AGDQ 2016 Jan 3, 2016 - Jan 10, 2016

[Xno Kappa]

Some of the runs were really enjoyable to watch, but I felt as if they tried to fit in too many obscure indie games that no one gives a fuck about. The awful games done quick block though was awesome lol.


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[Nitsuki]

Very disappointed in bloodborne being vanilla patch w/ item dupe, gate skip. :/

[Akiyama]

Very disappointed in bloodborne being vanilla patch w/ item dupe, gate skip. :/

That I was kinda sad about, yeah. That skip is so... eh now, thought there'd be something new/awesome, but i guess with the expansion not being too old, they couldn't do anything with that. :/ RIP. That and he died like.. a ton lol

[Akiyama]

This year AGDQ was nice, but I think the other years were much better. Lots of great players missing Calebhart with his MEgaman X, Trihex with his Yoshi (I know he was there for the Mario Maker) but still.

That Super Metroid near the end left me speechless, and honestly Spikevegegta is really annoying to no end.

Hoping SGDQ 2016 will be better

to be fair, trihex has played like..very little Yoshi's Island this year and if he'd done a run it would have probably been pretty bad. Caleb Hart wasn't there to run because he tried to pull top player privilege and sign up literally the day after sign ups ended, and tried to act like it was okay so yeah lol

@Proth:
I like professionalism though. Things run smoother, unless obviously tech issues or whatever happens, but I feel like the hype is still there, the early morning awesome stuff with Awful Games Done Quick, etcetc. Not AS many memorable runs this time around, though, but still tons of fun with it fucking my sleep schedule.

also double, but eh

[Ratatapa]

I know there's was alot of drama, but anyway it was still enjoyable.

Kinda sad they did 300k less then 2015, but hey 1.2mill is still great!

[Prothescar]

@Proth:
I like professionalism though. Things run smoother, unless obviously tech issues or whatever happens, but I feel like the hype is still there, the early morning awesome stuff with Awful Games Done Quick, etcetc. Not AS many memorable runs this time around, though, but still tons of fun with it fucking my sleep schedule.

I do miss the big GDQ moments though. Room-wide chants, viewer interaction, huge celebrations following big plays, etc.; we don't get most of it anymore due to a tightening of the GDQ rules, presumably so they don't lose sponsors. It's understandable but it's hard for it to not be disappointing. It's still a lot of fun to watch and participate in the event but I'm still nostalgic for days gone by.

[Ratatapa]

I do miss the big GDQ moments though. Room-wide chants, viewer interaction, huge celebrations following big plays, etc.; we don't get most of it anymore due to a tightening of the GDQ rules, presumably so they don't lose sponsors. It's understandable but it's hard for it to not be disappointing. It's still a lot of fun to watch and participate in the event but I'm still nostalgic for days gone by.

Not a fan of spikevegeta but this was awesome

[Nitsuki]

That I was kinda sad about, yeah. That skip is so... eh now, thought there'd be something new/awesome, but i guess with the expansion not being too old, they couldn't do anything with that. :/ RIP. That and he died like.. a ton lol

Well i dono about that tbh, i follow Elijjaz(sp?) and he speedruns all bosses+xpac bosses almost every day. He holds like 1hr 25min or something.

[Kaisha]

Theyre never gonna be like the 2012-2014 ones ever again so abandon all hope ye who enter here if that's what you're after. They're becoming a much larger operation and are focusing far more on professionalism at this point. It's sad, but logistically it's the only way to keep the event from becoming a shitshow.

SGDQ'15 was a pretty comfy ride though. It's more about the runs and commentary for me than anything, even if there's the loss of the worn-in-couch ambiance.

Some of the rule tightening was done in the runner's favor though so they have more choice over who they want on the couch, and the general level of noise they're comfortable with while trying to focus. Still ambivalent with regards to use of costumes or dolls though, although it did get a bit out of hand in....AGDQ'14 I believe it was? The one with the 500 some Touhou plush.

[Tohmane]

GDQs started as a bunch of friends hoping to raise some money for charity while showcasing speedruns. GDQs now are an organization raising money for charity with speedruns all professional and tightly-regulated and PG-13. I love speedruns to death, but what the GDQs lack nowadays is the community. It's all money money money. I'm honestly surprised Caleb didn't get in after sign-ups closed because he would've pulled some more money. Runners having a say over who gets to be on the couch is not a problem at all, that's a good thing the GDQs have enforced.

Eitherway this is how GDQs are now, for us enjoying the community side of speedrunning more there's always other events, although they might not ever become as big as GDQ. And hopefully they never will if they'll end up the same.

[TheDirtyHobo]

Some of the runs were really enjoyable to watch, but I felt as if they tried to fit in too many obscure indie games that no one gives a fuck about. The awful games done quick block though was awesome lol.

I don't know what you consider obscure and indie, but I thought the indie block was more interesting than like 75% of the other shit. Shit like THUG2, Fire Emblem, Age of Empires, Dungeons & Dragons is a whole lot less entertaining. Hell, I'll go a step further and say Punch-out doesn't belong there at all: if you can do the whole game blindfolded then there's really not a whole lot to show off in the game.

