the right time to go nuclear like that.  SDA is on firmer footing than myspace was after FB opened to everyone.

As for the whole esports thing, I think it's safe to say almost all of us speedrunners would rather have the community atmosphere we have now, as opposed to a more adversarial FGC/MOBA atmosphere.  Even if we do want to make a living off it, and a lot of us actually don't, we don't want to sacrifice the community to do so.  So although you may want the best for us JoystickFace, bear in mind that we might not want what you think is best; to the point that we might take a serious suggestion as a joke or even an insult, for example.

Nyasupan

Edit history:

Nyasupan: 2015-01-24 09:20:10 am

2015-01-24 09:19:03 am

Quote from AdHoc:

Close SDA with our heads up while it's still time, never forget and move on. RIP 1998-2015

I am always optimistic and if the speedrunning world has evolved following the way we share media today on the internet and they have "killed" the purpose of SDA, we should always watch the bright side. Speedrunners don't need a video archive? Let's once again say to focus more to the knowledge and give smaller community a way to interact throught the forums and give people the ability to compile a game page where to put guides, vods, news, reports as other big communities (e.g. ffspeedruns, zeldaspeedruns, mega man leaderboards) have already done. If we've completed our quest let's take another one and move one to the next fight with new and better gear.

moooh

2015-01-24 09:41:13 am

Exoray

There's a lot of good ideas in this thread and I'm glad that people are willing the share their thoughts.

A lot of people have mentioned moving over to cover more general speedrunning news and not just new runs posted here. This is a direction we definitely should move towards and it shouldn't be too difficult getting started.

Someone mentioned the ability to go back to obsoleted runs and see them / read the comments for them. All runs submitted since September 2012 and forward are in a database already so if a run submitted after that was obsoleted, we could definitely make it available again under an obsoleted section of a game page or something.
Since pretty much all runs ever submitted here still have their videos on archive.org, there's also the possibility for having a full history of a game available. Together with the Historical Records list we could even get videos for runs in that were submitted prior to September 2012 if there would be a demand for something like that.

The above would make a good tie-in to something else that has been tossed around which is to split up the publication process of runs to make new runs available for watching a mere day from being verified.
The following is only in the "vague idea" state:
An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?

For any of this to be possible, as well as doing simple things like adding a KB-link on each game page (which has always been a fantastic idea), we are in the need of migrating a lot of static html pages into the database. This is a long and tough process that we hope to be able to get community assistance for. Once we have that in place, making small changes like the KB-link would only be mere hours work away rather than multiple weeks as it would be by editing it in by hand like you would have to now.
I am actually already in the process of migrating some stuff. Skipped out on AGDQ this year and spent probably 30 hours during that week just porting half of the game definitions over. We're going to make this lead into something for sure Smiley

As a response to Judgy regarding post-processing:
Obviously, a longer run takes longer to time, encode, pre-release check and to upload. The majority of time it takes however is probably due to pure calendar time. Different people work different stages and since everyone is a volunteer, they work during their spare time whenever they can find the time.
Let's say that there are 20 runs in queue for timing and IsraeliRD has the spare time to officially time 10 runs during a weekend. The next time he has spare time available for this taks is a week later. 10 of those runs are now delayed by calendar. Those 10 runs he timed and handed over to my stage? Well I happened to have my spare time to work with the game pages one day before his day so when those 10 runs are delivered, they will immediately be sitting for 1.5 weeks which is my next available slot for SDA work.
This goes on when they move to encode stage and then further when they move to pre-release which is entirely community driven but large runs could still easily sit for 3 weeks without being grabbed. Finally it's moved to ready to post where an updater would need to have the time to write up a news post. There's likely already a backlog of runs that needs posted first, so the run sits there for some more calendar time..

Part of this in-between-stage time will disappear once we get some more automation. Part of it would still remain which is why I think the tier system might work to mitigate most of this while still allowing us to maintain the high video quality that I see a lot of people have mentioned that they still like.

There's a lot of good ideas in this thread and I'm glad that people are willing the share their thoughts.

A lot of people have mentioned moving over to cover more general speedrunning news and not just new runs posted here. This is a direction we definitely should move towards and it shouldn't be too difficult getting started.

Someone mentioned the ability to go back to obsoleted runs and see them / read the comments for them. All runs submitted since September 2012 and forward are in a database already so if a run submitted after that was obsoleted, we could definitely make it available again under an obsoleted section of a game page or something.
Since pretty much all runs ever submitted here still have their videos on archive.org, there's also the possibility for having a full history of a game available. Together with the [url=https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/Historical_Records]Historical Records list[/url] we could even get videos for runs in that were submitted prior to September 2012 if there would be a demand for something like that.

The above would make a good tie-in to something else that has been tossed around which is to split up the publication process of runs to make new runs available for watching a mere day from being verified. 
The following is only in the "vague idea" state:
An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?

For any of this to be possible, as well as doing simple things like adding a KB-link on each game page (which has always been a fantastic idea), we are in the need of migrating a lot of static html pages into the database. This is a long and tough process that we hope to be able to get community assistance for. Once we have that in place, making small changes like the KB-link would only be mere hours work away rather than multiple weeks as it would be by editing it in by hand like you would have to now.
I am actually already in the process of migrating some stuff. Skipped out on AGDQ this year and spent probably 30 hours during that week just porting half of the game definitions over. We're going to make this lead into something for sure :)

As a response to Judgy regarding post-processing:
Obviously, a longer run takes longer to time, encode, pre-release check and to upload. The majority of time it takes however is probably due to pure calendar time. Different people work different stages and since everyone is a volunteer, they work during their spare time whenever they can find the time.
Let's say that there are 20 runs in queue for timing and IsraeliRD has the spare time to officially time 10 runs during a weekend. The next time he has spare time available for this taks is a week later. 10 of those runs are now delayed by calendar. Those 10 runs he timed and handed over to my stage? Well I happened to have my spare time to work with the game pages one day before his day so when those 10 runs are delivered, they will immediately be sitting for 1.5 weeks which is my next available slot for SDA work.
This goes on when they move to encode stage and then further when they move to pre-release which is entirely community driven but large runs could still easily sit for 3 weeks without being grabbed. Finally it's moved to ready to post where an updater would need to have the time to write up a news post. There's likely already a backlog of runs that needs posted first, so the run sits there for some more calendar time..

Part of this in-between-stage time will disappear once we get some more automation. Part of it would still remain which is why I think the tier system might work to mitigate most of this while still allowing us to maintain the high video quality that I see a lot of people have mentioned that they still like.

Asvarduil

2015-01-24 10:07:48 am

Quote from AdHoc:

Close SDA with our heads up while it's still time, never forget and move on. RIP 1998-2015

As one of said "new kids"...no.

SDA is far from irrelevant, and hasn't exactly been superseded by anything else, but the role has changed from what it originally was as a result of better options (Twitch, YouTube) becoming available to the masses. Certainly the archival purpose of this site has been superseded by other things, but that doesn't change the fact that the community that grew around the old archives is still thriving (and, based on the number of replies, we all still appear to care quite strongly.)

That being said, there's an elephant in the room - parts of SDA are indeed irrelevant. I believe, in order to keep this community strong, those parts should be excised or existing features should be altered such that newer options take their place, and this site can focus on what it's currently doing well - coordinating and binding together the speedrunning community.

For races and live streams, we've got SpeedRunsLive, which is serving its purpose quite well, but if this site continues to push its outdated archives as the primary objective, I foresee will take over the community role, which really will leave this site as a mere MySpace of speedrunning. I think there's great virtue in the fact that you can come here to talk speedgaming, and go there for the express purpose of directly participating.

[quote="AdHoc"]Close SDA with our heads up while it's still time, never forget and move on. RIP 1998-2015[/quote]

As one of said "new kids"...no.

SDA is far from irrelevant, and hasn't exactly been superseded by anything else, but the role has changed from what it originally was as a result of better options (Twitch, YouTube) becoming available to the masses.  Certainly the [i]archival[/i] purpose of this site has been superseded by other things, but that doesn't change the fact that the community that grew around the old archives is still thriving (and, based on the number of replies, we all still appear to care quite strongly.)

That being said, there's an elephant in the room - parts of SDA are indeed irrelevant.  I believe, in order to keep this community strong, those parts should be excised or existing features should be altered such that newer options take their place, and this site can focus on what it's currently doing [i][b][u]well[/u][/b][/i] - coordinating and binding together the speedrunning community.

