SwedenMy perspective: This was my third ESA, with my first one being ESA15. I have ran games this and last year. This year I ran the Playstation game Mort the Chicken on the second stream. I also helped out commentating a couple of PC runs and watched many PC games being ran.
Venue: The space in the venue felt a lot better planned this year and the small round areas with TVs felt a lot nicer than the long rows of last year. There was always a CRT free somewhere when I wanted to practice for my run. It was really nice to see that there were good, modern practice PCs around this year and I really liked that we still had access to the less powerful Dreamhack ones. Since the inhouse practice PCs were usually occupied with people doing practice for their runs it was great to have the other PCs to practice older, less demanding, games or just mess around and do silly races and runs on. I would have liked if the two sets of PCs were closer to each other, not in different halls like they were this year. It's nice being able to hang around and watch friends practice their runs, but as I mostly hung out around at Dreamhack PCs it was hard to know if any of my friends were doing practice I wanted to watch.
The kiosk felt quite a bit improved since last year with more options and better opening hours. Sadly it closed earlier than promised many nights and for a bit I think there were some issues with the card reader, but apart from that I think it was really nice to have a close accessible option for food and snacks. I didn't utilize the burger king delivery so have no opinions about that.
I would have wished security concerns such as checking wristbands at the entrance and making sure nobody entered through back doors would have been taken more seriously. I understand this is something ESA attendees are not used to, since the event has always been very chill and had the feeling of just a gathering of friends, but as ESA grows this is something that has to be dealt with. Especially when ESA is combined with other events such as the smash tournament and LAN party it is even more important to make sure only the event attendees are allowed in the venue. There were good wristband controls during the last couple of days, but during nighttime there was usually still no serious checks done.
The main stream area was a lot nicer this year with the big projector. Even though couches are nice, having a lot of chairs worked a bit better. The placement of the PCs felt a bit off to the side behind the host wall. It would have nice if it was a bit more centered, especially since it felt like there was space for it.
Running: First of all I want to give a huge shoutout to Liva for making the second stream a great experience both for the people watching the stream and for me as a runner. I am incredibly impressed by how he managed to deal with all the tech and still interact with runners in a great way. The entire second stream had a really nice feeling to it with a lot of good jokes and memes and a nice, cozy atmosphere. My run went really well and I have really nothing to comment on. Simply a great experience as a runner.
Stream and Main Stream Hosting: I love that the second stream was brought back. I really like how ESA shows off the a selection of games and not just showcases the most popular titles. Having the second stream to show off some more obscure games or other cool things that you wouldn't normally see on a main marathon stream (like the sm64 relay) is a huge strength for ESA as a marathon. It was a bit confusing that the second stream was not on an ESA twitch account, but that might be because there had been conflicting information earlier. If it's advertised well it shouldn't be a problem.
Layouts were a lot better this year. I liked scrolling donations on the overlay, but might need to make sure those that show up on stream are filtered a bit more harshly. The addition of flags was a nice touch, really showing off how international of an event ESA is.
One thing that could have been improved when it comes to the quality of the stream was the camera angles. Especially for the PC games it felt like tech was a bit scared to even move the camera around, even though it sometimes cut off the runner and left commentators outside of the picture. Liva did a great job on the second stream adjusting the camera for basically every single run and I wish tech would do the same on the first stream. I think this was improved throughout the week, so might have been something that was noticed and fixed during the marathon.
I like how ESA does hosting, but it is quite hard to balance professionalism and fun. Hosting needs to always be discussed and tweaked to make it as good as possible. It's great how almost anyone can be a host, but I think ESA should be able to expect more of many of the hosts. Hosts aren't on for that many games so I feel like they should take the time to learn a bit about the games so they can give a good introduction and possibly hold some interesting interviews. This obviously depends on the hosting schedule being ready some time before the marathon so there is time for preparations. Generally I think that many times this year the hosts were talking a bit much about random things and not enough about the game that was just completed or was coming up. In general I think hosts stayed on for a bit long and they shouldn't be afraid to cut to the setup screen when they have nothing more to say.
Donation Incentives and Tracker: I feel like there was a lack of information regarding donation incentives this year. The incentives weren't posted anywhere before the marathon, at least I didn't find them, which probably means the typical viewer wouldn't either. I feel like this was a shame, since cool donation incentives can get people hyped. I don't like how donation incentives could be added on site. I would like to have that stuff figured out before the marathon, so I can focus on practicing and hanging out with my friends during the actual event.
