[flying fox]

So 23 people voted for yes to bring back Race Nights, which we did. Two weeks have gone by and despite 23 people voting, I have not seen the two races we had so far even hit double figures. Obviously something is wrong when 10 people vote for a race and only 3 people raced it >_>

Basically this topic is for finding out why people are voting but not turning up? what other problems are there? and what would you like to see?

Seeing 23 people vote for it to come back, surely there is some interest in it. So let's try and fix this!

[DarkAura]

I voted to bring this back.. But I only voted for when I could participate, because I am getting a laptop for my birthday. I will participate, don't get me wrong, but I have no ways of doing so now. I tried to come and watch, but the server doesn't like the ipad (D8)

[bertin]

An idea I would like to propose would be holding the goal voting to the people who show up in the race channel and have already entered the race.

[Cream147]

I'm glad this post has been made, because this is something that needs addressing, as I believe that TRN should be an important part of the revitalisation of this website, yet it's getting very little turnout.

Now, in the poll for which team was to be raced in Sonic Heroes, which was only for people who would be participating in the race, 15 people voted. 15 would have been a very respectable turnout for the race, we certainly couldn't have complained about that. Now of course, there were probably a couple of people who didn't realise to not vote, and then there were probably a couple who voted and then stuff came up and so they couldn't race, which is understandable. Still, to only get 20% turnout of those voters is just rubbish. I'd like to know why these people specifically didn't race this weekend.

My proposition is that this weekend we should race Sonic 2. Now we can vote on this and be democratic, I'm just proposing Sonic 2 because I know that Sonic 2 is probably the most universally loved Sonic game, and surely 95%+ of us here have it. And then I think that as many of us as possible should make the effort to race it. If the problem is with the time, then we can sort that, though I'm not so sure it is.

It's really easy to join the race, just follow the instructions that are currently sitting on the home page and you'll be fine. You can ask for help if you need any. Streaming is non-essential if you're not playing on an emulator, though preferable just so there's no disputing your performance (and easy to do if you are using an emulator).

Hopefully a mass race will help people get motivated about this idea of TRN, and if it's a reasonable amount of people it may make a reasonable splash at speedrunslive, who might then discover this website that they didn't know about before. A little influx of new members wouldn't go amiss here, but a 3-man Sonic Heroes race (which became 1 man) is not going to do that.

Everything here is just suggestions - I hold no authority whatsoever. This is just my idea about how to move TRN forwards. If we're going to get anything out of this, we're going to have to put some in.

tl;dr - READ IT YA LAZY FOOL

[Inuyasha]

Shown up in the channel yes, but being actually required to enter the race in order to vote? No please.

Some people may only be able to do short goals; if they're forced to enter and then a long goal gets chosen they're pretty much SOL.

[Cream147]

Shown up in the channel yes, but being actually required to enter the race in order to vote? No please.

Some people may only be able to do short goals; if they're forced to enter and then a long goal gets chosen they're pretty much SOL.

When all 4 of the choices are long goals as they were this weekend however, then I think that yes, if you vote, you should vote with the intention to race. EDIT: So yes, I agree with bertin

Incidentally, this is another point I have in favour of Sonic 2 - it's short. Even someone like me, and I certainly don't specialise in Sonic 2 at all, knowing none of the paths or anything, should expect to get through it within an hour I would've thought (I'll probably prove myself wrong now!)

Also, these race nights are meant to be long goals, such as game completions, hence making them worth double points in the TRN 247 system. However, if this is why we aren't getting great turnout, then people should say.

[Shadow Jacky]

if anything you guys can try shorter goals since I remember longer sets used to turn people away (both sonic mini-marathon races).  it always seems when trying for such a lengthy set, hype comes through until the reality sets in for those wanting to participate.

s3k was a nice start since I'm surprised even that many entered and it being glitchless to try for balance.  now I'm not all for keeping all races glitchless though because even that can be a turnoff to some.  now for this week, I'm sorry, but it's heroes for crying out loud.  it was either going to be a low turnout or a lot of quits.

now here's the thing, as for participants, who are we aiming for?  if it's tsc locals, then that's going to be an issue.  most here don't have it in them to race a full game for various reasons.  another problem was some that takes this too seriously.  as soon as something doesn't go their way, it's a quit.  we have all of these members, yet most are still reluctant to even come in the irc chatroom.  that's just from us, but what about any outsiders?  I never asked this, but are they welcome to join as well?  to me, it wouldn't hurt at this point.

this might just be me, but how about more higher ups getting in if they're around.  yes, having a judge of sorts to pay attention to what's going on is helpful, but if there's more than 1 around, how about entering the races just because.  numbers do mean something and it does catch the attention of anyone around tsc and srl.

