I think the overflowing mod names on game pages are pretty much a day 1 issue with the new layout.

I know that Växjö is much more convenient for the people organizing it, I can understand that. But given how people reacted to the change (it seems that the main problem for most people was the venue itself), I'm wondering if those benefits are really worth the trouble.

I really hope this topic will be discussed again in the stream.

I only really have one question: Why Växjö and Fortnox again?

Everyone that attended previous ESAs had a negative opinion about it, I can't think of a single favorable reaction. Why is such an overwhelmingly negative feedback ignored?

I actively avoid the issue by changing settings. There's a game I run, Star Wars Racer, where a piece of music triggers a copyright notice, meaning they put ads on the video. It's just a crappy MIDI version on the N64, but that still seems to be enough for those scumbags. As a result, I turn off the music in the games settings for every run I upload to Youtube, so they can't profit off me. Twitch doesn't seem to care about the music.

There's a new TAS

Maybe you guys can tell me how optimal it really is. It's definitely better the the first TAS, but I think it still misse some tricks.

You should ask a site admin to move the runs, if you don't want to do it yourself. I think they have helped in such cases before, it seems that they have some way to move around runs easier.

Can anyone tell me how exactly the number of played categories is calculated? I can't really get my number (26) to match with the runs on my profile.

Is it really that hard to just ignore the ego problems a handful of people outside speedrun.com get when certain games appear here? In the end, speedrun.com is actually less useful for displaying PBs than PBtracker, if some people are allowed to just block its functionality by their stubbornness. Don't like this site? Don't go to this site. But stop trying to hold it back.

[quote​=PreFiXAUT]Well, everyone has their own taste and requirements. The issue with such super simple layouts is, is that every stream looks the same. Therefore it's hard to remember it and appreciate the stream. It also shows how much effort you put into streaming imo and shows me that you don't care (At least that gives me the impression). [/quote​]

A super simple layout may show that someone doesn't care too much about streaming, but that's no problem for me, since it has nothing to do with how much someone cares for speedrunning. It might even show that such a person cares much more for speedrunning than the average streamer with a polished layout, since the gameplay is all that matters to that runner.

Sure, there should be some minimal quality standards when setting up a stream, but anything more is really just a nice-to-have for me.

In the Gex community, we use different timings for the PS1 and N64 versions of Gex 2. PS1 has a main menu, so we just start from file select, but N64 doesn't, so we use power-on instead.

I was always against giving the ability to delete forum threads to anyone besides site admins/mods. It just gives too many opportunities like this, to just make opinions disappear because some people don't like them.

If your community can't handle having a valid suggestion for a certain change visible on a forum, then your community has a problem.

There is a difference between using cartridge-wide unlockables like TT, as sort of an intended NG+, and the glitched NG+. The NG+ glitch is basically just a glitchy way of copying data from an existing file to a new one, you can't deny that.The glitch won't work if you currently only have empty files.

And don't try to bring up BiT in Twilight Princess, that glitch can't be compared, since it doesn't depend on existing files. All the setup happens during the run.

The stuff they use in DK64 is also more legit, since they're basically just using the intended, cartridge-wide unlockables to glitch the game. Like in TP, no existing save files are required.

I didn't know that there were some cases that allow GIM to work on N64, that's indeed a good reason why the trick should be allowed on emu. This also makes sense if the community tries to treat emu like a slower version of VC, Personally, I disagree with this and would at least try to stop people from deliberately using inaccurate plugins, but that's up to the community. If we ever get an actually good N64 emulator (we can still dream, can't we?), things will change anyway.

It's important to keep things as legit as possible, that's something I learned from TASing. Obviously, complex games like OoT will require more rules than others, that's something you can't avoid.

Technically, banning GIM on emu is less arbitrary than banning 1.0/1.1 tricks on it.

Since the rules already ban 1.0/1.1 glitches on emu, as well as 1.0/1.1 inject for VC, it would only make sense to officially ban GIM on emu as well.

If a way gets found to prevent GIM from crashing the game on N64, emu players should still be required to use the accurate plugin.

"We have never and will never provide practice consoles. "

That's understandable. But as I mentioned in the feedback thread, you should definitely have consoles available for the stream. They would be just another part of equipment and would make things much easier.

"With regards to Serious Sam, it's probably done because it's "Individual Levels". When you're bringing in something beforehand and you're using something you can't get in the level then at that point it no longer becomes an individual level."

That's debatable. With the same argument, you could ban every unlockable thing to be used in an IL. I define IL as "the fastest time for a specific part of a game", how that time is achieved is irrelevant.

If the difference between vanilla and newgame+ conditions is significant enough, you can always have separate categories.

