European Marathon primary planning thread (opinions on Sweden still wanted) [locked]

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2011-09-21 08:03:05 am

2011-09-21 08:00:47 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Flicky made some great points about the marathon. Scandinavia is English-friendly but incredibly expensive. I should know, I've been to Norway, which is so expensive that Norwegians go to Sweden to buy stuff. Sad

I know I don't really have much of a say in this, but I think Netherlands or Germany would be the two best countries in terms of location, price, and English-speaking.

LD: Not so sure about cutting out Summer Games, since it lets people on the west coast/mountain time zone area participate who normally couldn't. We'll have to see.

Miles: The Europe marathon would give the chance for a lot of people who don't/can't stream and don't have the money to cross the atlantic to play at a marathon. Also, I'd expect the game selection to be a lot more PC-friendly, which is honestly something that has been lacking in past marathons, including JRDQ.

VG: We had 2 weeks to prepare JRDQ, it went very smoothly for the lack of time we had to prepare, so don't whine here. :-/

Ecko65

2011-09-21 09:47:19 am

DK + Mario Kart 8 = <3

Quote from Tigger77:

basically I like the idea of a Europe marthon
Flicky summed it up pretty good so I vote for Germany too

the thing is the organization because it should be close to someone how is willing to organize the marathon

Maybe we people how are willing to organize should post were they would organize it than we can see how many people would travel to that place and than decided if we go for it

to get the ball rolling I vote for Germany near Karlsruhe (thats were I live)

yes lets do it in germany i like the idea so much and i can run so many games karlsruhe is a good place a long distance for me anyway but i would definitly come to this event

KennyMan666

2011-09-21 12:44:16 pm

Precursor

Flight to Germany is indeed pretty cheap (checking a random weekend in June, doubt there'd be any huge price differences). I would definitely be able to make that. Can easily throw in my vote for that (of course, I'd prefer it in Sweden... but that's just because it would make it easier for me, and I'm a lazy bum :P). And I can actually speak German! Very, very rusty German!

I keep wanting to bring up things, but, hell, I created this thread only yesterday. While there seems to be quite a bit of interest already, I'm not sure we have enough people to a marathon make yet. Should I keep a tally of interested people in the first post? There I go again...

Maybe the AGDQ planners can tell me how far in advance you should be doing Important Things.

PJ

2011-09-21 01:08:46 pm

Is PJ

Would the games be played in PAL version? I am assuming so, right?

There is an extremely slight chance that I could make it. I am definitely interested, but don't confuse that with confirmation. Smiley

CrypticJacknife

2011-09-21 02:22:20 pm

Ganondorf = Donkey Kong LOOK IT UP!!

Hold it in Germany and in August (WACKEN TIME) and I'm in Wink

ktwo

2011-09-22 01:23:55 pm

A little late to the party, but whatever... Just came by to say that it sounds like a good initiative and I hope you manage to pull this off.

About price levels...

From my experience, Sweden ~ Germany. It's a significant difference between Sweden on one hand and Denmark/Norway on the other, so putting all the Scandinavian countries in one bag is a bit unfair towards Sweden. Not that it seems to matter now since most people who expressed themselves have anyways stated central Europe for various reasons...

Cool Matty

2011-09-22 02:54:16 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Obviously couldn't attend but here's my help for this:

PAL Games Done Quick

or as a joke: PAL Games Done 5/6ths Quick

:p

Mecha Richter

2011-09-22 02:55:48 pm

Haters gonna hate

hahaha... the latter is so good.

PJ

2011-09-22 03:10:09 pm

Is PJ

Haha. I totally agree.

KennyMan666

2011-09-22 03:17:04 pm

Precursor

Should be "Awesome Games Done 5/6ths as Quick".

Awesome Games Done at PAL Speed. Awesome Games Done European. PAL Games Done Quick. Aw€som€ Gam€s Don€ Quick.

(donations for this one totally needs to be counted in Euros)

Tompa

2011-09-22 04:18:37 pm

I'm surely interested in this at least. In Sweden or anywhere else in Europe, I'll be there.
Don't really think we should use PAL games when possibel though, as we all know that PAL sucks.

mikwuyma

2011-09-22 04:31:52 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

PAL only sucks for pre-ps2 era console games, which is a lot of games, admittedly.

IkomaSoji

Edit history:

IkomaSoji: 2011-09-22 08:13:55 pm

IkomaSoji: 2011-09-22 08:13:54 pm

IkomaSoji: 2011-09-22 08:13:53 pm

2011-09-22 08:13:14 pm

Jump, Gypsy, Jump!

If we did AGDQ, The online marathon, Pal Games Done 5/6ths Quick, and SGDQ, that would be 4 marathons a year. That certainly doesn't sound like too many to me, but maybe I'm crazy. Of course, placing them out to be quarterly would be preferable, but difficult due to busy times of the year and such.

Good luck with this, if you guys got it off the ground I would definitely tune in and donate.

