GermanyThanks for this kind of feedback thread, exactly what I like to see :)
The tournament room was great, and I can't thank Feasel enough for his work. He did an outstanding job and was very polite and engaged throughout the whole event. I hope he returns and I hope ESA will expand the tournament section into a bigger or better-fit room with a dedicated team around Feasel, and possibly a dedicated Discord channel/server for participants to coordinate and communicate better. It would also be great if the tournament stream was advertised more (but I understand it was a "test" this year) and possibly have some finals streamed on the first or second ESA stream. I'm sure there'd be an audience for the (grand) finals of a 40+ people Smash Bros. tournament or some quirky stuff like Quiz Bowl or something.
Moving the Arcades into a separate room was a very good decision. It's sad that some of them broke and weren't able to be repaired, but I understand. Feel free to expand the Arcade even more!
The Super Mario Sunhine Relay was better organized and executed than some of the previous crowd relay races/runs, and the choice of game and category was good - while I think Mario 64 draws a bigger crowd, some change of pace was surely needed and Sunshine is probably a better choice than Galaxy or Odyssey. I like that practice was a requirement this year, that should be the standard for the future. So thanks to Fuzzy, Samu and HiddenPower for setting that up and I hope there'll be another relay or something alike next year. Maybe a two or four team "Mario Party" game (so that 20 rounds equal 80 players) or so, would definitely be quite the mess - but I guess it's not a speedrun so idk.
The community intermission glitch videos were a cool new format and I'd like to see them again in the future, possibly with a wider variety of topics - instead of just glitches, it could be a compilation of user-submitted highlights such as funny, sad, WTF oder clutch moments of their streams. This would give the big ESA audience a small insight into the vast variety of streams and personalities of ESA-attendees as they actually can be found and seen on their Twitch channels. A good mix wouldn't hurt, I think.
My first minor complaint is that some of the hosts and/or donation readers often don't seem to be too well informed about the charity ESA supports. I might be too "harsh", but when they "advertise" the charity but stumble over their own words and can't really say anything more than "yeah, Alzheimers is bad" and don't say what the Alzheimer Foundation actually does... well, let's just say I think this could be improved. Doesn't have to be much, but a small post-it note with general info about the charity (and the disease they're fighting) might go a long way.
My second minor complaint is that my hotel card somehow wasn't authorized to open the door to the stairs (on the ESA floor, at least). With one of the elevators always "out of service", waiting for an elevator for multiple minutes just to find out it's crowded and you can't even enter it... not sure if ESA can do something about that, but I figured I'd mention it.
I had mixed feelings about stream 2 being in the big room. I can see the pros, but I personally felt it was nice to have a separate room simply because it had a completely different feel to it. Not really a complaint, but an opinion.
The A/C in the big room was set too cold sometimes, especially when the room was mostly empty, so during night- and morning-hours.
At last, I'm hoping to see more and more flat screens in the coming years. More and more people either have converters to plug old consoles into HDMI or have SuperNT, SNES Classic etc. Maybe post a poll in the ESA discord and ask attendees what options they have/prefer, so you get an idea of what ratio of CRT/LCD might be good.
My biggest complaint is that ESA ended. In the future, we should probably remove this flaw and keep going forever ;)
As the title says.
Also, I'm unsure if the submissions should require which version the runner has used, or if the rules should state which version has to be used.
I will skip the positives as I generally agree to what most people liked and even loved about this year's ESA Summer - as in the location, hotel, etc.
So here is what I think could be improved:
- the main stream only had one speaker while the second stream had two, which led to the one speaker being wayyyyy too loud for most of the event (and it was especially bad during the SM64 relay whenever Chrism was talking)
- the beds in the rooms were way too soft; I know some people like soft and comfy beds, but it's bad for your back and I actually have back pain now after ESA which I haven't had in forever
- there were way too many CRTs compared to LCDs; I know they are pricey, but IMO it should be a priority and I'm glad that was addressed during the closing speech
- the stream and projector game screens were way too dark; it was often impossible to see anything during dark scenes in games
Not sure if anything can be done about the beds but I know you guys are awesome and will do your best do improve ESA even further :)
A few more LCD TVs would have been nice. Maybe even just one. And I'd have no problem with them being smaller if that makes them more affordable. Also because that gives more room for consoles and other tech on the tables, too. (And I personally get headaches rather quickly on CRT TVs and there are more and more modern consoles nowadays, too, that don't really work on CRT).
