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Topic: 1st Arimaa Online Festival (Read 20189 times) |
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clojure
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #180 on: Oct 31st, 2010, 5:34pm » |
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Good suggestions from Nombril, but here some additions:
If someone *cough* manages to make even simple shared board, it would definitely help collaborative game playing. If the grand plan succeeds, then we would have a shared viewer that could be used for strategy workshop, so that players could suggest variations asynchronously. This is ambitious but could also change how we communicate with Arimaa players daily.
If we don't get that proper shared board, then we need to get good online stream video capture software in place, so that the quality of picture is good and accessibility is easy for common visitor (just link url). The capturing tool is very useful for other events, too, so that we could have recorded the think aloud match without needing to manually merge audio with game client real time play for later view. Also it could be streamed live online too.
We could also use multiple Teamspeak channels for blitz games / simuls so that when our user base is large enough, one can watch particular game of interest, and hear nice comments, too. Especially people like me could comment on newbie games. If it were recorded, the newbies could listen the commentary later on. I bet they would like it.
The radio broadcast was excellent, but if possible, it would be nice to reduce the delay between real time and the moment when radio listener hears voice. This made difference mainly when observing games.
If there will be additional events that need new technical solutions, we should discuss them in advance in public, so that as many eyes as possible could see that there will be no problem. There was some creativity needed to setup strategy workshop since Skype sharing eventually was not option; also if it would have been, people were confused right before the start how they could watch the workshop, so were starting to install Skype and noticed that they perhaps couldn't.
What I liked was that megajester and Omar had firm control over the whole thing. It felt like they directed the events without hesitation and it gave confident atmosphere.
One thing that we could do better is to see more newbies around. Maybe we should have some special event with a small prize (maybe by lottery). Advertising to different board forums didn't seem to yield results. Maybe personal connections worked better?
I think we could have this every 6 month. There's enough time so that it feels special and we can organize smaller "party hours" with different experimental events for keep the community interested.
Excellent day all in all but nevertheless there's always small things that could smooth things even more out.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 31st, 2010, 5:37pm by clojure » |
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rbarreira
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #181 on: Oct 31st, 2010, 5:54pm » |
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I'm pretty tired from yesterday, so I think having a similar festival every 6 months may be a bad idea.
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Nombril
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #182 on: Oct 31st, 2010, 9:28pm » |
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on Oct 31st, 2010, 5:34pm, clojure wrote:| One thing that we could do better is to see more newbies around. Maybe we should have some special event with a small prize (maybe by lottery). Advertising to different board forums didn't seem to yield results. Maybe personal connections worked better? |
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I know one of my good friends came to check things out for the first time, so I know word of mouth worked for at least one person.
Omar, do you keep track of 'new visitor' statistics to know if there was a significant change for the festival? I know we hit (tied?) a record for people logged into the gameroom, but I didn't look to see how many were regulars vs. newcomers.
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clojure
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #183 on: Oct 31st, 2010, 11:36pm » |
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I recorded the video for talk aloud match with the "real-time" option in Arimaa.com javascript viewer. Then I merged rbarreira's audio recording with it. But it seems the syncing failed 
Omar, is it possible that the viewer is not showing it exactly as real time? It's as if there's some additional time for each move which accumulates. I have "auto" and "real-time" checked. It would be important for later events if we don't get proper screen capturing software (for some reason what I use doesn't properly capture sound).
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Fritzlein
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #184 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 12:48am » |
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on Oct 31st, 2010, 11:36pm, clojure wrote:| I recorded the video for talk aloud match with the "real-time" option in Arimaa.com javascript viewer. Then I merged rbarreira's audio recording with it. But it seems the syncing failed |
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If the audio was captured from TeamSpeak via the native capture feature, it omits the times when no one is speaking. Thus the TeamSpeak audio file will play back in less than real time.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #185 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 1:08am » |
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on Oct 31st, 2010, 9:28pm, Nombril wrote:| Omar, do you keep track of 'new visitor' statistics to know if there was a significant change for the festival? I know we hit (tied?) a record for people logged into the gameroom, but I didn't look to see how many were regulars vs. newcomers. |
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You can see statistics here: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/growth/players
There were 17 new accounts created. This is a lot more than a regular day, but not unheard of. Being linked from a moderately well-trafficked Web site produces more new accounts than this.
We had 90 unique human logins over the course of the day. This is quite high, although a bit short of the record set during the 2010 championship events.
My own take on the importance of the Arimaa Online Festival is that it is not primarily about bringing in new people who have never encountered Arimaa before. For complete newcomers, the game events (simultaneous exhibition, team game, think out loud game, and strategy workshop) would have been completely inaccessible, and the talking events (interview with Omar, state of the challenge) only partially accessible.
The true target of the festival is members of the Arimaa community who aren't obsessed enough with the game to devote their lives to it on a regular basis but who will show up for something especially entertaining. I see it as the hard-core Arimaa community putting on a show for the benefit of the fringe Arimaa community.
Arimaa evangelism isn't just about getting new people into the church, it is also about getting the part of the congregation who normally only comes to be married or buried to also come for Christmas and Easter. Hopefully some of the people who came on Saturday after a long hiatus will renew their enthusiasm a bit, work a bit higher on the ladder than when they quit before, possibly sign up for the World Championship Spectator Contest, etc.
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Fritzlein
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #186 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 1:21am » |
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on Oct 31st, 2010, 5:34pm, clojure wrote:| If there will be additional events that need new technical solutions, we should discuss them in advance in public, so that as many eyes as possible could see that there will be no problem. There was some creativity needed to setup strategy workshop since Skype sharing eventually was not option; also if it would have been, people were confused right before the start how they could watch the workshop, so were starting to install Skype and noticed that they perhaps couldn't. |
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Skype was discussed and tested in advance. Indeed, before Omar installed TeamSpeak on the Arimaa server, Skype was successfully used to broadcast live game commentary. It was a proven solution. The only new element was screen sharing, and that worked in testing.
