This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Fire Emblem hacking community’s event, FEE3. With over 72 projects shown, this was easily the largest FEE3 to date. The organizers (Cam, Arch, Dancer_A, and myself) discussed this and want to bring in the community to gauge how you felt the event went and hear your feedback so we can continue to adjust for next year.
Following last year’s review and discussion (FEE3 2019 in Review - Observations & Recommendations), we made some changes to address criticisms and improve the event. Some of the most notable changes from last year were as follows:
Changes from 2019
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Creation of an event discord server. This allowed for us to have streamlined communications between organizers (myself, Arch, Cam, and Dancer_A), volunteer LPers, and project creators. This reduced the amount of friction and confusion, and we did not have any repeats of work duplication, while also reducing the amount of projects that were dropped due to flaky volunteers.
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Firmer guidelines on length. Following complaints of movie-length videos, we asked people to not record for longer than an hour. Most of the videos fell comfortably within this limit, and those that exceeded only did so by a few minutes. We turned away project submissions that were too long, and asked them to re-record for the sake of improving viewer experience.
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Adjustment of upload times. Last year, there were complaints that with the length of videos and all videos being uploaded in a short window each day, it was hard to keep up with the event. We addressed this by launching a video once every 6 hours to create a steady drip of content to ensure that new content would drop at times convenient around the world to appeal to a global audience. Given the guidelines on video length, most of the time there was at least a 5 hour period between each video, hopefully reducing viewer fatigue, while also allowing for international audiences to consume content at a friendlier time.
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Removal of premiere format. We went back to straight uploads to improve view totals and increase the likelihood that videos would get seen.
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Scheduled buffer. It has become “tradition” for the event to be delayed, and this year, we scheduled the launch of the event with a built in buffer from the due date to ensure we could start on time. Of the projects submitted, only 25% were submitted after our internal deadline, only 1 project being delayed past the start of showtime (Midnight Sun, a unique case) - which is a huge step up from last year! We can do better though. Thankfully, with the buffer, there was no public delay period and we were able to wrap up the outstanding projects within a few days of the deadline.
These improvements did make a positive impact on how the event was run, but there is always still more that can be done. And with new solutions comes new challenges. For myself, I was involved much more this year than ever before, and inserted myself into doing a lot of the work to get organized and get the event as close to running on time as possible.
Number of projects
Number of projects.
It is no secret that the hacking community is growing larger. There has never been a better time to get into the hobby and it shows. The event had 20+ more videos than last year, and the event ran for 7 days longer than the previous two years (11 in 2018 and 2019 to 18 days in 2020). While this is great, this also presents challenges. There’s been talk of changing the event so it is less strenuous on the organizers or daunting for the community to consume.
Coordinating such a large number of projects in a short time can lead to confusion and frustration for those involved on the back-end. Additionally, there were people who requested interviews that could not be accommodated and people waiting to hear from LPers, leading to some showings not going as planned.
With the number of projects relative to the number of people who are willing and able to donate time to run the event as an organizer or LPer, it is increasingly challenging to accept every request.
The number of projects leads to a few other issues as I’ll outline below.
Acceptable projects
Acceptable projects
There was some discussion this year as to what would be acceptable to show. While we had to turn away a few projects for inappropriate content (the lewd kind, the gory kind, and the art theft kind), there were other projects submitted that some felt were not suited for FEE3.
Unfortunately, there were no clear guidelines in the thread or on the back-end that we could point to in order to provide guidance to these creators. With no clear guidelines, it lead to confusion, mixed messages, and unclear expectations of organizers and LPers. Traditionally, we’ve had an unwritten rule that reskins and rebalances were not allowed, but this year we saw an unprecedented increase in hacks that made edits to existing games vs. earlier FEE3 events that focused more on fully custom hacks.
Given the number of projects and the length of the event, should we have stricter guidelines on what gets shown and make it clear what is allowed? What would that list look like? To me, custom hacks, technical showcases, translation work, and art showcases make the most sense.
