It’s been a long time between updates and I wanted to get you all up to speed on what I’ve been doing…err.. or not doing. We have a preliminary schedule being worked on in our Final Fantasy section of the forums and we have a full list of players.

There are a few first time participants and runners from the SDA and SRL communities. I’m really excited about this and thankful for them contributing their time toward our cause. Right now Poxnor is scheduled to be kicking off the event by playing Final Fantasy 8. He will also be playing the FF Legends trilogy. He’s going to be in town for the event and we will make sure to get him a pair of cowboy boots and his own horse that he can ride back to Canada..also…CHEESECAKE FACTORY AND YUMMYLICIOUS (local frozen yogurt joint). Another first time runner for TSG also hailing from the great white North and obliterator of everything Final Fantasy will be the speed running artist Crystal Beauty playing Final fantasy 10.  Returning for her 3rd marathon, playing Final Fantasy VI , as I like to call her the Queen of Final Fantasy, Kari “Essentia” Johnson.

We also have a lot of first time players from our own community. Mayday will make her playing debut with Final Fantasy 10-2. Mayday has been participating in our marathons for awhile now by commentating , being a part of our marketing team and also helping with a million other behind the scene event coordination efforts.  Fellow Texan Giraffesaredope will be moseying down to the Rocking H  Ranch for the first time and playing Final Fantasy XII. Giraffes has been streaming for TSG presents for the past couple of years and is known on the forums as Ninja Monkey. Cosmoid is playing Final Fantasy III and  is another fellow TSG Presents streamer, former writer for the blog and a frequent video guest during our marathons. Last but not least, because we just can’t get enough of our Canadian brethren, Wazuki will be making his debut playing the fan favorite Final Fantasy VII. Wazuki joined the community  after watching our first Final Fantasy marathon back in 2009. It should be noted, as I think he would want me to point out that Wazuki is a fellow WoW TSG guild member and was SERVER FIRST ARCHEOLOGY for MOP. <<Rofl, that’s actually an inside joke and I’m sure he’s going to kill me when he sees me at the marathon. P.S. If you want to join the guild, we play on the server Nesingwary, horde. Guild name “Schindler’s Pokedex”.

There’s still a lot of shifting in times when it comes to the schedule so I’m going to hold off on posting that until June. Here’s a full player list below.

FF1: Caden “Y3llowPepper”

FF2: JD “JDTwins”

FF3: Cameron “Cosmoid”

FF4: Josh “Blaumagier” “Lothis”

FF5: Phil “Msico”

FF6: Kari ‘Essentia”

FF7: Jacob “Wazuki”; encore run Dustin

FF8: “Poxnor”

FF9:  “JaggerG”

FF10: “Crystal Beauty”

FF10-2: Ashley “Mayday”

FF 12:  Zach “Giraffesaredope”

FF 13: Joseph “Baltes”

FF 13-2: Rob “Rob” Rob

FF Crisis Core: Megan “Ruju”

Crystal Chronicles : Jazaaboo, Toast & Squint

Final Fantasy Legends 1-3: “Poxnor”

I slept very well last night after 4 days of Mega Man. This event sure did have a flair for the dramatic.  You guys rallied from what seemed like an insurmountable deficit to hit our goal. We experienced some internet issues less than 24 hours into the event. At one point we were disconnecting every couple of minutes. By Saturday night things had resolved themselves and the internet was back in working condition. Thank you guys so much for sticking with us through those technical difficulties. Approximately $11,800 was raised for Rocking H Ranch. I had so much fun during this event and it was truly a team effort. I enjoyed meeting AlanEdgeHead and Metalman from the forums for the the first time. They were really cool guys to hang out with and huge assets to the team. I look forward to doing more marathons with them in the future. Also big props to our first time player Trombonus. He played during the wee hours of the morning and destroyed his games. We couldn’t have done it without you all.

Our head web guru Local did an incredible job creating his own substitute for chipin which we used during the marathon. He will be making it available for anyone else who would like to run their own gaming events. We will have updates on this on a later date.

Up next, our WEEK LONG FINAL FANTASY MARATHON!!! This is our biggest event of the year and it all begins MONDAY June 24 @6pm central and will end on Monday July 1st.

If you won a prize, emails will go out within the next week asking for shipping addresses.

Thanks again for another memorable marathon!

Hey guys,

ACT Today sent me an email asking for our help. Back in 2010 we were able to help ACT Today achieve victory in a Chase bank contest. Now they are in a similar contest and I think we could greatly increase their odds of winning.

From the email:

“We entered a project in the Give for Youth Challenge and now we need your vote. Only the top 20 projects with the most votes will get the chance to have their projects funded – and matched by Microsoft (up to $100,000 across all organizations). Here’s the thing, if we get in the top 20, we have a company that is willing to donate $25,000 to the program. They can make the donation through this project and Microsoft will match it! We just need TSG’s help getting to the top 20.

The deadline for voting is Friday, March 1st, at noon PST! Please spread the word to anyone in your network. The more votes we get, the better our chances to get this project off the ground!

