Looking for advice! (Please Respond)

2012-03-22 07:49:35 pm

Hello to everyone on SDA! Smiley

We're Ish & Jay AKA Shadowblade! We are identical twins and we both use this account. We also go by the individual UN's Crimsonblade (Ish) & Nightshadow (Jay). If by any chance your also wondering what the digits are at the end of this user name it is our birth day and year which is also on our individual UN's.

We would very much like some advice on how is it you keep motivated and get support from the community to do speedruns? It's a real struggle for us to do this and to keep motivated when it seems no one is interested. We just like advice on this topic because we really want to make a contribution to SDA & also bring something new and entertaining.

Please don't misunderstand. We are really serious about putting time and effort into speed running. We would just like the support Smiley

Please reply! Smiley

Thread title:

ZenicReverie

2012-03-22 07:59:36 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

You need to do it for yourself (selves?). Support for a particular game happens only when the game is known by those reading the forums. If you're only doing something to get support from others, then you're going to lose motivation.

Shadowblade2193

2012-03-22 08:16:07 pm

Quote from ZenicReverie:

You need to do it for yourself (selves?). Support for a particular game happens only when the game is known by those reading the forums. If you're only doing something to get support from others, then you're going to lose motivation.

Thanks for replying!

I agree with you. Would you suggest we share & explain what going on in the run to others? because I think that's where we went wrong last time with our last test speedrun. We can not show because we have since deleted it from our youtube channel & have plans to redo the run this time to the best of our ability. The game we were speed running was obscure. A very interesting horror/survival.

ZenicReverie

2012-03-22 08:24:54 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

You can always try making a thread to see if anyone has input. It doesn't mean no one is interested if you don't get a response. It's always helpful to throw a route up, and possibly some videos. Then you'll at least have a chance of getting feedback.

Shadowblade2193

2012-03-22 08:40:22 pm

Quote from ZenicReverie:

You can always try making a thread to see if anyone has input. It doesn't mean no one is interested if you don't get a response. It's always helpful to throw a route up, and possibly some videos. Then you'll at least have a chance of getting feedback.

Quote from ZenicReverie:

You can always try making a thread to see if anyone has input. It doesn't mean no one is interested if you don't get a response. It's always helpful to throw a route up, and possibly some videos. Then you'll at least have a chance of getting feedback.

Thanks again this really helps.

It didn't really come to mind about doing this on the forums. We didn't want people to think we were posting in an attempt to promote ourselves rather than seeing it as that we got something we would like to share as we are quite new to these forums.

Paraxade

Edit history:

Paraxade: 2012-03-22 08:41:26 pm

2012-03-22 08:40:34 pm

haha, I just wrote up a response thinking you were saying the game was obscure, adjective... and now I realize that the game is actually called Obscure. I sympathize, in any case. It's hard to feel it's worth it to put in time to make a run when no one seems interested in seeing it.

Have you posted a thread for your run? Looking at your posts and judging from search results it looks like you haven't. Just post a thread in Newer Consoles, talk about the run, your plans, post whatever videos you have. See where that gets you.

edit: ^ I guarantee no one will think you're just promoting yourself. Unless you're like, just posting youtube videos and asking for subscribers and ratings and w/e. Tongue

Shadowblade2193

Edit history:

Shadowblade2193: 2012-03-22 09:01:34 pm

2012-03-22 08:59:19 pm

Paraxade?
It is an honor to actually have you reply to this as you are one of our biggest inspirations for speed running. We thoroughly enjoy watching your stuff and have done for quite sometime.

We have posted a thread once before looking for help on Any% and 100% runs for this game because it was quite difficult figuring out what category it would come under and did actually get some very helpful responses.

I can assure you we are not here to promote ourselves only to share and contribute to SDA. We despise people who do for the wrong reasons. We will try this and try and be informative as possible if that would help. Smiley

Thanks very much for the reply.

