1

Gaming and Grazing / So Howzabout That Super Mario Maker

« on: September 22, 2015, 02:30:37 pm »

We had a Sonic level design topic ages back, but that's dead now. It's dead, Sonic's dead, TSC's dead, and all of that other doom and gloom that was spouted in the past. Anyway, we should be cool Internet people and share Super Mario Maker levels since the rest of the Internet's already doing it. Here's what I've made.

Mushroom Mesa 1

1536-0000-00D8-C6CB

Mushroom Mesa 2

F26A-0000-00D8-C803

Mushroom Mesa 3

B9DD-0000-00D8-C933

Mushroom Mesa 4

41CB-0000-00D8-CA7D

Super Mario Bros. Threedux

16AF-0000-00DB-3300

A Puzzle of Scales

14A4-0000-00DE-0460

You vs. Boo

5EC7-0000-00DD-66A8

SMB Deluxe: You vs. Boo 2-2

3124-0000-00E0-5B66

SMB Deluxe: You vs. Boo 2-3

1988-0000-00E2-029E

What have you all made?

2

News and Updates / Administrator Title Change

« on: April 29, 2015, 11:15:08 pm »

After much thought, I've decided to pass the torch of Head Admin on to the next person. I've been sliding out of touch with the speedrunning community as of late and haven't had the motivation to work with the site. I also don't have the knowledge of all 52 games and two DLC expansions on the site that I need to in order to separate valid BS calls from invalid ones nor do I have the power to fix some issues on the site. I don't get to see any of the social scene on TSC anymore, as it's moved off-site into smaller pockets in which I don't get involved unless called for. When I do get called for, it's typically not for good things; for example, I've recently watched old friends go at each other's throats over events tied to the site. All of this has been a bit much to deal with (and frankly makes me come off more than a bit whiny when all I experience is the negatives), so I think it's time that I give my title to people more willing to invest time into the site with a positive attitude.

As GerbilSoft currently has the most power on the site, he will carry the Head Admin title from here forward.

Thank you to everybody who's been pleasant and helpful during my time heading the site.

3

News and Updates / Dreamcast Emulators Banned From Competition

« on: March 05, 2015, 10:37:11 pm »

Due to findings presented here, we have no choice but to ban Dreamcast emulation from competition. With that in mind, know that it is simply not possible to sift through the rankings and identify all emulated statistics. If you know you used an emulator, please talk to us about having your statistics removed. We really do need to use the honor system here, and we appreciate everybody's cooperation.

4

News and Updates / Sonic 3 Remastered Campaign Active Again

« on: February 11, 2015, 05:15:55 pm »

I previously wrote about a fan effort to get a Sonic 3 & Knuckles remake made by Simon "Stealth" Thomley and Christian "The Taxman" Whitehead—the creators of the official Sonic CD, Sonic 1, and Sonic 2 widescreen remakes—backed by SEGA and formally released to the masses. The campaign took a short hiatus to get itself better organized but is back again, this time using an online petition instead of just a Twitter hashtag. Give it a look!

Petition
Prototype video
Campaign website
Stealth's opinion on the matter

5

Leaderboard Disputes / MOVED: WTF

« on: February 03, 2015, 01:14:59 pm »

This topic has been moved to Competition Central to avoid having to deliver a record number of tempbans. Dumbassery by one unknown user is not a reason for everybody to follow suit.

http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?topic=6076.0

6

Leaderboard Disputes / ATTN: flower

« on: December 08, 2014, 03:07:48 pm »

While I usually like to handle this sort of thing in private nowadays, it's become a bit ridiculous and more than one person has questions, so here's a forum topic.

First of all, why do you have not one, not two, not three, but four accounts? The competition rules clearly state that a person may have exactly one account.

Second, several of your submitted statistics have been under suspicion lately, and today you outright admitted to submitting a video to TSC that had a save state loaded halfway through the level and spliced footage; these things are also clearly against the competition rules. What's the deal?

To be clear, you'll need a damn good explanation for my questions and any questions that get approved by any administrator to be posted in this topic, because you're going to be banned completely without one. Please respond as soon as possible.

7

News and Updates / Social Media is a Thing

« on: November 03, 2014, 08:19:09 pm »

Sonic Retro's been discussing this proof of concept video from The Taxman and Stealth of their initial work on an Android and iOS widescreen version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. As you know, Sonic CD, Sonic 1, and Sonic 2 have all been released on these platforms in widescreen. Many people are pushing for Sonic 3 & Knuckles to receive this treatment, but SEGA has indicated no interest at this time, with a few people hinting that they have information pertaining to the supposed issues preventing the game's remaking (e.g., music). One thing that all are in agreement on is that SEGA of Japan is the biggest hurdle in the way of such a project, and fans are hoping to harness to power of social media to get attention.

