Awesome Games Done Quick 2014: Speedrunning For Charity - January 5th-11th

Amzin_sl said:

This is my first year watching it so my opinion may not count for diddly, but I don't think they should focus on the intense, serious, attempts at WR runs. As mentioned, it is NOT the environment for it, and it's way more interesting in this kind of event to see more interaction with the devs, the commentary from the peanut gallery, make sure donation comments get read, glitch runs and explanations, etc. This is a once-a-year event and should be treated as such. WR attempts are what the other 358 days of the year are for.

I really enjoyed watching this year but felt like the devs that called in didn't get fair engagement and some of the runners were just TOO serious and kinda messed with the flow of things (ironically). There's definitely things they can do better overall at the event but I really don't think trying harder to beat WR is one of them.

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I think Dev commentary will become more prevalent as this event gets more and more popular. If you watch the Super Meat Boy run from last year, the dev commentary on that was fantastic and the guy running it was the WR holder and was amazing. It's really a great video if you can find the links.

The two dev commentary videos I watched this year were for The Mask (which was the mystery game for some reason) and Metroid Prime. For the Mask, the stream was delayed and by the time the developer talked about a specific level, they were already past it. For Metroid Prime, well, most of you watched it and I think the runners were pretty full of themselves and could have given two shits what the dev had to say. They just wanted to show off in my opinion.

Speed running is life to a lot of these guys and they have tremendous egos about it. If anyone watched last year when Cosmo was playing Wind Waker, he was on a world record pace. One of the guys on the couch, Mirrored, was giving commentary and when Cosmo messed up and lost the WR, everyone piled on Mirrored saying he talked to much and Cosmo couldn't concentrate, etc.. Mirrored wasn't even at SGDQ or AGDQ this year. The drama this shit can cause can be pretty funny, but I understand taking a hobby like this very seriously.

That being said, they obviously shouldn't be resetting non-stop, but I think you're wrong if you don't think every one of these guys starts off the speed run going for the WR.

Eyashusa_sl said:

That being said, they obviously shouldn't be resetting non-stop, but I think you're wrong if you don't think every one of these guys starts off the speed run going for the WR.

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I don't think that this is true as some of the runners will mention specifically that they are using a marathon safe strat, but will detail another path that would be faster but riskier.

During the VVVVVV run the dev had called in, but obviously had a large delay between the runner and his commentary so it made it very awkward for them to talk. The runner was also not really paying attention to the dev either because he was too quiet or was concentrating too hard, but the dev had asked the runner a couple questions that just went unanswered.

That's what I mean though. I appreciate the commentary. I don't want to just watch a silent stream where someone may or may not break a WR for 2-3 hours at a time. This is a special event. It should be treated as such. Obviously the runners aren't going to go into it not trying to do well, but the most entertaining runs were the ones that were either glitch runs with explanations or just runs with really good commentary. Straight up low-to-no commentary speed runs for 7 days is not going to achieve what they want to achieve. They raised over a MILLION dollars for the charity this year, and had over 100k viewers at one point (and 60k+ for a lot of it). I'm not saying they should sell out and just do stuff for the sake of stuff, but again, it's an organized event and should be treated differently than the usual SR streams.

I respect these runners' skills and dedication to the games and what they do. It's damn impressive, even the games I've never played. But they should take these events as a chance to approach their usual game differently or just relax a bit and have fun with it I'll probably go watch the streams of the runners who seemed more personable and where I feel like I learned something from their runs. Maybe just my personal tastes but I feel like that's probably the reaction of the majority rather than the minority.

Edit: There's ways to get around the stream delay, could have a private webcam set up for dev calls or something so devs can be really close to real-time instead of having to suffer the stream lag. It definitely hurt in a game like VVVVVV where he's 7 rooms farther by the time the dev saw it. BL2 you didn't notice it quite as much.

Eyashusa_sl said:

The drama this shit can cause can be pretty funny, but I understand taking a hobby like this very seriously.

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For Cosmo specifically, speed running isn't just a hobby, but his job (Making money as a Zelda speed runner). So I can kind of understand being miffed if someone distracted me from a WR pace -- even if it was at a charity event.

Amzin_sl said:

I respect these runners' skills and dedication to the games and what they do. It's damn impressive, even the games I've never played. But they should take these events as a chance to approach their usual game differently or just relax a bit and have fun with it I'll probably go watch the streams of the runners who seemed more personable and where I feel like I learned something from their runs. Maybe just my personal tastes but I feel like that's probably the reaction of the majority rather than the minority.

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It really depends on the game. Like I said during Mark of the Ninja, he talked and explained every glitch for that run and it was still fucking boring. Mega Man 2 had no real commentary or explanation and it was very fun to watch. Sometimes it's really entertaining just to watch skill on display.

Needless_sl said:

Where is the summary of why hes able to live off that shit?

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He gets 1/2 of the sub money ($5/month per sub) and some small amount of money for viewers/hour. He probably makes more off of donations than anything because he reads them off and people love getting recognition on stream (as opposed to someone like Kripp who refuses to advertise donations -- not to say he doesn't get any, it's probably just a lot less per average viewer).

Cosmo seems a lot cooler that Kripp. Kripp looks and sounds like the type of dude you'd like to punch in the face if you met him in real life.

Cosmo is a good guy. I like the Zelda Speedrunners like RunnerGuy and ZFG.

Noodleface_sl said:

Cosmo seems a lot cooler that Kripp. Kripp looks and sounds like the type of dude you'd like to punch in the face if you met him in real life.

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Except you would never meet him in real life... he'd have to leave his house first. All he cares about is playing games, fuck everything else. It's pretty crazy. I find him pretty fucking funny and entertaining though.