Topic by Nach

Posted: 9/17/2014 2:02 PM

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

I wouldn't mind getting a proper copy of Red Alert 3.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 9/17/2014 5:59 PM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Though it was probably best to not pick Final Fantasy for AGDQ, I am going to finish the console verification run so we can put the video up here. I am offering the names in the console playback movie as a fundraiser for dwangoAC. Once you pick the names in the beginning of Final Fantasy there is no effect on the timing of the rest of the game, so anything is fair game. I already have scripts that can generate the controller input to enter any name. I'm not sure what the best scheme would be though. It could be a donation war where the highest bidder gets to pick the names. Or it could be a raffle where some amount gives you a chance to pick one of the four names. There should be some way to let past donators in. At any rate, here is my idea. I'll finish the run in a couple weeks or so. I'll put together a package with instructions and a setup script similar to what true was able to run with so anyone with a bot can make the video. Then we'll announce the fundraiser and give at least a week or two for entries. We'll post the winning names and the setup package and then make the video. If there is interest, we may be able to stream it live. dwangoAC had been preparing to set this up and if he does it then I could easily be present.

Posted: 9/17/2014 9:06 PM

Post subject: Re: I'm gifting games to donors!

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NESAtlas

He/Him

Player (56)

Joined: 7/4/2010
Posts: 114
Location: Gales Ferry, CT

dwangoAC wrote:

...so if there's something that interests you just let me know!

That's so kind of you! I'll take Antichamber for Steam if it's still available.

http://youtube.com/NESAtlas

Posted: 9/17/2014 9:16 PM

Post subject: Re: I'm gifting games to donors!

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

AndyDick wrote:

dwangoAC wrote:
...so if there's something that interests you just let me know!
That's so kind of you! I'll take Antichamber for Steam if it's still available.

It's something I can do to say thank you. I've sent you a PM with the Steam gift link. Enjoy! Edit: I haven't ignored Nach; the Red Alert 3 code is on Origin and he wasn't particularly interested. I'd definitely offer site admins their pick of a game even if they don't donate, though!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/25/2014 7:21 AM

Post subject: A truly staggering donation came in

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

I am jaw-droppingly shocked by the donation that came in today from a fellow TASVideos member. The member opted to remain anonymous despite my offer to promote a business or cause of their choosing, but I'll let them come out of the woodwork if they so choose. The amount was enough that I'm removing my signature as promised. I am, however, leaving this thread open and giving people the option to donate if they so choose, with all of my commitments intact. The reason I'm doing this is I just spent the last couple of hours pricing out flights and it would appear that even the cheapest, non-cancelable airfaire from OAK or SFO to IAD or DCA for either non-stop or multi-hop solutions on the days I have to travel is a lot more than I was anticipating, far higher than it was last year (possibly due to being so close to new year's?). I'll continue to search for lower airfare but at the moment it would appear that my travel cost estimate was regrettably a bit low. If you do decide to donate I'll add your name to the list and offer you your choice of giftable games I have available. Thanks, donors!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/25/2014 11:30 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Are other forms of travel completely out of the question?

Posted: 9/25/2014 11:45 PM

Post subject: Travel methods - any suggestions?

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

Warp wrote:

Are other forms of travel completely out of the question?

