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This is the wrong place for this but I haven't made a dedicated thread just yet - I would like to solicit a Celeste TAS for SGDQ 2019 and I think an All Berries or 114% or whatever category is ideal for this. I know there's some questions about what a "more complete" run might look like but I'm just throwing it out there that I'd love to see it happen. TGH is on board with attending to provide commentary. Thoughts on the viability of that?
And of course, Yes vote site unseen but I'll refrain from actually pressing the vote button until after I've demonstrated it on libTAS proper. :)
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These are randomly selected and only minimally edited for space. Yes, I'm picking comments that also are directed at me as a person along with the entire team behind the various TASBot projects but I ask that you not judge me harshly for needing my own personal palette cleanser as well.
"TASBlock remains one of the highlights of GDQs and you guys keep doing amazing stuff. There's always a couple stumbles for anyone doing anything. It's a bit frustrating to look back to when we slip but don't let that distract from all the good stuff, cause there was a ton of it. You keep being awesome and rest in the certainty that you have indeed been so this far =P"
"that TAS of Aria of Sorrow was crazy. Thank you for sharing this insanity."
MASHBot: "I thought this was great! It may not have been the fastest, but I was in awe the whole way through. There are so many technical challenges for something like this to work."
LoZ on my channel: "Thank you so much for being such a great parent. My own parents told me how I shouldn't talk to my children like that. That I shouldn't explain things that could be "too complicated"... if they had explained many many normal things in life to me I would've been so much more grateful. Let alone you're letting your children enjoy your very same hobby. Thank you so much, this video teared me up."
LoZ on my channel: "I was crying because of how adorable this is. Your love for your kids reminds me of my first gaming experience, a Link to the Past, with my dad. Thank you for sharing this with everyone, I think everybody needs to see wholesome experiences like this these days. And it's great to see great parenting mixed in with optimal gaming. Cheers!"
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Spikestuff wrote:
You cannot stay in a single circle when there's another 2 waiting for you to see them and to reflect on their comments as well.
I said on this thread in bold that I agreed with the negative comments there. I expressed off-forum to you that I felt like this was a bit of an attack but I'll try to be level-headed and assume you have honorable intentions. Here's what you get, doing my best to pick at least a few of the more constructive comments. Warning to Spikestuff: You asked for this.
Before I post these comments I want to reiterate that I don't ignore negative feedback, but I definitely try to look at what's constructive and what's destructive. I stand by my earlier statement I said in bold: I accept responsibility for what parts went wrong especially with commentary, particularly the extremely valid points raised by micro500 who has been in the arena and knows what this is like - he couldn't be more right that two years later we're still struggling with some of the same problems and it's time we "grow up". I've laid out a plan of action and only time will tell if we can successfully correct the repeating issues. But for now, let's get back to your request for viewpoints from the other sources, keeping in mind that this list is truncated because the comments for Mari0 were so toxic that GDQ disabled them on YouTube. Here are a few choice selections of the general sentiment of the less pleased denizens of the internet:
(Warning to others: The following views expressed by YouTube comments and Reddit viewers about TASBot related content and me as a person are here unedited and contain foul language. Do not read further if you are easily offended.)
"Upvoted for TASturbation because it's the perfect term for these segments"
"Considering how it was finished last second it almost seems as if they looked at the 100k goal and figured it wouldn't get reached, then shit themselves a few days before it was due and it became obvious it would be funded."
"I thought it would have been difficult to find a more boring run than FFIV randomizer but they did it"
"The tas segments are always meh"
"My only gripe with the show and scene in general is the staggering amount of autists ( I don’t mean to offend anyone, but you know what I mean and this is the best way for me to explain it) which turn this into such a messy cringe fest."