CrypticJacknife

Edit history:

CrypticJacknife: 2011-09-22 09:59:00 pm

2011-09-22 09:58:48 pm

Ganondorf = Donkey Kong LOOK IT UP!!

imo Awesome Games Done With Lag Reduction would be more accurate :3

Hurblat

2011-09-23 12:32:39 am

I'm very interested in this, especially if it was to happen in Sweden.
And I think avoiding PAL games won't be much of a problem.

sausage948

Edit history:

sausage948: 2011-10-02 06:53:22 am

sausage948: 2011-09-25 03:23:54 am

2011-09-25 03:05:22 am

I am very interested in this. I’ve always really enjoyed the SDA marathons and I’ve always wanted to participate in one, so I’ll try my best to join this one. If it is being held in the Netherlands or Germany then I should certainly be able to come. My personal preference goes out to the Netherlands since I’m Dutch (:P) and it would mean that I’d be able to travel for free on work days when I get my “studentenreisproduct” (student travel product). From a less selfish perspective, I think there’s not going to be too much difference between the Netherlands and Germany, but I believe the Netherlands is more English-friendly than Germany, since I think 87% of the Dutch people can also speak English as opposed to about 60% for the Germans. I’m not sure how accurate these statistics are, but I am very certain any foreigners who speak a good amount of English (enough to communicate on these forums) will easily find their way around the Netherlands.

Now to think about any games I want to run. I’m always a bit above average for the games I like to play competitively, but never one of the best. I’ll probably need to really practice whichever game I choose a lot. Games that I would consider running are Super Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball 2 and Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, although I can only tell for sure which one(s) I’d like to do after I’ve done some practice runs.

EDIT: Also, a random question, but since this will be a European based marathon will the marathon schedule times be in CEST? Tongue

I am very interested in this. I’ve always really enjoyed the SDA marathons and I’ve always wanted to participate in one, so I’ll try my best to join this one. If it is being held in the Netherlands or Germany then I should certainly be able to come. My personal preference goes out to the Netherlands since I’m Dutch (:P) and it would mean that I’d be able to travel for free on work days when I get my “studentenreisproduct” (student travel product). From a less selfish perspective, I think there’s not going to be too much difference between the Netherlands and Germany, but I believe the Netherlands is more English-friendly than Germany, since I think 87% of the Dutch people can also speak English as opposed to about 60% for the Germans. I’m not sure how accurate these statistics are, but I am very certain any foreigners who speak a good amount of English (enough to communicate on these forums) will easily find their way around the Netherlands.

Now to think about any games I want to run. I’m always a bit above average for the games I like to play competitively, but never one of the best. I’ll probably need to really practice whichever game I choose a [i]lot[/i]. Games that I would consider running are Super Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball 2 and Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, although I can only tell for sure which one(s) I’d like to do after I’ve done some practice runs.

EDIT: Also, a random question, but since this will be a European based marathon will the marathon schedule times be in CEST? :P

moooh

2011-09-25 05:01:13 am

Exoray

Quote from sausage948:

EDIT: Also, a random question, but since this will be a European based marathon will the marathon schedule times be in CEST? Tongue

Yes, when SGDQ was held, the schedule was reflecting the time zone the marathon took place in.

Mystery

2011-09-28 01:07:26 pm

I'm just going to add a little something regarding Sweden...

Quote from Flicky:

Cost
Now some places in Europe are cheap and some aren't Switzerland and the Nordic countries are some of the most expensive in Europe (even more so that England) and could severely hinder people's plans to travel. We're nearly all poor students or minimum wagers here so cost will be important to consider. Also note that some countries have currencies that require exchanging. A country that uses the Euro would be ideal if we have a equal split of visitors from all over europe as it's very easy to get good rates for and a majority of people already have it.

Cost is definitely high (that's what we pay for our current system), but credit cards are indeed wide spread. There are a few places that won't accept them, but for the most part... so no exchange is probably needed.

Also, Internet is probably not going to be a problem. High speed and reliable lines are aplenty.

dballin

2011-09-28 04:16:27 pm

Balls jerky

Credit cards will charge you a currency conversion fee every time you use it. My discover card charges 2% for each transaction which I got hit with a few times in Barbados. Other banks charge 1-3%. No idea what the charge is to convert paper money.

Tiberius

Edit history:

Tiberius: 2011-09-29 08:12:35 am

2011-09-29 08:11:38 am

Make it so.

Only just seen this thread, I'm fully throwing my suport behind this, I'd love to attand a marathon but getting to the US is tough on a student budget.

With regards to venue, I have no idea but I agree that expense should be taken into account, here in England it's almost certainly going to be too high, although I can check out how much it is to rent the conference center in my university college, it's cheaper than most public places for sure and also has cheap accomodation. Also seeing as it's for charity I may well be able to get a charity grant towards it from the university itself to help with travel/accomodation, they are actually awesome about that sort of thing!

Mystery

2011-09-29 08:33:18 am

Quote from dballin:

Credit cards will charge you a currency conversion fee every time you use it. My discover card charges 2% for each transaction which I got hit with a few times in Barbados. Other banks charge 1-3%. No idea what the charge is to convert paper money.

But when you think about it, 2% isn't much. That's 2 out of 100, 20 out of 1000 and 200 out of 10 000. No terribly much. I don't think would be a big issue, regardless of where you end up.

Pootrain

2011-09-29 08:50:17 am

train kept rollin

Thats assuming its a US card abroad. I'm not sure what UK companies charge.

Exo

Edit history:

Exo: 2011-09-29 08:53:55 am

Exo: 2011-09-29 08:53:43 am

Exo: 2011-09-29 08:53:26 am

2011-09-29 08:53:19 am

Sandbagging

It really depends on where you have your cc contract.
Here in Germany there are a lot of cc companies that dont charge a penny for using the cc in other countries.
Not sure if that applies for american cc companies though :s

Toothache

2011-09-29 09:03:35 am

Let the music play!

Posting to say I'm up for this, being a Brit makes getting to most of Europe pretty affordable.

cyghfer

2011-09-29 09:08:54 am

i demand that toothache do an FE6 hard mode best ending RTA if this ends up happening :V