Entertainment value of the tricks/run > technical difficulty of the tricks/run > commentary > amount of time saved relative to a normal playthrough. That's what makes a good show in my book, in that order of importance. N64 and Awful games tend to be the most entertaining, in my opinion. A Machine For Pigs, while a decent game, is boring as hell to watch because it's just "clip out of bounds, go to next loading screen, repeat"

[Prothescar]

Tyson fucked me up when I didn't have a blindfold on. I'd say being able to complete the entire game blindfolded is entertaining.

[Xno Kappa]

I don't know what you consider obscure and indie, but I thought the indie block was more interesting than like 75% of the other shit. Shit like THUG2, Fire Emblem, Age of Empires, Dungeons & Dragons is a whole lot less entertaining. Hell, I'll go a step further and say Punch-out doesn't belong there at all: if you can do the whole game blindfolded then there's really not a whole lot to show off in the game.

Entertainment value of the tricks/run > technical difficulty of the tricks/run > commentary > amount of time saved relative to a normal playthrough. That's what makes a good show in my book, in that order of importance. N64 and Awful games tend to be the most entertaining, in my opinion. A Machine For Pigs, while a decent game, is boring as hell to watch because it's just "clip out of bounds, go to next loading screen, repeat"

For me personally it probably has more to do with the fact I have no idea what I'm looking at when it comes to those games. So I really can't appreciate the subtlety of some of the tricks/glitches they're displaying.

I'm a fan of the races more than anything else. Mario Maker and MMX, even with Caleb relegated to fix couch status, were some of the hypest moments for me.

[TheDirtyHobo]

Just complete differences of opinion about what's enjoyable, then. TMNT IV is one of my favorite, youth-defining games, but it was probably the most boring run I watched in entirety, because there were no tricks and the execution skill ceiling seems relatively low. Teslagrad, which I had never played or seen in action before, was one of my favorite runs and inspired me to actually play through the game, since I had it from some humble bundle or other at some point. Mega Man X was on the lower side, too, because it's just not a super entertaining or technical run; it's all routing and minor execution. I thought the 8-bit MM games were much more interesting to watch because they had more obvious optimizations.

The Mario Maker blind races were fantastic entertainment, though.

[Aevis]

Kinda sad they did 300k less then 2015, but hey 1.2mill is still great!

HumbleBundle wasn't in this year, which brought 200k alone. So wasn't that bad, especially the last 24hrs with something betwen 400-500k.

I hope they bring Mario Maker back and put it somewhere at the end of the last day. Generates so much hype and it's impressive to see how fast they beat those crazy, new tracks.

[Clash Perez]

This turned out to be 1000% more entertaining than I thought it would, given the title:

[Nitsuki]

It was sad not seeing caleb running mmx. The big guy that ran mario bros lost levels was not there either, and he was super entertaining. The game that i've never seen before and got me interested to play is The Talos Principle, fps puzzle game by the makers of Serious Sam? I'm in!

[Ragnus]

That was amazing.

[LinktheDeme]

It was sad not seeing caleb running mmx.

Lol is this a joke? Every year caleb is there he tries to make the entire mmx segment about him. Whenever he would win he would be the sorest winner giving a speech like he's a God and flexing. Last year he lost and literally stole the spotlight from Domalix when he lost to him. As if the end was Caleb's to sign off on, when he lost rather than letting the winner do their thing. This year I'm convinced he didn't run so he could sit on the couch and steal everyone's light. He kept interrupting people constantly to just interject his opinion and disrupting the runners concentration with whether or not its relevant that he "respected" all of their plays. He didn't give ANY breathing room for donations until like 5-10 minutes in where I'm sure he probably got told to cool it.

I was literally being frustrated on the runners behalf it was so bad. At this point watching any MMX run is just to watch what attention whorey thing Caleb's going to do next to satisfy his ego. I don't really get how people can even respect him as a runner after the level of disrespect he constantly shows to the other runners.

[Akiyama]

Lol is this a joke? Every year caleb is there he tries to make the entire mmx segment about him. Whenever he would win he would be the sorest winner giving a speech like he's a God. Last year he lost and literally stole the spotlight from Domalix when he lost to him as if the end was his to sign off on when he lost. This year I'm convinced he didn't run so he could sit on the couch and steal everyone's light. He kept interrupting people constantly to just interject his opinion and disrupting the runners concentration with whether or not its relevant that he "respected" all of their plays. He didn't give ANY breathing room for donations until like 5-10 minutes in where I'm sure he probably got told to cool it.

I was literally being frustrated on the runners behalf it was so bad. At this point watching any MMX run is just to watch what attention whorey thing Caleb's going to do next to satisfy his ego. I don't really get how people can even respect him as a runner after the level of disrespect he constantly shows to the other runners.

He mostly didn't run because he was super late signing up, but i agree. Not a fan of him anyway.

@Nits: Yeah I know they exist, but by time game submissions were done, I don't think there was a super safe/solid run of the new expac and such out there.