"That foot shit was fucking cringe"
"No one gives a fuck about ur fucking pie. Shit. U have the worst personality and narcissism. I hate how ur the person who has the tas bot.literally ur talking ruins this whole video but ur cheesy ass personality makes any watching of tas bot videos unbearable and cringy"
"I DONT CARE HOW YOU FEEL... FUCK, JUST TALK ABOUT TASBOT, WHO CARES HOW YOUR NIGHT IS... THIS ISNT A FUCKING VLOG YOU CUNT"
Put yourself in my shoes for a moment and imagine reading that after spending 6 months working on something and you'll have a small sliver of how difficult it can be.
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Nicos wrote:
well that's the problem with charities, someone always has something to says agains (for diverses reasons) and of course since it's donations, they have the right to not donate they don't like the charity.
I realize that no charity is completely perfect but I do expect charities to at least spend the money where they say they will and at the percentages of overhead they say they attempt to achieve. As I've stated before, I've had conversations in person with both PCF and MSF/DWB representatives and I have no current concerns. I respect that others have different beliefs and concerns. To that end, if someone donates to help get TASBot and I to an event they can say they don't want me to tithe on it if they disagree with the event charity (whatever that may be, even if it's NAMI if I happen to attend RPG Limit Break).
There's a non-monetary aspect to this that should be considered. GDQ's regularly garner 200k simultaneous live views on the main channel not counting all the poverty / community restreams that probably add up to another 50k at any given time and the large number of views on YouTube after the event that usually equal about that number. In other words, it's not uncommon for something we do at a GDQ to be seen by half a million people. TASVideos does not get that many views for the vast majority of our content. The TASVideos YouTube channel has only 13 videos with more than 250k views, of which 4 are GDQ event videos. Meanwhile, the most viewed video on GamesDoneQuick's channel is micro500's Brain Age with 3.1M views. I hope the statistics speak for themselves - even if you are antagonistic about one or another charity there's something to be said about the monumental exposure this affords us.
One other note I'd like to throw out there. The "weakest" entry at AGDQ 2019 for TAS content was arguably Castlevania due to the sub-par commentary. Despite that, the comments in my own YouTube channel for Castlevania are largely positive. Yes, there are a couple of comments noting that the commentary was weak, but overall the response was not nearly as negative as here or on Reddit. This isn't to say I don't feel there's room to improve, on the contrary I'm quite embarrassed at the lack of polish - this is to say that in a different context this content that everyone here seemed to think was close to unusable is still being received well enough on its own merit when viewed through a different lens.
Some people really want to just see TAS's played back with good commentary (again, I'd point to Item Abuse 3 as a prime example of what good commentary can look like). Some people enjoy seeing things like MASHBot, and given the coverage at https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/01/meet-mashbot-the-touchscreen-tapping-nintendo-ds-playing-robot/ that includes at least one journalist. Some people like to see ACE content, either the process of getting there or the results after the fact. Some people like interactive segments where Twitch chat can get involved.
The real question is how to do each of those types of content on a rotation with a good balance and with exceptional polish as is fitting for a site like TASVideos and to do all of that without causing burnout to those involved. It's a challenge I've been trying to keep under check for over 5 years and while I'd like to think I'm getting better at it I've also continued to fail largely due to the sheer scope of such undertakings. And let's face it, I'm going to keep making some mistakes and things are going to go wrong because even the simplest thing we do is still monumentally complex. That's just the nature of this kind of content, even simple runs that should just be a matter of providing commentary because it's nearly impossible to explain everything in the time allotted, and adding more time to talk before or after the run often does more damage than good by appearing boring. People who are new to the project sometimes choke on camera (*you* try standing in front of a room with several hundred people in it and a camera with tens if not hundreds of thousands and see if you perform at your peak every time). This stuff is hard. Doing it well is hard. We do this *because* it is hard.
If this wasn't hard no one would be watching. So let's keep doing hard things, but let's try a little harder to do them better in a way that doesn't make people break down and burn out. Let's do less, better. Let's do variety better. Let's work together better. Let's try to find common ground around what unites us - using tools that assist us flawed humans to create art that we can show to other flawed humans in a public display. Let's go make some art together. If you don't want to help make art and just want to be a critic there's room for you too (but know that those of us making the art might have our own tastes.)