Tracker had some technical issues, but I think the people are aware of that and my input isn't really necessary. Tracker was pretty good, but I wish there would have been a clearer way to direct donations towards stream one or two. Just like a box to tick for stream 2 donations would have worked. I am also a bit confused over how ESA wants to use it's website. Information and links regarding the event are a bit all over the place around esamarathon.com and speedrun.com. Would be a good idea to make sure everything is on the same site to avoid confusing viewers.
Hotels: The different hotel choices and the prices were really good. I stayed in a triple room at Royal Corner. I think none of us had any complaints with the hotel. Room, breakfast, cleaning was all really good.
Bikes: I rented one of the bikes that was offered. It was really nice to be able to get around fast, even though I didn't use it as much as planned because of often walking with friends who did not have bikes. The bikes themselves were really nice and sturdy. Pickup and return also worked great. Overall a really nice concept that I hope will return for future events. Would be nice if there was a way to get even more bikes, because I know there were many people who missed the opportunity this year.
Thanks for a really nice event with big improvements over last year. I really like the idea of ESA winter and will try my best to make it possible for me to attend.
Hi, cool to see people take interest in the game! :)
We had a discord that we used for races a while back, but it's dead and only me and binary are left in it. Feel free to ask about things here or just message seductivespatula or me if you have questions. If you stream some runs of this game people will probably show up in chat as well.
As for playing on a non-steam version I really can't be of much help. In steam it's just a checkbox to remove dlc, but I don't know how you would do it otherwise. One option is to just run the categories with dlc. All the dlc cases are routed and there should be some notes around for them if you would want that. The load remover should still work, but I guess it's possible that it somehow breaks if it's not the steam version.
You need to have finished the tutorial once in order to skip it, could this be the case for you? If, for example you delete all your saves the game won't know you finished it I iirc.
I've been practicing Mort the Chicken over the last couple of weeks to stay in shape. I am consistently finishing runs under my set estimate and feel really confident in being able to show of a good and fun run.
Yeah, I always use notes while running. I zipped up my notes and pictures of map locations for you. It's mostly just seductive spatulas notes with some small modifications: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B84HX6_z7VtVR1VxNE0wcVBhNTQ I recommend going through the game with the notes and watching a run, since it can be hard to find some evidence only from reading the notes. Feel free to get in touch if you have any more questions about the run :)
Cool to see some interest in this game. There is a PC version of the game that most of us play on because of faster loads. I don't think there are any other real differences, except for a lower framerate on console.
It's not supposed to.This game has load removal, but not auto splitting.
The reason you've only seen the best luck (boyle at the stairs) is because people usually reset if they don't get the perfect luck. There is no known way to manipulate boyle so the strat is to just grind out runs and hope for the perfect luck.
Bhop: Jump as soon as you land. Easiest done binding jump to scrollwheel. Even easier using a freescroll mouse.
F-cancel: Start a far reach and before the animation finishes and you've moved all the way to the destination hit F (Or whatever interact key you're using). You can also jump while floating in the air after an f-cancel, making it easier to set up another far reach.
Second year attending.
Experience as a runner: The game selection for this year was good, I like how you'll find some more obscure games at ESA that you would never expect to get into a GDQ for example. I did however feel that the way cuts was handled this year was annoying for runners. It is in my opinion better to cut more games earlier on in the process so runners know what to focus on. This year very few games were cut in the first round which kind of defeated the purpose of having multiple rounds of cuts. I also feel there was a problem with communication about the second round of cuts. I got the impression that most things that got past second round of cuts would get into the marathon and that second round of cuts was basically the final round. I think there was a statement somewhere along the lines of "From this point onwards we will mostly just cut some games in a series.". Turned out that the cut just before scheduling was the real final cut, which I think is too late for a final cut and made it hard to decide what to focus on.
As a runner at the event I was lucky to run an older PC title which worked fine on the PCs provided. I also had the opportunity to bring my own laptop. I have to add thought that some of my friends who ran some modern PC games really struggled to get practice in becuase of the practice PCs provided being really old and in no condition for playing modern games on. If you host a marathon with PC speedruns you need to have a way for people to practice their runs. I was part of a 4-way PC race, which of course involves a lot of setup. We were prepared and got the game running on the PCs while the run beforre us was still going on. Mixing up PC runs and console runs in the schedule was good to allow runners to setup while the run before was still going on. Sadly there wasn't four identical PCs (which is usually prepared for PC races becuase of hardware differences) so I had to play on my laptop, not a big deal really but it would had been nice. The weird thing I felt as a runner and that I also noticed for other runs was how tech didn't seem to be able to do much setup until the run before was done. Tech seemed to just sit around until the run before was done and then start with setting up the next. This in combination with what seemed like a very complicated setup made seup times very long. Most of the setup in between runs seemed to be to get sound working from both the game nad mics to both the stream and the runner headsets. With such a complicated setup there must be a way to do more of the setup before the previous run is over. I also felt there was a lack of communication between tech and the runners. For example we were never properly asked about if sound was working out in our headset and for me the balance was way off so I could basically only hear myself. Someone from tech even started the countdown before anyone checked if we were ready, so we didn't actually realize we were going and had to restart.
