Crazy Stuff...

Hello people!

So I've been thinking quite a bit lately about my schedule, my goals, and what I want to do with my time. There really isn't enough time in a day! I feel I have been neglecting some things, and that this aspect of my life needs to change. However, I would still love to continue in my gaming pursuits, continue in my various hobbies, continue in working toward a new career path, and remember to do all that general life stuff that we all should be doing.

OK, so now let's talk about what's new with me since my last post and what has happened.

First of all, one really cool thing that happened is that I got partner on Twitch.tv. It's a really exciting opportunity because in my mind it's sort of like I have my own TV show. What partner means is that I can get paid to live stream video games on Twitch. Let me clarify: Me getting paid to play video games is based on support from my viewers. I wouldn't call it a job, and I wouldn't want to do it if it was work. It's not income I can rely on to always be there.

For me, getting partner is a bonus to what I am already doing. I love to live stream my gaming performances anyway, and now I might make money doing what I love to do. I don't think partner is going to really change what I've been doing. I play some popular games, but I've always also played a lot of "nonsense games," games that are complete garbage or games that no one even cares about. I get enjoyment out of gaming for various reasons, and I can understand why someone might not want to watch me play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I'm still going to do it! At the end of the day, it's about fun for me. I enjoy playing, and if people want to watch, great! But I am not going to go out of my way to get more viewers, and I am not going to be upset if people don't watch me. I love to entertain, but I'm not going to do so at the cost of my own enjoyment. I am almost always attempting a gaming challenge. 99% of my streams involve me trying to either break a world record or get closer to doing so. Even when playing a game like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I don't think many people realize that it's actually serious in that, I actually do speedrun that game. As silly as it may be, it actually is challenging to beat quickly! Once you can appreciate the challenge, you can appreciate the quest. Of course, that still doesn't mean you will want to watch it! ;)

Before I move onto a subject I NEED to talk about, I just want to say that Donkey Kong (arcade) is similar to what I just described of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The above image is the current (and new) world record score for Donkey Kong. It was achieved April 19th by player Wes Copeland. Score is 1,195,100 for those who aren't realizing that the score is so high that it looped back to 0. This is an amazing achievement, and yet not many people actually WANT to watch a Donkey Kong score attempt. Donkey Kong is one of the most popular games, yet one of the most under-watched performances.

Donkey Kong (arcade) is the perfect example of gaming for the challenge itself. Despite the game's popularity: it doesn't bring a whole lot of viewers to streams, the attempts might not be the most exciting thing to watch, but the challenge is why they play. It should come to no surprise that I am also a Donkey Kong player.




Alright, so now... let's talk about darbian!

Who is darbian you may ask? Well, darbian just blew my mind. He recently topped the speedrun world record for Super Mario Bros (again). It is a self improvement for him as he already held the world record before he achieved his new time. However, this new time is very significant. For me, it is significant on a personal level. He reached my goal time of under 4:57.30 with a 4:57.26 time. Why is this significant? This might take me a minute to explain.

Actually, let me have someone else explain:
This is the backstory

These are the more specific details:

Back in 2011, when I was striving for the elusive 4:57 time, I stopped just short of my goal. The reason I stopped was because it seemed pointless for me to continue. I thought "Well, my current world record time is safe. I don't think anyone will beat it for a VERY long time" Well, of course, I was wrong in that assumption. In mid-2014, a player named 'blubbler' managed to best my time. I had held the world record consecutively since early 2007, and had previously "tied" (milliseconds weren't counted back then) the record in 2005.

Using the 'Bullet Bill Glitch' or BBG for short, blubbler saved 0.70 seconds, he skipped a trick I did and lost 0.35 seconds, and he beat the last stage .05 seconds faster than me. Even if blubbler used the same methods I did, skill-wise, he still would have bested me by .05 seconds. This was very significant, because finally someone managed to achieve the elusive 4:57 time. The time I had been striving to get for so long. However, I couldn't help but feel that despite the run being 4:57, it felt sub-optimal. The reason for this thinking is because I always have pushed the run down to "all frames rules," which basically means 'absolute perfection up until level 8-4'.

The Bullet Bill Glitch

My time was 4:58.09, and the limit I put on the run was around ~4:57.85.
Blubbler's time was 4:57.69 and now the limit time moved to ~4:57.15.
So the record went from being improvable by 0.2 seconds to being improvable by 0.5 seconds.


The day my record was beaten, my goal jumped from 'under 4:58' to 'under 4:57.30.' Literally accounting for the 0.7 seconds that the new BBG saved. Darbian's new time is 4:57.260. Without the BBG, darbian's time would be 4:57.96 (the 4:57 time I always wanted, but never achieved). Someone finally managed the level of perfection I tried for, and with a new trick no less!!!!!! At the moment, darbian's run has all frame rules and a nearly flawless 8-4 run, meaning his run is hardly beatable.


I know that I have the ability to best darbian's run, but he reached my goal before I did. It is definitely an arbitrary time, but it was what I tried to do for so long and couldn't. Finally someone managed to do it, and it wasn't me.


I guess that's it. Hopefully you understand what I'm trying to convey here. I have a great deal of respect for all my competitors, but darbian really impressed me by achieving what I couldn't.

I am still going to try and beat the new world record, but I'm satisfied with how optimized the run is, despite it not being me who did it. :) Hopefully some day I can reclaim this record.

And for those who haven't seen darbian's run, here it is! Watch it, it's less than 5 minutes!