There is room for all who want to make art and do the hard things we do, even if you don't like a given charity and even if you only want to work on the kind of art that *you* want to make. Let us not be divided by what makes us different but be united by what we all find interesting: using tools to assist humans in making things of beauty that will still be remembered 50 years from now.
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p4wn3r wrote:
...No matter what your goals with TASbot are, it's safe to say that if you get steamrolled by debt you certainly won't be able to accomplish them.
I will never, ever go into debt to finance a GDQ. Even here for AGDQ 2019 I had sufficient emergency funds in case something went wrong with my charge shifting (i.e. knowing that I was putting things like hotel charges against my credit card which I *always* pay off every month but that introduces inherent lag sufficient to allow the aforementioned anticipated vacation payout). Money I spend is money I have, period. The only debt I have is my mortgage which I consider an investment and it's been that way for well more than a decade. Don't take this as me being defensive, it's actually me being somewhat proud to be honest. Living debt free is a wonderful thing.
p4wn3r wrote:
2) I have to agree with keylie that you are putting yourself in an unnecessary bind by stating that you'll place 10% at a charity.
That sounds like talk coming from a place of never having tithed but before I talk about that I should comment on donating to charities in general. As I've made clear here and elsewhere I'm very selective of which charities I'll donate to and you won't see me donating to [CENSORED] (lest I offend someone due to the rather long list of places I won't donate to that I feel mismanage money, but I digress). I generally investigate the charities I donate to prior to making a donation and I'm fortunate in that I've had an opportunity to speak with key leaders for both of the GDQ charities, The Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders, in person. I am satisfied that the money is at the very least not being misspent.
As I've stated in the past, while 10% of my income usually goes to the church I attend I never send money from donations I receive that is earmarked for GDQ expenses to my church. Again, I tithe on *all* income I receive, even gifts I've received outside of GDQ. This is a religious belief I don't expect everyone to understand but on the other hand I do ask that others respect my religious based decision. Having said that, I'm not unreasonable; if someone does not want me to donate 10% of money they give me for expenses and they say so in their donation I will honor their request (or likewise if it was the opposite which has only happened I think once, but I digress). I can absolutely handle attending GDQ events on the 90% or I wouldn't do it so there's no harm to anyone.
p4wn3r wrote:
3) Consider seeking sponsorships or asking GDQ to fund your costs.
I'm not yet big enough to go seeking sponsorships although that could happen in the future. I've spoken to staff at length and I am well aware that their financial situation is not nearly as flush with cash as rumors make it out to be. They are taking on a significantly increased risk this coming year by moving to a more complex to schedule and costly venue. I have a good relationship with GDQ but I am not on staff with them at this time and I do not currently anticipate an offer from them unless I take on additional on-site entertainment planning and oversight work that I cannot currently commit to. Yes, I've had discussions with them about this in the past but I won't go into specifics here.
p4wn3r wrote:
4) Finally, if your vision is more long-term (50+ years), and you are willing to keep doing this, maybe it's a good idea to make a foundation yourself to ask for donations?
I would not feel comfortable being a non-profit to take revenue for myself. Stay tuned on alternatives I am pursuing along this line.
I really, really do appreciate your thoughts. I know you put a lot of time into what you said. It means a lot.
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As I noted in my AGDQ 21019 feedback post I've so far only covered $175 out of about $2,500 of expenses (I haven't tallied everything up but it was in line with what I anticipated). I'm going to leave the donation link up in the first post if anyone wants to help out but I will attempt to cover the shortfall and work toward covering SGDQ 2019 expected expenses via subscriptions and bits and related streaming / content revenue on YouTube and Twitch. If you've donated and I missed saying thank you in person (Scrimpeh comes to mind) please know I greatly appreciate the support. Based on the extremely low donation total I won't bother with a full post mortem for this event but I am *very* thankful all the same.