I also got to take part in an interview on the hosting coach which worked out well. I like the idea of having interviews between runs to give viwers something to watch while tech is finishing up setup. A lot of times when setup was taking too long the interviews just dragged on for way too long and became boring and annoying to watch. There is nothing wrong with cutting from the host to the setup screen and in most cases that probably should have been done earlier. Have to say I really Like the idea of making the donation reader more of a general host with a specific area devoted to it. Sometime the camera for the hosting was poorly positioned though and sometimes there was audio issues with the hosting station as well, which I think goes back to tech being busy setting up the next run. Maybe need a special tech person to handle tech for hosting?
Experience as attendee: I like the selection of Växjö as a city, I like how ESA usually happens in some smaller cities that still have everything that you want as an attendee. It seemed most people had an easy time getting to the city as well with good connections to copenhagen. Getting to and from the venue itself was also fairly easy with just a bus. The venue itself was alright, I think it was nice having such a big space for the main area and I'm not sure if the second hall was even needed. I wish that would have been used for mass housing instead, as was first planned. Becuase of Sweden always having the worst heat of the entire year during ESA the air got pretty bad in the venue during the first couple of days. Having a venue with AC is definitely to prefer in the middle of the summer. The location of the venue also felt a little bit off. It was quite far to get to the city-centre. Having the mall as well as different food places was good though. It would had been nice with at least some place nearby that was open 24 hours a day, since I usually ended up wanting to eat at the weirdest hours of the day. It would had been nice with a full actually working kitchen at the venue as well, so you could properly cook your own food. Also I wish there would have been information about the existing refrigerators, since I only figured out we could use those as late as the last weekend.
Arriving and getting your wristband worked out really smooth. It was really nice having a reception that always had someone working and also selling some snacks, soda and hotdogs. I think this was a good improvement from last year.
The venue was generally very clean and it didn't feel unfresh. The only thing that seemed poorly looked after was the showers at the venue (that were used by people at mass housing).
One of the biggest issues as an attendee in my opinion was how hard it was to watch the stream. I do understand that the first days had issues with the TVs arriving late but I still think there were a couple of bad decisions. First of all I don't like the idea of only showing the stream on a couple TVs in front. This made the stream area much more separated from everything else that was going on in the main hall and you had to actively walk over to the Tv to see what was going on on stream. I really liked how last year you could just look up on the projectors to see what was currently happening. I very much prefer using projectors or some other way to show the stream on a really big screen. Another thing that I would very much like is to have the stream output somewhere in front of the runner, instead of behind them. There are two reasons for this: First of all it allows for the runner to know that he's on cam on the stream and allows him to see his time and such during the run. Second, and most important, it makes for a much better experience for people watching the run next to the runner. The way things were setup this year you basically had to choose between sitting close to the runner and not seeing much (I guess you can see fine for console runs, but for PC runs most of the screen was covered up by a DXRacer chair) or sitting far away in the back and watching one of the TVs. Having the stream shown somewhere in forin of the runner would make for a much better experience when watching and I think it would bring the stream area more together.
I'm aware of some issues around the first days being pretty much outside of the organizers hands, but I think these problems showcased another issue. I felt there was a lack of communication between organizers and attendees. When I arrived there were a lot of things that wasn't at all the way I expected (to be explained by things missing at the time) and I had a lot of questions. I wish there would have been more information about what was happening. When nobody knows what's happening weird rumors start spreading and people start blaming the wrong people. If shit is fucked, let us know. It would have been fine to just put out a message in the discord. I also realized that basically all of main organizers also were the main tech guys, which makes the event in general suffer even more from tech problems. It might be a good idea to have someone as a designated event host who doesn't have anything to do with tech.
I was staying at the event until sunday afternoon, cuase I read the doors closing at monday. The last caouple of days mostly consisted of moving TVs and packing down things and wasn't very exciting so I think it could definitely be better to clarify more how much of the event will still be going on after the stream ends.