I had some other things on my mind, but I'm drawing a black.

[Cream147]

I agree with SJ on two points in particular. We should allow people to enter not just from TSC. I was under the impression that this was probably the case already, but we should clarify it. By allowing 'outsiders' to join they may become TSC members anyway potentially.

I also think that higher ups should join if they can. Numbers are indeed important, and as SJ and I have both mentioned, big numbers are more likely to attract the attention of people at SRL, which can only be positive for us. If we can get 20+ people to race, then I think people are going to be interested. (I'm not saying 20 should be our goal every weekend, that's unrealistic, but if we can get at least one weekend with 20 that would be great). I believe this to be within the capacity of the website but maybe I'm just delusional.

[werster]

The topics been made, people should actually be posting their concerns, criticisms, opinions, and things that have gone well. As such, time for me to post...

Yeah, I'm not doing these anymore. The time sucks for me, but I was still willing to throw out my sleep schedule for a day to add one more to the numbers. Due to other shit going on yesterday, I had to stay up for a full 26 or so hours to participate, and really needed to stay up for another 7 after that because I had stuff lined up for a few hours after the race.

To see only 2 other people show up got me real mad, and I lost all motivation to even race and ended up falling asleep with controller in hand. Meaning I also missed something that was probably more important, and woke up even more mad. All these people not reading when the race actually is, coming up with a bunch of johns, and being involved and simply not racing is always going to get something like this to fail. If you aren't racing, how can you expect others to race? And before anyone takes this the wrong way, this is directed to every single person who voted or posted positively and didn't race.

It really does piss me off that ya'll will sit here and try to hype something up and then not even bother racing yourself. Someone has got to be the person who enters a race with 2 people, so the 4th person will think to enter, and the 5th. It really isn't about racing, it's about doing something to get TSC together. I'm sick of relying on other people, but ya'll but start talking the talk, I personally found it very inconsiderate that Hypersonic and Sonicboom were the only ones to really show up.

Oh, and no one even bothered to reply to me about the time change, which I'm 100% certain would've had more than 3 people in the race if it was moved an hour forward. Think about that in the future too.

tl;dr I can not stand fence sitters, and I despise people that can't keep their word, and I'm done.

Oh, and I'd also like to give my utmost gratitude and apologies to Hypersonic and Sonicboom, because without you I probably would've broken something quite valuable last night. Sorry I didn't finish the race, Hyper =(

[DarkAura]

Also, maybe posting other topics for majority of the sonic games would be smart, since I want to race other people as soon as I get a computer. And from the looks of things, Sonic 06 will never be raced.... It's my best game for speedrunning...

EDIT: Just wanted to add, I went "lolfail" as soon as I saw how many people competed in Heroes.

[Thorn]

As the race nights are at a time that I will be working every week, I will never be able to get involved. I'm posting here with respect to the hype and lack of participation because we already had this happen with the TSC Marathon. I think the question runs deeper than why people didn't show up for one particular event: the actual question is "why are members trying to encourage group activity when they can't or won't actually participate?", not "what is wrong with Race Night?". I'd like to see people answer THAT in this topic, as I think any answers about Race Night will only apply to individuals (such as my first sentence).

[DarkAura]

Thorn brings up a decent point. I do encourage this, but I can't join (yet).

[Cream147]

I feel I should quickly justify my position for the record, as I have recently come back and strongly advocated all group activity, and yet I have not participated in either race night. S3K, I was moving into university on that day so I was too busy unpacking to race that evening. For Heroes, I simply haven't brought my PS2 or Heroes with me here, so I couldn't race it. That said, I 100% commit to racing SA2 in 2 weeks time (and indeed thoroughly look forward to doing so). I encourage other people to state their intention to race SA2 as well, so that we can have a better idea of numbers and whether the interest is there this time.

[DarkAura]

I can do emulated games. Sadly, I have a birthday dinner I'm making for myself (lolnofriends) on the SA2 race night, so I can't come. And yes, it is on the exact same day as my birthday.

[Proxima]

I apologise again for turning up late for the S3K race; it took me a while to set up IRC (which, I know, I should have made sure of in advance). I'll definitely join a Sonic 2 race if one takes place.