Now, I can't imagine anybody on TSC would want such a thing. After all, a remake would have less glitches, and the current Sonic 3 & Knuckles competitors on TSC are all about splitting the game wide open and making the engine cry while performing time attacks that avoid as much of the actual level as possible. Wouldn't making people play the levels from start to finish as intended spoil the fun?

However, if you're feeling sympathetic to the average Joe who may want the game anyway, there's a Twitter hashtag going around that you can use to help further the cause. Use the hashtag #BringBackSonic3 and address @SEGA_OFFICIAL with your thoughts. Be sure to mention your awareness that it may require changing some assets due to rights issues (e.g., Sonic & Knuckles Collection was a release of the game for Windows 95 that used new music in many parts of the game), because if SEGA believes we'll only take a 100% faithful port of the game, then rights issues will bar any release. If you either really want the game or just like hopping on the bandwagon, try supporting the cause!

While you're there, if you want your Twitter home page flooded with records, why not follow @TheSonicCenter? Also, why not follow my page so that I don't ban you? *flees*

EDIT: GeneHF's thoughts on the topic.

8

News and Updates / Submissions Temporarily Halted

« on: September 16, 2014, 04:19:50 pm »

GerbilEditâ„¢ on 2014/10/22 12:21 AM EDT: Submissions are back up. See the last post in the thread for more information.

Okay, let's get that marathon article off of the front page. That's been over for too long.

At the moment, we are trying to fix some unexpected issues with the rankings, and until this is finished, the ability to submit statistics is disabled. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have a resolution shortly.

9

News and Updates / An Apology and Handling BS

« on: April 12, 2014, 04:46:29 pm »

First of all, I want to extend an apology to anybody I publicly called out in the out-of-control topic. Yeah, you know the one. While I do think it was time for discussion to be brought to a close and for further pot-shots to be curbed with discipline if necessary, I shouldn't be venting so publicly and making people the targets of that venting, and I could have handled that much more maturely. Considering I chewed people out in public, I think it's only fair that I admit wrongdoing in public.

While that topic discussed many points, one that kept coming up (to the chagrin of a few people) was BS calls and how proof helps or does not help to solve them. Back in February, I brought up how flying fox would be assisting us and would further have a team of people who are knowledgeable about TSC's tracked games to assist with that. I believe now may be a good time to proceed with such a plan, as talk (and a video) about our BS catching methods has been popping up lately. While Parax and I could certainly come up with some names, I don't want to be passing over potential candidates simply because their names aren't coming to mind right away. Therefore, if you feel you have expertise in particular games and have an interest in assisting with BS calls, please reply to this post with what games you know well. Posting is not a guarantee that you'll suddenly become a trusted source, but it does help us choose properly.

10

News and Updates / Sonic Robo Blast 2 v2.1.6 Released

« on: March 19, 2014, 04:51:51 pm »

The last front-page post was looking pretty dated, so let's put something new here.

Sonic Robo Blast 2 v2.1.6 has been released, with enough changes from v2.0.7 to keep old players occupied and enough difficulty-based adjustments to get new players involved easily. For your inner TSCer, the Time Attack mode has been completely revamped into a generalized Record Attack mode that supports Score, Time, and Ring records.

No, it will not be worth points in the TSC rankings. It's being mentioned because it's a fairly well known fan game and our "News and Updates" posts should actually have news. :P

11

News and Updates / Sonic's future goes BOOM and site shenanigans

« on: February 06, 2014, 05:00:31 pm »

If you've been poking around the web, you know that today's an important day for Sonic Team. News came out that they were developing something absolutely crazy and that we'd get it on February 6th. The fateful day has come, and surely enough, crazy has come with it! Behold, Sonic Team's latest game!

Oh, and I guess this exists too. Don't cry too hard.

Moving on, let's talk about the last few days here. I hit a breaking point on Sunday with a large group of people on TSC and stepped away from the site, as I've considered doing for quite a while due to that group. I left my resignation in the staff forum that night along with some thoughts of mine put into writing. I figured the staff would get in touch, we'd talk things through, somebody would take my place, and that'd be the end of it. Instead, the staff didn't even notice the topic. Two days later, people noticed that my user group had changed, and panic ensued as people thought I was hacked. Parax linked my resignation letter in the chat, and the IRC chat that had barely said a word in months suddenly started getting very concerned. I got blasted with messages in Skype about how utterly wrong I was, with some of those messages actually contradictory while all arguing the same point. Despite all of this, there was no reaction from the site owner and no indication that somebody would step up to fill my spot.