Other forms of travel are definitely not out of the question - in fact, we drove to Colorado last year and then flew from there in January for AGDQ 2014. We live in Petaluma, CA and we have two children who need to stay with grandparents in the Denver area while we are in Washington, DC. We're very flexible on what days we can fly and we're assuming it will be cheaper to combine travel with our existing Christmas travel plans to Denver. To that end, here's what we're thinking: - Two adults and two children traveling from OAK, SFO, or STS to DEN on 2014-12-23 (or +/- 1 day) - Two adults traveling from DEN to either IAD or DCA on 2015-01-03 (or - 1-2 days with a $100 per night hotel cost) - One adult (my wife) traveling from IAD or DCA to DEN on 2015-01-11 (or +1 day with a $100 per night hotel cost) - One adult (myself) traveling from IAD or DCA to OAK, SFO, or STS on 2015-01-11 (or +1 day with a $100 per night hotel cost) - One adult (my wife) and two children traveling from DEN to OAK, SFO, or STS on 2015-01-18 +/- 5 days (we're willing and able to be extremely flexible on this leg to keep costs down) We're willing to book unrefundable travel, we are willing to travel on any airline or mix of airlines from a variety of airports, we're willing to take indirect hops with layovers, and we're willing to take late-night flights (although less so on the flights with the kids :). We're even willing to drive from California to Colorado if it helps as that's what we did last year but we're not certain that's the best choice once fuel and hotel costs are factored in. The most expensive leg is getting to Washington, DC around the 3rd, because it's right after New Year's. The return flight out of Washington, DC is extremely affordable from the prices I've seen so far, so if I can figure out a way to get the rest of the trip to be a bit more reasonable I should be in good shape. A co-worker of mine mentioned that there is a website somewhere that shows the liklihood that a given flight's ticket price will reduce in cost in future weeks and will notify you if a flight changes price but he couldn't remember the name of the site. If anyone knows what this might be please let me know. Thanks!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/25/2014 11:46 PM

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TheAxeMan

Ambassador, Experienced player (697)

Joined: 7/17/2004
Posts: 985
Location: The FLOATING CASTLE

Warp: Yes. It is 2800 miles from here! Driving it could be cheaper if you have a fuel-efficient car but it would be a four day drive in the nastiest weather of the year. Even once you get past the mountains sleet or freezing rain could happen anywhere. Passenger rail and long-distance bus would probably take longer due to transfers and would not be particularly safe.

Posted: 9/25/2014 11:57 PM

Post subject: Actually, Amtrak is reasonably safe, but very slow

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

TheAxeMan wrote:

Warp: Yes. It is 2800 miles from here! Driving it could be cheaper if you have a fuel-efficient car but it would be a four day drive in the nastiest weather of the year. Even once you get past the mountains sleet or freezing rain could happen anywhere. Passenger rail and long-distance bus would probably take longer due to transfers and would not be particularly safe.

I'll second this. We've taken the drive from California to Colorado a number of times but we've also had years where it was absolutely miserable and we were delayed by a couple of days due to bad weather. The worst was when our transmission failed going over the Sierra Nevadas and we had to spend the night at the top of Donner pass because the tow truck coming to get us got stuck in the snow (we were prepared with a couple gallons of water and enough food in the car for several days, but I digress). Amtrak is actually fairly nice - we've taken Amtrak to Denver when our son was very young and overall it's not bad. I separately took Amtrak from Colorado to New Jersey and stopped in Chicago to contribute to this article on Stern Pinball's Monopoly when it first came out. Having said that, it takes a day and a half to get from California to Colorado, more than a day to get from Colorado to Chicago, and another day and a half to get from Chicago to New Jersey, and by the time you've done all of that you've burned through so much food on the train (not to mention so many days off of work) that it just doesn't add up to any real savings. Rail travel in North America leaves a lot to be desired.

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 9/26/2014 8:14 AM

Post subject: Re: Actually, Amtrak is reasonably safe, but very slow

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

dwangoAC wrote:

The worst was when our transmission failed going over the Sierra Nevadas and we had to spend the night at the top of Donner pass because the tow truck coming to get us got stuck in the snow (we were prepared with a couple gallons of water and enough food in the car for several days, but I digress).

I hope it wasn't human... ;)

Posted: 9/27/2014 3:21 PM

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BigBoct

He/Him

Editor, Former player

Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH

I do a lot with the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game; I play every so often, but I also keep up on card interactions and game mechanic interactions, so I can volunteer to judge at events in my area. A childhood friend of my cousins by my mom's brother, whom I got to know better through Yu-Gi-Oh!, has survived Hodgkin's lymphoma. My mom's father also recently (in the last few years) reached the point where he'd outlived his leukemia diagnosis. I recently sold my old car for a decent sum considering the age of the car and the repairs it needed; once I get my next paycheck (next Friday), I'll see what I can spare. As I've said on IRC, though, I only have Paypal.