[sonikkusama]

if it hasn't been said yet i think race night totes needs to be rescheduled for thorn participation. the beast attracts all kinds of participation.

[Werey]

I think FF should try her best to compete too, as she was the one organising it and ofc, it'd look better.
From now on though I should be able to race everynight providing I have the game in question. Regarding sa2b race night, I'll DEFINATLY be there. Best goal options would be beating a set of stages for a character, or beating a single story.

[Parax]

Maybe we should move to Friday or Sunday.

As for lack of participation: personally? I don't feel that racing is really my thing. I don't usually terribly enjoy it even when it's a game I actually know and am good at. So when both the games picked are ones I barely know at all, go figure I'm not all that interested. But that's just me, and there's plenty of people around who feel differently, and I'd love to see TSC do more things as a community, so of course I'm trying to encourage race night; why wouldn't I?

Though for what it's worth I didn't vote in either of the goal polls.

[Tee-N-Tee]

So, I'll start off with a personal recap of yesterday's race, writing down my thoughts and impressions.
I, like probably every other member, based on the outcome of the poll, expected 10-15 people in the race.
When there were only 3 people present, 10 minutes after the scheduled start, i wasn't too worried, thinking the race would just be a bit delayed.
I thought, let's open tsc's twitch stream, to see if there's commentary...nope...well, let's see what streams there were the last couple of days...*clicks on videos tab*...ZELDA!!! o.O
By then the race already started...haven't seen a single minute of Sonic Heroes ever, i was happy to see werster(the no.1 ranked player for Sonic Heroes on SRL) participate. Sadly, his stream was lagging, but i thought that would settle.
Just seconds into the race, he started to break the record for most profanity in a video games stream and apparently ragequit after a few minutes. I had enough for the evening and closed my browser. :-(
After reading werster's comment in this thread, i can understand his outburst.

Maybe i expected too much from these weekly races, but there's no doubt, that it could've gone better.
So, i have some suggestions:

-add commentary to tsc's twitch channel

Not only was the marathon for a good cause, it also roused TSC from hibernation and allured 240 followers.
A race coverage with commentary would not solely reach the tsc members, also a broader audience who likes Sonic.

-finding the day of the week and time of day with the largest intersection among members, willing to participate

I know it's impossible to find a date and time that suits everyone, but we should have a fixed schedule soon, otherwise it's impossible to gain viewer loyalty

-pulling together

The most important point of all. Everybody knows the turmoil the site has seen in the last couple of weeks, maybe things should've settled a bit more before undertaking such a big project.
One thing is for sure, not only TSC, even the whole Sonic franchise is at a crucial point.
The classic Sonic games on the Genesis are running the risk of falling into oblivion as opposed to the classic Mario, Mega Man or Zelda games which are prospering more than ever.
TSC can play a pivotal role to turn the tide, so i say, let's forget what divides us and remember why we are here...

OUR PASSION FOR SONIC

[Combo]

Shorter goals sounds like a good idea for long games.

[TimpZ]

I was thoroughly disappointed by the Heroes race. I personally don't own the game and I've played it about 30 minutes total around 6 years ago or something so that's why I didn't participate. I did however not vote and I think that voting for a game you won't be racing is kinda like voting for the election of another country or something.

For the S3K race I liked the fact that there was a bunch of people from TSC, even some that actually know something about the game! But yea given the initial interest it was still kind of a disappointment.

The fact is that if you had a free hour or two and a working computer from 2002 or later with internet then you could've gotten in this race. Perhaps it isn't clear if you decide to enter 10 minutes before it starts but for starters, you don't need an IRC client to join races. There's an embedded one on SRL so all you need is to install java and the browser itself gives you a link to an appropriate download. When you got that, you don't even have to set up an account ,just log in with a username that no'ones taken. Secondly you don't need to have the game ready on your console to play together with capture cards and stuff, just grow some balls and get an emulator. Thirdly, there's no absolute need to stream or something. If you're on an emulator you should stream even if it's an unstable 100kb/s upload. If you're playing on console and don't have a capture card, just stream sound! Commentate and make the tv loud enough for the mic to pick up. But if you're absolutely oblivious to how computers work then there's no problem to type in your act time as you finish them. The cutscenes in S3&K are always the same length with variance of the amount of points you get so if you get called out you could get verified with those times.

tl;dr there's not many reasons not to join and something like a general signup list might be a good idea if FF, Thorn and anyone else who could manage the races feel it's worth the effort. I could also be fine with racing an hour or two later but not by much.