First things first: I do not run this game, I only followed the discussion and want to contribute towards it. As with every game, I believe that the name "any%" should always be used for the fastest category, no matter how broken and/or silly it is. Anything else can follow the "any% no X" naming convention.

As far as I understand, you guys are trying to come up with a restriction that makes it possible to run the route of MH's 53:01 again, but this doesn't seem to be possible without having super arbitrary rules. Now I'm asking you: Does that specific route really need to be preserved in any way? What about all the other routes before it, why should they not be preserved as well? I hate saying it, but the 53:01 route is nothing more than one of many parts of the evolution of Vice City any%, no matter how popular it might was. This happens to a lot of games, where a very popular category gets obsoleted by a trick that makes it less fun. Sometimes, we get lucky and are able to find a simple restriction that allows us to run the old category without it becoming too arbitrary, sometimes not. Vice City seems to be one of the unlucky games.

For that reason, my vote is B. Don't split any% based on this new application of a glitch that is being used for years. Instead, don't be afraid to make a version of any% with one big restriction, even if it means that the run would go back to the length of the SDA era.

Here are my pics: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ZDb8spNsDQTHBSOUNNUGw4dTg

I selected both pictures from around the venue, as well as pictures from my various trips around Växjö, so everyone who didn't get out of the Arenastaden too much can see those places too. Have fun ^^

Experience as a runner

When my run was set up, there was a bit of confusion about the N64 console that would be used. I was told to bring my console, but then it turned out that the RGB N64 that Fuzzy had provided was already used by the last runner, so we went with that. Last year, the situation was basically the same. This shows that the best option for ESA would be to just get one optimally modded version of each console that can be used every time. That way, the setup for every console run would become much easier while also having top quality. To pay for this, ESA could use donations, maybe with a special online marathon.

I have no complaints about any other aspect of my run. The tech crew helped setting up the TV and the headset without any problem, they did a great job here.

Experience as an attendee

This was my second ESA, the first being in 2015. I liked most things more last year, which was largely due to the venue. I have nothing against the town of Växjö, but I didn't like the location of the venue. It was too far away from the actual town and the Arenastaden was not a very nice place to be, it felt more like an industrial area with some commercial places that are intended to be accessed by car. Last years venue was right at the center of Skövde, which allowed easy access to a lot of different food places and other activities. Around the Fortnox Arena, you only had a handful of fastfood places available, unless you were willing to go to the town, which was inconvenient due to the limited number of buses. On the positive side, there was a shopping mall right between the venue and the Scandic hotel.

The venue itself lacked the charm of the Kulturhus in Skövde. Due to the layout of the venue, the stream area felt disconnected from the rest of the event. Last year, I found myself taking a quick look at the streams from the practice area from time to time, so I could spontaneously decide to watch a run. This was not possible this time, you had to walk all the way to the stream area to check things out, which would often result in the chair being taken away that you just used to sit in front of your practice TV. And this leads to my main problem with this event...

The organization of the practice area! While last year, the practice area was the most chilled place to hang out, it felt like more of fight this time, a fight for TVs and chairs. It quickly became obvious that there weren't enough tables with TVs for all the people. When I really needed to practice my game, I often had no choice than to wait until a TV looked somewhat abandoned and I could just go unplug someones console. It was especially annoying in my case, since my game is too dark for a lot of the TVs and I can't change the brightness without a remote. I eventually found a somewhat decent corner to practice, but it was a very stressful experience. The other problem, as mentioned earlier, were the chairs. Just from guessing, I think there were enough of them for just people practicing. But if so many chairs end up being used to build an audience around someones TV or for activities like Smash, then it starts becoming tricky. The situation was really getting on my nerves and I started just grabbing what I call "audience chairs" somewhat aggressively, which pissed some people off. I tried to always get those chairs and not a single one in front of a TV. Practice has priority over Melee and fanboy-audiences, sorry guys! Many people weren't like this, they simply took your chair if you just left it in front of a running console setup for a few seconds. Really? For that reason, I actually started dragging around chairs if I only wanted to talk someone really quick. For next year, there needs to be a better way to organize the practice area, I don't want this anarchy again.

A problem that every event like this has to face, is the fact that so many people don't care about putting their waste in the trash. It wouldn't be much of an effort, only a few steps at best, but people are still too lazy. The worst were all the half-finished drinks in cans, those could so easily be pushed over and damage consoles. The cleaning team did their best, big thanks to them!

Overall, I had a good time. It wasn't as amazing as last year though, there were a bit too many suboptimal things for that, especially the stressful situation in the practice area. I really hope you consider using a different venue next year.