Post subject: [SUGGESTION] Regular Site Events
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2241)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
So I love the idea of site events such as the Dream Team Contests and the recent massive success that was the SGDQ Speed TAS Race. Ever since the last DTC, I've been entertaining a few ideas about doing these a little more regularly, and now that we have an influx of new members I think it's about time to put these ideas out for people to reject. The Main Idea Put together a small group of trusted community members to be dedicated event planners and possibly submission judges, who put together and run things like DTCs, speed TASes, and potentially other events on a regular basis.
    * Events can be done more regularly due to these people being able to dedicate more time to planning * Regular events will bring in new members and give current members opportunities to start or return to TASing; More people means more content, more ideas, more of everything we like to see * Deeper planning can lead to greater successes with more widespread events; This group can also coordinate and work with GDQ presenters to ensure that much larger events go well even with several hundred potential submissions
Being extremely trustworthy, funny, active, and most of all humble and selfless, should this idea come into fruition I volunteer to be part of this planning group. Fun as these events are, I ultimately think I'd be more suited for a planning role rather than a participation role. It'd be less stressful and more rewarding for me. Mainstay Events The OGs (Original... Gevents)
    * Dream Team Contests: Of course, we have to keep the mainstay event of the forums. TASers sign up, get put into teams, and have just 1-2 months to make the best movie they can. The winners submit their run to the site, where it most likely gets published. * Speed TAS Races: And of course, we also have to keep the most successful site events thus far. Open to the general public, people have a short but set amount of time to create the most optimized TAS they can. Fastest time wins. What do they win? Who knows. We'll figure that out later.
Ideas For New Events? I believe that variety is the spice of life, though they're usually out of variety at my local supermarket so I have to sprinkle paprika and chili powder on my board games. DTCs and Speed TASing are probably all that would be needed to keep a steady (but spaced out) stream of events going, but are there other ideas out there to keep things interesting? I had a couple ideas for something like a mentoring event that matches up new members and first time TASers to experienced, long-time members with lots of TASing experience under their belt, or something like that POVERTY April Fools' submission where a movie file is passed around and one person works on each section, but those would need to be fleshed out a little more before I consider them to be workable. Could we get by with just 2 alternating events or would people want to switch things up every now and then? Event Schedules? So the schedule is probably the hardest part next to finding decent games, as we'd need to find a good balance between doing lots of events to keep things moving, but not so many as to burn people out or run out of games to do. Example Schedule WIP
January-February: DTC - Announce competition at AGDQ, take signups from previous december through AGDQ, begin mid-January and end before March
March-April: Break months
May: Speed TAS competition
June: Collect DTC sign-ups, break month
July-August: Summer DTC?
September-October: Break months
November: Speed TAS competition
December: Collect DTC sign-ups, break month
Trying not to have too many events, but enough to keep things busy. Adjusting the time to make things work for as many people as possible while getting some GDQ integration going as well... Welp, I don't want this post to get too long, so... Any feedback on my (par for the course) disjointed and confusing ideas?
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
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I fear that if we organize too many events too frequently, they will lose that something that makes them interesting and exciting. If you eat some delicious exotic food once a year, it remains exotic and exciting, but if you eat it twice a week, it quickly becomes boring and tasteless. Anyway, when reading your post, for some reason the yearly TAS awards came to mind, somehow. I'm wondering if they could be somehow merged with this (and perhaps expanded somehow).
Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2631
What do they win? Who knows. We'll figure that out later.
How about a trophy for your profile, like the yearly TASing awards?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2241)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
Yeah, I'm starting to agree that there might be too many events, and the timing in that example schedule is a little off. I think my justification was that Speed TASes are no longer than a day, so it's "safer" to have them more often. I could still see two DTCs a year, though, with 6-8 week time limits and a long amount of downtime in-between with a potential Speed TAS race thrown in there just to keep things moving steadily. I was thinking of signature trophies for a reward as well. As long as it doesn't get too cluttered (i.e, tons of people end up with Masterjun-level amounts of trophies in their sigs), that's probably the best way to go about it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Editor, Experienced player (854)
Joined: 5/2/2015
Posts: 696
Location: France
Going to share my thoughts about this topic.. It's been a long time since the last Speed TAS competition, and looking back, I feel that the events are not only a great way to advertise the community (in the Speed TAS' case, at GDQs) but also a great way to fully bring the community toghether. The last (and first!) event I participated to was the SGDQ TAS race, and it was truly something exciting, tense and competitive; the polar opposite of TASing itself, which is slow and carefully routed. Yet, both of these still have the incredible feeling of satisfaction at the end. It was a great event for also the fact that it brought veterans and newbies alike. Seeing the IRC channel suddently gain 40 newcomers, the chat united in breaking of Streemerz, was something exciting to see. Newbies and veterans stood on the same starting ground, and it was both an thrilling race for veterans and introducted very well newbies to TASing. To sum up, if site events are going to be more frequent, I'm personally going to vouch for the races being more frequent (biannual would be perfect, maybe triannual, but I'm feeling that's way too much). DTCs can be kept yearly.
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2241)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
I have a good feeling that the Speed TAS Competition will be coming back for AGDQ, which should see the same results as the SGDQ competition (lots of newcomers and participation, naturally). There will also be a more low-key, site-specific SpeedTAS coming soon, I've just been rather busy as of late and haven't completely finished my part of it. I should probably do that, shouldn't I? Yeah. Yeah, maybe.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Joined: 10/23/2009
Posts: 545
Location: Where?
I'd love to see some speed TASes competition. But for prizes of competition, well... Maybe just a mention somewhere?