Rebalances, weapon reversals, and reverse recruitments and such, I’m more inclined to exclude them from the event, but I am curious to hear thoughts. I think as the event grows and the community gets bigger, it is paramount we establish clear rules and guidelines on what is acceptable so that we have solid grounds for entry.
Recording quality
Recording quality.
As with last year, we did receive feedback that some of the recording quality is not great. Between either lackluster commentary or production, there is an overall disparity between project showcases. This is largely because there are too many projects to record in such a short period, and because to properly edit and do anything fancy with the videos and visuals would lead to more delays of the event.
I recorded about 9 videos in ~2 weeks which each took about an hour or more of my time between recording, editing, and uploading - which is a lot for anyone to do in addition to their other responsibilities. Admittedly, the quality of my own work was poor this year, and having to record many projects couple with other responsibilities made it a challenge to represent each project as well as I would’ve liked to.
I know I am not alone in this. To address recording quality, there’s been discussion of changing the event format. Whether this means having some sort of nomination process for what gets shown to make the event feel more “premier” for the “best” the hacking community can show, or even planning earlier so that there is more time for us to record, it’s clear that the timing provided to for volunteers to record given the number of projects and time to do so creates an environment where corners need to be cut to ensure every project gets shown.
Additionally, because of the variety of LPers and instructions provided for projects, there are huge disparities in the overall quality of each showcase - which I find particularly unfair for projects that submit for volunteer LPers. Some LPers were not able to get what they wanted showcased, or were not reached out to about things they requested. I do think we need to be careful about what we promise to people who ask for volunteer LPers, since again we cannot guarantee that everything is completed exactly to project submitter specification.
Having clearer expectations for what a project owner gets when they ask the organizers to get a volunteer for them will help ensure that there is minimal disappointment in the overall showcase quality and content. Specifically, I think that if a creator submits for a volunteer LPer, we share a list of stand items they will get as part of this support.
In my opinion, if the burden is being put on organizers to showcase your project, that the expectation should be a 1 chapter LP done solo by the volunteer. If you make your own arrangements, sure, do an interview, co-commentate - but if we only get a patch and some instructions, the expectations should be clear with what level of support you will get.
I do think there is an opportunity here for us to re-evaluate how FEE3 is structured, whether it be operationally (ie longer term planning and more collaboration with LPers earlier), or adjusting the format so that fewer projects get volunteer LPers, but with hope that there would be higher production value.
My view is that we should provide greater notice for the event so that we have more time to plan leading into the launch. This will allow us to accommodate a greater number of projects without as much of a time crunch. While there has been discussion of limiting the event more drastically to make it a more premiere event to showcase the best in hacking, I worry that this could come across as “elitist” and stifle the development of newer projects that receive less support and have less visibility.
Personally, I’m confident Vision Quest would not be what it is had I not had a chance to showcase my work at FEE3 2018, and so I feel that giving each hack a chance is important, since this may be the only time in the sun someone’s work will get. Curious to hear thoughts on this because I do see merits to both approaches.
Visual identity
Visual identity
Similarly, I think we should create custom FEE3 graphics and assets (like templates for recording and thumbnails) so all videos have a consistent look and feel. Even though each LPer will bring something different to the table, there’s an opportunity to drive further consistency through a shared visual identity for all LP showcases.
Regardless of which direction we take, I do not foresee the recording burden falling on any one person, so finding ways to create common ground between LPers will help the event appear more uniform than it has in recent years.
With the absence of MK404, who previously created assets, I used the super mario bros 3 font and made a bunch of NES-inspired title cards, which were quickly lambasted by the community as “ugly” and “bland”.
The thumbnails were a last minute addition this year - I was not given direction or guidance on how we historically had thumbnails, and without this, I created the text only thumbnails that we launched with. Thankfully, Levin, Gamma, Miacis, and others were able to quickly address this by creating new thumbs. I feel terrible about the negative reception to this and agree that this was a miss.
This goes back to a lack of operational rigor in the event, leading to miscommunication and misunderstanding of how things get done, or in this case, did not.
Getting graphics support earlier and driving consistency will help better market and elevate the event, which I will discuss more below.