If the site largely disagrees with many of my points, then it means the IRC chat is an extremely quiet majority while TSC-related Skype groups have become an extremely vocal minority. While I didn't say it outright in my letter out of respect, the main reason I left was because the things I did hear vocalized made the user base seem like a bunch of total asshats, constantly insulting each other, making arguments based on fallacies, and speaking in a language that can only be described as "Twitchese". However, with the sudden revelation of people on IRC actually caring, I feel that I need to reverse course, but I do still feel that my knowledge isn't up to par. I am constantly checking with other people I trust, then taking their opinion and making sure it makes sense before enacting it myself as an admin. With that said, I spoke to Umbreon about how we progress from here, and we both agreed that we need somebody closer to the competition to have authority around here. While we both respected each other's thoughts on who to choose, we really only agreed 100% on one person.

As of the time of this post, flying fox is a Global Moderator on the forums. We will be talking with her about who else can be trusted with authority as we assemble a group of people that know the competition well for efficient handling of BS calls, rule changes, and forum discipline. Parax and I want to do what administrators do — administrate — and thus we need to delegate some tasks to those that care instead of making those that care report to us for every trivial thing. Beyond the staffing changes, be aware that the shelter of "well, I said it on Skype, not TSC" will no longer work. If you are participating in a group built for a TSC event and/or speaking about issues on TSC with other TSCers, then you are still involved in the TSC community and assholery will not be tolerated. Some rude people have hung around for far too long by hiding just out of TSC's "reach", and it comes to an end starting now for the sake of the entire community.

Parax and GerbilSoft have been discussing the site's functionality or lack thereof this week, so that we can use the chart structure for more than just individual level charts. Given this, I expect that we can bring tournaments, Race Nights, and the like to TSC's charts to get some activity into the IRC and forums. The lack of a social scene here besides the occasional 13-year-old halfwit that joins the site is very depressing and needs to be reversed.

I want to hear some thoughts on what the site can be and should be. Consider who is here, who is silent and who talks, who we want to be here, what Sonic's becoming (you really should have clicked that second link in this post), and where TSC stands in the grand scheme of competition sites and Sonic sites. It's clear that leaving the status quo here will simply continue the site's decline, but we can't abandon our infrastructure either.

Oh, and SonicAD, when you see this next week, I need to be re-added to the SOp list. :P

12

Leaderboard Disputes / ATTN: Goldwolf11 and TheChaosEmeralds

« on: January 09, 2014, 07:08:52 pm »

Goldwolf11: http://soniccenter.org/rankings/sonic_lost_world_3ds/times/sky_road_extra/normal
Your time here smashes the global record on the official leaderboards by a whopping 46 seconds. More surprisingly, your time is not on said leaderboards. Would be be able to either update the leaderboard with your time or explain your method? The time seems likely to be false otherwise.

TheChaosEmeralds: http://soniccenter.org/rankings/sonic_lost_world_3ds/times/windy_hill_2/normal
Your time here is only a second shy of the world record, but when looking at the global leaderboards, your time is notably absent. It is also your only fast time on TSC's charts for the game. As asked of Goldwolf11, can you either update the leaderboards with the time or explain your method?

13

Leaderboard Disputes / ATTN: supersonic917

« on: December 28, 2013, 12:16:16 am »

After you first submitted your Windy Hill 1 Normal time for the 3DS version of Sonic Lost World, you were sent a PM (see the upper-left corner of the site) telling you that your time was revoked due to the corresponding video using Super Sonic, which is not permitted. You then proceeded to resubmit the same time and the same video. Please provide an explanation for your actions.

Additionally, another user, htan, has linked to your YouTube channel for submissions, and a quick check of identifying information suggests that he and you may in fact be the same person. We would like to know if/why you have two accounts on the site.

We require an explanation for both of these things before your ability to submit statistics will be reinstated.

14

News and Updates / Sonic 2 iOS/Android Competition is Live

« on: December 22, 2013, 02:50:27 pm »

The new Sonic 2 release is open for competition. We also added a Rings competition for Sonic 1 iOS/Android's Special Stage 7, which should have been added a long time ago.

Have fun!

15

News and Updates / Sonic 1 2013 Competition Now Live

« on: July 07, 2013, 04:01:20 pm »

Competition charts for the Taxman/Stealth release of Sonic 1 are now live.

16

News and Updates / Marathon 2013: Holy Smokes, It's Over!

