SS4C7 Runner Guide

--SS4C7 Runner Guide--

Hey all, here's a short and sweet guide for everything you'll need to know for SS4C6.

1. Please show up at ***LEAST*** 15 minutes prior to your run. Please check back periodically as runs might shift due to going over estimate (don't go over estimate pls). This is to ensure we can enable a smooth setup process.

2. You will be streaming to your own twitch account this year! If you don't wish to, you can stream to an alt account that you have as well, just please let us know the exact channel name.

3a. Please stream at a base resolution of 720p! (1280x720). You can stream at a base of 1080 and scale down, but we recommend streaming at a base resolution of 720p. Pictures and help can be provided by staff as needed. Do not stream any higher than a 3000 bitrate, and even then, 1500 is usually acceptable too without frame drops. Stream only your game video, audio, and Discord audio. Please do not have StreamLabs (TwitchAlerts) on. You may run Livesplit on the side if you would like, but if you have any audio on that, I request turning that off.

3b. If possible, please let your host know what aspect ratio your game is in and if you plan on using your webcam or not. They will send you a PNG image of the layout that you can easily load into OBS and then crop your gameplay/webcam to fit into the black space where the video would be. This would make setups and transitions so much faster for staff if we could have your assistance on this.

4. Once it's your turn to start the run, join the Set-up voice channel in Discord where the host will help set you up. Audio and video checks as needed. Your co-commentators should be here at this time as well to balance audio properly. It's recommended that your mic and co-commentators be hitting just the bottom of the red in OBS and that your game audio should be around 1/2 to 1/3 of the volume of the mic depending on how loud your game is (some games have next to no audio, ie, LIMBO, so I will probably raise the audio on mine to closer to 1/2 of my mic volume).

5. Once everything is a-okay, your run will start! Give a countdown (or have the host do it) and do your run. The runners/co-commentators get priority in speaking over the host (even if the host is a co-commentator). Hosts may occasionally ask if there is time to make stream announcements or donation reading during the run, so be wary!

6a. Once your run has ended, if you are doing any incentives/bonus runs and the goal has been met, you will do that (some incentives may be before the run starts, or you may need to give an indication of when a bid war/incentive gets cut off). Otherwise, please try to keep your conclusion short-ish so we can have efficient transitions!

6b. Should you for whatever reason game over in your run or the game crashes mid-run, depending on the amount of time left in the run and how far/ahead we are of marathon, we may either give the greenlight to start again, do a shorter category should that be an option, or we may need to move on to the next run. Staff will be on-call as needed to help make these decisions, but I have the utmost faith in all the runners to not DNF! :)

6c. As far as commentary goes, you are mostly free to talk about whatever you'd like whether you do full in-depth marathon style commentary or relaxed, talking to chat style. Cursing/profanity is fine as I don't like limiting people (I drop several per run, lol) but please don't make that the entire basis. If it gets out of hand, we will DM you first. Second time, you may be warned on air by the host or a super staff/organizer. If it gets too problematic, we may drop the run without notice and move on as needed (we've never had the need for this, please don't be the first that I have to temporarily/permanently ban because of this rule). Please avoid "controversial topics" such as politics, religion, legalities, etc. (follow Twitch ToS). SS4C does NOT allow any slurs (racial, defamatory, etc.), flame-wars, other bad behavior and should you say any, depending on the severity you will either get one warning by an organizer on air (myself or piner, which is the "not-fun talk" you don't want to have, especially for a charity marathon) or you will be dropped immediately. Please, again, don't be the first person I have to ban because of this. It's necessary to make this rule yearly, but don't be the person I get to use as an example.

That should cover everything! If there are any questions about the streaming side of things, please ping @deathline, @nes, or @piner in Discord (#secret-general). If there are any other non-specific questions, please ping @deathline specifically with your question.