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Is speed running becoming a chore? Is it becoming too pay-to-win? Is there any other grievance you have with speed running? It seems like there are certain things preventing speed running from gaining a larger audience.

First off, despite speed running being all about going fast, it's a huge time sink. It often involves resetting and not getting a PB for months. Sometimes, the fastest way to beat a game is to do something marathon-unsafe before luck decides you can finish (or in some cases, continue) a run. And it seems as of late that speed runners are starting to enjoy incredibly long, time-consuming games like the Dragon Quest, recent Final Fantasy, Pokemon Stadium, Shin Megami Tensei, and Digimon series (emphasis on Digimon World 2). Not just beating them, but doing multiple-day-long 100% runs of them too! This tells any outsiders that if you want to make it in the speed running world, you better not have a social life or any other interests or priorities whatsoever. For fans of these games, running them is not a once-in-a-blue-moon event- it's a pretty regular one. It makes speed runners look like poor people who can't afford luxuries other than old video games. Oh, and I forgot to mention Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden Memories, a long, difficult, obtuse game that was critically panned. How did that become a popular speedgame?

Second, speed running can be very pay-to-win. Sure, old Japanese games and consoles aren't very expensive, but what if it gets re-released digitally on an expensive new console that cuts a few seconds of loading off? Speed runners will spare no expense!
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You can still run PC games, that's probably the cheapest option since the system is upgradable cheaper than buying a new console, also capturing the games is practically free.

Also yes, games that normally take 40h+ normally also result in a long speedrun except when it is really broken, but there are a lot of games that can be done in less than an hour.
RPG is probably the most difficult category to run, since you can often run it non-linearly, having to calculate your route out of thousands of possibilities, it is way easier running a linear game like most FPS or platformers.

If it seems too frustrating not being able to beat your PB because of some mistake in the run you can still try segmented speedruns, though they are not marathon/streaming friendly.
I suspect long games are popular to run because 1. They pad out your channel pretty nicely. 2. They're good attention-grabbers and will likely get you mentioned on talk shows. And 3. They give you enough gameplay time to convince you that importing the U.S. version of your favorite JRPG was totally worth it.
Another thing that bothers me is arbitrary categories and randomizers that exist to make long games even longer, as well as minutes-long unskippable cutscenes before each attempt of a run. It's like the runners want games to be more frustrating and time-consuming.
Why does it bother you so much how other people want to have fun?
Most categories aren't arbitrary (though there are some), at least not in the true sense of the word. Most of the time any limitations or extensions make sense in the context of them.
I for one usually enjoy a category that isn't just "standard any%" because the later often skips a lot of the most interesting things about the game or just uses way too many glitches and skips that there's very litle meat to the run.
That's fine, but I seem to notice there's a certain stigma speedrunners have that proffessional sports players don't- they are all thought of as man children who haven't left their parents and just play video games all day. I'm talking about people like Highspirits, Neviutz, TideRuglia, AzureFlame4, and IAteYourPie. Their streams are so long, nobody will have the time to watch them all. You would have to be a pretty sadlife person to look up to any of them. In any other sport/career, we would call people like these "degenerates".
It's sure a good thing speedrunning is mainly a hobby.
Speedrunning is just about completing a game as fast as possible while adhering to a specific set of rules. No one says you HAVE to reset all the time. If you can't beat your personal best, what does that matter? To some it does matter, but it doesn't HAVE to. You don't HAVE to reset to make it a speedrun. Speedrunning is a hobby. What is wrong with having a hobby wrong?

Streams are long? So what? You don't HAVE to watch them. Some people find it interesting, though, and you know, the streamers do it because it's fun. Why is that wrong? You need to stop belittling people for what they do. It's their time. Their choice. Their life. You have no right to tell them to change.
Do you want people to have grievances over here?
Let me explain something: Baffan did a Baten Kaitos 100% run, which mostly consisted of waiting and listening to loops of music over and over again just to get one item that required 336 hours to get. Of course, since the amount of time needed to complete the run is awe-inspiring, it gets featured on The Final Split, encouraging more behavior like it.