Operational planning
Operational Planning
Before we get into the last section, I do want to talk about operations. This is probably the most uninteresting and inconsequential for the general viewer, but I think this will continue to grow in importance over time. This event historically has largely been run by Arch and MK404. How two people have run an event so large for so long as mind-boggling - there is a ton to do, and I experienced it firsthand this year.
I do think we have an opportunity to improve our back-end processes to make things even smoother to run, and to also make handoffs between organizers easier. For example, I never ran FEE3 before and largely had to run with it using my own instincts and experience as a project manager to ensure things go down on time, and that the appropriate documents were created for review. I’m fortunate that my career has equipped me with both the foresight and skills to manage teams and run these types of events.
However, any process that relies on an individual is bound to fail. I also cannot guarantee that I will be available to manage this event in the same capacity for the foreseeable future. We need better mechanisms and processes so anyone can plug in and run the event.
In order to sustain FEE3 and ensure that new organizers can step in and run the event, we need to document everything. We need to create processes, establish roles & responsibilities, and hold people accountable to deadlines. I focused mostly on making sure we’d get all videos recorded and set up on time. Visuals and communications are not my strong suit, and I did not have insight into how this was done previously.
Ideally, any of the organizers should be able to pass these to someone else, and they’d be able to run the event on the back-end without needing to ask questions or come up with their own ideas on the fly. It was admittedly frustrating to do this blind while trying to respect how the event was run in the past - I had to rely a lot on my own instincts to determine what was appropriate for event management, while pushing others to provide updates and communicate next steps so we can ensure a timely launch.
To enable the event to scale to more organizers and go beyond the core group who has been involved historically, we need to create documentation. This documentation on acceptable content, timing, sample schedules, and general workflows will be critical for any new organizer trying to run the day to day of the event. In addition, I think we should expand the amount of people involved on the back-end by organizing committees who will help get the event up and running. Committees would be similar to our group of volunteer LPers, but helping with other aspects - such as quality control, project assignments, charity, and so forth.
We should not need to rely on any one person or oral tradition to make the event happen. Now that the event has grown and those who were most involved in the past are less so, it is critical that we document.
Complaints from the community
Complaints from the community
I know this is going to come across as adversarial, but it needs to be said - the amount of complaints we received throughout the process this year is egregious.
This is both the largest show and one of the first shows in recent memory to start on time.
I felt like myself and the organizers were on the receiving end of blame for not being as diligent with updates and communications ahead of the show’s launch. This is inclusive of the charity, details on the form, and other complaints raised before and during the event. While much of this criticism is fair, how some complaints were raised left a bad taste in my mouth, and the discourse between some members of the community and organizers was, for a lack of a better word, bad.
I do empathize with this to an extent, because a major reason we lacked proper comms is because the organizers are all working adults. We baked in enough time to do everything properly, and while this was clear to us, it could’ve been better communicated to the community ahead of time and more details could’ve been shared.
I think this can be resolved with more support on the back-end next year, more clarity on expectations from Arch (Who has been largely absent this year to do work, which is 100% understandable), and better documentation of how to run the event so we aren’t reliant on a few people who have done this for the bulk of its history.
I want to run a great event. All of the organizers do. But this is a hobby, and this takes time to execute. I’m not saying y’all should be grateful that people are doing this for you for free, but please consider that when you lodge complaints against the team, especially when things are moving slower than you’d like them to. I always try to be as diplomatic, cordial, and polite as possible, so I hope that everyone can extend that same courtesy, both fellow organizers and project owners.
I apologize if this comes across as adversarial, but it was frustrating to be on the receiving end of things when I couldn’t properly address these issues, and it seemed as though the event would be marred by negative feedback on these topics.
Hosting and marketing
Hosting and marketing.
This year MK404 bowed out of hosting FEE3. Which is understandable, given the amount of work that goes into it and what’s required. I am thankful for Ray for promoting the event on his channel this year, as well as his contributions and hosting the event for the majority of its 10 year life.
However, the change presented an opportunity for FEU to go its own way and not tie FEE3 to any one particular personality. However, this comes at the expense of views and potential exposure. The overall view count per video is down from last year, even with the improvements that were made and shift away from YouTube premier.
