Forum posts

I've come up with some feedback, I originally didn't have much, but as the days pass you kinda come up with more.

+ This was my 5th consecutive ESA and there is no doubt the two years in Malmö has been the best ones, locationwise, travelwise and so forth. I really do hope you can keep this venue for a while even when growing.

+ I'm one of those that enjoyed Stream 2 in the same room, I did watch some runs during the Yakuza run on Stream 2 and honestly I was just smiling and laughing at the hype going on over there. Then again I wasn't the runner at the time so I'm sure it might have been more annoying for those.

+ The growth and the new people

+ The hotel, I mean this place is almost too good to be true in most regards, the amount of stuff they honestly put up with without being too harsh is refreshing

+ A weird one, a small pat on the back for smokers for actually staying away from the outdoor serving area, where you no longer are allowed to smoke. I was expecting this to be a way bigger issue for the hotel than it was

+ The arcade, good selection of games and such. The only complaint is that the "resting" time for the CRTs and pinball machines was inconvinient sometimes. Like some mornings waking up I wanted to pinball a little and then they were turned off until noon.

+ Game selection, Tennis might not be the hypest game ,but I think it's fun to have these little oddball games at times. It livens the mood a lot.

+ Me losing my credit card at one point and my backpack at another and got both back increased my faith in humanity

+ Locking the quiet practice room, while it probably makes me use it less cause I dont like bothering staff for things like that, but I was in the Quiet Practice room one of the earlier days and I defintely experienced the crowds of people being way too noisy, so I think you did the right thing locking it up.

+ Streaming Station location, I honestly might do streaming stations again with that location you had this year. I never liked sitting in the main hall at the station cause it felt really exposed. The small room with your back to the wall, felt much nicer.

+ Mr. Schnuffles wants to add "It was fine"

- Bar closing at 23. But I've heard this might be already sorted. There is a bar pretty close to the venue (SKAJ Bar), but feels like no one knows about it.

- Could you be more clear with food rules, drink and such rules? I always get half confused what I am allowed to bring into the venue/hotel. Alcohol? Hot food? Subway sandwich (hot/cold)? Soda? Snacks?

- The NES Corner size is somehow becoming a problem, people were almost hijacking seats and TVs just to get a chance to play a little. Leaving the console on is no longer a gurantee people don't touch it, which used to be a unwritten rule in my opinion. It's always a bit eh to come back from a 3 minute smoke break/leg stretcher/bathroom visit and you lost your TV/Console spot. Not sure how to approach this issue however.

- You do a great job teaching tech how to run stuff and it was somewhat smooth this year, but there seems to always be some obvious thing missing that they weren't told about. This year it was the monitors, I felt like Grukk was one of the few that actually knew how to work the flatscreen monitors and get the right picture. Many tech are speedrunners themselves right, they should know how important aspect ratio and picture quality can be for the runners. A lot of the extra setup time was exactly this, trying to get a monitor to behave for 15 minutes, then spend another 10 replacing it. If there are known monitors that are just perfect for OSSC and such, why not just get 4 of those instead of some off-brand, I suppose sponsors plays a part. Also what the hell was that screen tearing thing that was on a lot of runs. It was always screen tearing and then the screen died a couple of minutes later. Once sure, but repeatedly?

- An freaking ashtray, I understand smoking is banned near the hotel and all that. But dear god was I paranoid the whole week about all the smokers putting the cigarettes in the big thrash bin. It's a fire waiting to happen at this point. A bigger size ashtray would probably last for the entire week for all the smokers.

- During one run of the NES block there was a good 10 people standing near the right side PCs, chatting and talking and blocking peoples views. Could you make the area near the PCs/Consoles a runner/commentator area only? No loiitering kinda thing. It's a shame if the audience are blocked by people standing in front of them.

- Me not finding time to get the Edenal selfie.

I can live without the scrolling and positioning and even transparency.

As for Day/Night mode, can't you store a prompt/pop-out in the cookie that only shows on the first visit to the site that asks if you want Day or Night mode? Seems like that gives people that most option and is the most fair as none is default?

Thanks for listening and improving!

Whats stopping you from co-op? The >1 Player< part?
Actually it is your suggestion that does stop not co-op as it is just called any% (and exactly why CK/Korvis could work together, we had no mention of it being 1 player)

Let me reiterate, ducktales DO NOT have an any% category right now.