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Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming. A couple of points - I don't think that TAS content at GDQ's has "jumped the shark" in the classic sense as we're not so desperate for views that we're trying anything and everything to retain them. Having said that, we're possibly in a midlife crisis. We're 5 years in to something that I anticipate will be a 50 year journey so perhaps that's not apt either, more like we're having growing pains, but you get the idea. And yes, I plan to be doing this for 50 years. Maybe not the same form, maybe not the same "traditional" consoles that we use now that will be archaic in 50 years when I'm in my 80's, but a continuing, evolving concept of using physical hardware and tools to create art.
And really, that's what I see TASBot as - nothing more and nothing less than a mascot for making art out of something physical combined with something in software. We have vast untapped platforms and more arriving every day thanks to ever faster computational power and ever more advanced tools. I can only dream about what the future will hold.
My vision may be "bigger" or longer duration than what you, reader, are comfortable with. That's fine. I only ask that you not abandon me while things are still relatable and while there's still content to be shown that you're used to and would like to see highlighted. No matter what amount of polish we put in we're always going to end up with content that some people don't like and that's fine. I just want to focus on doing less, better. We'll inevitably see people come and go, with some losses more painful than others, but as long as there is art to be made I am well content to continue.
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Habreno wrote:
BDFL territory?
Benevolent Dictator For Life - a term from projects with a founder that the community keeps around for reasons no one seems to remember. Or something.
keylie wrote:
I'm sorry about the tone of my previous message. Feos rephrased it in a much better way. I'm concerned about your situation. I respect that you wish to donate money to different organizations. But, specifically about GDQs, for all the work you are doing, I think it is legitimate that you have all your expenses covered.
No worries, I'm obviously somewhat of an outlier in tithing but at the same time if I don't even have that much margin in life I'm probably cutting things too close to be traveling to GDQ events. I really do appreciate all of your support, especially around libTAS. Thanks for all you do.
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feos wrote:
dwangoAC, I think what keylie is saying is that we wish that you cover those personal needs first, you deserve to be safe after all you've done for us all and after all you're going through.
Absolutely. I'm not going to stop donating 10% of the income I receive regardless of the source as that's a core part of my religious beliefs and I doubt anyone is telling me to change that but at the same time and at the urging of my Discord community I've started using streaming revenue to support GDQ expenses. For AGDQ 2019 I used a credit card to tide me over knowing that there was a cushion coming (I knew ahead of time that my day job was going to divest vacation accruals, i.e. I had a vacation balance and it was paid out when they went to a "flexible" vacation policy, but I digress).
For reasons that can probably be understood by reading between the lines of my previous post I opted to donate considerably less of my 10% last year to my church and considerably more to other charities. I ask for forgiveness and understanding of the situation I was in at the time from all involved but I doubt anyone would call me out on that given the extremely difficult and delicate situation. Imagine what you would have done and how you would have responded given the circumstances I faced... There are few ways to walk that path unscathed.
So keylie, please know that your donation in years past absolutely helped me get to GDQ and was not misspent. My windfall last year that allowed me to cover my own GDQ expenses and also give so much to charity was a wonderful blessing but came crashing to a close late last year as a result of decisions made by others in my life and I'm now starting afresh.
From here on out I'll be trying to fund future GDQ's through my "own" community via subscriptions, bits, ad revenue, and other related forms of income, although I won't turn down donations from the TASVideos community. I will be sure to let everyone know if at some point in the future it becomes impossible for me to cover my expenses and I need to either stand down from participating in GDQ events or otherwise need to allow someone else in the community to become the keeper of TASBot (although I've been voluntold I'm now in BDFL territory whether I want it or not but I'm not willing to be abusive with that).
Thoughts? Remaining questions? I'm willing to answer them as should be plain to see. Even if you disagree with me, that's fine, I just want to make sure I'm not leaving anyone hanging.
