Why I've given up speedrunning (ALL MY OPINON) (Off-Topic)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, February 10, 2014, 23:01 (3731 days ago)

Or why both the casuals and the hardcore are doing it wrong.

Imagine you've got a mountain near your house. You and a friend decide to climb it one day. You make it to the top, and it's pretty cool looking out over your town from high up. The climb was challenging, and you had fun doing it. What now? Well, you could try climbing it from the other side, seeing as how it's more technical, and the paths are more treacherous. You pick the hardest way up, see new sights along the way, and make it to the top. You've conquered the mountain.

So now what? Well, you say, I'm going to climb it faster. Your friend instead decides to travel and try climbing another mountain. You work out the fastest way up, and end up getting pretty good climbing. Over and over, you shave time off your ascent. You're not even enjoying the view or taking it in, instead your climb plan is your focus. Step, jump here. Eventually, you climb that mountain so fast, nobody else can beat you.

But was it worth it? Not only have you reduced climbing the mountain to a series of steps, cold and mechanical, but in doing so you race past not even taking in the view anymore. Yeah you're the fastest, but does that matter when your friend comes back having climbed ten mountains in different places, with tons of new views, paths, techniques, and stories to share?

One of the many reasons I've given up speedrunning, is that I largely feel that any sense of aesthetic, and even mechanical enjoyment of the game is ruined by doing so. If you've never made a speedrun, here's what you do:

1. Get good at the game.
2. Research known techniques / routes.
3. Find new techniques /routes.
4. Decide upon a route.
5. Execute the run.

The last two steps completely ruin games, because you are essentially boiling down your actions, that will be repeated over and over until you nail the run, into a series of steps divorced from the normal decision making of play. So play Mario, and you are no longer playing the game, but executing the pre-planned script: run, jump here, run, jump here, go down this pipe. The game goes from being something you feedback with, to a series of exact moves which if not done correctly, demand a reset. As competition gets more fierce, this part gets worse and worse.

I still have the record for MGS2. A while ago I played it through again the 'normal way'. And wow, what fun I had. Exploring, immersing myself in the world, and taking out guards and bosses in a completely free manner. It's much more fun to play a game, rather than just be running through a series of pre-planned moves. The fun comes from the immersion, a product of both the mechanics and the aesthetics together.

But like, it took me 4 months to do that run. Several hours a day. What if instead I would have played other games? As soon as I get good at MGS2, why not pick up another game and get good at it? One that will interest and challenge me in new ways? I'd rather be the traveling friend soaking up experiences, than they guy who just stayed on the same mountain reducing the experience to that of just the physics. You're not really climbing anymore.

Getting good at a game is still very satisfying (that's when you hit the summit), so I think maybe the optimal way that I think folks should play games is somewhere between casual and hardcore. Get good at a game, then move to another.

Other than ruining the actual enjoyment of the game, I feel like the time required for a record is a lot for something rather arbitrary, and meaningless ultimately. What does it mean to have the World Record for MGS2 on extreme? Not much really… That time spent means I have to forgo other things… While I'm not one to say what should be important to people, because obviously speedrunners care about getting these records, I have to ask, why do they in the first place put such importance on something so trivial?

Roger Ebert was right about the King of Kong: the stakes were utterly trivial. (It was however, still an excellent movie, despite what Ebert said. The stakes may have been trivial in real life, but the film was not. It also answers the question I just asked). Billy Mitchell, the 'player of the century', is selling hot sauce in florida. Michael Jordan has apparel lines, tons of cash, the opportunity to do whatever he wants from here on out, is in great shape, and is an inspiration to young people. Just sayin'.

I never ever liked step 5. Steps 1-4 were fun as hell. Actually DOING the run was tedious. Realize that the video you see is the product of many, many tries. I could go out and beat Cairo Station on Legendary no problem, but in 9 minutes? That would be tough… but hey, get the record and it's an accomplishment right?

I used to think that, especially when my runs landed me jobs doing guides. But man, just watch how often and for how long the runners on SRL stream. It's a huge chunk of their lives. Again, I'm not telling anybody how they should spend their time, but if you're going to spend all that time playing video games at home, why not climb a different mountain instead of the same one over and over, you know? How do you know the world you live in if you've only seen it from one peak?

I don't know what to call the type of player I've become: post-hardcore? I don't know. The philosophy now is to get good at the game, then move on. Can you beat it comfortably on the highest difficulty? Congrats, the game is done. Once you get to the point where you have to essentially play a new game to keep playing, it's time to move on. To me hardcore players seem as nuts as the casuals. The casuals don't have as much fun because they don't play at a level where they get the most interesting version of the game, and the hardcore players don't have as much fun because they reduce the game to the bare essentials largely stripping the aesthetic enjoyment away.

Runs are of course fun to watch. But man, doing them sucks.

The SDA charity marathon is literally the only thing keeping me running this year. That matters. If it weren't for that, I'd never run again. See you at AGDQ 2015.