Board 8 > Summer Games Done Quick 2017 July 2-9 @ 1pm EST #sgdq

(+) Yeah! (+)

yeah, it was good.

i think para knows darkwing duck in person, actually.
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time for a lion king run that's not by TMR feelsbadman
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he game overs after 1+ minute of playing lol
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he died again.

jesus this is one of the worst runs i've seen at a GDQ.
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aww yeah time for darbian!
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did I just hear a donation by "cuckold232"?
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As someone who is currently going through the Crash 1 remake and struggling with the time trials, this run is insane.

It's definitely harder than it looks.
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Just read through the whole schedule and holy crap there's so many of my favorite games
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TMR's Battletoads WR, for those who want to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3H-Yk1V3KA
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Man, Battletoads is an awful game
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Another WR in Ape Escape. That's 2 already.
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So, about those WRs . . . turns out their timer was running slow for every game before Monkey Ball. This is why so many runners were surprised by their times. Odds are none of the WRs so far are valid, the timer was losing almost one second per minute.

https://twitter.com/GamesDoneQuick/status/881947428274020353
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welp
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How does that even happen
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I remember doing the Metroid Prime run that they said they used the in game timer because it was accurate and the in game timer said the run was longer than the GDQ timer. I guess the GDQ timer being slow would explain that.

Edit: Actually I got that backwards. The in game time is a lot lower than the GDQ timer for Metroid Prime.
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whoops
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We just missed our chance to see FF7's record get shattered by eight minutes.
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Monkey Ball runs are always impressive.
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I got to thinking about why the speed run community is so bad at commentary and it hit me, mostly while watching that Battletoads run.

I really only engage with two online communities, the speed run one and the fighting game community. the fighting game community is toxic at times but also manages to do commentary and community a dozen times better than the speed run one. you can watch an Evo or a regular weekly tournament and it will be miles better than what you'll see at a gdq.

the difference is that fighting games are multiplayer, in-person events whereas your average speed run is a single player game and those streams are usually just someone talking to themselves while grinding on a game. that battletoads run is the perfect example. they'll explode after they've broken the record but it's silent throughout. speed runs are super esoteric but it's not really any different than frame-specific timings in fighting games. people are still doing incredible feats on a second to second basis. they're just doing them in person a hell of a lot more. you get these gdq guys and they put the most knowledgeable people on the couch and that kind of ruins it I think. we don't put the 3 best fighting game players in the world on commentary for every game. we have guys who have a personality along with a little bit of knowledge.

it'd be cool if there was a group of guys with chemistry that knew a variety of games, but I think the marathon nature of a gdq makes that awfully hard. and, again, they only get to do it twice a year. if there was some incentive to do it in person more often then maybe we'd have a better product, but that's pretty inconceivable. they're not playing for money or anything like that. it'll be hard to foster a community when everything is so online and remote as opposed to in person.
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transience posted...

we don't put the 3 best fighting game players in the world on commentary for every game. we have guys who have a personality along with a little bit of knowledge.

Well for fighting games the pool of people to choose from is massive for each game. For small speedrunning communities, they very well might pick their most charismatic people for the couch, and still end up this awkward.
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Someone needs to take the coffee away from this commentator, the runners commentary is monotone dribble but at least let him speak when you're talking to him.
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foolm0r0n posted...

transience posted...

we don't put the 3 best fighting game players in the world on commentary for every game. we have guys who have a personality along with a little bit of knowledge.

Well for fighting games the pool of people to choose from is massive for each game. For small speedrunning communities, they very well might pick their most charismatic people for the couch, and still end up this awkward.

Yeah this is a good point, plus with all the trash talking in the fighting game community most people develop some kind of stage persona when they get into it fully which obviously adds to the entertainment value.
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there's over 100k watching the marathon usually. they can't find 2 or 3 people that can be interesting? I don't think that community is nearly as small as we like to portray.
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some of the speedrun commentators are good. like i said, i think big jon is great (and i find him to be pretty hilarious too). spikevegeta and blechy are great too, as others pointed out (though i personally find spike to get a bit tiring after awhile because he's so loud). other random people are good too - i remember the guy who was running the original prince of persia at a GDQ giving great and insightful commentary, for instance (that was even more impressive because he did the commentary himself, so he had to run and commentate at the same time).

but yeah, generally speaking it's pretty bad. it also doesn't help that oftentimes there's just too much shit going on to explain to casual viewers. this is painfully obvious in super mario bros. any% runs, for instance. as great as blechy is, whenever he commentates it he's really struggling. and he leaves out tons of stuff because there's just no time to explain it.
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transcience posted...

there's over 100k watching the marathon usually. they can't find 2 or 3 people that can be interesting? I don't think that community is nearly as small as we like to portray.

A lot of people watch the marathon, but how many people are running the Wheel of Time or would know enough to make a good couch member?
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you don't need to explain every little thing. I think one of gdq's big weaknesses is that it turns into a history lesson of sorts. I don't need to understand the intracacies of a football play to enjoy it, for example.
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sometimes they do do the "couch person who isn't necessarily the biggest expert but is good on the mic" thing tranny is describing, actually.

for example, at AGDQ '16 big jon was commentating on battletoads but he doesn't even run it, as far as i can tell? he's not on the leaderboard. obviously he knew the game and the run well enough, but they could have gotten a person with more expertise.
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transcience posted...

you don't need to explain every little thing. I think one of gdq's big weaknesses is that it turns into a history lesson of sorts. I don't need to understand the intracacies of a football play to enjoy it, for example.

i agree, but i also think it's difficult to find a happy medium. you see this too in the commentaries. either they don't even attempt to explain much of anything or they try to explain everything and fail. i think the latter is a problem in blechy's SMB commentaries.
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Only a handful of people will know what to say about the speedrunning intricacies of Plok. And of those even fewer will make the trip there to give it. Speedrunning is in itself niche and per game it's basically like a small school designated club. You take what you can get and the GDQ's are your showcase events.
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for plok, sure - but for well-known games, of which there are probably hundreds at this point, we can probably do better.
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Are history lessons consider a weakness? I usually enjoy hearing about things like the history of OoT Any% and how WW runners have spent years looking for Barrier Skip.

