Inverness, ScotlandI did a run, commentated and hosted. This was my first time at any live speedrunning event.
I'm pretty shy, so I didn't socialise as much as I perhaps would have wanted to, but I felt a lot more comfortable as the event went on, so if I were to attend again I would be more social (and try out Mafia!). I don't think this is a failing in the event at all, just to be clear. Everyone I met was very friendly!
I liked the event space. Hall A was nice and cool, which is great while you're running since you don't get sweaty hands. There were plenty of chairs, and Hall A was bustling without being cramped. Hall B was a fair bit emptier, so I'm not sure that space was utilised to its full potential. We probably needed the space, though. I filled up my water bottle a lot, and appreciated the water fountains. I used the kitchen (where the second stream was located) a fair bit, and there was no washing-up liquid or dishcloth as far as I could see. Plenty of paper plates, though!
Mass housing was really good for me! I was able to sleep fine in there. It was cold on the second night, but other than that it didn't feel too cold. I did lose my glasses in the mass housing toilets, but I don't know whether to blame the cleaning staff or an attendee for that. The info kiosk didn't handle that issue very well - only one person seemed to know who cleaned the mass housing toilets, and it took me four visits before I was told to contact ESA staff. The showers in Fortnox Arena were fine. I'm glad no-one took my towel!
Eating options were fine. I hardly felt the Burger King delivery was necessary seeing as how Max Burger was so close. The food kiosk was exorbitant, though. I used it for the first few days before realising that pretty much anywhere else offered better value for money.
My run went well. I used Jinny's 3DS because it was already plugged in and they had the capture software for it installed, which was absolutely fine. I wasn't used to sitting in that kind of chair, so I couldn't mash buttons the way I usually do (resting the 3DS on my leg) but it is what it is. Audio balance was perfect. I felt the hosts were a bit inattentive; there was a 3-minute cutscene where I mentioned that it'd be a great time for donations, and I was greeted by silence. There was also a point during a battle where I was asked whether it was a good time for donations, I told them to hold on, then after the battle I said "You can read that donation now" and was ignored for over 30 seconds. I wasn't really sure whether or not to say anything, and it made me feel a little silly.
For Epicdudeguy's Pokémon Sapphire run, the delay happened because tech didn't want to use component or something (I don't have much knowledge about this), and the setup they tried didn't work. So another GameCube was sourced and they set up Game Boy Interface, which mapped Select to the wrong button on the GameCube controller. In the end we did get the first GameCube working (not sure if tech tried their setup again or fell back on Epicdudeguy's component setup). I was worried for a second that tech would refuse to switch back from GBI for video quality reasons, but I'm really glad they switched back because I'm sure the quality of the run would have suffered otherwise.
Hosting was fun! I felt like there was plenty for me to say as host, and it felt pretty natural talking about games, the charity, or other stuff. Were there supposed to be prizes for donating, though? If there were, I didn't hear anything about them, and it was only afterwards where I wondered if I was supposed to have mentioned prizes. The PayPal donation issue sucked, but I'm sure people know about that by now. I also did not appreciate other people (who weren't hosting at the time) using the hosting station as a place to shoot the breeze. It was distracting, and there are plenty of spaces in the venue where you can go to have a chat. This was distracting as an audience member, too.
I gather that for the most part, the stream went smoothly. However, when it did go down, communication could have been better. I was watching SSBMstuff running Ape Escape, and the stream went down. Tech clearly knew the stream was down, as the timer was paused. However, Saboom kept playing for a good 30 seconds. Why wasn't he told that the stream went down? Neither the hosts nor tech stepped in for a remarkably long time. When the stream went down for GTAIV, I said that the stream was down as soon as I noticed, and tech thought it was still up, so I'm not sure what happened there.
Overall, I had loads of fun! It would depend on how financially stable I feel, but I would like to attend again in the future!
EDIT: Forgot to mention technical details about hosting. The Stream Deck was really easy to use, and I'm glad we had it! Donation incentives should have been in game order to make things easier. Overall I found the setup pretty intuitive.
No, emeraldaly. The rules for the run state "Runs without intro start from a savefile after you leave Vale. 39 minutes are added to this time, as that is slightly longer than a good run takes to leave Vale."
I assume you're talking about RNG Reporter, which was linked in the description of my tutorial video? I didn't realise that the link was dead. The links should all work now!
I got a small PB in Pokémon X. I'm hoping to shave a few minutes off over the coming weeks/months, which is definitely possible with the right luck. I also found a strat that saves around 6 seconds on average while adding consistency. I'm answering as many questions as I can from chat, but I'm not commentating everything extensively because that would be exhausting to do every run! Marathon commentary is definitely at the back of my mind, though, and I know that unlike the audience for the PSR Marathon, there will be viewers who aren't that familiar with Pokémon (or perhaps even speedrunning!) at ESA, so I'd need to tailor my commentary to suit a wider audience.
If anyone were to seriously aim for fastest randomizer time, they would just reset a rom with a powerful starter until they steamrolled their foes quickly enough. Then someone would beat that time when a new randomizer seed was discovered with more enemy Pokémon you could one-hit, or a level-up movepool that allowed you to teach all the HMs to your starter and still steamroll everything, or whatever.
There's very little competitive value in a randomizer leaderboard. The skills of adaptation that you champion would be worthless in such an environment. In a race setting, you have to make decisions on the fly to outmanoevre other racers in the face of unknown and unexpected challenges. That's where randomizers shine.
See the second post here for rationale behind not adding randomizer leaderboards: http://forums.pokemonspeedruns.com/viewtopic.php?f=151&t=533
Randomizer runs are more popular as races. If you want to organise a randomizer race, feel free to do so on the PSR Discord!
We don't yet know whether NTR CFW artificially speeds up loads in Sun/Moon (as it does in gen 6 games). It won't be permitted until somebody does the relevant testing.
I do! I usually start streaming around 10:20pm BST, which unfortunately may not be ideal for someone in Western Australia.
A screenshot of the game time doesn't provide enough information - for instance, it doesn't prove that you did it the run in a single segment.
Capture devices for 3DS are available from Loopy via http://3dscapture.com/ or http://www.merki.net/ if you're in Europe, or from Katsukity via http://www.3dsvideocapture.com/
I would recommend Loopy just because some of Katsukity's can suffer from reliability issues, but plenty of people have had no issue with devices from Katsukity.