« on: April 01, 2013, 06:17:48 pm »

The second TSC Charity Marathon ended with a whopping $2286.22 in donations to the American Cancer Society, with donations still being accepted through Saturday (they work now!). Thanks to all streamers and viewers that supported the event! I'll be using this topic over the coming days to talk about the marathon itself and things behind the scenes, so keep an eye out.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Donations for Ponies, Part 1
Pleasing All of the People, All of the Time
Donations for Ponies, Part 2

You can watch videos from this year's marathon and from last year's marathon by visiting the archives at TSC's Twitch.tv channel. We intend to stream more in the future, so give us a follow if you haven't already and watch via the TSC Stream link on the sidebar when we go live.

17

News and Updates / Marathon 2013: Holy Smokes, It's Here!

« on: March 22, 2013, 03:00:11 pm »

The 2013 TSC Marathon starts on Monday, March 25 and runs all week to draw donations for the American Cancer Society. Watch the action at http://www.soniccenter.org/stream or on TSC's Twitch channel at http://www.twitch.tv/tsc_streams (we're expecting a short TSC outage on Monday night, so don't forget the Twitch channel!).

Join us for online play in All-Stars Racing Transformed and Puyo Pop (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine), and leave comments with your donations to request things on-stream. Watch speedruns and casual play from various TSCers and guest speedrunners from SpeedRunsLive and Speed Demos Archive.

18

Marathon Planning / Final Preparations

« on: March 12, 2013, 07:47:30 pm »

We have three gaps in the marathon schedule: Tuesday 3:30-4:30, Wednesday 6:30-7:20, and Thursday 6:00-8:00. These need to be covered ASAP. Good candidates would include Sonic Adventure with characters other than Tails, fan works (particularly Thursday since SRB2 follows that gap), select stages from Unwiished, Sonic Pocket Adventure, Sonic Advance, or any other missing games.

There are several games for which several people volunteered, yet most of them still don't have one dedicated runner or a plan to do a dual stream. This needs to be resolved immediately.

Those of you that offered to fund donation incentives should head over here and state them officially.

Streamers should give me an e-mail address to which I can send a stream key. Authentication from last year will not work. Names in green have provided an e-mail address for a key, while names in white still need to do so.

• AdamAK
• bertin
• BrokenArthritis
• Chao_Fan
• Combo
• Cruizer
• DarkspinesSonic
• flying fox
• Gamble
• HDL
• HyperSonic7701
• mike89
• Millernusgaming
• Paraxade
• RPG
• Shadow Jacky
• SonicBoom737
• Strong Bad
• TimpZ

19

Marathon Planning / Donation Incentives

« on: March 12, 2013, 07:47:19 pm »

Several of you brought these up before, but we need confirmation. Please post any donation incentives you plan to fulfill--prizes, bonus streams, character choices during normal streams, etc.

Current incentives:

• Sonic Adventure second character (Tails or Big)
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles character choice
• Sonic 2006 character bidding war
• Sonic Shuffle stages (excluding Fourth Dimension Space, as it was done last marathon)
• More SRB2 multiplayer, using a level pack
• Sonic CD soundtrack choice
• Sonic the Fighters second character choice (Knux done first; Honey is a valid choice due to XBLA version)
• Sonic Advance 2 emerald run with Sonic
• Sonic Rush Adventure character choice for Big Swell

20

Marathon Planning / Schedule (Final Draft)

« on: February 13, 2013, 07:36:34 pm »

All times are Eastern Daylight Time. Be aware that the United States and Canada will be in Daylight Saving Time throughout the marathon, while most of the northern hemisphere will start Daylight Saving Time on March 31 (the last day of the marathon).

If you didn't provide the stream test I asked for or never talked to me about it, I've removed you from the marathon. In any case of multiple people listed for a single-player game, I leave you to decide among yourselves who will do what. I have made some decisions already for the sake of streamlining the schedule and minimizing the workloads on particular streamers, but I have no preference on others. You could also attempt to stream two streams of two people, creating a race of sorts.

If you think a time window is too large or too small, make that known. Remember to err larger, not smaller, with your estimates -- filling time is easy, but creating time is difficult. Also make note of anything we should know about your stream -- for example, if a bunch of people want to do 100% runs, we will allot more time and extend the marathon another day to compensate.

