ESA 2018

Well, I'm back home again after my 5th ESA, and as per usual, the event was amazing.

I'm going to go through several things here, including my thoughts and feedback about the event, as well as goals and ideas on what I want to do for the next year (since my speedrunning year cycles around ESA basically).

So let's start with the shoutouts.

First up is Eden and Fell, for not only being great friends but also agreeing to commentate my run - even though you didn't necessarily need to say much I still really appreciate it.

The rest of the ESA FGC, for being a great set of people to hang out with - Dragonfangs, Jinny, Herrete, Pheonix, Punchy, and anyone else that I forgot to mention. Especially everyone who showed up for the Footises tournament, thanks for bringing the hype!

Etholon and the board game crew, for always having a fun atmosphere in the room, and being great fun to play with. We'll get that sub next year!

Everyone who showed up to watch my run, your support means a lot to not only me, but also the game and community as a whole, and I hope that the positive reception helps to get the game into more events in the future.

The FF crew for always being fun to hang out with, and always showing up in force to the event. To all of you who couldn't make it this year, there's always next time! :D

The event organisers for really stepping it up this year in terms of the venue and production overall.

MAX for being awesome as usual. Managed to get 1 a day this year, which I'm sure is a consistency PB lmao. (Why do I do this to myself? (oh right it's amazing!))

Btw, the new hot meme of this year "That's that x shit" - blame punchy for starting this (and then being my primary victim for it)


Event feedback:
While I think that overall the venue was a nice step up from previous years, I do have some more negative points which I feel I need to metion, as I think it's things that will only get worse as time goes on without being addressed. It should be noted that I don't think these are glaring flaws in the event, and definitely don't hurt my opinion of the event or affect my attendance, but I think they should be noted. There are positives in here though so don't worry, it's not all bad!

1) Hotel rooms are a blessing and a curse. - I feel like this is a lot of the reason that everyone has been much more mixed around in previous events, since people didn't spend extended periods of time in mass housing outside of sleep, encouraging people to socialise witin the event space more. Now that everyone is in hotel rooms, it encourages communities to hang out there. I would urge you to not do this where possible, as it begins to setup walls between different groups, and I think that mixing has been a huge part of the feel of ESA for me.

2) Not enough PCs. - I feel like again there weren't really enough PCs for the event. There were plenty of times early in the week where I wanted to practice and all the PCs were taken up with people practicing their games, and at the end of the week, people were using them more for casual stuff, which makes it harder for people to take the PCs as necessary. While I do appreciate that people can ask for the PC to be freed up, there are plenty of people who won't, or are intimidated by everyone grouping around a PC in the room, reducing access to another setup. I won't claim that I'm immune to these actions either, but I think that more PCs overall if possible can only help the event.

3) Room locking - I appreciate that the situation did change somewhat later in the week, but in the first few days there were a couple of times where rooms were locked and it wasn't clear on how access could be returned if necessary. I think all this would need is a list of people who have the ability to unlock if necessary.

4) Not enough HD screens with sound - Again this is a bit of a weird one, since PCs usually have headphone ports which people are fine with, but any time you want to practice commentary with a group, or do anything multiplayer/co-op/console, not having sound can really damage practice. Really this applies to both casual and run-based usage.

5) Hotel food restrictions - This is something I imagine is enforced by the venue, and I totally understand why they have it in place, but something like a community dining room could potentially help, especially if people want to order pizza as a group or something. iirc there was a room for staff to do this in, but I think an open one would be nice to have as well. There is obviously the concern about people not clearing up their mess, and that has definitely been an issue in the past as well, but even this year people left their ice cream tubs and coffe cups everywhere anyway (btw people clear up your shit, it's incredibly frustrating to deal with, especially when people leave things on/near setups/controllers/consoles - that's just gross.)

Positives!

6) Second stream - I still think that the second stream is a great thing for the event. I'm also really happy that Liva had someone to help him out this year to help spread the load. I think that, like some other people, I would like to see the second stream ramp back up to being full time throughout, but I understand the logistics aren't very simple for this to happen. The second stream has always been a great place for the less known or harder to schedule runs to shine, and I would hate to see that be lost.

7) Free water/coffee/ice cream - This was a really nice touch, and the water especially was really good and pretty important for making sure people always had something to drink. I would like to see the coffee be available more often, since there was a void if people didn't get up in time for breakfast, but then couldn't get any free caffiene until 3pm. However I think that the food being available more will just increase to the mess made, and could also cause problems if there are any issues with the machine outside of normal hours.

8) Lots of rooms - While some people may see this as negative, it really gave each room its own flavour, and allowed people to setup without fear of it all being taken apart by another group moving through the same space in general.

9) Location - Not the venue especially, but just in terms of travel this location is infinitely better. What would normally take me an entire day, can now be done in ~5h, which is a huge improvement, and I imagine most other people have seen similar improvements in travel time. I also think it really lowers the barrier for people getting to the event, and will only encourage more people to come in the future.


Moving forwards from the event.

As happy as I am with my event run of Rabi Ribi, that run as well as the 2 PBs I got in the practice room just prove to me how easy it would be to get a 31, so I want to go for that before moving onto something different.
When I hit that goal, my target is to go for Rabi-Ribi ATM BEX - which was my original speedrun dream category for this game. I might come back to ATM casual for somewhat of a derust / something different to get a better time, but I really want to go for that insane category, because it seems like amazing fun once I get good.
I don't really have any other speedrun plans outside of this at current, just because I don't have time for any longer runs like RPGs, and I'm really enjoying Rabi-Ribi still currently.

As for fighting games, my like of BBTAG is still there, but I also want to get into DBFZ after being taught the basics more properly at the event. I might also get back into UNIST a bit depending on how many people pick it up when the PC port comes out in a few weeks.
I'll be going to NGI Revo at the end of september, and if you play anything you should consider coming along :)

I don't think I'll be doing many events between that and ESA summer 19, as my overall priority in everything right now is saving up to move out of my current (family) home and get a place of my own in the town I work, as the commute is long, and while I can deal with it - I'm not going to say no to like 3 extra hours of free time a day.

The only other thing that still seems possible is the next FF relay, although we really don't have any concrete plans on what to do with it currently, but hopefully we'll work something out soon and get it rolling.


Final thoughts.

Things have been in a really great place for me recently, and without trying to boast about it, I'm honestly quite happy about things the vast majority of the time now. I understand that not everyone is in the same place, and I hope it gets better for you if you aren't :)
However, I see a lot of people already feeling down about the event being over, and making a big deal about the "post-esa depression", and I encourage you to not see it as being over, but being glad that it happened. If you will miss your friends, make steps to meet up with them at other times, or interact with each other more online, be it in streams/discord/steam/whatever.

ESA feels like a big family for a reason, but even then, most families make efforts to stay in contact more than once a year. The event imo should feel like more of a climax to the friendships you hold, instead of a one-off chance to solidify things. T

he other thing is that, as my Devin Townsend inspired tweet earlier alluded to (btw listen to Ocean Machine if you haven't, great album) - Your time is the one thing that you can truly own, and you shouldn't waste it looking back, but rather always move forwards, and enjoy the time you spend doing the good stuff, but always be ready for the next great thing.




It's been a great time as always, and I hope to see you all at the next ESA summer, if not before.

MLSTRM