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keylie wrote:
...you should first cover all your expenses before starting to donate to GDQs.
This is oddly really, really important to me to respond to. I have for over a decade donated 10% of my income to charity, and that's primarily been my church. I've always donated 10% of what I've received from TASVideos users to the next GDQ. Until November of last year I was also giving 100% of bits and subs to the next GDQ, inspired by how tinahacks donates all her subs and bits revenue to the Extra Life Charity Drive. This explains why I had previously given as much as I did, but there's some more to this.
Warning: The following paragraph contains personal information I have not as of yet shared and do not want to be interpreted incorrectly. Please handle the following information with care.
I covered the last several events out of my own pocket and donated all Twitch revenue until recently because it was possible to do so, but that is no longer feasible due to personal challenges that unfolded starting after AGDQ 2017 and are now having a financial impact. The only way for any of this to make sense is to share an aspect of that, so here goes: After AGDQ 2017 my wife decided without warning to move out leaving me with our two kids and she later moved in with a volunteer ministry leader I was serving under at my church after which she initiated a divorce. (Please treat that with care, I have not shared it in a permanent communication method until now and I have always been careful to not say anything disparaging about those involved.) In the midst of all that the Bitcoin I had acquired when it was worth $17 went to $17,000 and I sold several and bought a Tesla Model X 100D and funded all of my GDQ trips as well.
In order to prevent my kids from losing their bedrooms I had to sacrifice nearly everything, including the remainder of the Bitcoin and including all but an emergency and retirement fund. I am now in a situation where I'm still forwarding 10% of donations here to the next GDQ but I'm keeping all but 10% of subs and bits revenue. My donation at AGDQ 2019 represents some of that non-TASVideos help, but also represents that I have a day job and gave part of the 10% I would normally donate to charity as part of that.
Please understand the complexity of the backdrop I've been working through and know that I in no way wanted to cause anyone to feel hurt about any donations they gave me at any point in years past or now. I used what cushion I had for AGDQ 2019 and I hope to rebuild that coffer through streaming / ad revenue but I may still need to ask for help for future events. I appreciate everyone's understanding of this complex situation and I ask that you handle this as-of-yet never revealed information with care. Thanks.
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Before I talk about AGDQ 2019 I want to pull back for a moment and post the most recent run we did from GDQx at TwitchCon 2018 as a useful point of comparison. The run is Item Abuse 3 by xHF01x with commentary by GlitchCat7 and contains tight TAS content, extremely well done commentary, a relaxed presentation and just the right amount of length to entertainment value. This is my take and as always everyone's tastes are different but feedback and sentiment across all mediums was generally aligned with a viewpoint that this was at least acceptably good content. You might want to (re)watch this 8 minute run and come back here when you're done.
Link to video
Now let's talk about AGDQ 2019 when compared and contrasted against that. At AGDQ 2019 we yet again found ourselves working to the last minute to get everything done, cutting content to have something hopefully functional to show and making tweaks 15 minutes before we walked on stage which is something many veterans of these events have had to endure on more than one occasion. We had issues with visualization that caused last minute scrambling, mostly due to my own ineptitude to prioritize it earlier in the week after I discovered the board had been damaged in shipping. Some people providing content could not show up until the day of but in part due to the aforementioned distractions we never managed to get through a proper rehearsal. One commentator didn't even show up to talk to us until a couple of hours before the event and declined to use our prepared commentary or do a rehearsal (granted, I didn't push the issue hard). We received a new run less than 24 hours before we were supposed to be on stage which left limited time to prepare commentary.
In short, we weren't ready. And the results are obvious.