For races and live streams, we've got SpeedRunsLive, which is serving its purpose quite well, but if this site continues to push its outdated archives as the primary objective, I foresee will take over the community role, which [i]really will[/i] leave this site as a mere MySpace of speedrunning.  I think there's great virtue in the fact that you can come here to talk speedgaming, and go there for the express purpose of directly participating.

Mystery

2015-01-24 10:23:34 am

Quote from moooh:

The above would make a good tie-in to something else that has been tossed around which is to split up the publication process of runs to make new runs available for watching a mere day from being verified.
The following is only in the "vague idea" state:
An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?

I do like this approach. I'd like to add that I would like to see not only traditional SDA-style speedruns and categories. While you're expanding, why not bring additional categories and such?
I believe it should be up to the viewers to decide what they like and what they don't, and since you're already proposing a filtering system, people could just filter what kind of categories they'd like to see, and such.
Of course, this brings the question if we truly and really need to be so strict on runs. They have to very high quality, few mistakes, and so on. Some people want the best. Some people will settle for casual. So again with the filtering system.
If SDA's mission was to archive high-quality videos, then why not archive as many as possible? Why not reach out to as many runners as possible to try to have them record in high quality and then archive that (besides streaming)?

Quote:

As a response to Judgy regarding post-processing:
Obviously, a longer run takes longer to time, encode, pre-release check and to upload. The majority of time it takes however is probably due to pure calendar time. Different people work different stages and since everyone is a volunteer, they work during their spare time whenever they can find the time.
Let's say that there are 20 runs in queue for timing and IsraeliRD has the spare time to officially time 10 runs during a weekend. The next time he has spare time available for this taks is a week later. 10 of those runs are now delayed by calendar. Those 10 runs he timed and handed over to my stage? Well I happened to have my spare time to work with the game pages one day before his day so when those 10 runs are delivered, they will immediately be sitting for 1.5 weeks which is my next available slot for SDA work.
This goes on when they move to encode stage and then further when they move to pre-release which is entirely community driven but large runs could still easily sit for 3 weeks without being grabbed. Finally it's moved to ready to post where an updater would need to have the time to write up a news post. There's likely already a backlog of runs that needs posted first, so the run sits there for some more calendar time..

It sounds more like a more flexible system is required (aside automation). Like a pool of work. Anyone is free to take something and work on it. Then they can put it back after some work, provide comments on what they've done and what is next. Well, that's the ideal since person X could time up to time XX:XX and person Y could pick up from there. If the less ideal case, a person can pick an item, process it (like timing), put it back and someone else--anyone on the staff--could pick it up and continue working on the next stage of processing.

But yeah, it sounds like the staff just don't have enough time to do the processing. So I guess more volunteers and automation would be a good thing?

[quote="moooh"]The above would make a good tie-in to something else that has been tossed around which is to split up the publication process of runs to make new runs available for watching a mere day from being verified. 
The following is only in the "vague idea" state:
An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?[/quote]
I do like this approach. I'd like to add that I would like to see not only traditional SDA-style speedruns and categories. While you're expanding, why not bring additional categories and such?
I believe it should be up to the viewers to decide what they like and what they don't, and since you're already proposing a filtering system, people could just filter what kind of categories they'd like to see, and such.
Of course, this brings the question if we truly and really need to be so strict on runs. They have to very high quality, few mistakes, and so on. Some people want the best. Some people will settle for casual. So again with the filtering system.
If SDA's mission was to archive high-quality videos, then why not archive as many as possible? Why not reach out to as many runners as possible to try to have them record in high quality and then archive that (besides streaming)?

[quote]As a response to Judgy regarding post-processing:
Obviously, a longer run takes longer to time, encode, pre-release check and to upload. The majority of time it takes however is probably due to pure calendar time. Different people work different stages and since everyone is a volunteer, they work during their spare time whenever they can find the time.
Let's say that there are 20 runs in queue for timing and IsraeliRD has the spare time to officially time 10 runs during a weekend. The next time he has spare time available for this taks is a week later. 10 of those runs are now delayed by calendar. Those 10 runs he timed and handed over to my stage? Well I happened to have my spare time to work with the game pages one day before his day so when those 10 runs are delivered, they will immediately be sitting for 1.5 weeks which is my next available slot for SDA work.
This goes on when they move to encode stage and then further when they move to pre-release which is entirely community driven but large runs could still easily sit for 3 weeks without being grabbed. Finally it's moved to ready to post where an updater would need to have the time to write up a news post. There's likely already a backlog of runs that needs posted first, so the run sits there for some more calendar time..
[/quote]
It sounds more like a more flexible system is required (aside automation). Like a pool of work. Anyone is free to take something and work on it. Then they can put it back after some work, provide comments on what they've done and what is next. Well, that's the ideal since person X could time up to time XX:XX and person Y could pick up from there. If the less ideal case, a person can pick an item, process it (like timing), put it back and someone else--anyone on the staff--could pick it up and continue working on the next stage of processing.

But yeah, it sounds like the staff just don't have enough time to do the processing. So I guess more volunteers and automation would be a good thing?

Crow!

Edit history:

Crow!: 2015-01-24 10:45:26 am

2015-01-24 10:44:09 am

What's that gemma?

One thing that could improve the site that any of us could participate in is to encourage runners of popular games which have recently seen major developments to get a run recorded and submitted to SDA.

Quote from moooh:

An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?

I like the idea but I don't like that nomenclature - the tiers makes it sound like the runs themselves are better or worse, when it's the site's treatment of the run which is complete or incomplete. More descriptive category names like "Unverified", "No Download" and "Complete" might be better.

Making the front page of SDA more relevant is mainly an issue of manpower. If there were more people encoding, and news entries that did the research to provide context for runs rather than merely humor, that would go a long way toward making SDA's front page worth regular checks. But that is real work, and would probably require hiring people to do it reliably. That money would have to come from somewhere, though.

One thing that could improve the site that any of us could participate in is to encourage runners of popular games which have recently seen major developments to get a run recorded and submitted to SDA.

[quote=moooh]An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?[/quote]
I like the idea but I don't like that nomenclature - the tiers makes it sound like the runs themselves are better or worse, when it's the site's treatment of the run which is complete or incomplete.  More descriptive category names like "Unverified", "No Download" and "Complete" might be better.

Making the front page of SDA more relevant is mainly an issue of manpower.  If there were more people encoding, and news entries that did the research to provide context for runs rather than merely humor, that would go a long way toward making SDA's front page worth regular checks.  But that is real work, and would probably require hiring people to do it reliably.  That money would have to come from somewhere, though.

AlecK47

2015-01-24 10:49:56 am

Quote from Crow!:

Quote from moooh:

An idea the staff has had is to keep around the current publication process but make runs available right away in some form. Think of it like a tier system where a bronze tier run might be not yet officially timed and might only exist for watch using a link to YT. A run could move up to the silver tier when it has published comments and an official time and finally be promoted to the gold tier when the run is also available in high quality encodes for download.
Visitors who'd want SDA old style could just filter the game list for "gold only" or something like that. Thoughts on this?

I like the idea but I don't like that nomenclature - the tiers makes it sound like the runs themselves are better or worse, when it's the site's treatment of the run which is complete or incomplete. More descriptive category names like "Unverified", "No Download" and "Complete" might be better.

Seconding this.

HidoiMidoriRyuu

2015-01-24 10:54:56 am

4NT

I still use SDA as my main source for watching speedruns, even if I'm not very active in the community anymore. I have however participated in a bit of everything, both made and submitted runs (which still haven't been obsoleted), verified runs and writing an article on the KB. Reading this thread did get me thinking however about the site and how it is structured right now. And, well, to be honest it feels like a mess of disconnected parts. The runs are one part, the KB another, the forums a third and there's no clear links between them. What I would suggest is a more tight integration between the different parts of the site.

An idea I had is to merge the Knowledge Base with the Archive. Instead of having the runs pages as they are now they could be pages in the KB wiki. For the games we'd have pages detailing the different tricks, strategies and routes, as well as pages with the runs themselves, along with comments. Then we could have a main page for each game, which lists the current best times with links to those pages as well as keeping a list of older, obsoleted runs along with links to them and their comments. And the main page would also link to the pages with all the tricks and glitches found. That would also mean it's be easier for the runners to utilize the awesome power of wiki in the comments, linking directly to the details of certain tricks in the KB and other such awesome stuff. That way we would have an actual archive of runs going back through the years, and a knowledge base with all the runs, the comments, the tricks all combined for easy browsing. Also, on the game page there would be a link to the appropriate forum thread, communities, IRC channels, Twitch streams and other places where discussion and runs for the game happens.

