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Kotzugi

Another speed running survey

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Warning: long post because coffee.

I've posted something like this before, but as with all skills I remain interested in the background of the competitive speed runner. Feel free to add more questions if you like.

- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?
My thoughts: I think at least some is talent, but a significant part is effort, perhaps more than one thinks. In my case at least I think my efforts led to significant improvements.

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?
My thoughts: I recently read about how lack of sleep can actually decrease reaction times, similar to someone who is intoxicated. I think reaction times are crucial so I think it's important to get enough sleep, eat well, etc. However, I think if you're already good, it won't make that much of a difference, unless you're playing a super hard map or trying to improve a super hard time.

Obviously, things like hardware can make a difference and you should feel comfortable with them. As far as software goes, I recently found that killing explorer.exe actually improves the frame rate a bit and subsequently my game. But it's only because I have a crappy laptop anyway.

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?
My thoughts: I get the feeling that the guys who have been doing it for years can get a very good time for a short to medium map within an evening (hour or two), but that I have to work harder to post something competitive. That means that I have to spend more hours. It depends on the week, but most weeks I would spend at least two evenings on grinding a map (or the next one). Sometimes I'm very busy IRL and then it may take a month or more for a large map.

I don't take it super seriously (for example, I never plan my sessions and social obligations take precedence) but I always try to aim for a high standard and improve myself continuously.

- Why do you do it?
My thoughts: This may sound a little strange, but I think if you choose almost any skill and work hard on it, it helps you grow as a person as well. It teaches you perseverance, patience and all that stuff. Video games also keep your brain sharp for a number of reasons. I like games which are easy and fast to play and mess around with, and Doom is for me about the pinnacle of that and a few other things too.

I also like the idea of competition and pushing yourself and the fact that you can look back at what you've done with some pride, even if it's only for yourself. You won't win any prize money or become famous - if it were for those reasons you should have chosen another hobby.

And of course there are some great maps out there and it would be a sin not to demo them. ;)

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?
My thoughts: No, and I also don't know anybody in my vicinity, perhaps that would be an interesting group to start on meetup.com. ;) But in principle that would be nice. Also for FDAs and mapping and such I imagine? Anything where you figure things out together and enjoy hanging out otherwise sounds good to me.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?
My thoughts: I think it will stay small but for a longish time at least. At least for now there are few games where there is so much activity in terms of new maps, ports, music, art, etc. and this boosts speed running as well. Perhaps in the future, Doom will have morphed to something else altogether (complevel 50?) with even more awesome possibilities, but with the option to go back to vanilla whenever you want (if maps are still being made). I can also imagine that a lot of stuff people learn from mapping, demoing (including TAS), port development and other kinds of programming, hacking, etc. are and will be incorporated into other (future) neat games as well. Doom will not be forgotten. :)

Edit: typo and changed message icon

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- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?
40/60

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?
I remember playing some maps for days, without sleep and food, that was funny. But the smile on my face for beating somebody and improving myself was priceless :) Still the same feeling heh
You must feel comfortable when you play, when you repeat one map 20+ times you know what to do and more you play better strategy or movement. Most of time if I decide to rest and start to play same map I would get really bad times in the start. Dunno why.

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?
None, I don't have time now but whenever I have I spend it with playing or doing something that is Doom related :)

- Why do you do it?
Fun, friends, love the game as it's easy/simple/fast etc.

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?
ofc, that's the best part that I have friends that play Zdeamon/vanilla and we discuss/play have lan parties at least once a year.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?
In players, without players there is no speedruning ;)

Cya!

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Okay, I'll bite.

- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?


94% "talent", 5% effort, 1% memory

I put talent into ""s because I think it's not really talent that plays a role here. Talent doesn't change but in this case you do get better the more you try, you aren't born with doomgodly powers, so something like "accommodation" to what you are trying to do would fit better. Basically you get trained do speedrun like a dog gets trained to catchphrases, eventually reaching your peak... by dying, heh.

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?


Energy drinks do wonders, also booze if you want more comical outcomes.

- How seriously do you take it?


I don't. It's fun, no serious business. Once it stops being fun, there's not much else to keep me around.

More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?


ALL OF THE TIME.


Seriously though, not a whole lot. I'm currently off for around 2 and a half months so there's enough time for anything. I can't record anything for too long as the back of my neck usually decides to cramp up after around 2 hours of attempts, I usually just call it quits then.

- Why do you do it?


For the glory and all the hot chicks.

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?


No.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?


It will die eventually and be forgotten in time.

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- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?
efforts and perseverance plays a major role, but some players are without doubts "talented" and can achieve great stuff very fast

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?
WHAT? i play whenever ive some spare minutes or when bored. till I get bored of doom too and then go back to work :p
I never even thought about something like preparing in any-way. But I do notice an awesome improvement of results the longer I keep playing and practicing a map. Like memfis I do not practice much and I get my experience of the demos while demorecording mostly. So the only preparation of mine is having 1h or so free

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?
there were times I could play 3-10h per week, sometimes I only had 30min in 7 days so it really depends. I also tend to move on other games so I can be inactive for 5-6months easily. But i dont think ill quit definitely dooming
sometimes I can get it seriously (sometimes too much probably), because it can be frustrating and get me really pissed off. But thats what I call a good game, and with good competition. Like with much other stuff in my life, I give my best, according to my possibilities (in this case- mostly free time and patience i'd say)
but being more "concrete" there are probably less than a dozen "hard-worked" demos of mine. so maybe the best answer would be... no. Because of the low free time of mine, I tend to not focus enough, and play more maps than I should probably.