Monday, March 25

• 2:00 PM - Sonic Adventure 2 - BrokenArthritis
• 4:00 PM - Sonic Adventure - BrokenArthritis [Sonic, then Tails OR Big]
• 5:00 PM - Sonic Unleashed (360/PS3) - Millernusgaming
• 9:00 PM - Sonic Generations - Paraxade

Tuesday, March 26

• 2:00 PM - Sonic Heroes - Shadow Jacky
• 3:30 PM - Sonic 2 (Genesis) - TimpZ [Sonic and Tails]
• 4:00 PM - Sonic Pocket Adventure - sonikkusama
• 4:30 PM - Sonic R - bertin
• 5:00 PM - Shadow the Hedgehog - bertin
• 5:30 PM - Sonic Labyrinth - bertin
• 6:00 PM - Sonic Riders - Chao_Fan
• 7:00 PM - Sonic 4 Episode 1 - HyperSonic7701
• 8:00 PM - Sonic 3 & Knuckles - HDL [Tails OR Knuckles], Strong Bad [competition]
• 9:00 PM - Sonic 3D Blast - Thorn

Wednesday, March 27

• 2:00 PM - Sonic 4 Episode 2 - HyperSonic7701
• 3:00 PM - Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity - HyperSonic7701
• 4:00 PM - Sonic Colors (Wii) - DarkspinesSonic
• 5:20 PM - Sonic and the Black Knight - flying fox
• 6:30 PM - Sonic Unleashed (Wii/PS2) - HyperSonic7701 [select stages]
• 7:20 PM - Sonic 1 (8-bit) - AdamAK
• 7:40 PM - Sonic 2 (8-bit) - flying fox
• 8:00 PM - Sonic 2006 - Paraxade

Thursday, March 28

• 2:00 PM - Sonic CD 2011 - flying fox [Tails]
• 2:30 PM - Sonic Rush Adventure - Cruizer
• 3:45 PM - Sonic Colours (DS) - Cruizer
• 4:30 PM - Sonic Advance 3 - mike89
• 6:00 PM - Burning Rangers - RPGnutter
• 7:20 PM - Sonic Championship / Sonic the Fighters - sonikkusama [Knuckles + donated character]
• 8:00 PM - Sonic Robo Blast 2 (standard game, co-op) - Multiple people

Friday, March 29

• 2:00 PM - NiGHTS into Dreams... - Thorn
• 3:30 PM - Sonic 1 (Genesis) - SonicBoom737
• 4:00 PM - Knuckles' Chaotix - Thorn
• 5:40 PM - Sonic Advance 2 - Combo
• 6:20 PM - Sonic Chaos - AdamAK [Sonic]
• 6:40 PM - Sonic Triple Trouble - bertin
• 7:00 PM - Sonic Spinball (Genesis) - mike89
• 7:30 PM - Puyo Puyo VS 2 b25 - Audience

Saturday, March 30

• 2:00 PM - Ristar - Gamble
• 3:00 PM - Sonic Shuffle - Multiple people
• 5:00 PM - Sonic Free Riders OR Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Wii) [SFR only if a Kinect setup is practical] - Multiple people
• 6:00 to 6:30 PM- Tails SkyPatrol - sonikkusama
• 7:00 to 8:00 PM - Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed [exact time depends on number of SkyPatrol failures] - Multiple people, audience

Sunday, March 31

• Bonus stream day. Potential streams include Sonic Robo Blast 2: Tortured Planet co-op, hacks and fan games, Sonic Pocket Adventure, Sonic Advance, Sonic Generations mods, more SkyPatrol shenanigans, Unwiished, All Stars Racing (the first game), Super Smash Bros. Brawl as Sonic, other takes on already-played games (e.g., Sonic Heroes as a different team than during the normal marathon event)... really, anything remotely Sonic.

21

News and Updates / Marathon 2013 -- Low Volunteer Turnout

« on: February 01, 2013, 01:42:30 pm »

Marathon Volunteering Topic

Let me open by saying that I'm appreciative of all of the people that did step forward to do something. However, we only have volunteers for about 25 games (we ran about 40 last year, including bonus streams), and there are some popular games missing from that list of 25. We have no volunteers for any 8-bit games, no volunteers for Sonic Adventure 2, and no unconditional volunteers for either version of Sonic Unleashed, among other things. Strangely, we've had more new and/or less social TSCers volunteer while many of our big hitters haven't stepped up, which means we're working from scratch with many people as we test their streaming setups, check how well they can play, and see if they can socialize.

What does all of this mean for the marathon? If we are planning for the week leading up to Easter, then the current games/volunteers list is bordering on too little, too late. I'm okay with a shorter marathon, but not if it means we won't run some of the popular games that are necessary for excellent Sonic marathons. Those of you that haven't finished testing streams need to get that done right away. Those of you that told me in passing, "Oh, I can probably run a game," need to post in the volunteering topic if you meant it, as I'm not counting "probably" towards our volunteer list.

If you plan to reply about running a game, do it in the volunteering topic. I'll see where we stand a week from now, and decide if we can move forward with our plans, if we need to postpone the marathon, or if we need to call it off.