Edit: Now that I think about it, both of those examples were from the speedrunner formerly known as CosmoWright so maybe that's not representative.
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omg female runner
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I think it depends on the person and the run. I get a little tired of being inundated by 'strats' and the history of them. I do like to hear what they're doing and why, but maybe not at such a deep dive.

that's me though. I get that others dig it. I think the Zelda stuff might be its own unique thing because of how bananas it can get.
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

yeah, it was good.

i think para knows darkwing duck in person, actually.

acquainted with. he's definitely cool

transience posted...

I got to thinking about why the speed run community is so bad at commentary and it hit me, mostly while watching that Battletoads run.

I really only engage with two online communities, the speed run one and the fighting game community. the fighting game community is toxic at times but also manages to do commentary and community a dozen times better than the speed run one. you can watch an Evo or a regular weekly tournament and it will be miles better than what you'll see at a gdq.

the difference is that fighting games are multiplayer, in-person events whereas your average speed run is a single player game and those streams are usually just someone talking to themselves while grinding on a game. that battletoads run is the perfect example. they'll explode after they've broken the record but it's silent throughout. speed runs are super esoteric but it's not really any different than frame-specific timings in fighting games. people are still doing incredible feats on a second to second basis. they're just doing them in person a hell of a lot more. you get these gdq guys and they put the most knowledgeable people on the couch and that kind of ruins it I think. we don't put the 3 best fighting game players in the world on commentary for every game. we have guys who have a personality along with a little bit of knowledge.

it'd be cool if there was a group of guys with chemistry that knew a variety of games, but I think the marathon nature of a gdq makes that awfully hard. and, again, they only get to do it twice a year. if there was some incentive to do it in person more often then maybe we'd have a better product, but that's pretty inconceivable. they're not playing for money or anything like that. it'll be hard to foster a community when everything is so online and remote as opposed to in person.

Yeah, you're spot on about this. I think there actually are a fair amount of people with personality and wide game knowledge but they just don't commentate everything, basically (that would get old anyway).

I wish I could do some commentary on a GDQ run someday, I just don't really know anyone well enough to couch for them aside from one or two people (and I'm not at the marathon anyway).

Sonic Generations crashed.
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Sonic block too good
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Shoutouts to PC Ports
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that Sonic clone was the best part of that block

Generations question: I've heard that the general consensus is that modern Sonic focuses too much on "gotta go fast" and Generations looks like the biggest offender of that. people seemed to like Generations though, way more than other modern Sonics anyway. what gives?
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a runner does something blindfolded at a GDQ and it doens't turn into a complete failure? what is this? >_>
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

a runner does something blindfolded at a GDQ and it doens't turn into a complete failure? what is this? >_>

Well Runnerguy didn't fail when he did it :333
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Also he kept it very short
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kevwaffles posted...

Also he kept it very short

prince_leaf also kept his blindfolded thing in his the flinstones: the surprise at dinosaur peak run at SGDQ '16 very short and he still failed.

wasn't entirely his fault, though - the donation reader started reading a donation when he was doing it, which kinda sucks when you're relying on audio cues. nice that this time the audience AND the donation reader were able to keep quiet for once.
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there was that punch out blindfold that is an absolute gdq highlight

I'd love to see someone make a list of top runs/moments (looking at you para)
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Mr Lasastryke posted...

kevwaffles posted...

Also he kept it very short

prince_leaf also kept his blindfolded thing in his the flinstones: the surprise at dinosaur peak run at SGDQ '16 very short and he still failed.

wasn't entirely his fault, though - the donation reader started reading a donation when he was doing it, which kinda sucks when you're relying on audio cues. nice that this time the audience AND the donation reader were able to keep quiet for once.

Was that the one where the runner just pulled a blindfold out of nowhere without telling anyone in advance? Because that guy was absolutely at fault.
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transcience posted...

there was that punch out blindfold that is an absolute gdq highlight

oh yeah, that was a success too. i knew i was forgetting something.
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transcience posted...

there was that punch out blindfold that is an absolute gdq highlight

I'd love to see someone make a list of top runs/moments (looking at you para)

I forget past years too quickly and miss too many runs (most gdqs I had school during which was unbearable) but I can try

kevwaffles posted...

Was that the one where the runner just pulled a blindfold out of nowhere without telling anyone in advance? Because that guy was absolutely at fault.

it was and it was 100% the donation reader's fault. he said he was doing it blindfolded and the donation reader was like "LOL HERE'S A DONATION."

a donation reader should only read donations when the runner/couch gives them permission to do so. he didn't ask for permission, and the fact that the runner was blindfolded and was obviously relying on audio cues makes it even more moronic that he read the donation anyway.
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transience posted...

Generations question: I've heard that the general consensus is that modern Sonic focuses too much on "gotta go fast" and Generations looks like the biggest offender of that. people seemed to like Generations though, way more than other modern Sonics anyway. what gives?

Generally when you see a game played by speedrunners, it's a little bit faster than typical gameplay
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no pinball done quick this event?
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