The philosophy of speedrunning

[Kotzugi]

"...speedrunners spend inordinate amounts of time pursuing a goal that holds very little material or social benefit in most cases and is more akin to an artistic statement." Source

 

Why do you speedrun?

 

My own reason for doing it (or at least having done it, since I've decided to more or less stop until I get a full-time job again) was the idea of "I love it when a plan comes together". Seeing effort and planning pay off in the form of something tangible and measurable. Being part of a community that solves a problem together. The thrill of competition. The adoration of the masses (/s). Doom just being a fun game. I think at the time I needed to prove to myself the value of this - if I can be successful in speedrunning because of effort and planning, this will be valid in e.g. my professional life too. So it was in a sense self-inspirational, more than an artistic statement.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Kotzugi

[vdgg]

Thrill of competition/looks damn nice/other

 

I see 3 category of runs

a) filling the gap

b) beating somebody's record

c) beating my own record

 

Doing only one category would be boring in the long run I think.

 

Filling the gap is usually something like "this is a great level, it deserves a demo". So that's why I marked "Other". It is what matters most.

Beating somebody else can be fun and helps "establishing" yourself, see how you are doing. If somebody beats you, it works, too. Recently Eric posted these Icarus demos, and the immediate influence was "recently I am lowering my efforts a bit too much".

Beating your own records is because sometimes the map is so great you want to revisit it, and sometimes your own demo feels not good enough.

 

Nice thread

[Looper]

1) Escapism (healthy amounts!)

2) Pushing myself more than the previous time; looking for my own limits and thus myself. To have/find more discipline

3) Doing something that someone else thought is impossible / to crush the naysayers

4) Figure out new ways to think out of the box

[rehelekretep]

'crush the naysayers' lol thats very poetic

[Chip]

there is no such thing as speedrunning. 

 

my philosophy.

[j4rio]

cuz I got 10x more swag

[GarrettChan]

All of the choices are more or less true in a way. It does feel happy when I see my plan comes together.

 

Anyway, speedrun does improve my skill a lot in Doom although I'm not anywhere close to being a good Doom runner. Sometimes it does feel good to have a current record for a map even though I totally understand the reason being Doom gods didn't run those maps :P

[Bob9001]

Beating 20 year old records has a nice ring to it.

 

 

[Dimon12321]

11 minutes ago, Bob9001 said:

Beating 20 year old records has a nice ring to it.

..., if it was made for a popular WAD, of course. Or, at least, for a honorable one.

[Bob9001]

6 hours ago, Dimon12321 said:

..., if it was made for a popular WAD, of course. Or, at least, for a honorable one.

Sorry I don't understand.

 

However I have to disagree with the popular WAD part. It doesn't mean anything more or less if a wad is popular. You see all these random wads on DSDA, saying that does that mean they have no value to speedrunning?

 

End of the day, speedrunning is about having fun and if you get a record while doing that, then that's good aswell :)