22

Marathon Planning / Calling All Digital Artists

« on: January 18, 2013, 05:20:04 pm »

Quartz drew a swanky stream banner for our Twitch channel last year, and we're keeping it because it exudes awesomeness (it's even in the recap video of the last marathon).  That said, more personal touches never hurt and go a long way towards making us look professional, even if they're outright silly. I used Palmtree Panic Present's background last year, and applied the same upside-down trick to Ice Mountain's background for the winter; I could do something similar this summer but would prefer to see something personalized by TSC members. We could also afford to have a better offline picture; Super Sonic is cool because he's strong and fast and doesn't afraid of anything, but it doesn't mean anything about TSC when we pull stock images from around the web.

If you're up for helping the Twitch channel get some attention during the marathon, please consider drawing either a background that tiles well or an offline image. Background images will likely be a game environment if it's to exude Sonic and tile well (nothing looks stranger than having a character show up 100 times behind the stream). The offline image can be anything about Sonic or TSC that comes to mind; if you're looking for things that represent TSC specifically, we had a whole marathon full of Big the Car and beasts and robots and OH NO and magnets that I'm sure has something you can use. :P Offline images should scale well to 1280x720 (preferably 1920x1080) for people watching in enlarged windows, and since the beta Twitch channels have a large video player by default, this becomes even more important since Twitch may make the beta channels the norm before we start our marathon.

I understand that this requires a lot of effort, but it's one thing that I personally can't do well in terms on putting together a presentable marathon, so I need to ask the community.

23

Marathon Planning / Stream Test Scheduling

« on: January 18, 2013, 05:04:06 pm »

If I haven't seen you stream before, I'll ask for a test stream done on your personal Twitch.tv channel. It's in your best interest to do this while other people are watching for quick debugging, so you can use this thread to attempt to schedule a test stream with people if you can't get people in IRC to do it. Remember that audio-wise, you'll need to be able to stream your voice, voices coming over Skype, and the game audio with minimal crackling or interference noises. The game audio should be at a lower volume than voices, but not inaudible. For video, picture quality is important (low-resolution games can get by at 240p, but the rest should be at 360p or more to avoid being too blurry to see), but not nearly as important as a smooth stream.

If possible (not required), I also suggest that people using XSplit or OBS to stream add a webcam shot of themselves (if they're not too embarrassed) and a visible chat such as this, as we were often complimented on our interactions with the stream chat and I'd like to keep that going. Note that you won't want to be at the 360p minimum we set earlier if you're adding on-screen chat (consider 480p), as at 360p chat will need to occupy a large portion of the screen to be legible. You should also slightly anti-alias the chat capture after applying the chroma/color key if it appears jagged, and aim to fit four or five short lines without covering up anything crucial to gameplay.

24

Marathon Planning / Games List and Volunteers

« on: January 18, 2013, 04:44:18 pm »

Only unconditional volunteers have been listed so far; if you said "I can do this game only if x, y, and z," I didn't include you for that game.

Sonic Team Games List

• Sonic 1 (Genesis): SonicBoom737
• Sonic 2 (Genesis): TimpZ (Sonic and Tails), SonicBoom737, mike89
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles: TimpZ (not Knuckles), HDL, mike89
• Blue Sphere: Thorn
• Sonic 4 Episode 1
• Sonic 4 Episode 2: TheVGamer
• Sonic 4 Episode Metal: flying fox
• Sonic CD: flying fox (Tails)
• Ristar
• Sonic Spinball (Genesis): HyperSonic7701, mike89
• Sonic Spinball (8-bit)
• Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Puyopuyo series: will be run with the audience due to success last year
• Sonic Eraser
• Knuckles' Chaotix: Thorn
• Sonic 1 (8-bit): SonicBoom737, HyperSonic7701,  AdamAK
• Sonic 2 (8-bit): SonicBoom737, flying fox
• Sonic Chaos: flying fox (Tails), AdamAK (Sonic)
• Sonic Triple Trouble: flying fox (Tails)
• Sonic Blast
• Sonic Labyrinth
• Sonic Drift: Luxray
• Sonic Drift 2
• Tails Adventures
• Tails Skypatrol
• Sonic Gameworld
• Tails and the Music Maker
• Sonic Jam (Saturn): Thorn
• Sonic Jam (Game.com)
• Sonic's Schoolhouse
• Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio
• Sonic 3D Blast: Thorn (using Saturn version), SonicBoom737 (version unspecified)
• Sonic the Fighters / Sonic Championship
• Sonic R
• NiGHTS into Dreams... / Christmas NiGHTS: Thorn
• NiGHTS - Journey of Dreams: Thorn
• Sonic Shuffle: Thorn
• Sonic Adventure: TheVGamer
• Sonic Adventure 2: BrokenArthritis (Hero)
• Sonic Heroes: TheVGamer
• Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
• Phantasy Star Online: sonikkusama
• Shadow the Hedgehog
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2006: Umbreon, DarkAura
• Sonic Pocket Adventure: Thorn
• Sonic 1 (GBA)
• Sonic Advance
• Sonic Advance 2: Combo
• Sonic Advance 3: mike89
• Sonic Rush
• Sonic Rush Adventure: Luxray
• Sonic Colors (DS): Luxray
• Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
• Sonic Riders: Chao_Fan
• Sonic Riders - Zero Gravity: HyperSonic7701
• Sonic Free Riders
• Sonic Unleashed (Wii/PS2)
• Sonic Unleashed (360/PS3)
• Sonic Unleashed (Mobile)
• Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing: Werey (360), Thorn (360)
• Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed: Werey (360), Thorn (360), Groudon (360), Chao_Fan (360)
• Sonic Rivals
• Sonic Rivals 2
• Sonic and the Secret Rings
• Sonic and the Black Knight: flying fox
• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii)
• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS)
• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii)
• Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (DS)
• Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Wii)
• Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (3DS)
• Sonic Colors (Wii): SonicBoom737, Shade Vortex
• Sonic Generations (Console/PC): Umbreon, SonicBoom737
• Sonic Generations (3DS)
• Sonic Jump (either version)

