Yeah man we got pretty *****, we were only prepared for 2 games really and even with those there were some pretty bad goofs. No johns though, we'll just have to learn our lesson and get @ y'all next year. We were just straight unprepared and it showed. That said, it was loads of fun, especially (ironically?) TP.
I might as well use this post to make a writeup on the event for our side, sorry but this'll be a wall of text.
Even though we got ***** I'm actually still pretty pleased with how we did, if you assume we didn't make MM impossible for ourselves we still would have finished with about 7-8 hours to spare, much faster than the US team's first year and comparable to their second. Gords really came through here and made that possible. <3
I can't speak for the others but as far as my OOT performance goes I am very pleased with how I handled all the potentially run-ending goofs, quick thinking and willingness to bite bullets definitely saved me multiple times and despite several serious goofs I still managed a decent time. I got very unlucky with some things (early chus), very lucky with others (forest temple hoverslide), and in general I felt very consistent with the things I didn't consider "the hard stuff". I should probably thank the others for taking over a few times for some minor things, especially Zero.
Anyway, final times for us:
Twilight Princess -- 16:44:10
The Wind Waker -- 08:35:00
Majora's Mask -- Roughly 9h 30m but couldn't finish
Ocarina of Time -- 07:58:31
Finished with roughly 7h 30m to spare, probably could have reattempted MM with a safer route but Zero had a whinge about wanting to play smash lol.
Aside from the videogames aspect of this, I actually learned quite a lot (especially the leadership aspect), and it was exactly the experience needed for the Metroid marathon we'll be doing later.
-- I learned that it's extremely important to organise everything as early as possible, get players to mark their diaries and tell their family to make sure nothing comes up, and stay on top of the venue situation; we almost cancelled right at the last second because of poor organising, and two games didn't have concrete players. Not taking care to check up on and cater to players meant TP got shafted. Twice.
-- Practice early and often: slightly related to the first, Tom had no time to practice MM properly because poor organisation meant he got assigned the game with only 1-2 weeks to prepare, as a result MM performance was on par with that of TP, i.e. everyone had a go and nobody really knew what they were meant to be doing. My OOT experience afforded us a few extra options in terms of tricks but ultimately our hands were tied. In addition, because I didn't practice OOT properly until a week beforehand, I was unprepare for the last couple of dungeons and had to wing a route and cut out some planned tricks.
-- Make sure the technical aspects are sorted out well beforehand. This means making sure any web-related stuff is sorted out and ready to go. It means making sure the streaming situation is figured out and you know how to deal with any situation that might come up, and making sure the equipment plays nice. Two of our games were in black and white because my equipment can't handle PAL signals very well. This could have been solved ahead of time if I'd downloaded the NTSC versions of those games and run them with GC Backup Launcher.
-- Manage sleep. In addition to game performance, this also directly affects the quality of the logging and the active monitoring of streaming. Drug players if necessary.
And finally, some shoutouts:
The Coleman Household -- Thanks for everything, your hospitality and willingness to deal with our needs made this a very pleasant experience. Providing food and drinks while we played relieved a pretty major concern of mine.
Zero -- I feel kinda bad for insisting we still do this (and at your house) even though you obviously didn't feel it was worth it beforehand, but at the same time I feel it was worth it and we all had a good time. So thanks for putting up with my stubbornness, and also thanks for covering for me when I needed it during my run.
Summoner -- Sorry for making you learn the game so late, you did pretty well considering. And thanks for being willing to do MM on the spot when I said I needed sleep before OOT, even though I never made that plan clear to you. Anyway, next time, get some sleep or ima drug your ***.
Gords -- Holy **** dude, despite the minor setbacks you ***** TWW, Perth had so much salt to go with their jelly. And thanks for dealing with my many unreasonable demands leading up to this, it helped a lot to make this the success it was. Thank your mum for me too.
Perth -- Thanks for ****** us. No, really. It makes our mistakes that much more meaningful, prepare for a challenge next year.
Here's to next year, boys. Let's rock the Metroid marathon.
