Marathon Weekend (Closed until next marathon weekend)

Mr. Flay · Post Post #5 (isolation #0) » Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:27 pm

In post 1, Slaxx wrote:You'll probably want to avoid the winter holidays too, so I would shift it up to October. September/October is fine.

Doing it in odd months makes it coincide with International Mafia Month, which is the source of the original Marathon Day.

Third weekend should work fine without running into major holidays. That would be:

September 16-19, 2011
November 18-21, 2011
January 20-23, 2012
March 16-19, 2012
May 18-21, 2012
July 20-23, 2012

Mr. Flay · Post Post #7 (isolation #1) » Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:41 am

School cycles vary so much it would be almost impossible to have a date between mid-April and mid-June that didn't impact somewhere.

Also, not all of us are in school.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #9 (isolation #2) » Thu Sep 15, 2011 7:25 am

It's not actually this weekend - it's next weekend (22nd-26th).

Mr. Flay · Post Post #33 (isolation #3) » Sun Oct 02, 2011 2:17 pm

Odd-numbered months, not even.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #43 (isolation #4) » Wed Nov 16, 2011 3:02 am

That's what the title says.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #48 (isolation #5) » Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:16 am

Roughly midnight UTC.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #52 (isolation #6) » Thu Nov 17, 2011 2:25 pm

Have fun folks!

Mr. Flay · Post Post #59 (isolation #7) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 1:55 am

Well, that was embarassing.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #64 (isolation #8) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 3:41 pm

In post 62, Whiskers wrote:Sorry, I didn't realize it was a literal weekend this time.
How dumb.

News that it's a marathon weekend doesn't get around for a few days, and then there's only a handful of players who consistently enjoy playing Marathon games, and you have to assume they all want to play together and all are available at the same time. Oh, and agree on one kind of game to play (normal, open, bastard, magic train, dethy).

A marathon
week
might work better, with mods setting up ads and stuff well in advance, and letting it go until it dies.

When we tried a week, it died in 48-72 hours. They've been

scheduled

for two months, if you don't know when it is by now (it's in the Index, and the thread title, and the Active Threads) I don't know what to tell you guys...

Mr. Flay · Post Post #66 (isolation #9) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 3:55 pm

I still think we've made them too common. When they were twice a year, anticipation really got to build up (but at the same time, it made it harder to get the word out).

Mr. Flay · Post Post #69 (isolation #10) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 5:55 pm

I'm not gonna change the frequency yet - this month may have been a fluke. But if they're not better by IMM (March), maybe we'll lengthen the period.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #84 (isolation #11) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 7:50 pm

In post 79, Whiskers wrote:That works too-- hm.

Summer Marathons did pretty well, what if we have three events in the summer side of the year, (March, June, September) and then dance dance dance in the winter? Gives us,
1 2
3
4 5
6
7 8
9
10 11

and then December is off, making the longest stretch Five months. A week every three months?
Hm, idfk. Still seems a little close together to make it really exciting.

Biannual in March would mean also in September.
What happens in September?

September has Labor Day weekend in the US. It's also the start of school for a lot of people, which drops activity.

March/July/Winter Holiday might work. But again, this is all baseless speculation on too small of a sample set.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #100 (isolation #12) » Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:20 am

I'm moving it to next weekend. I think we forgot there were five weekends in March.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #102 (isolation #13) » Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:17 am

It WAS set for this weekend, and not opening it was a mistake. I'm retroactively fixing it.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #107 (isolation #14) » Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:55 pm

Yes. This thread is one, did you not notice?

Mr. Flay · Post Post #120 (isolation #15) » Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:02 pm

Nice. This time you got a global announcement that shows in EVERY Forum. It sure helped, didn't it?

Mr. Flay · Post Post #133 (isolation #16) » Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:39 am

We'll revisit the timing, but for now I have posted the next dates as if we'll continue as normal. It's possible this one went badly because of the Great Rollback and associated lull in activity.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #136 (isolation #17) » Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:55 pm

In post 123, TheButtonmen wrote:
In post 120, Mr. Flay wrote:Nice. This time you got a global announcement that shows in EVERY Forum. It sure helped, didn't it?

Flay we get it you're bitter but this really is not helping.

The issue is that you're advertising in the wrong spots, putting up a global announcement doesn't do anything as nobody checks those. 3 out of the 4 people in scumchat today who were active in site idea/GD or MD today were completely unaware marathon weekend was happening until someone told them. You've put it in a place that people just skip over because there is never anything worth reading there also you start advertising too late.

People ASKED for a global announcement, repeatedly.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #139 (isolation #18) » Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:12 pm

Probably lost to the void. Or in an older thread, I can't be arsed to hunt it up right now. That was the big theory on how to ensure everyone knew it was Marathon Weekend.

Of course, this weekend IS statistically unreliable for a couple of reasons, but hopefully you see my point (and LlamaFluff's, and Hoopla's, and...)

Mr. Flay · Post Post #144 (isolation #19) » Wed May 23, 2012 1:39 am

It will happen for sure this weekend. Globalized again.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #150 (isolation #20) » Fri May 25, 2012 1:36 am

GO GO GO!

::edit:: Stupid Global Announcements

Mr. Flay · Post Post #161 (isolation #21) » Sat May 26, 2012 4:12 am

In post 157, DeathNote wrote:I am surprised this isn't open till monday as most people have off Monday due to Memorial Day.

If games are actually happening, we probably will.