Rakuen

2012-03-22 09:08:37 pm

Weegee Time

Maybe look around and see if anyone is interested in racing the game? Having someone to compete and compare against can feed into making new strategies and push you to do better.

Shadowblade2193

2012-03-22 09:21:53 pm

^ I will do. We have actually done something like that recently with Rayman Origins which is very fun to speedrun. The only downside is that the game doesn't have milliseconds on the console version which is disappointing but It is fun to do comparisons.

Poxnor

2012-03-23 02:40:05 am

Moo! Flap! Hug!

One thing I found that helped me a lot when I got discouraged about a run was streaming the game (both seriously and non-seriously). That is, sometimes I'd try to do some serious practice on the parts of the game that I had routed. Other times, I'd just sit back with a beer and goof off with streaming the game (in fact, some of the biggest discoveries for the game came during a few different goof-off streams). The SDA community is really awesome about making streaming fun, and I found it helped a lot with burnout (and just blowing off steam about life in general).

Tiberius

2012-03-23 04:04:12 am

Make it so.

Obviously I'm not exactly an authority on any of this seeing as I don't even have a run on the site yet but here are my two cents.

Don't just focus on one game to the exclusion of all others, you may well come up against a wall in your running that needs time and patience to get through and the worst thing for this is if you feel like you have to get through it before you can achieve anything else. Go and let off steam by playing something else for fun or learning to run a reasonably easy game.

Spending a little time helping out other member of the community can be amazingly rewarding too, if you dont feel like running right now, head over to the planning boards, pick a game you know a fair amount about, go in the thread and offer your services for a bit. Not only do the runners really appreciate it but it feels good for you too, especially if you contribute a new trick or discovery.

Join the IRC channel, as I'm sure you've noticed, everyone on this site is wonderfully welcoming. The community here is outstanding and the IRC can be a lot of fun for blowing off steam, chatting to other runners about both your runs and theirs.

And everything mentioned above by the others of course!

Also, good luck to (both of) you.

Obviously I'm not exactly an authority on any of this seeing as I don't even have a run on the site yet but here are my two cents.

Don't just focus on one game to the exclusion of all others, you may well come up against a wall in your running that needs time and patience to get through and the worst thing for this is if you feel like you have to get through it before you can achieve anything else. Go and let off steam by playing something else for fun or learning to run a reasonably easy game.

Spending a little time helping out other member of the community can be amazingly rewarding too, if you dont feel like running right now, head over to the planning boards, pick a game you know a fair amount about, go in the thread and offer your services for a bit. Not only do the runners really appreciate it but it feels good for you too, especially if you contribute a new trick or discovery.

Join the IRC channel, as I'm sure you've noticed, everyone on this site is wonderfully welcoming. The community here is outstanding and the IRC can be a lot of fun for blowing off steam, chatting to other runners about both your runs and theirs.

And everything mentioned above by the others of course!

Also, good luck to (both of) you.

Phazonelite7

Edit history:

Phazonelite7: 2012-03-23 11:20:25 am

Phazonelite7: 2012-03-23 11:18:38 am

2012-03-23 11:17:32 am

Everyone has already done a pretty good job at explaining how to get support on the forum. As for keeping your motivation high, it's really about pacing yourself, taking it a step at a time, and having fun all the way through. Obviously it's not about exposure or any kind of e-fame necessarily; you have to love the game that you're playing and love speed running it. This is a hobby where you're going to fail 99% of the time so you need to be able to shrug off failed attempts and not lose your cool. Just being able to play a game at such a high level is enjoyable, so even if you fail it's still a fun experience. Sometimes you're going to spend hours a day trying something and not get anywhere. You have to be able to stop playing, do something else, and come back at a later time with a fresh mind. Otherwise you're not going to have fun. So in the end, have fun, take your time with the run, be willing to learn new things, and take breaks when needed.

kakka_rot

2012-03-23 11:49:38 pm

Remember your mantra.

Quote:

Obviously it's not about exposure or any kind of e-fame necessarily

4realtho.