Previous Name: boct1584

Posted: 10/1/2014 7:13 AM

Post subject: Airfare purchased, travel cost updates of interest

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

I think transparency is a good thing, so I'm going to be very thorough in recording our real costs so others who want to travel to AGDQ can get an idea of what kind of expenses to expect. After doing tons of cheap airfare searching on everything from Kayak to Expedia to Southwest's page I found the best prices by going with Southwest Airlines and buying on a Tuesday (today). It was tricky to deduce this - for instance, Frontier shows a lower flight cost but has extremely high baggage fees that wipe out any actual savings ($25 for the first carry-on and $20 for the first checked bag; we'll need at least one extra bag for TASBot and other hardware which added up to the same or more than Southwest's prices). Also, many of the flights that Kayak offered would have required staying an extra day at the hotel to get the better prices which offset any benefit. Taking into account just getting myself from OAK to IAD and back my round-trip costs were $615.80. Southwest calculated this as $157.10 from OAK to DEN and $268.10 from DEN to IAD, arriving on Saturday, January 3rd at 10:50 PM EST with a January 11th return flight for $168.10 from IAD to DEN and $22.50 from DEN to OAK (with the last segment being extremely cheap due to taking advantage of their "ripe for the picking" sale). My wife's travel costs were nearly identical but we weren't able to take advantage of the sale price so her return flight from DEN to OAK was $136.10 meaning her fare was $728.70, bringing our total AGDQ related airfare costs to $1,343.80 (with the most expensive segment by far being January 3rd from DEN to IAD at a cost of $536.20 alone). It's always possible that our airfare could have been cheaper had I waited, but this is risky because we're traveling around the time of a major holiday. The general advice is to purchase tickets 54 days in advance but to error on the side of buying too early rather than too late which is more or less the case here. Inevitably, a cheaper option will show up in the next few weeks and we'll be kicking ourselves, but it'd be an interesting experiment to price out the same flights the day before we travel and see exactly how expensive it would turn out to be. :) Moving on, the hotel cost will be $800 + a 12% tax of $96. The conference fees are still in flux but $100 is probably a good guess for two people. Other costs for food and tolls will probably be around $200 again. That comes up to a total of $2,539 meaning I was off by ~$400 or so. Part of the reason for this is when I was doing my initial math I was only counting the cost of getting from Denver to Washington (because we drove to Colorado), but it turns out that driving from California to Colorado was actually pretty darned expensive, not to mention time consuming. The numbers tell an interesting story - our Denver to Washington costs for airfare last year were $899.60 while the same legs this year add up to $872.40 meaning we actually got a better deal this time around. So, all that to say I'm looking at a shortfall of $400 but I'm also totally willing to take that on myself. I'll gladly accept any donations that come in but it's my fault I'm short-sighted on not accounting for the higher airfare. :) I now have the airfare out of the way and the tickets purchased so I can focus on actual marathon prep work - thanks for those who have shown an interest and please let me know if you have questions about how I did the math on all of this. Thanks!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 10/16/2014 3:23 PM

Post subject: ...and our trip is funded!

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

The generosity of this community has been amazing - as of now, our trip is fully funded, our tickets are purchased, and we're underway preparing for AGDQ 2015. Thank you to everyone who donated! Any other donations we receive will go to offset hardware costs (for things like the reset solenoid development and possible TASBot props if I can get things going on that front) as well as console verification games. As promised, we'll be donating forward 10% of the donations we've received and I'll post an update on how that all works out. Again, thank you to everyone!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 10/23/2014 7:30 AM

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Invariel

He/Him

Editor, Site Developer, Player (169)

Joined: 8/11/2011
Posts: 539
Location: Toronto, Ontario

That's spectacular news. Have a great time at AGDQ 2015; I'm sure people will be watching you on-stream.