We worked with other communities to amplify messaging and market the event across different sites, but access to large numbers of subs helps with viewership. While this is a painful short term move and a major loss for the event, I predict going forward it will allow us to have more control and establish FEU as the go to location for romhacking Fire Emblem GBA.
While some may say it is regrettable that more prominent FE Youtube personalities were absent this year, there is still the question of how we can better engage with them to get the word out and bring in more viewers and interest. However, I think interest will only see dramatic increases with better production quality - creating a conundrum as outlined earlier.
This leads me to think - what is the core purpose of the event? Is our goal for FEE3 to showcase everything that we as a collective community have done, with the goal of giving each project some time in the sun to gain interest and feedback? Is the goal to provide entertainment by showing the strongest projects to build interest in FEU more broadly?
The identity of FEE3 is, in my mind, one of the biggest questions we will face going forward as hacking continues to increase in popularity and becomes more accessible, as it will inevitably make this event more unwieldy, unfocused, and difficult for viewers to consume and organizers to manage. While the original intent was for hackers to showcase projects, I think we have subconsciously moved away from this as the community has grown.
I am mixed on this issue, but I lean more towards doing whatever we can to showcase as many projects as possible to celebrate all of the community’s efforts vs. only celebrating a few. However, this will take more operational rigor, additional support, and stricter guidelines to ensure that we can “handle the weight” of the event.
Now that you’ve read all of this, dear reader, I ask you this: What are your thoughts? How are you feeling?
With ten years under the collective community’s belt, and the event continuing to grow, I think it’s important we decide the direction we take the event so that it can continue to flourish and bring more attention to the cool work everyone here is doing. There’s never been a better time to get into hacking and I think we as a community have a bright future ahead.
What was your experience like in the event? Would love to hear from project submitters, LPers, viewers, and anyone who engaged in the event in some way.
In short, here is my proposal outline for next year. I would like to get your feedback:
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Create guidelines for acceptable projects. Types of projects allowed, as well as reiterating rules around gore, sex, and other inappropriate content. This needs to be front and center so that projects containing them are not.
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Create assets for people to self-serve with recording so that we can maintain a consistent look and feel. This is inclusive of video streaming templates, thumbnail templates for screenshot insertion, and other relevant branding assets. These will be shared so people can self-serve and create their own assets to support their project’s showcase instead of relying on organizers to do so.
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Based on the success of how organized volunteer LPing was this year, let’s emulate this across the event. I propose we establish the following committees to own the following aspects of the event: 1) Quality control inclusive of video/audio quality and appropriateness of content. 2) Volunteer LPers, 3) Visual arts for thumbnails, stream templates, and other branded FEE3 materials, 4) Promotions and communications: Responsible for outreach to other communities and interfacing with community during the event’s run, inclusive of thread updates and engagement with outside parties interested in support, and 5) Charity organization, selection, and promotions. Each group would have a committee head that would be responsible for organizing the volunteer groups. Organizers would be responsible for video uploads, schedule creation, and resolving any escalations. Those interested could volunteer by submitting a form ahead of the event with more details on what this responsibility would entail.
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Create channel(s) on the FEU discord that are used for FEE3 planning so that it’s easier for our members to participate and share versus having a separate discord. The discord was a positive step, but we should keep it all in our existing server for ease of access and visibility to all parties involved. We can create private channels for organizers and each committee, as well as a public channel for questions and updates surrounding the event. These channels would be archived outside of FEE3 season unless we choose to run other, similar events.
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Continue to streamline the form and submission process. You submit your project once with all the details. No new patches, no changes, just a single submission. To accommodate this, we will provide more notice to the start of the event so that everyone has more time to prepare. This form will include all requested assets to create thumbnails as well. Lastly, we will include more prescriptive fields should you need a volunteer LPer to ensure your content is represented appropriately.
In addition, I am most curious to hear discussion on the following:
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General event feedback - how did you find it as a viewer, a project creator, an LPer?
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Event format and structure - does this need to change?
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Opportunities you see going forward to make the event better.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing your feedback.
from Honeydew.