Why were the two so different? Well, in part it's because I was talking to GlitchCat7 months before GDQx and we had a solid plan on how we were going to present that content. He put in the time to rehearse, and we had ample time to do multiple runthroughs with both of us present at the event prior to going live. In short, we were comfortable with the run and we were prepared, with the majority of the credit going to GlitchCat7 for doing the heavy lifting on commentary. AGDQ 2019 was, to put it mildly, not nearly as well organized. A lot of that had to do with the quick succession of doing SGDQ 2018, GDQx TwitchCon 2018, Bot Bash Charity Brawl 2018, MAGFest 2019, and AGDQ 2019 all in the same 6 month period (think about that for a second).
The time between when AGDQ 2019 submissions started and we had to have content ready at the event was shorter than the normal interval due to GDQx and on top of that we pivoted our content substantially during that time. This shorter interval stress was evident with Twitch staff as well; I alerted staff in early December that we would need to show voting on screen and everyone agreed it should happen but no one had time to do it, so what we ended up with for Super Scribblenauts was thrown together in the 48 hours prior to going on stage and no one realized the text was going to be too small because we never had an opportunity to test it. Prior to the event itself we had typical failures happen that set us back, ones I had attempted to prepare for such as allowing a fallback to the use of an emulator for Castlevania, but the combination of everything we were facing along with equipment being damaged in shipment led to quite a lot of challenges during the week of AGDQ 2019 itself. So, let me say this clearly:
I agree with the feedback in this thread and as a result I'm done doing GDQ events if we are not prepared for them.
In particular, micro500 is spot on. A lot of the things that were issues at AGDQ 2017 were just as evident this year and that can't happen again. Ever. And the number one issue that keeps cropping up is last minute scrambling. Every event I've tried to set progressively earlier deadlines, things like "OK, we need everything ready the week before the event" or "We need everything ready by the end of the year" but especially for AGDQ which happens in early January it never quite works out as well as we all intend because, frankly, we all want to spend time with our families over the holiday break. This is reasonable and should be the priority. Expecting it to change is naive. So I'm announcing a very major change for upcoming GDQ events:
From here on out, all GDQ content must be in a state ready to show to an audience before submissions open. Period.
That's right, not a month before the event, or when submissions close... when submissions *open*. Why am I as keeper of TASBot and organizer of these events so presumptuously requiring such a drastic change of everyone else?
Look, let's face it, these problems keep happening because we just never have enough time to rehearse, to make notes, to put together a proper credits list (mighty hard to do that when it keeps shifting in the days or even hours leading up to the event), to polish, to test at the event, etc. We should only be using the time at GDQ events to make sure the things we prepared off-site still work the way we expect them to and to practice in that environment. The time between submissions and GDQ events can definitely be used to polish what we've submitted but should remain substantially the same - I mean, common sense says that if someone discovers a 10 second save and there's low risk in accepting it a month before the event but after submissions we'll obviously take the 10 second improvement, but I'm done with doing that kind of stuff the day of the event. It has yet to work out well.
On the front end we need the week of submissions to refine the descriptions, ensure we have videos, and pitch what we have to offer. Sure, it's challenging to work hard to make something that may not get accepted and the reality is that a lot of what we've made wasn't (initially) accepted but we often find a use for it in the future.
Let's talk about one other thing, and that's content selection. We had somewhat deliberately drained out some content at SGDQ and GDQx to focus on new platform ideas. Some of those ideas didn't come to fruition, and when I solicited feedback on what runs to show we had reasonable suggestions such as Castlevania which was ultimately accepted. That run suffered from poor commentary (and being done on such an old version of VBA that it wouldn't even sync on a newer release of VBA let alone real hardware) and wasn't received well, but everyone was on board with it.
Sometimes we make content selections with the best intentions and, well, they don't pan out. A good example is PwnAdventureZ which is probably the second biggest flop after Ikaruga. Sometimes content just flat out isn't received as well as we'd like. Still, if those in the thread who have had as much to say about content selection during the feedback stages after the event had provided said guidance during the content selection phase we possibly would have gone in a different direction. Note, however, that not everyone hated everything we did - despite the mixed to negative feedback here and on Reddit we still had positive coverage of this event.
