SwedenSo I'm a little surprised Mighty Gunvolt any% was cut in favour of making it All Levels from the start, I had otherwise figured doing All Levels could be a donation incentive. Also didn't actually count on Mega Pony making it through second round cuts, but I'm certainly not complaining! (also idk if you've bothered updating any estimates on that spreadsheet but as I said in the other topic the estimate for that can be cut to 32 minutes)
I haven't had a ton of time to play recently, but updates on my runs:
Mighty Gunvolt is safe, any% is basically at the point for me where the majority of any improvements would have to come from better boss RNG and on All Levels I'm safely sub-20, with a 17:45 IGT on the board (though need to practice the DLC levels a bit more, especially Highway is the worst goddamned level in the game). Still no videos from me since 3DS, but yeah. Estimates for this should stay where they are.
Duo Princess is also safe because there's not a lot of places to screw up and most of the improvements come from being lucky with the meteors in the boss rush, especially the dragon. PBd with Mint by 1 second on a practice run that was complete trash apart from hitting the big stage 3 shortcut on the second try and then noticed I had forgotten to hit Start Recording. Maya is even safer since her only option is taking it slower and safer. Both estimates can really be dropped because not even multiple deaths will cost more than a couple seconds each and there's only so much the RNG can do, so there's no risk whatsoever that it'll go to 20 minutes. Given that I'm just below 15 on my PBs, I'm shifting down both my Mint and Maya estimates to 0:17:00.
Mega Pony is where most of my practice will lie in the time between now and ESA, I want to get a sub-25 IGT before then. There's a lot of small places to screw up on but apart from one boss mentioned later none that costs a whole lot of time so it's definitely safe. I haven't posted any new video or time on the board on the site since I simply haven't gotten a better time than I already have yet - in my PB/WR I got a great pattern on the first boss in my route, who's basically a heap of RNG who has ended most of my run attempts and even when she doesn't can easily cost enough time that I can't make back in later stages. It's not something that can kill a marathon run, but definitely the most likely spot for a death. The rest of the game is consistent nearly every time and there's nothing else even nearly as RNG-y. Dropping the estimate for this to 0:32:00, 35 minutes was kind of overly cautious and probably just me liking estimates ending in 0 or 5.
There's nothing big left to be found in any of the games and it's just a matter of small optimizations now. Please note that the primary times on the boards here for Mighty Gunvolt and Mega Pony are the ingame timer, while my estimates are based on real time.
Haven't bought my ticket yet, but it's good to know there's no rush for getting a discounted ticket given my economic situation right now. As for shirts, I'll go ahead and express interest in 3XL becoming a thing.
So I see signups are a thing now - and I was just wondering, for how long are discounted tickets going to be available?
(also, since the largest T-shirt size is still too small for me, anyone want an extra shirt?)
Oh, hey, I screwed up by not noticing the "Please let us know in your submission comments if you will be unavailable on any dates." part of the OP so of course I didn't actually include that in any of my submission comments.
Sorry 'bout that, but I'll only be around for the first half of the marathon, so for all my submissions the case is that I'll be unavailable after the 27th. Edit: And will arrive on the 23rd before the marathon proper starts, so no problems in the other direction.
Okay, so I did some shuffling of the leaderboards, now setting X360 version separate. However, THIS HINGES ON XBOX ONE AND PC VERSIONS BEING IDENTICAL, with the same glitches working on both. If that isn't the case, please let me know as soon as possible and I'll re-structure again.
Alko: As of 4 hours ago there's now a Duo Princess board on this here webpage too. And you're already on it!
I'm in UTC+1, and can essentially do a run on any of the days, any time between 12:00 and 02:00 (24 hour clock!), but preferably not starting any later than 23:00.
Game Name: Mega Pony System: PC Category: Rainbow Dash% Gameplay Estimate: 30 minutes Ending/Bonus Estimate: 3-4 minutes, but can be cut early. Possible Donation Incentives: None Sample run video: http://www.speedrun.com/run/0zn3nply Description: Again with the ponies! A Mega Man fangame with ponies that is much better than it has any right to be. Last year someone else actually started running this game, not the same category as me but some shortcuts can be done by any character. So it's been improved since the ESA bonus stream showing. Rainbow Dash is the most technical character to play and run the game as and in my opinion makes for the best viewing.