People left their stuff all over the place. Be it trash (BK bags, Soda cans, bottles) or their tech. I hate people who do this. I don't say that you have to unplug and remove all your tech and consoles from TVs but please at least tidy it up so that other players who use the TVs after you don't need to deal with all that stuff. Wanting to use a TV, I often had to figure out what a lot of the cables are, what they are plugged in to, be careful not to unplug currently used tech, be careful not to accidentally pull a cord and pulling or throwing tech off the tables, not tipping over open soda cans or bottles which may ruin or destroy a console... the whole ordeal. It was just a mess in some places. I always tried to be mindful and put my stuff together after I stopped using it. I unplugged my controller, rolled up the cords and put them on top of the console. I unplugged the power cord from my console because there was always a shortage of plugs (because people felt the need to charge their phones and power banks there). So maybe also try to provide multi USB charger plugs so that not everyone needs to take up a whole plug to charge one phone, but like 5 people could charge their stuff with one adapter.
And the schedule had too many GTA and FF games and all of them were at prime time I felt. Meanwhile Golden Sun, Metroid Rotation and other shorter runs were in the middle of the night. I think having long runs at night or early morning would be better because that's when the least casual viewers tune in. And casual viewers stick around more and check back more often when there's shorter games. Also you'd inconvenience less runners with having to stay up very very late just for their 30 minute run.
Healthier food options would be great, indeed.
And I liked last year's practice TVs layout much better. The round areas have way less space for people sitting in front of the TVs. Thankfully people just out the TVs in a straight line and opened that up again.
The speakers with the donation reader was way too loud. And apparently the couch headsets were too loud, too (I've been told).
The Mario 64 relay was awesome but having the participants stand in a line that went out the door so they couldn't even see was just a bad decision. Which could have easily been avoided by having the relay on the main stream. I know this was probably not possible but take it as a suggestion for next time. Maybe have a donation war for an "open" block so the viewers can vote which of two or more options will be shown on main stream and which will be on second stream (or not shown at all if they don't get enough votes).
Last thing, the lanyard's were too big and I'd really prefer to have a picture or avatar on them again.
Other than that, I liked it much better than last year. The projector and the crowd seating area were amazing! I enjoyed it very much because in the big picture, all of the above complaints are very minor.
Marvelgirl186: Thanks for joining me on this trip and being an awesome roommate and travelmate ????
Cerberusguns: Thanks for the Happy Socks and being funny and chill at all times!
GlitchesAndStuff: Thanks for the story of how gainer was found and being cool as always ????
VPP: Thanks for the train ride to Copenhagen and the fun Mario Party and MM Bingo runs! Also the Salmiaki ????
Raggen71 and Kristina_gh: I hope I got your usernames right but aside from that, thanks for spending more times with me this year, made me appreciate you guys more and being right behind the couch for the MM run was awesome ????
Amateseru: You're awesome and it was nice making a new friend! Thanks for the Mario Party and MM Bingo and Randomizer runs, was big fun!
Greenalink: Thanks for playing that arcade racing game with me. It was fun and helped me open up and get into the ESA spirit ????
BloodDuster: Great Golden Sun run, great company during the 70-star relay, and great time having you play MM Randomizer with us, going to Grand Samarkand with us and talking to you.
Fuzzyness and 360Chrism: Thanks for the awesome 70-star relay! Even though Chrism gave me the "wrong" star by explaining it poorly and having me switch my star to a harder one as a result (LLL Lava Boost), I enjoyed it a lot and am happy I could show off the Lava Boost in the end!
And of course I want to thank everyone for making the event what it was, be it for organizing, volunteering or just attending ????????
While it's unlikely that your things will get stolen, you should probably only bring what's necessary. It also wouldn't hurt to have some friends that you trust have an eye on your belongings. You can never be 100% safe around events like this.
I think I read somewhere else that we will have, or try to have, projectors to show the stream in the hall. I think that is very much needed. And obviously, there should be a (small) area close to the screen(s) so that people can sit down and watch and cheer. So basically - we need a crowd. Maybe even with microphones and cameras on them, but that's optional. I know that a lot of people attend to meet other people and don't actually care for the stream too much, but as a viewer of the stream, there's nothing more important than a crowd imo. The crowd creates hype, noise, and in general makes the event more exciting. Last year was very disappointing because apart from very few seats, I feel like there was no actual crowd as there were no seats and no screens. That was definitely better in the years before I think.
Apart from that, we need a lot more chairs in general for the practice and gaming areas. We had to search for chairs every day last year.
Other than that, maybe an info board somewhere with a lost and found section and info about local restaurants and shops. Not everyone checks the forums here and that way, people could easily put up information, maybe even just for gatherings, and a central info board for that would be nice.
Not sure if this is the correct thread for this, but what if I want to donate prices or anything?
I thought I might provide some "input viewers" for different consoles, ranging from NES to GameCube. They can be used to show your controller inputs on stream in real-time, based on the NintendoSpy software.
In case that's something that'd work as a price, I'd like to know who to contact about this.