The other part of the site which I feel could use an overhaul is the forums, especially the boards for game discussion. Throughout all these years we've been using the same 3 boards for discussion (PC, Newer Consoles, Older Consoles) and I feel it ends up being too much crammed into too few boards, which make them move too fast. There really is no reason to just have 3 boards, it's not like we're limited for the amount we can have. I would suggest splitting them up even further. I am unsure what way would be the best and have been thinking a bit about that, maybe having one board for each major console and one board for more obscure/lesser ran consoles, along with splitting the PC board into several (90s and earlier, 00s, 10s).

Also, we should decide on a basic set of categories and rules that can be applied to any game. Like what ways of running a game should be the focus of SDA? Low%, Any% and 100% is probably the best ones, and other ways is best left up to the game communities (pacifist runs and the like). Also, decide on what difficulty levels to keep track of as some have plenty (up to 100s in some cases). Maybe limit to Easiest, Normal and Hardest, of course defining for every game what counts as them. Also, keep the current special cases like Large Skip, but try to keep them to a minimum. Also, to have it set in stone what the timing rules are for games without reliable in-game timers.

And now I have ran out of typing time for now, but I can at least offer to help out with an eventual site upgrade. I recently did finish some uni studies that had a bit of both UX design and web design, so I could maybe at least do something?

I still use SDA as my main source for watching speedruns, even if I'm not very active in the community anymore. I have however participated in a bit of everything, both made and submitted runs (which still haven't been obsoleted), verified runs and writing an article on the KB. Reading this thread did get me thinking however about the site and how it is structured right now. And, well, to be honest it feels like a mess of disconnected parts. The runs are one part, the KB another, the forums a third and there's no clear links between them. What I would suggest is a more tight integration between the different parts of the site.

An idea I had is to merge the Knowledge Base with the Archive. Instead of having the runs pages as they are now they could be pages in the KB wiki. For the games we'd have pages detailing the different tricks, strategies and routes, as well as pages with the runs themselves, along with comments. Then we could have a main page for each game, which lists the current best times with links to those pages as well as keeping a list of older, obsoleted runs along with links to them and their comments. And the main page would also link to the pages with all the tricks and glitches found. That would also mean it's be easier for the runners to utilize the awesome power of wiki in the comments, linking directly to the details of certain tricks in the KB and other such awesome stuff. That way we would have an actual archive of runs going back through the years, and a knowledge base with all the runs, the comments, the tricks all combined for easy browsing. Also, on the game page there would be a link to the appropriate forum thread, communities, IRC channels, Twitch streams and other places where discussion and runs for the game happens.

The other part of the site which I feel could use an overhaul is the forums, especially the boards for game discussion. Throughout all these years we've been using the same 3 boards for discussion (PC, Newer Consoles, Older Consoles) and I feel it ends up being too much crammed into too few boards, which make them move too fast. There really is no reason to just have 3 boards, it's not like we're limited for the amount we can have. I would suggest splitting them up even further. I am unsure what way would be the best and have been thinking a bit about that, maybe having one board for each major console and one board for more obscure/lesser ran consoles, along with splitting the PC board into several (90s and earlier, 00s, 10s).

Also, we should decide on a basic set of categories and rules that can be applied to any game. Like what ways of running a game should be the focus of SDA? Low%, Any% and 100% is probably the best ones, and other ways is best left up to the game communities (pacifist runs and the like). Also, decide on what difficulty levels to keep track of as some have plenty (up to 100s in some cases). Maybe limit to Easiest, Normal and Hardest, of course defining for every game what counts as them. Also, keep the current special cases like Large Skip, but try to keep them to a minimum. Also, to have it set in stone what the timing rules are for games without reliable in-game timers.

And now I have ran out of typing time for now, but I can at least offer to help out with an eventual site upgrade. I recently did finish some uni studies that had a bit of both UX design and web design, so I could maybe at least do something?

bj_waters

Edit history:

bj_waters: 2015-01-24 11:39:34 am

bj_waters: 2015-01-24 11:21:27 am

bj_waters: 2015-01-24 11:21:01 am

2015-01-24 11:16:44 am

I admit that I'm just jumping in at this point, only having skimmed some of the other posts, but I would like to at least state my opinions regarding SDA and it's future.

First of all, I certainly agree that more could be done to help those new to the hobby get into it more, whether they want to speedrun themselves or simply be better watchers of runs. There is a lot of unique vocabulary when it comes to speedrunning and a lot of it is game specific. Something that could quickly bring people up to speed on what we're all talking about would be nice. Fortunately, most runners and run watchers tend to be nice people, as so far anyone has been able to to simply and safely ask what something is and get a good answer, but there certainly is more that we could do about it.

Second, and this is a little bit more specific to one of my personal concerns, but I feel like very little has been done to organize and preserve the history of speedrunning. While somes things can be pieced together, there really isn't a place where someone can dig into why speedrunning is the way it is today. While I'm not suggesting you post every speedrunning video ever (duh), I do think it might be a good idea to maybe expand the Knowledge Base to start including some wiki-style pages about the past tools, techniques, routes, and runners of the games hosted on this website. Simply have it be a wing of the wiki we have here and we can build from there. (To be honest, it's something I've been somewhat seriously thinking about starting on my own, but I wonder if SDA wouldn't be the best place for it anyway).

Finally, I really think that SDA should be considered a general hub for speedrunning. While more popular franchises (Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, et.) will/have end(ed) up creating their own communities, SDA should be the place where anyone speedrunning anything can go to for information and collaboration. As speedrunning continues to evolve as a hobby, I think SDA's mission should be focused on being the center of wherever speedrunning ends up. Now, I'm not suggesting they create leaderboards or keep track of world records or whatever, but I do think that SDA should be one of the first (if not the first) place people go to for their speedurnning interests, whether its to learn, to discuss, to organize, or just to hang out. SDA should be one of the internet homes for people to come to when it comes to speedrunning.

Anyways. That's my two cents. I hope this perspective a little bit helpful, and if some of the things I've brought up have already been discussed, I apologize. I've been a fan of this hobby (and this community) for over five years now, and I would very much like to see it stay relevant for a long time to come. Keep up the good work, guys and gals. It's appreciated.

EDIT: Apparently HidoiMidoriRyuu was talking some history stuff as well, and it's the post just above mine. OOPS! Oh well. Seriously though. History of Speedrunning needs more attention!

I admit that I'm just jumping in at this point, only having skimmed some of the other posts, but I would like to at least state my opinions regarding SDA and it's future.

First of all, I certainly agree that more could be done to help those new to the hobby get into it more, whether they want to speedrun themselves or simply be better watchers of runs.  There is a lot of unique vocabulary when it comes to speedrunning and a lot of it is game specific.  Something that could quickly bring people up to speed on what we're all talking about would be nice.  Fortunately, most runners and run watchers tend to be nice people, as so far anyone has been able to to simply and safely ask what something is and get a good answer, but there certainly is more that we could do about it.

Second, and this is a little bit more specific to one of my personal concerns, but I feel like very little has been done to organize and preserve the [b]history[/b] of speedrunning.  While somes things can be pieced together, there really isn't a place where someone can dig into why speedrunning is the way it is today.  While I'm not suggesting you post every speedrunning video ever (duh), I do think it might be a good idea to maybe expand the Knowledge Base to start including some wiki-style pages about the past tools, techniques, routes, and runners of the games hosted on this website.  Simply have it be a wing of the wiki we have here and we can build from there.  (To be honest, it's something I've been somewhat seriously thinking about starting on my own, but I wonder if SDA wouldn't be the best place for it anyway).

Finally, I really think that SDA should be considered a general hub for speedrunning.  While more popular franchises (Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, et.) will/have end(ed) up creating their own communities, SDA should be the place where anyone speedrunning anything can go to for information and collaboration.  As speedrunning continues to evolve as a hobby, I think SDA's mission should be focused on being the center of wherever speedrunning ends up.  Now, I'm not suggesting they create leaderboards or keep track of world records or whatever, but I do think that SDA should be one of the first (if not [i]the[/i] first) place people go to for their speedurnning interests, whether its to learn, to discuss, to organize, or just to hang out.  SDA should be one of the internet homes for people to come to when it comes to speedrunning.