Game Name: Ragnarok Battle Offline System: PC Category: New Game F-Swordman any% Gameplay Estimate: 1:30:00 Ending/Bonus Estimate: 2 minutes of credits. If I remember correctly, they can be sped up by holding a button, but I don't do that in my video. Can be cut early. Possible Donation Incentives: Character name bid war. Name is visible on top of the screen throughout the entire run, 8 character limit. Sample run video: http://www.speedrun.com/run/7z01588y Description: A side-scrolling brawler based on the MMORPG Ragnarok Online. When starting an entirely new character, F-Swordman is really the only viable character for a speedrun due to the amount of invincibility frames one of their special attacks provide, which helpfully also is one of the strongest special attacks in the game. A speedrun primarily consist of figuring out how to beat all enemies as fast as possible, and there's a large amount of boss monsters in every stage.
So with the game getting released on PC and PSN, some concerns have been raised about those versions, at least the PC version, having longer loading times. For this reason, from now on, the primary timing method for Mighty Gunvolt/Gal Gunvolt will be ingame time.
Which means I need to replicate my time with Ekoro since I deleted that file so the playlog doesn't exist anymore.
Looks like I was the only moderator for a bit there and didn't pay attention. Anyway, PC, PS4 and PSVita have been added as platforms. zulice has been reinstated as a moderator too.
S: From what I gather, ESA and SGDQ are coordinating dates to make sure they don't collide and aren't too close to each other (SGDQ 2015 starts on July 26th). It was said during the final speech that ESA 2016 and SGDQ 2016 would likely switch, so that ESA is later and SGDQ is earlier. So you can expect ESA 2016 to be roughly a month later.
(on that note, I do hope ESA 2016 does not overlap with Närcon, like it did last year)
Most of my feedback is pretty much mixed feelings on things.
To start out, the mass housing. I didn't mind it in and of itself, but the distance was a clear negative. Mainly I felt that whenever I had a shower back there, the 20 minute walk in the Swedish summer sun had canceled it out entirely by the time I reached the house of culture. So I definitely felt filthier this time then I have in previous years, and I probably wasn't the only one "affected" by it. So probably a lot more sweat going around this time. I obviously understand that the organizers did what they could to get a good sleeping space, but it definitely needs to be closer next year.
Having both stream setups and all of the practice setups in the same room I'm not really sure about. It did make the thing seem livelier, especially when the camera was positioned so you could actually see that stuff went on behind the player, but there were so many sounds and many things would easily interfere with each other, especially the two streams. While having then next to each other means easier for tech coordination between them, I think that ultimately, both streams would benefit from being in separate rooms.
Speaking of rooms, I feel that we underutilized the space a lot this year. Freja was used for mostly Mafia, Balder and Robert Gustafsson Kulturiet for practically nothing. Balder had a few people sitting there at some points, and we used it for the Magic sealed tournament. Kulturiet also had the occasional people sitting there with something, people used the side room for fighting games and the kitchen seemed to have been used a lot, but those were still spaces where some of the practice setups, if not one of the streams, could have been moved to.
There definitely needs to be a better system in place for the hosting station to reach the runners when there's donations to read. The hosts sitting with their back to the runners at that angle made it difficult.
More is probably coming later, but these are the things I could think of right now.
Okay, so I'm planning on driving back to Gothenburg on Monday. I'll have one open spot in the car for anyone who wants a ride thataways. Haven't decided what time I'll leave, I'll take the day as it comes and go when I figure it's time pretty much, but not too late.
Edit: In fact, it will very likely be around 12.
Given that I won last year's mystery tournament, I can't very well not enter both of these, can I
I have my only game on the schedule on 05:25 Monday morning, so other than that, I should be fine.
When, more specifically, does it open tomorrow? Given that I'm at Nyeport right now, I'd like to know when I can start moving my stuff over there.
Also, is there a free parking one can use outside the school? I'm assuming there is since it's a school and it's summer, but if I can't park there, is there anywhere else?
Okay, so it's finally mostly cleared up for me, and I am highly likely going to drive there - BUT I am going to go there on the 25th, as I'm going to be working at a con the weekend just before ESA. If anyone, for some reason, wants to go to Skövde that day, I MIGHT have an extra spot. It's not the same car I've had in previous years, it's a smaller one I'm borrowing and will drive other people and stuff. No promises. Will have open spots when returning to Gothenburg, though.
I am in. I've been playing for a number of years and even if I'm pretty sporadically active these days I can give some help for people who need it. Even if I'm not always known for making the best card choices.
Edit: And to add to what was mentioned below, I will bring my 11 decks and people can play with them if you ask nicely. They're not standard-legal since RtR has rotated out, but they're pretty casual. They're probably decently balanced against each other, and except for one they're all two-coloured and might be good for relative beginners who have a good grasp of the basics and want to move on to more advanced mechanics I guess?