Do you want
Any% 1 controller - Easy
Any% 1 controller - Normal
Any% 1 controller - Difficult
Any%

If Any% will not allow co-op it should be mentioned in the rules. But by design by creating any% it should allow more or less anything (including future discoveries), it should not be catered to fit a few select tricks.

yeah, definitely contain 1P2C to one single category right now, if it gets popular and get tons of runs with different difficulties that can be disccused later. But I doubt it since wraps been known for years and no one really picked up on the run until now.

But if you truly do create any% I think it should allow everything. If you open that floodgate, you should just accept that might lead to some crazy stuff. If you want any% to only be the wraps and 1P2C, you need to label it as 1P2C in my opinion.

Doesnt matter if there is no runs twogood, its still a category you can submit to.

Its a good question, we dont actually have a "any%" category so there is no need to change anything, just add either "Any%" or "Any% 1P2C" (I suggest the latter) and allow 1P2C to use any difficulty for now

Dont think you should add 1P2C for every difficulty, making it 3 new categories or possibly 7 new ones. (Any% Bad Ending 1 Player 2 Controllers Hoip)

It is a Misc Category on MM3, http://megamanleaderboards.net/index.php?game=3&category=697

So MM3 goes against the stream here. Considering MM1 wrongwarps (which uses 2c) are any% it seems like MMLB doesnt have a clear rule how to treat the categories. As huhtikuu mentioned its most likely up to the top runners and the community to decide what they wanna do.

I'm fine with having Any%(1 Controller) and Any% as long as it has clear rules. The game already has 7 categories, but this one could fit in.

Lets start off with my experience as a runner, it was overall a much more plesureful experienca than that of 2016 because it was way more on target with the scheduled timed, I think even a week in, my run only differed by 3 hours from the time before ESA, which is real good. As for the tech, I found it really surprising second stream had the real convinience of the runner adjusting their own volume, but on first stream this was instead handled by talking to tech you wanted it lowered/raised. I am in all cases in support of people having their own little knobs to turn for their headsets etc. Otherwise, besides me doing a terrible run, the whole run experience was good.

One thing that felt awkward sometimes was how slow (or safe) the switching back to hosts after run was handled, there was a lot of slience and staring into the camera sometimes before the switch was made away from the runner.

Hosting in general seemed okay, but sometimes I'm not sure people got it right. Some hosts was just way too silent and sat there a bit too much without actually filling up the time until the run, but I understand this isn't people with professional experience in any of this.. But perhaps give hosts pointers and ideas what they can talk about if they have ran out of things to say so they are more prepared?

As for check-in, venue, the arcades and the general feel of the venue was great. The dimmed lights was such a necessity.
The amount of chairs was good, the amount of TVs felt enough, even if remotes/TV combo can be a big pain to handle. The layout as a whole was really good. The big screen, the hosts on sofa instead of computer chairs felt better, the kiosk that was open longer (with some troubles) was also great things!

As for cleanliness, next year perhaps a huge barrel, pot or similar for cigarette butts outside the venue might be an idea. People were throwing butts in the thrashcans cause the ashtray was overfilled. In general that's not bad, but worst case its a fire hazard. Also surprised wristband checks didn't happen until very late in the week, also the fact every door was pretty much open, I'm not sure everyone paid to be there.

In any case, the venue felt alive this year, that's the biggest difference from 2016 and I think you done a great job listening to feedback and improving everything.

What's the idea of having the CRT/Monitor/PC Mix in each hall instead of say, having Hall A contain most/all CRTs and let Hall B be the more modern area with PCs/HDs.

Also I would probably line tables with their shortsides against each other, more a standard U shape than a curve. Having that gap at the end of every table might be a little inconvenient, the ability to place stuff so it perhaps overlaps a little onto another table if necessary sounds better. But the curves perhaps making viewing multiple screens at once easier to get a better overlook. So perhaps both layouts has benefits.

The Disney Afternoon Collection got a time attack mode for some NES capcom games such as Ducktales / CnD / Darkwing duck etc. Not technically PC games, but rather NES ports, but might still apply.

Updated Mega Man 1 - Zipless submission to reflect the time is now down to 21:51 for me (was 23:56). I'm switching efforts to Ninja Gaiden II derust for now, but will get back to Mega Man in case of it making final cuts or right before the cuts to improve.

Also seems like I will be doing zipless races weekly to keep any rust from building up.