Fan Games List

• Sonic Megamix: Thorn
• Sonic Robo Blast 2: Werey, Thorn, HyperSonic7701, flying fox, SonicBoom737, DarkAura, Zorkiy
• Sonic Classic Heroes: SonicBoom737
• Sonic Generations mods
• Robotnik's Revenge: SonicBoom737

Not Games, But Necessary For Excellent Marathons

• Karaoke: DarkAura, Chao_Fan

Volunteers That Need Proof

• flying fox: Stream test (console streaming)
• DarkAura: Stream test, known issues with SRB2 netplay
• Chao_Fan: Stream test
• TheVGamer: Stream test, TSC socializing, proof of skill (no stats submitted)
• SonicBoom737: Proof of skill (banned from submission)
• Shade Vortex: Stream test, TSC socializing, proof of skill (no stats submitted)

25

Marathon Planning / Charity Choice

« on: January 18, 2013, 04:04:41 pm »

Yeah, I think I agree with TimpZ. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Child's Play, but it's kind of the default gaming charity, and I can't imagine most of our participants or viewers have any sort of personal connection to it. I think it'd be good to take a look at some other charities and see whether there are any causes that have any meaning personally to anyone here. Here's a link with a list:

http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html

And the list of causes supported by the charities on the page:

• Abortion & Family Planning
• African-American
• AIDS
• American Indian
• Animal & Animal Protection
• Asia & Asian-American
• Blind & Visually-Impaired
• Cancer
• Child Protection
• Child Sponsorship
• Civil Rights & Advocacy
• Consumer Protection & Legal Aid
• Crime & Fire Prevention
• Disabled
• Drug & Alcohol Abuse
• Environment
• Gun Control
• Health
• Hispanic
• Homelessness & Housing
• Human Rights
• Human Services
• Hunger
• International Relief & Development
• Jewish & Israel
• Literacy
• Mental Health & Disabilities
• Peace & International Relations
• Population Planning
• Public Policy
• Senior Citizens
• Terminally or Chronically Ill
• Veterans & Military
• Women's Rights
• Youth Development
• Youth - Residential Care

We're not limited to the ones on the list, of course, if anyone's got anything else in mind. But thoughts?

Personally I can see an animal protection or environmental charity working well as it sorta reflects the Sonic franchise.

Current Votes
DarkAura - Women's Rights, Cancer, Gay Rights, Anti-Bullying
Zorkiy - Animal & Animal Protection
SonicBoom737 - Animal & Animal Protection
Umbreon - Animal & Animal Protection
TimpZ - Animal & Animal Protection
SonicBoom737 - Animal & Animal Protection
CosmicFalcon - Animal & Animal Protection
Strong Bad - AIDS, Cancer
flying fox- Cancer, Health, Mental Health & Disabilities
GerbilSoft - British Hedgehog Preservation Society
Combo - British Hedgehog Preservation Society
danieldude - British Hedgehog Preservation Society, Anti-Bullying
Etch - Child's Play, Cancer, Mental Health & Disabilities, Terminally or Chronically Ill
Chao_Fan - Cancer, Peace & International Relations
Werey - Cancer
Luxray: Cancer, Mental Health & Disabilities

26

News and Updates / Marathon 2013 -- For Real This Time

« on: January 14, 2013, 02:42:19 pm »

For those of you that missed the first marathon or just want to reminisce, watch this. I'll make sure that plays 15 minutes before our next marathon as a lead-in.