The kerfuffle did not arise because Skype suddenly wasn't working on the day of the festival, it arose because people decided at the last minute that it was too much burden to make people who didn't have Skype download the client, and also that recording Skype would have to be done differently than recording the rest of the festival. These factors were not last-minute techincal glitches; they were always going to be true.
I think this is the one aspect in which organization of the festival failed. Maybe the right decision was not to use Skype, but if so, there was no reason not to enforce that decision a month in advance, decide on an alternative, and test that instead. It is was a different kind of problem than the (inevitable) unforeseen hiccups that must be responded to creatively and flexibly on the spot.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 1st, 2010, 1:45am by Fritzlein » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #187 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 1:42am » |
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on Oct 31st, 2010, 5:34pm, clojure wrote:| I think we could have this every 6 month. |
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I think it is not so much a question of the Arimaa community's capacity to show up and party as it is a question of how often megajester and Omar are willing to exhaust themselves making it happen. It's a huge task, and judging by the list of suggestions, it isn't going to be easy the next time just because they have pulled it off successfully once.
I would say to you essentially what I said to megajester when he originally floated the idea, but with two words added: I will help out on the day of the event if you want to organize everything beforehand, but I'm not willing to take on the leadership role myself. If you really want an Arimaa Festival in June then you should take charge yourself and do all the work the work that is necessary to make it a reality.
But of course I don't really want you organize the next Arimaa Festival for June, because instead I want more features for the game analysis tool. If I have to choose between the two wonderful things, I would much rather wait a full year for the next festival. The idea of volunteering to organize a summer festival must be put out of your head at once. I only leave it floating there for someone else to take up. 
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| « Last Edit: Nov 1st, 2010, 1:45am by Fritzlein » |
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omar
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #188 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 3:37am » |
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Just uploaded the audio recording to http://arimaa.com/arimaa/ftp/
I missed the launch and start of Jean's simul. Also accidentally stopped recording in the middle of Jean's simul. So maybe this can be recovered form Ricardo's recordings.
Have to sleep now. More tomorrow.
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rbarreira
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #189 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 4:34am » |
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on Nov 1st, 2010, 12:48am, Fritzlein wrote:
If the audio was captured from TeamSpeak via the native capture feature, it omits the times when no one is speaking. Thus the TeamSpeak audio file will play back in less than real time. |
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I recorded from the Arimaa radio so it should be as close to real-time as possible.
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leo
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #190 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 7:54am » |
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The Festival was *huge*! \o/
And the Think Out Loud Match was *tremendous*!
Even if the Festival attracted only few newcomers, I'm sure it helped make the community stronger.
More comments to come ^^
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clojure
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #191 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 8:28am » |
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Fritzlein, we agree on the Skype thing. I explained probably badly. I wasn't sure what was the "problem" but what I tried to say was that whether it was technical or not, we should have discussion on it in public for two reasons 1) people are aware what they need to do beforehand to participate (I think even megajester wasn't 100% sure!) 2) technical and non-technical problems can be anticipated.
What comes to 6 month interval, I don't really know. Whether it is organized annually or twice a year, I could help in some small ways; as probably many of us would if it is possible. Like someone could take responsibility for getting information who participates and when it is organized. Someone could design how we advertise this (poster, video from this year's events, information on schedule on wiki), etc.
I'd like the idea of having a prize for one of the participants, if we in advance put some amount of money, the official Arimaa set would be good choice. With 10 people, it would be like 3-4 euros each. Fritzlein's and chessandgo's books would be nice, too.
I agree that the festival has clear emphasis on arousing existing community spirit. But I don't think it hurts to have something little for newbies. They would have some concrete event to wait for, and they could also observe the wonderful atmosphere by following the other events. Especially, I think the think aloud match is good one to catch attention but actually most of the discussion is still too hard to understand, because of quick tempo and Arimaa jargon. I don't think it would be too much distracting if we get two available average players who would do the same thing but explained things more slowly and carefully. This would be of interested for other average players, too. It would be perhaps sidekick, and it needn't have the attention of radio other than mentioning it.
I am just thinking aloud now what comes to my mind, since that could spark other ideas. We can decide whether a thin or dense program would be more beneficial. We don't get often lots of people online, nevermind interacting with them, so it would be nice to get most of it out.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 1st, 2010, 8:31am by clojure » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #192 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 10:25am » |
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on Nov 1st, 2010, 8:28am, clojure wrote:| I am just thinking aloud now what comes to my mind, since that could spark other ideas. |
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Excellent; that's what we all should be doing while the experience is still fresh in our minds.
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omar
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #193 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 10:43pm » |
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on Oct 30th, 2010, 7:48pm, Fritzlein wrote:
Also Ustream told me after the strategy workshop that a peak of 15 users were watching the video stream simultaneously.
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The peak for the radio was 26. I think it was during the state of the challenge discussion.
I'll try to show the number of listeners on the radio page next time.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 2nd, 2010, 12:03am by omar » |
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omar
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Re: 1st Arimaa Online Festival
« Reply #194 on: Nov 1st, 2010, 11:03pm » |
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on Oct 31st, 2010, 2:50pm, Nombril wrote:
a. Is this something that can be made generally available for other people to turn on, or does it require Omar's involvement?
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It requires me to login and start up the radio server. Also I need to run a program locally to relay the teamSpeak output over to the radio server. So it requires my involvement, but if you want do something let me know and I can turn it on for you.
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Tournament tools: Ability to add and drop people part way through the tournament.
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Yes, I'll see if I can get this setup.
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