Anyways.  That's my two cents.  I hope this perspective a little bit helpful, and if some of the things I've brought up have already been discussed, I apologize.   I've been a fan of this hobby (and this community) for over five years now, and I would very much like to see it stay relevant for a long time to come.  Keep up the good work, guys and gals.  It's appreciated.

EDIT: Apparently HidoiMidoriRyuu was talking some history stuff as well, and it's the post just above mine.  OOPS!  Oh well.  Seriously though.  History of Speedrunning needs more attention!

Freezard

2015-01-24 12:05:13 pm

I don't think SDA needs to change from what it's doing today really. The KB is really important and I try to use it whenever I can. I've had non-SDA runners read and link my KB entries on their YT runs so a lot of the time they're actually useful even if it's not apparent. There's still a lot that can be improved though:

-Mixing in news with the normal run updates sounds like a good idea. There's usually a lot of emptiness between updates, news could become another incentive to visit the front page more often. Also it would be good for people like me who are too lazy to check speedrunning news on other sites, I pretty much only watch SDA runs.
-It's true that the KB is linked on the front page but it's way too anonymous. Both the KB and the game page should be prioritized over the other stuff on the front page and highlighted for better visibility and easier access.
-KB/forum thread/run history should be present on each game page like many others have already talked about. If run history becomes automated then the people updating the front page wouldn't have to bother with it either.
-Only keep one forum thread for each game? I know that would be hard to maintain but it's a mess when you try to search for a game and you see five different threads with the same purpose.
-Verification is still way too slow. I know attempts have been made to improve it but my runs have still been stuck in verification for over 6 months which is not an acceptable time. Not very fun when you see the latest A Link to the Past run posted on the front page 3 days after being submitted just because the game is popular. Often verifiers go missing or the video files are not uploaded in time, there needs to be tougher restrictions and deadlines when it comes to stuff like that. moooh's idea with the gold/silver/bronze statuses sounds great though.
-Make writing comments for a run mandatory? It's really annoying watching a run and seeing a cool glitch and then going back to the game page to check out the comments which are empty. I think comments are one of the main reasons people still like waiting for SDA runs instead of going to YT/Twitch.
-Timing is good as it is (IsraeliRD is a beast) and it's fine having different kinds of timings from other communities. I personally don't like RTA timing because of loading time inconsistencies but if it's easier for people racing then good for them, I just can't see it becoming a new timing standard.
-The rules page needs to be more in-depth. There are a lot of general rules that aren't listed, especially when it comes to PC games.

I don't think SDA needs to change from what it's doing today really. The KB is really important and I try to use it whenever I can. I've had non-SDA runners read and link my KB entries on their YT runs so a lot of the time they're actually useful even if it's not apparent. There's still a lot that can be improved though:

-Mixing in news with the normal run updates sounds like a good idea. There's usually a lot of emptiness between updates, news could become another incentive to visit the front page more often. Also it would be good for people like me who are too lazy to check speedrunning news on other sites, I pretty much only watch SDA runs.
-It's true that the KB is linked on the front page but it's way too anonymous. Both the KB and the game page should be prioritized over the other stuff on the front page and highlighted for better visibility and easier access.
-KB/forum thread/run history should be present on each game page like many others have already talked about. If run history becomes automated then the people updating the front page wouldn't have to bother with it either.
-Only keep one forum thread for each game? I know that would be hard to maintain but it's a mess when you try to search for a game and you see five different threads with the same purpose.
-Verification is still way too slow. I know attempts have been made to improve it but my runs have still been stuck in verification for over 6 months which is not an acceptable time. Not very fun when you see the latest A Link to the Past run posted on the front page 3 days after being submitted just because the game is popular. Often verifiers go missing or the video files are not uploaded in time, there needs to be tougher restrictions and deadlines when it comes to stuff like that. moooh's idea with the gold/silver/bronze statuses sounds great though.
-Make writing comments for a run mandatory? It's really annoying watching a run and seeing a cool glitch and then going back to the game page to check out the comments which are empty. I think comments are one of the main reasons people still like waiting for SDA runs instead of going to YT/Twitch.
-Timing is good as it is (IsraeliRD is a beast) and it's fine having different kinds of timings from other communities. I personally don't like RTA timing because of loading time inconsistencies but if it's easier for people racing then good for them, I just can't see it becoming a new timing standard.
-The rules page needs to be more in-depth. There are a lot of general rules that aren't listed, especially when it comes to PC games.

bpcookie

2015-01-24 01:38:18 pm

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I've always thought there should be a glitchless category. Allowing this glitch here and that glitch there is a slippery slope. It's very subjective. And that's ok. The last decade has seen an explosion of new categories for various games. There's room for these distinctions. I know "glitchless" isn't always easy to define to the satisfaction of all. But what else is new? Make a judgment call and live with it like most other categories.

To me, glitchless is more relatable. When I see someone shoot through the glass on Portal chamber 17, or uses the cube to fly up the wall, that's less interesting to me than watching them complete the course. And this sentiment rings true even more when I show speedruns to my friends. I showed a friend of mine a speedrun of a game she had just completed, and the game being speedrun was almost unrecognizable to her. She watched the run for about 5 minutes and was turned off from the whole idea. She asked me why it said Verified: No Cheating! at the beginning of the video, only to be a glitchfest. I was unable to explain.

I'm not saying don't allow glitches. I'm just saying there's room for a glitchless category, and an audience for a glitchless category. And while there will always be disagreements about what's a glitch and what's not, that doesn't mean we can't make a reasonably good effort at it and live with the flaws.

And lastly, I think there's room for runs on the other end of the spectrum as well. I was very much impressed and entertained by the recent SMW credits warp. I wouldn't mind seeing that on SDA. I wouldn't mind seeing the 5-min LTTP run on SDA. I think SDA is already way, way past the point where it makes sense to arbitrarily draw those lines. If someone can beat Metroid Prime in 5 seconds by hitting the Gamecube like the Fonz, I want to see a Fonz category added.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I've always thought there should be a glitchless category. Allowing this glitch here and that glitch there is a slippery slope. It's very subjective. And that's ok. The last decade has seen an explosion of new categories for various games. There's room for these distinctions. I know "glitchless" isn't always easy to define to the satisfaction of all. But what else is new? Make a judgment call and live with it like most other categories.

To me, glitchless is more relatable. When I see someone shoot through the glass on Portal chamber 17, or uses the cube to fly up the wall, that's less interesting to me than watching them complete the course. And this sentiment rings true even more when I show speedruns to my friends. I showed a friend of mine a speedrun of a game she had just completed, and the game being speedrun was almost unrecognizable to her. She watched the run for about 5 minutes and was turned off from the whole idea. She asked me why it said Verified: No Cheating! at the beginning of the video, only to be a glitchfest. I was unable to explain.

I'm not saying don't allow glitches. I'm just saying there's room for a glitchless category, and an audience for a glitchless category. And while there will always be disagreements about what's a glitch and what's not, that doesn't mean we can't make a reasonably good effort at it and live with the flaws.

And lastly, I think there's room for runs on the other end of the spectrum as well. I was very much impressed and entertained by the recent SMW credits warp. I wouldn't mind seeing that on SDA. I wouldn't mind seeing the 5-min LTTP run on SDA. I think SDA is already way, way past the point where it makes sense to arbitrarily draw those lines. If someone can beat Metroid Prime in 5 seconds by hitting the Gamecube like the Fonz, I want to see a Fonz category added.

Kibbo

2015-01-24 01:50:51 pm

TIOLET!

I always considered SDA and SRL to fill different roles. The way SRL are doing things is great for people that want to do RTA and realtime races while SDA is an amazing platform for people that are doing segmented runs, for example. That being said I wouldn't mind SDA site design and layout receiving a facelift.

ktwo

2015-01-24 04:13:47 pm

I've been wondering for a while how long it would take for this type of thread to appear. I'm glad it eventually did. It shows there is still life in the site.

It seems to me that the time that the staff is willing to dedicate to the site is already somewhat limited. Not to offend anyone, but if today's state is the result of this effort, I'm wondering if launching new initiatives to cover even more topics is the right way to go. I think it's more important that SDA is on top of what it's trying to do today and what separates it from other sites. However, I'd love to see SDA reach out to some of the other sites and see if there are ways to promote each other and the role that each site fills in the speedrunning community.

For the rest of this post, I'm only going to focus on the submissions. SDA has more to offer, but my post will be long enough as it is.