- Why do you do it?
fun, competition, and because game is fast launched and instantly absorbing

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?
sadly not. I think the only italian doomer beside me is redxiii who's kinda inactive.no idea where he lives and all other friends who plays games like doom are absolutely crap players xd

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?
surprisingly enough I heard the new doom will be much more doom/doom2 instead of that fail of doom3, so I can see still some years of shining demos. I hope it will stay up and actually grow in activity :)

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- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?
Ultimately talent is 100%. However, Doom has too many maps, including pwads, so there are too many records which have not polished yet. You can beat the most of records with only your effort. (I don't know UV-Speed records in few seconds) I don't have talent which is mass-producing remakable records in a short term, but I think my effort is usually not enough. I must make more effort and spend more time before excusing lack of talent.

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?
Enough sleep and prohibition of alcohol.

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?
I sometimes try a run seriously and sometimes try a run for a break. It depends on my motivation and my preference for a map. Now, my free time is about 10 hours in a week, but I just don't use it for speed runnning. I spent one week to take over 8 hours for it in a day in my apogee of free time.

- Why do you do it?
Just for fun. I love doom.

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?
No. Japanese doomers tend to withdraw into very narrow Japanese community. Their interest in speed running and mapping is low. I never expect Japanese friends for speed running.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?
It may be stagnation or decline. I feel uneasy about undoing even UV-Max runs in recent megawads, but I want to contribute to Compet-N more. It would be nice if my videos for speed running on youtube make a new comer.

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- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?

For me, personally, it's at least 80% effort, because I know for sure that, today, I can get times I would not have gotten at all even 6 months ago. For others, I don't know, though I assume that there some people are born with better reflexes/faster reaction time, so they'd be better at speedrunning.

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?

I don't really prepare physically. Obviously, comfort is important in speedrunning, and, often, taking a break from a difficult run helps out at the end.

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?

I do it mostly for fun. These days, I've been speedrunning quite a lot of time per week, but I've had times when I didn't have as much interest for some period of time, as it's all based on whether I can find good levels to run. Real life definitely takes precedence.

- Why do you do it?

For fun and competition.

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?

No, unfortunately, I have no real life friends into Doom. My older brother and his friends like a few old FPS games, including Doom, but they usually gather to play other games in multiplayer, and none of them are Doom speedrunners. Co-op would be interesting to try, but I've got no one to try it with.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?

Still a pretty sizeable community, given the age of the game. Don't know how long it will survive, and it's hard to make any good predictions, as speedrunning in general only seems to get more popular, and, as long as someone is speedrunning it at SGDQ events, there probably will be people interested in it. Certainly, few other games really compare to Doom in the amount of content to speedrun, and Doom is a really well-balanced game for speedrunning. Of course, it can't survive forever.

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Thanks, I enjoyed reading your answers.

On the issue of physical preparation, I noticed that most people here don't really prepare and just go. Talent has a way of just making things easy, so I think it does play a significant role. Of course playing for a couple of years helps. In my case, I assume I lack talent (i.e. I rely as little as possible on it) and just practise demos like I used to practise piano (I played a lot in school). You split it up into little bits and practise each one until you're comfortable with all of it. I do it especially if there are one or two very hard parts in a map. If I get past it once then I want to be prepared for the rest. I put more effort in it because it's awesome to see it all coming together in the end.

I also feel that people will always differ in their skills and talents, but almost anybody can spend some time in clever planning to make the run faster. I try to do that but I often lack patience. This is one thing that makes it nice to watch competitive runs of the same maps. You can get ideas from other runs that you wouldn't have thought of yourself.

Tatsu made an interesting comment on there being too many maps. In one way that's a good thing, in another way it's bad. So it's nice that there are efforts like Compet-N and Cacowards to make a couple of them stand out, these maps usually result in greater quality demos and if some of them get a lot of views on YouTube, for example, also for Let's Plays, it's good for the community.

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- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?
I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean by "talent". But I can at least say for sure that effort is very important in speedrunning because nobody can consistently get good runs after just a few tries. Without proper dedication you'll never get far in this field.

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?
I've never thought about this really, I always just sit down and start recording.

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?
Usually I'm more interested in just getting some fun from the game but occasionally I can get very serious, usually when there is already a previous record to beat or when getting 0:12 is too easy so I just have to go for 0:11 (liberty.wad map01).
Oh, and about time, nowadays I barely record anything at all because I'm less passionate about the game. In 2011-2012 I could easily spend over 10 hours a week I think.

- Why do you do it?
Now this is getting philosophical... But seriously, just for fun, I don't have any deep meanings to attach to speedrunning.

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?
Never thought about doing this. There are some skilled doomers in Moscow so it's definitely possible to organise. Hovewer, I need to become more sociable before I'll be ready to meet people from the internet.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?
I really don't know and I'm not good at doing predictions. In the Compet-N times it was highly competitive, now the whole community is a lot more laidback, which might be bad for overall activity.

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- How much of it do you think is talent and how much is effort?
I would say talent mediates how much effort it takes, so a percent breakdown is hard to give and probably differs for each person.

- To what extent do you think can you physically prepare for a good run?
I don't prepare at all, it's off->on. I also think it can help if you speedrun while tired, perhaps because you don't think as hard and let autopilot take over at times. That's my own experience at any rate.

- How seriously do you take it? More concretely, on average, how much time do you spend a week on speed running?
Not even remotely serious. I'd say around 2 hours per day if I'm in the mood, but it can be more on days off.

- Why do you do it?
For fun. I don't care much about the competitive side, since I generally just compete with my own expectations. I like doom in particular for speedrunning because there's always always improvement to be made, with many different facets of the game to work on.

- Do you physically get together with other people for speed running?
No.

- Where do you think the future lies for speed running in Doom?
There's an unlimited supply of content, and there's more every day. Doom is timeless.

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