I am still the wizard that did it. "On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer." -- Satoru Iwata <scrimpy> at least I now know where every map, energy and save room in this game is

Posted: 11/12/2014 12:57 AM

Post subject: Flight cost on 10-22: $1,343.80; cost on 11-14: $1,982.80

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

They say that the cheapest day to buy airfare is 54 days before the flight, and we're right around that time now, so I re-ran the numbers. It doesn't look pretty. Even adjusting for the cheapest possible flight times, the OAK to IAD and back round-trip costs went from $728.70 to $749.90, but staying on the exact same flights that wouldn't involve awkward travel times comes out to $991.40 per person, although oddly the flight number on the segment returning from DEN to OAK did not appear in the list as if it were completely sold out so I had to pick the next closest flight time. The punchline is that we spent $1,343.80 when we purchased our airfare on 2014-10-22; booking the exact same flights today (54 days before the flight, the "ideal" time to purchase airfare according to cheapair.com) comes up to $1,982.80, meaning we saved $639 by buying earlier. As a disclaimer, it's always possible that other airlines other than Southwest have reduced their fares but it would appear that if you're flying near a holiday it's better to book earlier rather than later. We are stoked for the opportunity to go represent TASVideos and I'll be sure to do a postmortem on our costs. As always, I hope this information is of use to someone!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 11/12/2014 1:02 AM

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Zanoab

Joined: 12/31/2009
Posts: 174

Did you clear your cookies and cache? Sites tend to notice returning potential customers and would adjust prices under the assumption you have to buy a ticket.

Posted: 11/12/2014 1:04 AM

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

Zanoab wrote:

Did you clear your cookies and cache? Sites tend to notice returning potential customers and would adjust prices under the assumption you have to buy a ticket.

I tend to use a private browsing / incognito window for exactly that reason. Luckily, Southwest seems to not play those games as far as I can tell. It's definitely a fair point when dealing with the discount ticket sites, though!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 2/23/2015 5:18 PM

Post subject: AGDQ 2015 post-trip expenses review

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dwangoAC

Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (898)

Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1007

As promised, here's a quick post showing our actual AGDQ costs compared to my projections: AGDQ 2015 fee: $100 (projected $100 / a difference of $0) Airfare: $1,343.80 (projected: $1,343.80 / a difference of -$0) Accommodations: $887.79 (Projected: $896 / a difference of -$8.21) Dining out: $299.92 (Projected: $150 / a difference of +$149.92) Groceries: $55.20 (Projected: $50 / a difference of +$5.20) Total: $2,686.71 (Projected: $2,539.80 / a difference of +$146.91) Charitable giving: $175.50 (Projected: $253.98 / a difference of -$78.48) Here's the same data in .CSV format:

Expense,          Actual, Projected, Difference
AGDQ 2015 fee,   $100.00,   $100.00,     -$0.00
Airfare,        $1343.80,  $1343.80,     -$0.00
Accommodations,  $887.79,   $896.00,     -$8.21
Dining out,      $299.92,   $150.00,   +$149.92
Groceries,        $55.20,    $50.00,     +$5.20
Total,          $2686.71,  $2539.80,   +$146.91

Giving,          $175.50,   $253.98,    -$78.48

A few points of interest: We did a good job of estimating travel and accommodations costs but overshot on dining out and didn't quite donate as much as we thought we did. Having said that, a fair portion of our dining out expenses was providing food for people who volunteered to help us out (including micro500 and Tompa, and we also ate with Zoast and Vulajin with shared bills), so if people are willing to be generous and allow us to allocate ~$100 of our overage in dining out as giving we're fairly close to where we would want to be. I'm overall happy with how our budget turned out for this year, but I hope this goes to show you what kind of costs to expect if you want to attend an AGDQ of your own. Please feel free to ask any questions you have about the data here or our experiences. Once again, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who donated - it wouldn't have been possible to do this without you!

I was laid off in May 2023 and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as I work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD. I'm dwangoAC, part of the senior staff of TASVideos as the Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.

Posted: 6/4/2015 10:35 AM

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Pokota

He/Him

Joined: 2/5/2014
Posts: 779

It's the airfare that kills it for me - I'd have to spend basically five weeks' pay on going, and with half of that being one thing I'd never work up the desire to do that. Still, once my bills for the month get resolved, expect a chunk from me.

Adventures in Lua When did I get a vest?