I think the most important thing if SDA is to be somewhat seriously taken in the speedrunning community at large would be to start by improving the time it takes for a run to get posted. (has anyone heard this one before? :-) )
The way I see it, the verification is there for three things. To ensure the video quality, the run quality and "no cheating". You usually don't need to be an expert at the game to evaluate the video quality. While it's good if an expert at the game can check the game performance, things in general work "well enough" imo in public verification (it's not like it has to be an exact science either). The last point about cheating could be an extremely important part, but I really feel that it isn't. Very few submitted runs are found to be cheated and the few that are seem to mostly be discovered after verification anyways. As long as the evidence is there for everyone to see, the incentive to cheat remains small (I'd still actually like if the "verified no cheating" part of the stat-ID to be removed, because it's clear that the system isn't 100% waterproof). All in all, I think the added value of private verifications is fairly small. Why not just put everything up for public verification (hell, the majority already go there anyways)? It seems like it would remove some headache and free up time for the staff and lots of time would be cut off in the submission process.

I think that if the whole submission process could be done in around 2 weeks (4 weeks would be stretching it), there could be a slim chance for SDA to slowly regain a place in today's speedrun landscape without being laughed at too hard. Here are a few other suggestions from my side to make the submission process leaner:

* Send the link to submit the video files immediately. This would cut off roughly a week. I don't know if there is a lot of abuse or not, but it should be easy to make a rule that the link is only sent out if the account is more than one week old or something to get rid of the worst part (if necessary).

* Require final encodes from the beginning. Why do the verification files need a different stat-ID? I don't think many people today really care too much if their internet handle is mentioned on the stat-ID during verification and there is honestly no need to put the official time on it either. Incidentally, in my recent submissions I have used the following format: Line 1 - Game name; Line 2 - Category; Line 3 - My name + completion date. If people use that or another format that uses information that is known at the date of submission, there is no need for having both verification and final encodes (you can still always come up with exceptions such as someone adding audio commentary after verification or so). I don't know how much time and effort this would save, but I'm guessing it's not insignificant.

* If the runs for which SDA encodes the videos are a huge bottleneck and add a big workload to the staff, just stop offering that service. Seriously. No one can demand that service by volunteers. There is always the tech forum to get help if people are really stuck trying to figure out how to encode on their own. This is a pretty drastic measure and some submissions would fall away, but having a huge bottleneck (if this is one of them) that creates delays in the overall process is a bigger problem imo.

* Reduce the verification time to one week (from two weeks). If some submissions don't get enough replies or someone requests more time to finish up, just extend the time. No big deal.

* Outsource as much as possible of the post-work. Timing, blurbs for the game pages and what else there is. Radix posted about help with the game page blurbs in the verification topics a while ago. It seemed to work. If no one replies, well, then you got to do it yourselves. It doesn't hurt to ask if the community is willing to help first though. It's of course difficult from the outside to say how much these small tasks delay things, but it just seems like things that could potentially add up.

* Keep it simple when it comes to the frontpage updates. I've always been wondering over the thought put into the themes of the updates. I feel a bit sorry for saying this, but unless you guys really enjoy the write-ups, I really think they are more than what people look for and I don't think this is where the volunteer time is best spent. I saw Radix making an update not long ago with only the run times and a reference to the previous run. That was perfect imo. No need to make it more complicated than that. (I know this was also discussed on the forum at the time)

* Submissions for categories you have already submitted for should skip verification and directly go to timing and then update. Sure, this can be abused. But honestly, the risk for that is pretty small. It would still require you to have gone through the verification process once, which reduces the amount of people willing to create mischief. The upside on the other hand would be to 1) attract players that potentially care about SDA but hold off submitting forever waiting for a better run and then just end up not submitting 2) make it easier for players having submitted to replace with their latest run instead. It's not too uncommon that runs that hit the frontpage have already been beaten by the same runner.

* I have written this in the past in the forum, but I'm going to repeat myself. For games where the community has moved past SDA a long time ago and there are only outdated runs from a long gone era left here, why not just wipe the game pages and link to the actual leaderboards instead? I doubt the runners of the outdated runs would complain. You can still accept submissions, should someone be willing to do so. The SDA-criteria for video quality would still be required, but the play quality and legitness would be based on the run already being accepted in one of the top spots of the leaderboard. On top of ensuring SDA remains more up to date without any effort, I think this would also show to be a small, but nice gesture towards these communities.

I've been wondering for a while how long it would take for this type of thread to appear. I'm glad it eventually did. It shows there is still life in the site.

It seems to me that the time that the staff is willing to dedicate to the site is already somewhat limited. Not to offend anyone, but if today's state is the result of this effort, I'm wondering if launching new initiatives to cover even more topics is the right way to go. I think it's more important that SDA is on top of what it's trying to do today and what separates it from other sites. However, I'd love to see SDA reach out to some of the other sites and see if there are ways to promote each other and the role that each site fills in the speedrunning community.

For the rest of this post, I'm only going to focus on the submissions. SDA has more to offer, but my post will be long enough as it is.

I think the most important thing if SDA is to be somewhat seriously taken in the speedrunning community at large would be to start by improving the time it takes for a run to get posted. (has anyone heard this one before? :-)  )
The way I see it, the verification is there for three things. To ensure the video quality, the run quality and "no cheating". You usually don't need to be an expert at the game to evaluate the video quality. While it's good if an expert at the game can check the game performance, things in general work "well enough" imo in public verification (it's not like it has to be an exact science either). The last point about cheating could be an extremely important part, but I really feel that it isn't. Very few submitted runs are found to be cheated and the few that are seem to mostly be discovered after verification anyways. As long as the evidence is there for everyone to see, the incentive to cheat remains small (I'd still actually like if the "verified no cheating" part of the stat-ID to be removed, because it's clear that the system isn't 100% waterproof). All in all, I think the added value of private verifications is fairly small. Why not just put everything up for public verification (hell, the majority already go there anyways)? It seems like it would remove some headache and free up time for the staff and lots of time would be cut off in the submission process.

I think that if the whole submission process could be done in around 2 weeks (4 weeks would be stretching it), there could be a slim chance for SDA to slowly regain a place in today's speedrun landscape without being laughed at too hard. Here are a few other suggestions from my side to make the submission process leaner:

* Send the link to submit the video files immediately. This would cut off roughly a week. I don't know if there is a lot of abuse or not, but it should be easy to make a rule that the link is only sent out if the account is more than one week old or something to get rid of the worst part (if necessary).

* Require final encodes from the beginning. Why do the verification files need a different stat-ID? I don't think many people today really care too much if their internet handle is mentioned on the stat-ID during verification and there is honestly no need to put the official time on it either. Incidentally, in my recent submissions I have used the following format: Line 1 - Game name; Line 2 - Category; Line 3 - My name + completion date. If people use that or another format that uses information that is known at the date of submission, there is no need for having both verification and final encodes (you can still always come up with exceptions such as someone adding audio commentary after verification or so). I don't know how much time and effort this would save, but I'm guessing it's not insignificant.

* If the runs for which SDA encodes the videos are a huge bottleneck and add a big workload to the staff, just stop offering that service. Seriously. No one can demand that service by volunteers. There is always the tech forum to get help if people are really stuck trying to figure out how to encode on their own. This is a pretty drastic measure and some submissions would fall away, but having a huge bottleneck (if this is one of them) that creates delays in the overall process is a bigger problem imo.

* Reduce the verification time to one week (from two weeks). If some submissions don't get enough replies or someone requests more time to finish up, just extend the time. No big deal.

* Outsource as much as possible of the post-work. Timing, blurbs for the game pages and what else there is. Radix posted about help with the game page blurbs in the verification topics a while ago. It seemed to work. If no one replies, well, then you got to do it yourselves. It doesn't hurt to ask if the community is willing to help first though. It's of course difficult from the outside to say how much these small tasks delay things, but it just seems like things that could potentially add up.

* Keep it simple when it comes to the frontpage updates. I've always been wondering over the thought put into the themes of the updates. I feel a bit sorry for saying this, but unless you guys really enjoy the write-ups, I really think they are more than what people look for and I don't think this is where the volunteer time is best spent. I saw Radix making an update not long ago with only the run times and a reference to the previous run. That was perfect imo. No need to make it more complicated than that. (I know this was also discussed on the forum at the time)

* Submissions for categories you have already submitted for should skip verification and directly go to timing and then update. Sure, this can be abused. But honestly, the risk for that is pretty small. It would still require you to have gone through the verification process once, which reduces the amount of people willing to create mischief. The upside on the other hand would be to 1) attract players that potentially care about SDA but hold off submitting forever waiting for a better run and then just end up not submitting 2) make it easier for players having submitted to replace with their latest run instead. It's not too uncommon that runs that hit the frontpage have already been beaten by the same runner.