It's probably a good thing that our after-Christmas mini-marathon didn't happen, because Respawn Point ran a Sonic marathon that week and I'd completely forgotten about it. They raised $3250 for Child's Play, so kudos to them. We've been in talks about moving our marathon to Easter and making a full marathon like last year, and if I don't need to do as much hand-holding as last year, I'm all for it. I'm going to start fresh, being careful what I take from the Christmas marathon topic because I know that people's plans change; this means that I won't be taking anything volunteered in the old thread, so re-post anything that you personally wanted to do.

The trickiest thing about using Spring Break for the marathon is that some schools use the week leading up to Easter while other schools use the week after. My instinct is to aim for the week prior to Easter, but it's dependent on when our runners can show up as well. If people can comment on which week is better, that would be great.

A few people have volunteered for help with prizes for donation-based raffles. If you're helping with this, be sure that your prize can easily be sent to somebody without you having to manage the shipping. If you're unsure about this, consider digital prizes. We'll have a big focus on preplanned bonus streams for certain donation totals, as that was a huge donation driver last year. Karaoke was a donation driver as well. Our initial goal will of course be $1813.81, just over last year's goal, but I'd like to make a large stretch goal of $3250.01 -- not because I want to compete with Respawn Point, but because TSSZ declared $3250 a "community record", and I love proving TSSZ wrong.~

Given that the only new Sonic game since the last marathon is Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed (not counting the new version of Sonic Jump), we're going to have to repeat some games. We need to approach these repeats in different ways if possible, e.g., using a different character or a different set of courses. The audience participation was pretty slim last time -- about 20 or so for Puyopuyo, three for All Stars Racing, and one for Brawl -- and we can definitely afford to bump that up.

I'd like to see less personal advertising this time. That doesn't mean you can't plug your stream or YouTube channel at the start or the finish, but the extra space you're devoting to personal banners could be going towards a webcam shot of you playing and/or a chat box.

I'll leave people to comment on whatever they have in mind.

27

News and Updates / TSC is Real 2013

« on: January 01, 2013, 12:59:38 am »

So, it's a new year. This first hour has been kind of cool, but I'll admit that I was expecting us to have colonies on the moon, jet packs, shrink rays, teleporters, and all other sorts of stuff from the nerd singularity by now. At the very least, we could have airplane windows that are safe to open at 30,000 feet to make Mitt Romney happy.

EDIT: Umbreon wants flying cars. I agree with his want.

HyperSonic7701 wanted me to post that Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed rankings went up a few days ago. Um... that thing I just said.

The first draft of the 2013 site constitution is available in the following post (via the comments link for you home page readers), with the formatting removed so that I can copy/paste instead of redoing the minimal amount of HTML in the actual document. Feel free to comment on it or make suggestions by replying to the topic. If you don't lurk enough here, it'll be nonsense to you, but for the rest of us, it'll be a creed to live by.

28

News and Updates / Post-Xmas Streaming

« on: October 31, 2012, 04:35:57 pm »

After the TSC Marathon ended, we talked about the possibility of a smaller event just after Christmas (about the only time that our audience would have time off from school and the like). With November starting, we need to plan now or never if we want it to happen, and if we think that it shouldn't happen, that should be addressed too.

(Front-page viewers, click the comment counter to keep reading.)

29

News and Updates / Charity Marathon Final Thoughts

« on: August 28, 2012, 05:15:46 pm »

It's been a long week, but the marathon is over and archived for viewing anytime, with only minimal editing done. The marathon raised a total of $1813.80. I want to give a thank you to everybody that helped with the marathon in any way; more specific thanks will be in a follow-up post so as not to stretch the home page (click the comment count in the lower-right if you're reading this there for more).

30

News and Updates / The Charity Marathon is Here!

« on: August 20, 2012, 04:08:08 pm »

After months of preparation, it's T minus 22 hours until the marathon! Tune into TSC's Twitch.tv channel to catch the action from Tuesday, August 21 to Sunday, August 26. We'll be amassing donations for Child's Play, which donates toys and games to hospitals around the world to better the lives of admitted children. Come watch our speed runs; get involved in All Stars Racing on Xbox Live and in online PuyoPuyo (Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine to you non-Puyo people); donate to a good cause.

If you like what you see, spread the word!