As for the unskippable cutscenes thing, one example is DKC Tropical Freeze, where you have to sit through a 3 minute cutscene after every reset. More annoyingly, the Japanese version of Klonoa Door to Phantomile has a cutscene that's skippable in all other versions, so you have to spend major money if you want the "good" version where the cutscene is skippable. Oh, and if you want to be competitive in Mario Story, you better shell out the dough for an expensive Wii U or you won't be able to compete!
When games are first run, the big gains and cool initial shortcuts are still of great interest to me. However, once it's at the point where gains are less and less, it loses its appeal. Both to watch, and to run.
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Do you want people to have grievances over here?

Honestly, I'm not sure what this user wants to find out.  There have been a number of forum questions that have popped up that have been quite trolly recently.
Insanity Prelude
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Honestly, I'm not sure what this user wants to find out.  There have been a number of forum questions that have popped up that have been quite trolly recently.


Same. Seeing as I'm one of the people named in his grievance list, I'll just ask you this: Do you have something against RPG speedrunners? Because that's what your post comes off as. I think you're missing a big reason why people continue to speedrun. You seem to be under the impression that it's all about getting World Record or that unless you remain competitive, it stops being fun. While I can't speak for everyone, I can tell you the reason why I'm still into it - it's fun. More specifically, the act of figuring out the most optimal way fascinates me. I actually prefer routing to doing runs of the game but most of the games that I do run aren't that popular to begin with, so it's more of a case, "if you want something done, do it yourself". You want to know why I take breaks or stop doing runs of certain games? Because it's not fun. That's all there is to it really. You don't have to beat WR to have fun, nor do you have to consistently PB. That's something you decide by choice.

Speaking of choice, I don't see how my decision of which game I want to speedrun influences the decision of what other people want to run. You run what you're interested in since as you note yourself, it is a time consuming hobby. So this notion that long runs are discouraging for people who want to get into the community is completely off base. If you're truly interested in it, you'll go and do it. Trust me when I say I don't see a flock of people messaging me regarding Wild ARMS 3/ACF runs or many of the other RPG runs that I do. Long runs are very niche just because 1) it's hard to hold an audience attention for that long. People have things to do, so it's probably more of a negative if you're trying to stream big 2) they require extensive planning on your end since they consume a large portion of your day 3) most RPG runs are often more mechanical in nature and are interesting from a decision perspective. Compare this to Super Mario 64, which is nearly all execution and see which one the common viewer has greater interest in. Your focus on long runs being vastly popular and being more likely to get picked up for e-fame is seriously off the mark.

Which leads me to the next point that confuses me in your argument. This stigma you talk about doesn't just exist for speedrunners. It applies to pretty much anyone with a hobby in gaming. Speedrunners who do long runs aren't the ones that are contributing to this mantra. On top of that, that generalization is extremely ignorant on your part. You don't know about any of our situations and circumstances, yet you're going to place the blame at our doors? What have you done to try and change this perception? Your example doesn't help because the streamers you mention don't have a common thread. Of all the people who you can pick, I don't know why you're adding me and AzureFlame onto that list. I haven't done a long run in like a 1 year and most of Azure's stuff is like within the 2 hour mark, which aren't long runs. Not only that, but neither of us are partnered and I have less than 1000 Followers, which shoots your earlier argument into the water.

As mentioned by Mystery, we're not forcing you to watch our streams. I don't know why you care if my stream is long - how does it hurt you? You can just, y'know, CLOSE the stream or watch something else. Why do you care if someone else is watching my stuff? Are you losing viewers because of me? Isn't that more your fault for not being able to hold your viewers attention? You want to show up on Final Split? Then why not ask them directly? Just for the record, despite all the "long games" I run, I've never been invited on to the program either, so please get your examples straight. 

Your entire series of posts comes off as jealously for being a speedrunner who isn't getting the attention that he wants and thought he was going to get e-famous doing it. I'm sorry it didn't work out that way, but that's the reality. Speedrunning has always had a pay-2-win mentality with things like turbo, faster model consoles and tricks specific to versions of a game. It's why most of us do this as hobby. We will do it if we're having fun. The camaraderie vastly overshadows the competitive aspect and its why a lot of people stay into it even if they aren't the best runners.
Edit history:
cha0sSDA: 2016-09-01 06:19:09 am
your arguments do not establish good enough premises to support them and you arent effectively responding people's counter points so this might as well be pastebinmonday. Either you're trolling (which good job then) or you should respond more specfically to what people are asking. Also, you wouldn't blame a basketball player for buying better shoes!!!
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they're a troll look at their other threads
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