I have a habit of typing forever on here, and since the other posters have already explained in detail, I'd just like to give my support, and welcome you to SDA.

Also, one more thing - about support. SDA is a great place for support, and finding creative minds to help take seconds off your run you'd never have thought of in the first place. Most of these runs are so amazing because so many different players have contributed to the final product.

It's hard when you're by yourself. Everyone here, myself included, has felt it.
Thing is - you brothers never have to. You have eachother, & you're all the support each other needs,

anything you get here is just a bonus. Keep playin~

Shadowblade2193

2012-03-24 07:33:55 am

You guys have been extremely helpful! It really means a lot to us you guys have given your thoughts & advice. That alone has given us motivation in itself. We can't thank you enough.

@ Paraxade
Since posting this we have shaved a whole minute of our previous run of the first segment obscure, come up with new stats & tricks which is a big improvement. We've even written a whole wright up on the speedrun which we didn't even think we could manage. We'll be posting it on the planning boards soon. Smiley

@Tiberius
I have looked through the planning boards and have found games I can offer loads of input on which we are really surprised about. We're definitely looking into doing this because there is much we think we can help with.

@Poxnor
We have streamed before in the past which as you said was fun. We'll try to do this more just not really confident in commentating which is something we'd like to do.

@Phazonelite7
Yeah there were time in during speed running where it got pretty frustrating especilly since we're doing a co-op run. We did take breaks although we find we lose the flow when we do so we keep trying to we get it right which is why we think we lose the motivation when we keep failing lol. We'll try to do as you say in pace ourselves more.

@kakka_rot
Thank you. We do support each other a lot and keep pushing ourselves to do better but there are still times when lose the motivation if one of us don't feel 100% in speedrunning.

You guys have been extremely helpful! It really means a lot to us you guys have given your thoughts & advice. That alone has given us motivation in itself. We can't thank you enough.

@ Paraxade
Since posting this we have shaved a whole minute of our previous run of the first segment obscure, come up with new stats & tricks which is a big improvement. We've even written a whole wright up on the speedrun which we didn't even think we could manage. We'll be posting it on the planning boards soon. :)

@Tiberius
I have looked through the planning boards and have found games I can offer loads of input on which we are  really surprised about. We're definitely looking into doing this because there is much we think we can help with.

@Poxnor
We have streamed before in the past which as you said was fun. We'll try to do this more just not really confident in commentating which is something we'd like to do.

@Phazonelite7
Yeah there were time in during speed running where it got pretty frustrating especilly since we're doing a co-op run. We did take breaks although we find we lose the flow when we do so we keep trying to we get it right which is why we think we lose the motivation when we keep failing lol. We'll try to do as you say in pace ourselves more.

@kakka_rot
Thank you. We do support each other a lot and keep pushing ourselves to do better but there are still times when lose the motivation if one of us don't feel 100% in speedrunning.

Paraxade

2012-03-24 10:15:28 am

You don't have to commentate to stream. My stream is just game audio, for example. You can always just stream the game and switch to commentating when you feel more comfortable with it.

Shadowblade2193

2012-03-24 11:34:38 am

^It's more of a personal thing. We have been asked to do it before and thought it would be a little more informative if we did since there was many people that didn't know what was going on.

Shadowblade2193

Edit history:

Shadowblade2193: 2012-03-25 01:10:41 pm

2012-03-24 11:47:08 am

Quote:

Have you posted a thread for your run? Looking at your posts and judging from search results it looks like you haven't. Just post a thread in Newer Consoles, talk about the run, your plans, post whatever videos you have. See where that gets you.

We have just recently made a thread over at the planning boards. Smiley

http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/obscure_ps2_cooperative_speedrun_planning__route_discussion.html

Darkceo

2012-03-24 12:57:27 pm

Dark Gamer

the best way to keep motivate it is to never give up, you guys have to support each other and also go to the IRC channel and talk with everyone in there, you guys are gonna get support, also like some people said, you could stream because it also helps.