* I have written this in the past in the forum, but I'm going to repeat myself. For games where the community has moved past SDA a long time ago and there are only outdated runs from a long gone era left here, why not just wipe the game pages and link to the actual leaderboards instead? I doubt the runners of the outdated runs would complain. You can still accept submissions, should someone be willing to do so. The SDA-criteria for video quality would still be required, but the play quality and legitness would be based on the run already being accepted in one of the top spots of the leaderboard. On top of ensuring SDA remains more up to date without any effort, I think this would also show to be a small, but nice gesture towards these communities.

Andrew_Mills

2015-01-24 04:43:57 pm

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

Quote from Radix:

Quote from Aaron_Haynes:

There have been a lot of notable runs of that game that stood for a long time, from Exo's 37:18 to Ohon's 36:35, not to mention whatever was done on it in the years before I followed the game. But all we have on SDA is a very unoptimized 44:12 from 2008. That's partly our fault for not submitting anything since then

Partly? No, it's entirely the runners' fault. The site isn't going to go post someone's run without permission. A runner has to submit a run to get it on SDA. If SDA has old runs, it's not SDA's fault.

Actually Radix, yes yes it is SDA's fault. I've personally decided against submitting, solid, speed runs in the past to SDA because it simply takes too long overall to get the run published (getting it on to the main game page and onto the front page takes forever in an era where more and more people want to see runs now - and they can do so elsewhere).

Quote from Radix:

Quote from Aaron_Haynes:

The design still looks like 1998'

I hear this a lot and I think it's rather silly. Do you know what most webpages look like in 2015? Flash and ad video play ridden, full of links to "sponsored" content like "one weird trick..." and "you won't believe..." and "the top X blah...". No thanks!

It's not silly in the slightest. SDA is very ugly and outdated. There's no style to it, it's just a few text links and walls, and walls, of text. Awesome if you're making an eBook, very off-putting when you're trying to attract more users in an era where responsive designs (that can be picked up completely free) simply rule as more and more people use phones and tablets to view runs on.

You go on about sites being Flash-ridden and full of links to ad-networks as if nearly all modern sites are. Clearly you've been visiting the wrong sites then as they don't have to look like that in 2015 (unless you want them to be).

Here's something for you to look at to see what I mean: https://www.heartinternet.uk/sculpt (totally free site framework and can be completely modified to suit).

The bottom line is that as time has moved on; SDA hasn't. And that's a shame, as I've personally picked up loads of really helpful video codec and capture knowledge from SDA's community over the years, but people's ability to capture their own runs have changed (as easy to use HDMI cards are becoming more the norm), and YouTube (with it's immediate access to 1080p60 encodes), Twitch et' al mean that it, sadly, doesn't seem to matter if your run makes it on to SDA anymore as what weight a record on SDA used to carry, doesn't anymore Sad

[quote="Radix"][quote="Aaron_Haynes"]There have been a lot of notable runs of that game that stood for a long time, from Exo's 37:18 to Ohon's 36:35, not to mention whatever was done on it in the years before I followed the game. But all we have on SDA is a very unoptimized 44:12 from 2008. That's partly our fault for not submitting anything since then[/quote]

Partly? No, it's entirely the runners' fault. The site isn't going to go post someone's run without permission. A runner has to submit a run to get it on SDA. If SDA has old runs, it's not SDA's fault.[/quote]
Actually Radix, yes yes it is SDA's fault. I've personally decided against submitting, solid, speed runs  in the past to SDA because it simply takes too long [i]overall[/i] to get the run published (getting it on to the main game page and onto the front page takes forever in an era where more and more people want to see runs now - and they can do so elsewhere).

[quote="Radix"][quote="Aaron_Haynes"]The design still looks like 1998'[/quote]

I hear this a lot and I think it's rather silly. Do you know what most webpages look like in 2015? Flash and ad video play ridden, full of links to "sponsored" content like "one weird trick..." and "you won't believe..." and "the top X blah...". No thanks![/quote]
It's not silly in the slightest. SDA is very ugly and outdated. There's no style to it, it's just a few text links and walls, and walls, of text. Awesome if you're making an eBook, very off-putting when you're trying to attract more users in an era where responsive designs (that can be picked up completely free) simply rule as more and more people use phones and tablets to view runs on.

You go on about sites being Flash-ridden and full of links to ad-networks as if nearly all modern sites are. Clearly you've been visiting the wrong sites then as they don't [i]have[/i] to look like that in 2015 (unless you want them to be).

Here's something for you to look at to see what I mean: https://www.heartinternet.uk/sculpt (totally free site framework and can be completely modified to suit).

The bottom line is that as time has moved on; SDA hasn't. And that's a shame, as I've personally picked up loads of really helpful video codec and capture knowledge from SDA's community over the years, but people's ability to capture their own runs have changed (as easy to use HDMI cards are becoming more the norm), and YouTube (with it's immediate access to 1080p60 encodes), Twitch et' al mean that it, sadly, doesn't seem to matter if your run makes it on to SDA anymore as what weight a record on SDA used to carry, doesn't anymore :(

Onin

Edit history:

Onin: 2015-01-24 04:50:25 pm

2015-01-24 04:49:23 pm

I think it's important to differentiate between the frontpage, which really is kind of ugly, and the forums, where this style is just very functional. I don't feel the forums should be changed in any way. But the frontpage, the games list, and every game page could use some serious love. They're under-designed. They're not even functionally sound. The fact that the games page suggests using a Google Search widget is ridiculous.

Of course there's no need to make everything super fancy with interactive menus and fade-ins and shit like that. Sleek efficiency is befitting of speedrunning! But so much can be done to improve both the presentation and the functionality of these pages.

As TASBot put it: IT IS NOT PERFECT.

Cronikeys

2015-01-24 05:23:41 pm

@onin - People should stop focusing on aesthetics and more usability. The site is hard to navigate.

Front page should have:
-more relevant info. by more, i mean quantity.
-a search. you type a game, you get a list of games with that query. ez pz

Game pages should have:
-links to related forum threads
-links to the knowledgebase hub for that

A universal navigation system should also be implemented. Right now the only way to return from a game page is in-line text.

Oh, and connect stuff. Make the blog on the front page pull posts from a forum so people can comment on it.

@Radix - forget what people are saying about it not being pretty. The site lacks modern usability features. That's what I meant on my page 1 post and that's what people should be talking about instead of "ewww blue text on black background and a bad logo." TASvideos is ugly as sin but it's easier to navigate.

@moooh - why not just do what tasvideos does? they have a "bad run but best available" tier, "good not great" tier, and "god" tier. they also have links to obseleted runs, comments, connectedness with their forum, etc etc... a tasvideos-ish site for realtime runs would be a good thing for SDA.

also @onin - the forum is slow as mollasas, the software is no longer maintained, totally not integrated with the rest of the site (see earlier points), has social links to outdated sites (digg/delicious/stumbleupon), has a bad/slow search feature, and has poorly organized categories (some of the people posting in "new consoles" were born after the games were released). the forum is primary reason 99.999999% of the speedrunning community visits this site and I would never, ever say they shouldn't "be changed in any way"

see earlier post for more ideas of mine. I'm also available to help with anything coding wise. I have a lot of experience with migrating forums and data. I can also work w/ kariokhi or whoever offered to turn a design into proper html/css

@onin - People should stop focusing on aesthetics and more usability. The site is hard to navigate.

Front page should have:
-more relevant info. by more, i mean quantity.
-a search. you type a game, you get a list of games with that query. ez pz

Game pages should have:
-links to related forum threads
-links to the knowledgebase hub for that

A universal navigation system should also be implemented. Right now the only way to return from a game page is in-line text.

Oh, and connect stuff. Make the blog on the front page pull posts from a forum so people can comment on it.

@Radix - forget what people are saying about it not being pretty. The site lacks modern usability features. That's what I meant on my page 1 post and that's what people should be talking about instead of "ewww blue text on black background and a bad logo." TASvideos is ugly as sin but it's easier to navigate.