Something I want to mention is the OoT puzzle races that's been on SRL a couple times. I know that the person who made the puzzle usually host it on his channel together with 1 or 2 people on skype and he embeds the streams of the people in the lead and maybe 1 or 2 randoms. I think a system like that on the TSC twitch would be a good idea.

For people complaining about the time the race was, the obvious system is for the people participating to vote for the times they could be fine with. Though idk about how mature people here are when 12 ppl who don't feel like racing still goes around voting anyway.

I think Fridays are bad because it rules out a lot of times since Americans might be at work or school.

[DarkAura]

I honestly now think that maybe we should -suggest- race times. The points for TSCRN24/7 should be equal, and require video/picture/witness proof. Instead of having a set race night, we should have a race week where in the chat you can find people to race for the game of the week. Not onlly will it fit into others schedule, it will allow people to play the games they like more often. Just a thought.

[TimpZ]

I honestly now think that maybe we should -suggest- race times. The points for TSCRN24/7 should be equal, and require video/picture/witness proof. Instead of having a set race night, we should have a race week where in the chat you can find people to race for the game of the week. Not onlly will it fit into others schedule, it will allow people to play the games they like more often. Just a thought.

I thought you could already do that. In any case that would be to loose for the "official TSC race night" to be held at an arbitrary time when people happen to be online. I wouldn't want to wait at the IRC for 2 hours hoping that the race will start soon while I'm waiting for more people to join >_>. I thought the idea was to have the possibility to track your races on TSC and every week there would be a big themed race where points mattered more and where perhaps the race results got featured on the front page or something, at least when there's enough participants.

[Cream147]

I honestly now think that maybe we should -suggest- race times. The points for TSCRN24/7 should be equal, and require video/picture/witness proof. Instead of having a set race night, we should have a race week where in the chat you can find people to race for the game of the week. Not onlly will it fit into others schedule, it will allow people to play the games they like more often. Just a thought.

Yeah, this is already possible, and covered in TRN 247 (although only S3K has scorecards so far). My belief in the idea of a proper designated race night is that it is an opportunity for the community to come together and have as many of us compete as possible in our area of common interest, Sonic, at the same time. That's what my thinking is behind it anyway, and that's what I'm hoping TRN can deliver for me.

[DarkAura]

What I'm saying is take away race nights and make game race weeks instead. We can post a topic or something saying that we will stream instead of having epic fail race nights. This way, people can race at anytime and we can archive the videos for watching instead of these one night only. Make a topic for everygame, list an approximate week for racing the game (if you miss the week, you can post but only get half points), and tell people to find players in the chat. Also, we need these higher-ups to join.

If you are an admin and you don't show up because you don't want to, why should you be an admin if you don't contribute to the community?

[Bilan]

If you are an admin and you don't show up because you don't want to, why should you be an admin if you don't contribute to the community?

i no rite, I mean the Olympics Comittee organise a world wide event and then take part in every single event, oh wait

[TimpZ]

What I'm saying is take away race nights and make game race weeks instead...This way, people can race at anytime and we can archive the videos for watching instead of these one night only.

But the thing is, you can go to IRC and find anyone to race any game you like and then post about it in the 24/7 thread. To limit the races to only one game a week is the stupidest idea ever and would only limit the whole racing idea (albeit there's very few races as is).

EDIT: One thing I would advise is revealing the category at least a day or two before the actual race. Though I would like the poll closed right after the race the week before. This is to encourage practise and competitiveness (e.g. "just got a xx:xx, watch out for me on saturday guys ;)" ) since I think some might not want to race if you don't know the game or only know a specific category well. I know I and Hypersonic did a few practise runs the day before the S3K race as soon as we realised what category it would most likely be.

[DarkAura]

All of my ideas have been shot down. lol. Oh well. I tried. So maybe we need front page news reports and instead of making the poll last just one hour before the race, we need time to practice like Timp said. So maybe you guys should start the poll during the race, like if you are watching them competing, you start the poll page. Then they would have two days to vote on the game (Monday). Two days to vote on a goal (Wednesday) and about three days to practice, set up, make a time for the race, etc., etc.

[DarkAura]

This is what I mean. It's already Wednesday and we haven't even put the poll for games yet. If we are going to have successful race nights, we need to have everything done by today, to allow for confirmations and practice. I'm not trying to be mean, but we have to step up if we want this to work.

[DarkAura]

Oh. Well you guys should really announce that stuff. lol.