A general thing for tech that I felt influenced the stream quality a lot was that many times it felt like tech was hardly watching the stream. Sometimes things were really poorly cropped and multiple times commentators mics were muted, but this wasn't fix for entire runs. Even when runners themselves was saying "I don't have game audio" tech didn't seem to hear this. I think there might be a need for designated tech guys for dealing with things like audio, since it seemed to be a constant issue.
Experience of accomodation: I stayed in mass housing which worked out pretty good. The sleeping area was nice and silent and ket a good temperature even when it was really hot outside which I really liked. Bathrooms were fine excpet for not having any light the first day. It was a little bit annoying that you had to walk quite a bit to get to mass housing though, especially since it felt like there would be some faster way to get there going through some other door. The reason it felt far away (it was waaaay closer than last year) was mostly because when i signed up for it it I expected mass housing to just be in the second hall at the venue. I dislike changing things around like that after people have already payed money for it. The only annoying thing about mass housing really was showers not being as the same building which basically meant you had to walk back and forth multiple times to the venue when you wanted to take a shower. Mass housing was in some sort of indoors arena so I would be very surprised if there wasn't any showers closeby.
As always ESA was fun cause I got to meet a bunch of cool people, but sadly I feel this year lost some of the magic because of poor quality with stream and long tech delays. I think there will be a lot to take away from this year and hope for a better event next time.
Also for the organizers I think it's important to not be scared to ask for help. I know there is a lot that goes into making an event like this happen. We have a wondeful community of people and I am sure a lot of us would be glad to help with more than we currently do.
There are plenty of variations to slip-clips, if you've found one that works for you that's great! :)
Getting stuck in lean is a known issue that happens more frequently on higher fps (explaining why you don't get it when recording/streaming). Most people cap the framerate to around 250 instead of playing with it uncapped to avoid this. Too high fps can also give sticky walls, which is annoying when doing elevators. An easy way to get out of the leaned state is to just open and close the powers menu.
There are runs of train runner and mystery foe (which is basically just a meme), so I guess we could make some sort of leaderboards for Trials (Under misc categories probably). I remember someone talking about routing and doing runs of Burglar, but I don't think I've seen anyone actually doing it.
No point in having leaderboards for categories without runs though, so if you feel like running things from Dunwall City trials, just do it. The fact that there is no leaderboard for something is no reason not to run it anyway :)
Here's my progress update for my submissions:
For Mort the Chicken I've rerouted and worked on optimizing some parts of the run. This combined with doing more attempts made me cut down my PB by about a minute. The estimate I put in my submission was pretty high and I can now say that I am confident in lowering that to 16 minutes. Here's a video of my current PB:
I've also derusted in Tarzan and done a number of no-reset runs to make sure that I'm up to speed. I would say that I can consistently deliver runs without any major mistakes with times close to my PB.
For the start of the run you need to create a save as early as possible. The way this can be done is by starting a new game and let the intro cutscene play out. As soon as you gain control of corvo there will be an autosave, load that one and immediately create a manual save. That's the save you want to start the run from.
Quickloading only resets the timer if you're in the intro (this is because of how the autosplitting is set up). For the rest of the run the timer should keep going if you qs/ql.
The "fastest" version at the moment is 1.2 (the older one). However, with current strats the version difference is really small and when starting out you could do the run on 1.4. The only version difference in the current route is after doing the out of bounds grenade strat for bad luck pendleton (which a lot of people don't do when they start running the game). On 1.2 you pop back inbounds when blinking away after throwing the grenade, in 1.4 you have to do another blink to get back inbounds.
As for knowing which version you are on, I am not sure if there is a convenient way to check. If you have the latest updated version on steam you are on 1.4. Also only 1.4 can have the story DLCs (knife of dunwall, Brigmore Witches). If you know of older routes of the game there was a clipping techinque involving double jumping that was patched out on 1.4, I guess you could do that and see if it works. But as I said, I wouldn't worry too much of version differences when starting out.
Good luck with the learning and feel free to post if you have any more questions :)
If you wanna do a run of any% No Action Skip or 5stars% No Action Skip I think we could add that category to the leaderboard. I really think we should still keep a normal 5stars% category though.
Duping works on the latest patch () so no reason to run on an older version of the game. I don't think there are any version restrictions for anything, there seems like there would be no reason to run on any older patch for any category.
I assume 100% is without any DLC, would be kind of strange otherwise.
I've been thinking about making a complete guide to the any% speedrun with some of the newer strats. If I'll find the time to do that I'll submit it to the guides section.