@moooh - why not just do what tasvideos does? they have a "bad run but best available" tier, "good not great" tier, and "god" tier. they also have links to obseleted runs, comments, connectedness with their forum, etc etc... a tasvideos-ish site for realtime runs would be a good thing for SDA.

also @onin - the forum is slow as mollasas, the software is no longer maintained, totally not integrated with the rest of the site (see earlier points), has social links to outdated sites (digg/delicious/stumbleupon), has a bad/slow search feature, and has poorly organized categories (some of the people posting in "new consoles" were born after the games were released). the forum is primary reason 99.999999% of the speedrunning community visits this site and I would never, ever say they shouldn't "be changed in any way"

see earlier post for more ideas of mine. I'm also available to help with anything coding wise. I have a lot of experience with migrating forums and data. I can also work w/ kariokhi or whoever offered to turn a design into proper html/css

Onin

2015-01-24 05:31:14 pm

I more meant that the forums don't need an aesthetic overhaul or fluffed up with a bunch of new functions. I do agree that it has some flaws that could easily be fixed.

As for front/game pages, design and functionality overlap here. A lot of the major gripes with the current front/game page are caused by their design, rather than their limitations. The amount of effort required to find a game is stupid. The fact that I can't have a 2x zoom embedded player alongside the run comments in one page, is stupid. The way pages can become immensely long because there's no thought put into separating pages, is stupid. All of that needs to be fixed, before even thinking about additional functionalities.

Radix

2015-01-24 05:40:41 pm

I'm addicted to games

Quote from Andrew_Mills:

Actually Radix, yes yes it is SDA's fault. I've personally decided against submitting, solid, speed runs in the past to SDA because it simply takes too long overall to get the run published (getting it on to the main game page and onto the front page takes forever in an era where more and more people want to see runs now - and they can do so elsewhere).

The effort for you to submit a run is the same whether that run appears on the SDA front page in 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. How long is an acceptable time to you that suddenly you would submit, and why?

Rakuen

Edit history:

Rakuen: 2015-01-24 06:27:26 pm

2015-01-24 06:25:28 pm

Weegee Time

*sigh*
I keep trying to write something meaningful but I keep coming back to this:
Why should anyone care about submitting runs to SDA?

I notice the FAQ addresses a lot of questions but never asks "Why should I submit to SDA?" I honestly don't know the answer to that in the current climate. However, I think a really convincing answer would set a solid foundation for further steps to build motivation.

stirlock

2015-01-24 06:50:56 pm

Alright, I've read through this entire thread, and I shall now add my two cents here.

First, let me start out by saying that my viewpoint is going to be rather unique. I've been blind since birth, and yet have always liked videogames as long as I can remember. Way back in 2005, I discovered TAS, and was pretty amazed at what could be done with emulation, but I always wanted to watch runs done on consoles. So you can imagine that I was very happy when I came accross SDA later in 2006 or so, I was even more happy when the functionality to watch videos on a given game's page was added, My limited hard drive at the time was quite thankful. I've been keeping up with the front page updates religiously ever since, though I confess I was never big in the community (which I regret now) mostly because I thought, well, I'm never going to be able to submit a run, so what's the point? But I did keep up with events, the GDQs, as well as others like C4L. With the advent of twitch, I've started watching some of my favorite runners, such as Puwexil and Dragondarch. Anyway, having been alerted to the existence of this thread via the link on the front page, here are some of my thoughts on the future of SDA, in no particular order.

Yes on more stuff on the front page, but don't eclipse what the site is about, game submitions. It's all about striking a balance, which may be a challenge, but one that I think the staff is more than capable.

Yes to glitchless catagory for games.
Glitchless is, at least for myself, more entertaining to watch, particularly if a runner doesn't do a good job explaining in the run comments what a given glitch is, ETC. Glitched runs, IMO, sort of run that line between TAS and legit, and I don't think I'm alone in this mindset, and adding a separate catagory for glitchless runs would please those wishing to see them, as well as opening the floodgates for a lot more content to the site, which is what everyone wants. Speaking of comments on runs...

Higher standards for run comments.
So, being blind, I rely a lot on run comments, particularly if the run has a lot of little tricks, has many segments, ETC. If you want some outstanding examples of exceptional run comments, look at the Megaman X: Command Mission run on the site, the Skies of Arcadia run, the Skyward sword run, and the obsoleted Kingdom Hearts run.There are probably others that are just as great, but these are the few that immediately jump to mind for me. It's really sad to see a really detailed run with absolutely no comments, or very half-assed comments that say something like, just watch the run. Less, in this case, is definitely not more.

Yes to allowing for other cultures standards, with notes detailing such.
I always though that it was silly that turboing is not allowed for JRPGs. Don't get me wrong, for action or platform games, the rule makes complete sense. But opening the ability for runners to use turbo for JRPGs if they like would maybe convince people who have never posted to SDA before to do so. I think we have a grand total of, what, three? games ran by japanese runners. That should definitely change. Perhapse even add a section of the site for non-english runs? Just an idea.

Now as to the look of the front page, I do like it a lot. It's simple to navigate with screen readers. I'm not going to go too in depth with how screen reading software works, but I'll just say that many, many modern sites are an absolute disaster with screen readers, particularly if they do not utilize navigational elements such as headings, tables ETC. Webpages read almost completely differently to screen readers than they do visually. Navigational elements are a quick way for those of us who rely on such software to jump around a webpage more effitiantly. I don't want to see SDA's front page turned into a mess of a million links and banners.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts, I may add more as this thread evolves, and I'll also try to be more active on the forum in general.

Mike AKA stirlock

Alright, I've read through this entire thread, and I shall now add my two cents here.

First, let me start out by saying that my viewpoint is going to be rather unique. I've been blind since birth, and yet have always liked videogames as long as I can remember. Way back in 2005, I discovered TAS, and was pretty amazed at what could be done with emulation, but I always wanted to watch runs done on consoles. So you can imagine that I was very happy when I came accross SDA later in 2006 or so, I was even more happy when the functionality to watch videos on a given game's page was added, My limited hard drive at the time was quite thankful. I've been keeping up with the front page updates religiously ever since, though I confess I was never big in the community (which I regret now) mostly because I thought, well, I'm never going to be able to submit a run, so what's the point? But I did keep up with events, the GDQs, as well as others like C4L. With the advent of twitch, I've started watching some of my favorite runners, such as Puwexil and Dragondarch. Anyway, having been alerted to the existence of this thread via the link on the front page, here are some of my thoughts on the future of SDA, in no particular order.

Yes on more stuff on the front page, but don't eclipse what the site is about, game submitions. It's all about striking a balance, which may be a challenge, but one that I think the staff is more than capable.

Yes to glitchless catagory for games. 
Glitchless is, at least for myself, more entertaining to watch, particularly if a runner doesn't do a good job explaining in the run comments what a given glitch is, ETC. Glitched runs, IMO, sort of run that line between TAS and legit, and I don't think I'm alone in this mindset, and adding a separate catagory for glitchless runs would please those wishing to see them, as well as opening the floodgates for a lot more content to the site, which is what everyone wants. Speaking of comments on runs...

Higher standards for run comments. 
So, being blind, I rely a lot on run comments, particularly if the run has a lot of little tricks, has many segments, ETC. If you want some outstanding examples of exceptional run comments, look at the Megaman X: Command Mission run on the site, the Skies of Arcadia run, the Skyward sword run, and the obsoleted Kingdom Hearts run.There are probably others that are just as great, but these are the few that immediately jump to mind for me. It's really sad to see a really detailed run with absolutely no comments, or very half-assed comments that say something like, just watch the run. Less, in this case, is definitely not more.

Yes to allowing for other cultures standards, with notes detailing such. 
I always though that it was silly that turboing is not allowed for JRPGs. Don't get me wrong, for action or platform games, the rule makes complete sense. But opening the ability for runners to use turbo for JRPGs if they like would maybe convince people who have never posted to SDA before to do so. I think we have a grand total of, what, three? games ran by japanese runners. That should definitely change. Perhapse even add a section of the site for non-english runs? Just an idea.

Now as to the look of the front page, I do like it a lot. It's simple to navigate with screen readers. I'm not going to go too in depth with how screen reading software works, but I'll just say that many, many modern sites are an absolute disaster with screen readers, particularly if they do not utilize navigational elements such as headings, tables ETC. Webpages read almost completely differently to screen readers than they do visually. Navigational elements are a quick way for those of us who rely on such software to jump around a webpage more effitiantly. I don't want to see SDA's front page turned into a mess of a million links and banners.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts, I may add more as this thread evolves, and I'll also try to be more active on the forum in general.

