Do I wanna fuck with a straight ridah like you and will you ever deny it? Can the police do anything to a G like you?
Lol. Unfortunately yes they can because speedrunning GE/PD in the wide scheme of things is irrel.
I never said I was king of Bunker 1, it's just historically my best level. I feel I have a skill ceiling I've reached and bad nerves so I need many opportunities for the run.
Do you think you're the best champion in Elite history?
Typed this up while driving at work btw lol
This is an interesting question. I don't want to sound cocky but I think it's true. I think Clemens was an equally good GE champ however, and Marc would be similar to me (although some people dislike his personality so if you're considering that in your definition of best as well, then maybe not) but they just don't have the interest or time anymore. I don't either but I managed to grind both games enough and get a lot of good records. The truth is, in this day and age it is a LOT more harder to get WRs than it was before. Top 10 now is much harder than top 10 5 years ago. You need a lot of luck, precision, consistency etc. all in one run to get WRs and even random lag can just screw you over (especially in PD, like Air Base). It's also rare to find people who are good at both games.. most suck at one or the other.
Okay now the question the whole Elite has been waiting for.
When will the Aztec agent tutorial be made?
It was supposed to be made around the same time I got 1:25 (so early 2013). Back then I got the level down to a science, understood it really well (was getting glass opens very often but kept getting screwed at the very end) and wanted to make a really awesome tutorial with controller input, explanations different possible scenarios of guards, the ability to draw during scenes to make things easier to understand and possibly even broadcast the tutorial to get people to watch and ask questions live. This was back when only Clemens and I had sub 1:30 on the level so it would have been really useful. I got really lazy and some of the things weren't available to me at the time (the controller input mainly), and now that a lot of people have good times on the level using the new strat, I don't feel like a tutorial is needed there anymore. It would have been great to make two years ago, but I don't feel like I need to make one anymore. So tl;dr probably never.
Are your parents aware that you are a member of an online community for a video game? If so, do they think that it's weird?
They have been aware since I joined in 2005. For the most part they have been cool/alright with it, but I did have some heated moments with them before. Most of the time they got irritated was when I was neglecting other duties, continuing to play even though my eye was twitching or something similar, or skipping family trips to the shopping malls to grind for WRs. I have been a lot more mature the past 2 years so they don't mind at all. I only play when I get free time and even when I do I don't grind excessively anymore. There are a lot of other important things to focus on at this age.
They don't find it weird at all. I think a few of my cousins are impressed that I have international friends, so there's that as well.
What/who is in your avatar?
That's Luke, aka homeonice222. Priceless reaction when he first untied Dark Caverns in Pilotwings a few months ago.
My actual question: Natural talent aside, what would you say was the level/ stretch of playing in your career that you attribute to your skill in GE and in PD? Do you have any advice to those who wish to escalate their own skill quickly?
It just came naturally to me, honestly. I've been following the Elite and speedrunning both games since I was pretty young (7) so that might be a factor. I had a lot of free time during my high school years so you can just imagine how I got good from playing continuously for years. In 2-3 years (not even that much really) you can be good at anything if you dedicate yourself to it. Pretty cliche but true.
I remember casually watching GE/PD videos in around 2003, copying the strats and being happy with getting times like Dam SA 1:24, Depot 00A 1:08, etc on runs that didn't even feel that great. I took a break until 2005, and that's when I got a bit more serious. I watched a lot of GE/PD videos, asked YE a lot of questions on AIM daily and I started to realise I was good when I got Investigation SA 2:14 (PAL untied back then) and WAR! 0:25. It was a lot of fun going for those records and I used to grind for several hours a day. It was addicting because I knew I could do so much better on many levels and over time I understood levels better, improved my OCB, etc. and eventually just kept getting better.
I also think it's important that when you play levels, you should figure out what you are doing wrong, where you are losing time or where you COULD gain time, and try to do new things instead of always asking the better players what you are doing wrong. I'm not saying you shouldn't do the latter but you shouldn't always rely on it. This is how I started to get sick times on many levels in both games. Here's a prime example: In a lot of the old WR videos (pre-2007, or pre-Clemens/Ace era) people used to let go off speed when there was no need to (check out Train when doing the brakes, Defection SA when opening doors, Control SA/00A beginnings etc.) This is how it became so easy to shave off time and cake untieds. No one was doing this before and I don't know why because it was so obvious to me. Obviously that isn't possible in this era when everything has been optimized, but I'm just telling you one of the reasons I managed to improve a lot of the WRs in both games. People weren't being risky for no reason.
Another thing I think people do wrong is grind one level until they PR on it. That makes the game a lot less fun and more torture. From 2005-2013 I used to play random levels (whatever I felt like). That way I had more fun and PR'd at a quicker rate. Just my opinion.
Also, sometimes people don't really make wise decisions on the fly. Jimbo does this a lot. I can't think of any specific examples right now because it's been a while since I watched him (or any GE streams honestly, haven't been paying attention to streams much), but he loses a lot of good runs because he makes one silly decision. I sometimes watch a player and say "why did he do that?".