Here’s a quick description of our project: And Action! Providing Adolescents with Autism a Filmmaking Experience

ACT Today!’s Film Program is a 2 week program led by Inclusion Films in which 38-50 participants with autism, and up to 12 siblings, will make a 35-minute film. Participants will be introduced to many trades: animation, set design, script-writing, acting, prop/set building, wardrobe, make-up, budgeting and other tasks necessary for a film. They will learn the marketable skills of filmmaking, each leaving with a film credit, and an addition to their resume. For many, this will be their first experience of job training. Participants will reap rewards when the film is premiered at a red carpet event at the San Diego Film Festival, helping to shatter the misperceptions about the capacities of those with ASD.

Instructions to vote:
1. Visit our project page at http://giveforyouth.maker.good.is/proje … ilmprogram
2. Click “Vote for this idea” to vote for me!
3. Log in with your GOOD account. (Or if you don’t have one, all you need is an email address or a Facebook account to register. You will be emailed a link that you need to click to verify your address.)
4. Once you’ve voted, you’ll see a notification at the top of the screen verifying your vote has been counted. ”

Thanks everyone for reading!

We’ve got a couple of new tidbits of information about our Mega Man Marathon (March 8-11). Jazz is looking to play one of the DOS versions of Mega Man. Right now I’m working on getting DOS box setup so that we can make this happen. If you haven’t seen the game, it’s atrocious and it should be a  hilarious run for the marathon. Toast is also considering picking  up an X game or two to expand the catalog of games we are playing. We are only missing X5,X6 and X7 from the main series. With Toast playing one or two of these games we will be close to  clearing the entire franchise. Things are really coming together for this event with a little over a month to go. Any promotion that you guys can give the marathon would be much appreciated!

Jumping ahead to our next event, Final Fantasy, we will be starting on a Monday this time around, June 24- July1. I’m posting about this so early because this will be the first time we have started an event on any other day besides Friday. So mark your calendars now,  MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY June 24- July 1.

A couple of months ago I made a thread talking about wanting to game for 2 new charities and 2 previous charities in 2013. This March we are gaming for Rocking H Ranch and for Final Fantasy we will be gaming for ACT Today. This leaves us with the last 2 marathons and 2 new charities to game for. What causes and charities would you like to see us play for?

Other news:

-My monthly stream to give thanks to all of our contributors will be Sunday February 10th at around 3pm central.

-Our last two days of community stream month are tonight and tomorrow on live.thespeedgamers.com.

Thanks!

I’m finally back on my normal work schedule now that classes have started back up, so that means back to my weekly TSG updates.

In case you missed it, we raised a little over $12,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation in December. Now we are gearing up for our Mega Man Marathon which begins March 8th. Right now is kind of a unique time of year because we are having to simultaneously prepare for both the Mega Man and our week long Final Fantasy Marathon in June. The FF event is going to be huge so it requires us to be on the ball a bit earlier than usual. For now I’m going to go over the runners we have planned for Mega Man.

You guys shattered our goal of $10,000 and broke the $12,000 barrier for the Make A Wish Foundation. We are all so happy and proud of the great community that we have. So many moments stand out and I can’t remember ever laughing so hard and so much during a marathon. Thank you everybody for making this marathon so memorable.

Where has the time gone?! We are only a little over two weeks away from our Mario Marathon for the Make a Wish Foundation. It will start at 6pm central and last 72 hours.

We need all of your help promoting the event. Whether you are contacting a blog/website to spread the word or promoting through social media, it makes a huge difference in the success of our events. Any way that you can spread the word will be greatly appreciated.

During our last stream Caden (YellowPepper) revealed that he is donating a Wii U deluxe to give away during our marathon. This can be a helpful tool for promotion. I’ll be making a video soon going over our inventory of prizes.

-In case you missed it, here’s a preview of our 2013 marathon schedule.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcxDZdQHLXY[/video]

Hey Hey! We are just one day away from Thanksgiving here in the states. I hope everyone has a safe and fun and holiday. Don’t forget black Friday sales start earlier at some retailers this year and you can snag some new games for pretty cheap.

I’m (Britt) going to be streaming all day Sunday starting at noon!! I’m very excited about this and I’ll be going over our complete 2013 schedule with a brief little video. I’ll make the schedule announcement at around 3pm central.

-We put out a funny little Mario marathon promo earlier last week that was created by Cameron Garland of TSG.

-We’ve got a hugeeeeeee prize announcement that will be talking about very soon.

Not much else to talk about other than our big event that is just around the corner. The Marathon starts December 14th at 6pm central and will last 72 hours. We will be gaming for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s45G3n-iWwE[/video]

Another slow week but things will begin to pick up soon.

-I saw a near complete version of a Mario/Luigi skit that we did for one of Cameron’s film classes. I’ll be posting a link soon of the finished product!

- My 13 hour stream is right around the corner, Sunday November 25th. I’ll start at either 11am central or noon. I’ll be showing a video that details our 2013 marathon schedule.

-We are also exactly a month away from the Mario Marathon for The Make A Wish Foundation, December 14th.

-We are a couple of weeks into Luigi Awareness month on the forums. There is still time to participate and win prizes.

-Giraffe’s will be steaming Black Ops 2 tonight on our live page at 8pm central.