And yeah, holiday weekends are a mixed bag.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #165 (isolation #22) » Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:51 pm

Next one will NOT be in July; we need to re-evaluate these. More when we know more.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #186 (isolation #23) » Thu Jun 27, 2013 10:44 pm

It's been played with (with the usual result that more often is less successful overall), but yeah, right now it'll be about twice a year.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #197 (isolation #24) » Tue Jul 02, 2013 5:03 am

Usually signups happen right before the game starts. Occasionally mods will plan a game for a specific hour and take pre-ins.

I'll be around the afternoon of the 4th and try to run something. Maybe Sunday too.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #204 (isolation #25) » Wed Jul 03, 2013 4:12 am

In post 199, N wrote:It's the 4th!

We usually count from midnight UTC to midnight west coast. So (expired on 2013-07-04 00:00:00)

Mr. Flay · Post Post #207 (isolation #26) » Wed Jul 03, 2013 5:11 am

You may find it difficult to get 9 players when their calendars still technically say the 3rd. But if that happens you can just move it back to tomorrow.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #211 (isolation #27) » Wed Jul 03, 2013 5:03 pm

Try now. I just got home.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #216 (isolation #28) » Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:13 am

Nice. I might have time for that.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #234 (isolation #29) » Tue Jul 09, 2013 1:37 am

We're discussing it, but probably either December 26th-30th (right between the holidays) or 24th-2nd. I'm concerned people will get burnt out on the longer duration, since our usual limit for effective Marathons is 72-96h.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #242 (isolation #30) » Sat Jul 13, 2013 11:39 am

In post 240, zabriel wrote:How about the 26th-2nd?

Perhaps. We've had the rule before that we can shut down early if everything's dead.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #244 (isolation #31) » Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:54 am

See thread title.

Spoiler: Are you ready?

Mr. Flay · Post Post #254 (isolation #32) » Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:10 pm

Mr. Flay wrote:unless the site is still glitching HARD on the 26th, I'm not planning on changing or cancelling Marathon Week. People need some happy.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #278 (isolation #33) » Thu Dec 26, 2013 6:24 pm

Thanks chamber - RL got busy on me today (pesky work thing, plus dead car and sick -O-).

Mr. Flay · Post Post #280 (isolation #34) » Thu Dec 26, 2013 6:38 pm

We'll play it by ear based on activity. If games are still filling on the 2nd, then we'll extend, yes.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #293 (isolation #35) » Wed Jan 01, 2014 6:59 am

In post 280, Mr. Flay wrote:We'll play it by ear based on activity. If games are still filling on the 2nd, then we'll extend, yes.

So, how do people feel Marathons are going? Most games filling? Trouble finding replacements?

Mr. Flay · Post Post #296 (isolation #36) » Wed Jan 01, 2014 5:15 pm

Tomorrow is on for sure. We'll see if it slows down tomorrow after people start going back to work, etc.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #297 (isolation #37) » Thu Jan 02, 2014 12:58 pm

I'm seeing one game that's actually started today so far (Worst Idea, and maybe PF's if it gets off the ground), and one other (probably) scheduled for 11pm. Looks like we're definitely slowing down... anybody planning on running much tonight? If not I'll close it by dawn.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #300 (isolation #38) » Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:03 am

We'll try one more day.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #319 (isolation #39) » Sat Mar 01, 2014 3:35 am

See my signature.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #327 (isolation #40) » Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:57 am

Marathon Weekend MAY run until the 31st, depends largely on demand/how games are filling.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #329 (isolation #41) » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:19 pm

Will evaluate tomorrow evening, but leaning yes. Want to see how the Sunday games fill.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #331 (isolation #42) » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:55 pm

Feel free to provide opinions here about the extension possibility, that will also factor in.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #335 (isolation #43) » Sun Mar 30, 2014 5:30 pm

Back-of-the-envelope math says 15 games out of 26 ran on Thursday (not counting No Effort), 11/16 on Friday,

19/20

for Saturday (not counting ZPE), and 6/9 on Sunday, mostly supersmall games. I'll leave it open for Monday, but I expect people will have trouble filling games what with it being a workday, tired, etc...

Mr. Flay · Post Post #338 (isolation #44) » Mon Mar 31, 2014 5:57 pm

...aaaand we're done. Check thread title, I'm thinking maybe the second to last weekend in August (22nd-24th).

Mr. Flay · Post Post #341 (isolation #45) » Tue Apr 01, 2014 10:30 am

That was VERY rough data based on the starting post of the thread (you can see that time stamp on the forum.php without clicking each game). So for example if a thread was opened Saturday but didn't run that night and ran successfully on Sunday afternoon, I counted it as a Saturday game.

That said, there aren't so many pages of games that we couldn't do an overall survey for patterns. It would not surprise me that Saturday was the most popular, no. But what about time zone (and whose time zone do we use?). Duration? Size?

Mr. Flay · Post Post #344 (isolation #46) » Tue Apr 15, 2014 1:18 am

Definitely agree on going by the actual game start time, I was just getting some rough estimate numbers that night because I was in a hurry. The majority of the site is still US based so a US time reference would be fine.

You can't get numbers on browsing the forum I don't think, but you could do something like "unique users posting in the forum each hour" or something to get a popularity graph.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #346 (isolation #47) » Wed Apr 30, 2014 1:46 am

I don't know, I haven't really done any screen scraping, you might talk to Psyche or some of the others who have written scripts to help.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #356 (isolation #48) » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:59 pm

Labor Day weekend is fine.

Mr. Flay · Post Post #360 (isolation #49) » Thu Aug 28, 2014 11:18 pm

Marathon Forum is now open!

Mr. Flay · Post Post #375 (isolation #50) » Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:06 am

Well how did the weekend go?