Current Race Plans
- Nothing currently.
Keep in mind that impromptu races will happen whenever people in the chat want them to happen. This section is more to let people know of any pre-planned races with at least 1 day of forewarning.
Racing? What is this?
People get together on Skype and casually race each other at a video game through a call (preferably with voices included since that's easier to hear your screams of frustration keep up with for the other racers, though you can text chat if you really have to or want to).
Games we will be racing will depend almost solely on what everyone is interested in racing. It could be Zelda Classic Quests (though we may want to go for shorter ones), Zelda games, Mario games, Sonic games, or even modern stuff. There are a lot of possibilities here!
Keep in mind this isn't a really formal thing that requires a significant amount of training to even be allowed to participate. During our first race of Super Mario World, we had wildly varying levels of skill and a few people didn't finish the race for various reasons. We also had someone going in completely blind (they never played Super Mario World before). The entire point is to have fun, so we're really not expecting pro speedrun gameplay or even knowledge of the game! You can bring it if you have it, of course, but it's not a requirement!
What are the rules?
The rules will vary depending on the race and the preference of the racers, but the big rule we'll usually be following is no emulator trickery. This includes fast forwarding, save states (unless we waive it for particularly gimmicky game choices), rewinding, playing a TAS keystroke recording instead of playing for real, and such.
Basically, don't be an uncooperative jerk by purposely trying to cheat your way to victory. That's not fun. It's also pointless since there are no real prizes for winning these things.
Do I need to record or stream this stuff if I race?
Not unless everyone participating in a particular race is keen on doing it. Everyone during the first session streamed their stuff through twitch so that other PureZC members could see it happening live, but that's not really a requirement since we're just doing this for fun.
Recording Races for Race Videos?
At some point in the future, we may want to start making compilation race videos that show an entire race unfolding with most or all of the involved racers. If a particular race group wants to do this for a race (remember this isn't a requirement), everyone involved should try to do these things:
- Recording the video. I think for our purposes, live streaming recordings would be fine if you don't have hard drive space or CPU to spare if you want to stream. But if you want to record locally and can handle that, please do so since it's probably more reliable and easier to edit.
- Someone recording the Skype call. It'd be preferable if the recording didn't have the game audio because everyone won't be playing the same length of time maybe, though it's fine if you want to be super lazy and just use the video recording audio.
- If you do record Skype audio off by itself, be sure to sync it with when everyone starts playing by clearly doing a countdown or something.
I'll try to have a more in-depth guide here on a way to do this stuff somewhere down the road. But for now, all I can suggest is making sure this stuff works ahead of time if you really want to do it. That means testing your recording stuff before you race while also in a Skype call (Skype eats resources like crazy).
Do I have to wait for the races Nick announces to race people at something?
Nope! In fact, I highly encourage you to race whatever you want whenever you can if you can get a group of people together. You can use this thread and/or the Skype race chat as an announcement and gathering medium so long as it's involving multiple PureZC members!
I've re-iterated this a few times in the thread, but you don't have to wait for me to announce races to race. Part of the reason the Skype chat exists is for people to organize races whenever. This can be short term or longer term. If you figure out a time with a few people and want to see if others are interested on the forums, post about it!
Also feel free to share race videos in here if you have any amongst PureZC members and I can add them to the OP.
The Skype Race Chat
Gathering for a race will happen on Skype. For this purpose, we have a general race chat group on Skype. Here's how to get in on it if you're interested:
- If you haven't added me on Skype already, I'm EternalKyo (my display name is "NickZC"). I have my Skype settings set to only accept IMs from friends, so you'll have to send me a contact info request. So that I'm not confused, you should note who you are on PureZC if it isn't obvious.
- Send me a message letting me know you want in the race chat.
- I'll add you to the race chat when I get a chance. Sometimes I'm busy, so this might be delayed.
If you have any questions related to the races, feel free to ask.
Original Topic
Edited by Nick, 09 July 2014 - 08:03 PM.
If someone is in the age group of 12-16, I can talk, otherwise, no. 