As for the goal for Ninja Gaiden II, I can possibly shave off a few seconds on the PB. But the runs will be more focused on getting consistency than insane speed for these first weeks of derust especially since some strats required for a PB probably isn't suited for a marathon at all. In the end I feel I have plenty of time to focus on the games that potentially makes the cuts, I have little to no intention to run anything besides ESA games up to ESA.

Last year you had a tetris setup, which I believe was one of the tetris exhibition guys that set up.

Any chance for similar setup this year?
I really liked playing TGM, but I'm also sure those boards are pretty expensive/rare so I can understand if it doesn't happen.

Yeah, you can make a seperate thread for lengthy discussions like that or just accept the answers the commitee already given.

If it's okay to ask why a run was in, I would like to know the thought process on allowing the Mega Man 1 All Stages Solo run together with the zipless race. I have theories, but it's just a curiosity. If you don't wanna comment on runs that are still in, that's fine by me.

Alwa's Awakening and Zelda: BOTW

I understand im not a runner, so do ignore this if you want, I did beat this game once!

With few exceptions the fastest way to complete the game should be the main category. Credit warps comes to mind, but those are generally still called "Any%" in many cases.

Definitely a Yay.

Problem arises if a trick would be found on non-easy that makes that faster. But I guess that is not a problem until it arises and it's frankly rather unlikely.

Since Livesplit tracks this automatically for me its easy to keep it around. I even migrated attemtps from my old timer when I move to livesplit.
Bear in mind I'm a very reset heavy runner simply because I like it that way, but here is a list of some of the games I've ran.

Mega Man 1 (NES) - 8078 attempts - 353 Completed runs (4.3%)
Ninja Gaiden II (NES) - 4372 Attempts - 153 Completed runs (3.4%)
Yume Penguin Monogatari (Famicom) - 3670 Attempts - 81 Completed runs (2.2%)
Ducktales (NES) - 669 attempts - 29 Completed runs (4.3%)
Castle of Illusion HD (PC) - 377 Attempts - 14 Completed runs (3.7%)

Experience as a runner (selection process and actual run time):
The selection process was good, but it can still be done faster and more distinctive with less babysitting. Take a note on GDQ on this one where they are almost brutal with 6 weeks from first submission to final schedule. You don't have to be that rough, but right now it feels like submitting in february and knowing if you are in by may is a long wait and still by then its not even a sure deal. Also I'm still not entirely sure about forcing people to mention all other racers when you requesting submissions so early. Not everyone can make plans to show up for a race 5 months ahead.

As a runner, it was okay, I had an hour wait to get Yume Penguin started, but my experience of Mega Man was good. I really liked the Donation blinking sign and the fact you were kinda relaxed with how and where runners where sitting. I know I sat down in a weird angle close to a TV for Mega Man, but no one seemed to be bothered by it and tech adjusted accordingly, which felt nice. Overall tech still felt a little lost at times, they knew the basic things, but once something didn't work as thought, it quickly spiraled into confusion. The TVs used for the runners wasn't the best ones for some reason. The best TVs seemed to been in the practice area, a bit odd.

Experience as an attendee (arriving, checking in, venue, cleanliness, etc),
The couches was a real nice touch for watching the runs, albeit audience sometimes felt like a little more spread out than necessary. Also the lack of a screen in front of the runner or to the side kinda made for weird viewing angles if you were watching from runners row. I especially noted this when I watched the Ducktales race and following nudua on the right side was impossible because I was on the left side in front of the TVs. Of course I could have sat behind the runners and watched the TVs, but that would have been the same.

Experience of accommodation (be it your hotel or mass housing).
Best Western was okay, bit far from the venue, nicely located downtown.I learned to take the buses to and from the venue and other places, so it wasn't a big deal at all.

Also, can you please tell Rottdawg to keep the discussion on this open forum rather taking it to Twitter DM, just so he can throw around insults and and shit.

If Im gonna get shots fired at me, I would like it to be done in public.

Also I would like confirmation this rule also abides to Toad (or any western speedrunner) and he has to livestream any WR as well.

I typed a lot as a reply, deleted it, re-wrote something else, deleted that and now after deleting my third written rant about this I realize I'm speechless.

Considering half of this fucking community offline grinds runs this year, you would think they wouldn't want to go towards "stream-only" records. But if thats the path you wanna take, sure.