I'm still open to specific critique. I haven't covered everything despite the length of this post and if there's something you feel I'm glossing over or if there's a particular aspect you feel I'm not addressing directly enough please speak up. I can say, however, that TASVideos forums has clearly not been a place where people have stepped up to help. Dacicus did post in the thread but it really seems like most of TASVideos just sort of ignored this event. Heck, it's clear there's fatigue on the financial side too as I'm still $2,325 short of my funding goals (I haven't added up all expenses to find out exact numbers but my estimate wasn't far off). The point is, TASVideos just isn't as excited at working on this. Compare the activity in the earlier events - we're at the 5 year mark now and interest has waned. I'm not saying I'm giving up or that I'm deadset on skipping an event or two but I can tell you that I'm currently pushing to potentially skip AGDQ 2020 unless content is created specifically for it and unless there are champions who are willing to get it done by September. I just have to be realistic about where we're at.
In summary, I want to do less, better. We shine when we polish what we do. We shine when we have good commentary, and that comes from having the time and space to rehearse. The only way to have that is to create a culture where sweating out the small details is important, and I think that's something that is absolutely feasible for a site like TASVideos where we care about saving every frame we can. Let's pick ourselves up, learn from what wasn't perfect, and make it better for whenever and whatever the next event is.
Since it hasn't been updated in a while and because the vast majority of the users can't post to it I think it's probably better to keep this thread (assuming normal users can reply to this thread which I think they can).
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I'm not yet sure if this is a good idea or not but I'd like to know what news articles people spotted in the wild in 2018 discussing TASVideos (or TASing in general). I've found that sometimes articles aren't easily found in searches. Here's one that's not specifically TASVideos oriented but definitely touched on work done by members here including Omnigamer:
Remember Dragster? This is what the actual NHRA community thought of the Todd Rogers fiasco: https://www.nhra.com/news/2018/long-standing-dragster-video-game-guinness-world-record-invalidated
What's your favorite TAS related article of late?
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Have you ever wanted to make your own TAS but found the process daunting? In this video, I guide Sand_Knight through everything from the basics of creating a Tool-Assisted Speedrun movie file to using frame advance and other tools like TAS Editor within FCEUX. This is also a good overview of various techniques used to route a game and test a game's mechanics.
Basics like performing a binary search are included as well as a deep dive of various topics such as a demonstration on how to recover from accidentally advancing more frames than you intended to before making a savestate. At the end the different techniques we used get put to the test in a head-to-head comparison of who had the fastest time.
Link to video
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Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007
We've made some really good progress on at least one front, thanks to some really hard work by the entire Super Scribblenauts team (which has now grown to the point that I honestly don't know who is even on it, a new first for me in delegation but I digress). We've made reasonable progress on Castlevania thanks to taters hunting down commentary from a handful of sources which is critical to make up for the fact that console verification has completely failed and we're falling back to playing it in an emulator. We're solid on libTAS assuming my tests go smoothly in the next couple of days.
On the MAGFest front we're unconfirmed on whether or not Weatherton can be there to provide commentary for MK64 but I'm likely going to get him a badge either way. We have a copy of Rockman 3 and it looks like we have folks on site for commentary so that's good. I'm way behind on slides for the talk as I'm adapting the panel from previous presentations and I'm also really concerned that I won't have enough time after I arrive to properly set up the video path. If anyone will be at MAGFest and can help out the first day I'd definitely appreciate it.
In general there are a lot of things that still need to be done. If you want to help out please come to #tasbot on Freenode IRC or Discord.TASBot.net and we'll put you to use. Even if you don't think you have skills there's always things that need to be written up. If you don't have time or don't think you have anything to contribute skills wise I could definitely still use help with paying for the trip, I've received $175 in donations against $2.5k in AGDQ 2019 and related expenses. There's a link in my signature if you're willing.
Thanks for all the help (especially from folks who have been on the Discord server) and here's to another great GDQ!