Mike AKA stirlock

Vulajin

Edit history:

Vulajin: 2015-01-24 06:55:20 pm

2015-01-24 06:53:41 pm

Quote from Rakuen:

Why should anyone care about submitting runs to SDA?

[...] I think a really convincing answer would set a solid foundation for further steps to build motivation.

We've been thinking a lot about this as well. (This question was asked, verbatim, in our most recent staff meeting.) I think the answer used to be self-evident. I also think making the site more relevant to the speedrunning community will help restore "SDA submission" as a term that actually matters.

cyghfer

2015-01-24 07:09:45 pm

Hey I'll try and keep this post as brief as I can. I'm posting from the perspective of someone who started speedrunning just after CGDQ that initially was glued to SDA, but at this point in time is pretty disillusioned with what the site offers to the community.

The ONLY value I personally see in getting a run posted on SDA is having it join a long history of other speedrunning endeavors spanning more than a decade. True to the 'archive' in the site's name, your run joins a pantheon of other speedruns that represents a significant body of the total effort put into this activity since the early Doom days. Otherwise, Twitch and Youtube outclass having a run on SDA by pretty much any other metric (feedback in the form of comments, video statistics, general reach, etc.)

When I want to watch a speedrun of a given game that I'm not already closely following the progress of, I'm sorry, but I want to watch the current record. Knowing that SDA is Not A World Records Site™, I immediately go to other sources first to find the run I want to watch. Yeah, the run might not have been recorded in lossless quality, but it really doesn't matter to me. I find that the video quality of 95% of streams out there is good enough for me to watch, and that the crispness of an insane quality video on SDA is only a very marginable improvement in my viewing experience. I care about run quality far more. What I'm basically saying is that a unified leaderboard, as speedrun.com is working toward becoming, is of much greater value to me than SDA's speedrun-hosting functionality.

I've long thought that SDA's verification system is almost completely worthless. Cheated runs are never found through the verification system - I have not heard of a single instance where this occurred. At best it crowdsources the laborious acts of making sure the video doesn't have egregious AV issues and that the play isn't completely amateurish to members of the community that want to contribute to the site's archive of runs. The "SDA standard of quality" omnigamer touched upon may have been important back in the day, when standards and competition were low, but the community has progressed to the point where if you're watching the record for any given game, it's probably at least a decent watch in terms of play quality.

When I was trying to learn about how to record in lossless quality, I tried to use the Knowledge Base. It did give me some helpful foundational knowledge, but I still had to spend DOZENS of hours experimenting with capture hardware, recording programs, and specific video settings. I have had to deal with an incredible amount of headache in pursuit of the goal of high-quality streaming with simultaneous lossless recording (that doesn't involve an expensive DVD recorder w/ HDD). The info that's there currently looks decent, but it could be greatly improved.

Like others have said, the only reason I still visit this site regularly is for the forum, and even then it's just to see if there's a thread in the GDQ Planning or SDA Discussion that's important to read if you're engaged with any part of the community. The speedrun planning threads don't quite have an equivalent elsewhere in the community (for now), but the awful technical aspects of the forum make using it an unpleasant experience. SDA is the only website I've seen where it frequently takes 3+ seconds for a page to close after hitting the X button in the tab, to say the least of its usability woes.

Those are my assessments of the usefulness of SDA's functions at this stage of speedrunning. Do I think SDA has a relevant place in the community going forward? Honestly, I think it does only because of its historical importance. Most speedrunners that have been around for more than a year or so have had some type of involvement with this site, so there is a great amount of inertia to continue using at least the forum for mass communication/'central gathering place' purposes.

The Knowledge Base could be a great resource if people were truly motivated to making it as comprehensive as possible, but it won't drive the site's usage. The KB should be supplementing material that is actually drawing people to the site in the first place.

I wouldn't really care if SDA ceased its speedrun-publishing operations, honestly. The body of runs that is already published of course has great value, but it's all already available on archive.org anyway. Making the front page more oriented toward general community news might bring some value to the site, as well, but I think that r/speedrun more or less serves this niche already. There's really not much 'news' that happens in the community outside of new records being set and GDQ planning news.

The best answer I can give for making the site more useful going forward is to vastly improve the site's functionality overall, as others have stated. It seems people view SDA as the 'central community hub' - play to those strengths. Make the KB as comprehensive and useful as possible, publish more news and information that can only really come from the great communal inertia already in place here, and make the forums much easier to use. The site's administration will probably just have to accept that unless the mission of the site is drastically changed, it will remain primarily an Archive and a Community Hub.

Hey I'll try and keep this post as brief as I can. I'm posting from the perspective of someone who started speedrunning just after CGDQ that initially was glued to SDA, but at this point in time is pretty disillusioned with what the site offers to the community.

The ONLY value I personally see in getting a run posted on SDA is having it join a long history of other speedrunning endeavors spanning more than a decade. True to the 'archive' in the site's name, your run joins a pantheon of other speedruns that represents a significant body of the total effort put into this activity since the early Doom days. Otherwise, Twitch and Youtube outclass having a run on SDA by pretty much any other metric (feedback in the form of comments, video statistics, general reach, etc.)

When I want to watch a speedrun of a given game that I'm not already closely following the progress of, I'm sorry, but I want to watch the current record. Knowing that SDA is Not A World Records Site™, I immediately go to other sources first to find the run I want to watch. Yeah, the run might not have been recorded in lossless quality, but it really doesn't matter to me. I find that the video quality of 95% of streams out there is good enough for me to watch, and that the crispness of an insane quality video on SDA is only a very marginable improvement in my viewing experience. I care about run quality far more. What I'm basically saying is that a unified leaderboard, as speedrun.com is working toward becoming, is of much greater value to me than SDA's speedrun-hosting functionality.

I've long thought that SDA's verification system is almost completely worthless. Cheated runs are [i]never[/i] found through the verification system - I have not heard of a single instance where this occurred. At best it crowdsources the laborious acts of making sure the video doesn't have egregious AV issues and that the play isn't completely amateurish to members of the community that want to contribute to the site's archive of runs. The "SDA standard of quality" omnigamer touched upon may have been important back in the day, when standards and competition were low, but the community has progressed to the point where if you're watching the record for any given game, it's probably at least a decent watch in terms of play quality.

When I was trying to learn about how to record in lossless quality, I tried to use the Knowledge Base. It did give me some helpful foundational knowledge, but I still had to spend DOZENS of hours experimenting with capture hardware, recording programs, and specific video settings. I have had to deal with an incredible amount of headache in pursuit of the goal of high-quality streaming with simultaneous lossless recording (that doesn't involve an expensive DVD recorder w/ HDD). The info that's there currently looks decent, but it could be greatly improved.

Like others have said, the only reason I still visit this site regularly is for the forum, and even then it's just to see if there's a thread in the GDQ Planning or SDA Discussion that's important to read if you're engaged with any part of the community. The speedrun planning threads don't quite have an equivalent elsewhere in the community (for now), but the awful technical aspects of the forum make using it an unpleasant experience. SDA is the only website I've seen where it frequently takes 3+ seconds for a page to close after hitting the X button in the tab, to say the least of its usability woes.

Those are my assessments of the usefulness of SDA's functions at this stage of speedrunning. Do I think SDA has a relevant place in the community going forward? Honestly, I think it does [u]only[/u] because of its historical importance. Most speedrunners that have been around for more than a year or so have had some type of involvement with this site, so there is a great amount of inertia to continue using at least the forum for mass communication/'central gathering place' purposes.

The Knowledge Base could be a great resource if people were truly motivated to making it as comprehensive as possible, but it won't drive the site's usage. The KB should be supplementing material that is actually drawing people to the site in the first place.

I wouldn't really care if SDA ceased its speedrun-publishing operations, honestly. The body of runs that is already published of course has great value, but it's all already available on archive.org anyway. Making the front page more oriented toward general community news might bring some value to the site, as well, but I think that r/speedrun more or less serves this niche already. There's really not much 'news' that happens in the community outside of new records being set and GDQ planning news.

The best answer I can give for making the site more useful going forward is to vastly improve the site's functionality overall, as others have stated. It seems people view SDA as the 'central community hub' - play to those strengths. Make the KB as comprehensive and useful as possible, publish more news and information that can only really come from the great communal inertia already in place here, and make the forums much easier to use. The site's administration will probably just have to accept that unless the mission of the site is drastically changed, it will remain primarily an Archive and a Community Hub.