Story Speedrunning

[ClaudeCTTE]

Spoiler: My story...

Throughout my life, video games have been a part of my life. Every day, I played video games to distance myself from my negative thoughts.

During my teenage years, I was more into online multiplayer, but I always preferred single-player games.

When the pandemic started (at the age of 18), my brother bought me a game that caught my attention, and from that day on, I couldn't stop playing it. It was a karting game (not Mario Kart), a game I don't want to mention by name because I simply don't want to remember it.

Every day, I played this game, dedicating hours and hours to it. It was a day when I discovered speedrunning and people getting world records. I was quite intrigued by what people were capable of, and I felt like I had the potential to be a good player.

For months, I was completely immersed in this game, breaking my personal records (PBs), and climbing the leaderboards every day. However, I had forgotten everything else around me.

I had neglected my studies to the point where I was close to dropping out of high school, but I didn't care and kept playing.

In the end, I had dedicated approximately 2,500 hours over the course of one year (2020-2021). But for what? I never managed to reach the top spot in the leaderboards (Time Trial). At most, I reached the top 10 on some tracks, but on the rest, I was among the top 50.

My gameplay had improved, and I even made friends who appreciated my playing style and considered me their "teacher" for helping them improve. However, that wasn't all.
On the other hand, I considered the community of this game toxic, as many people insulted me, and I always had to play against them because the competitive community of this game was so small (less than 2,000 players), and it was too common to encounter the same people.
What made me sad the most was that the people who insulted me the most were from my own country. These guys were so well-known and respected in the community for being good players, and they always harassed me, talking trash about me for no reason. They even made fun of me for being an outsider because I was never close to the community and only spoke with my friends.

I never intended to be "the best" at this game, as I recognized my mistakes and always helped my friends, but I also didn't want to feel humble. I played because I enjoyed improving myself every day, but it was all for nothing.

Every day, I enjoyed this game less, and combined with the worsening depression due to failing high school, I began to think about CTB because there was nothing left that brought me joy.

I was supposed to play this game to escape my problems and forget my loneliness, but in this game, I started to feel the same way.

Of my best friends I met in this game, one removed me from his life, and the other one abandoned me because he wanted to be with his "girlfriend" he met in this game (who ultimately cheated on him with someone else). This worsened my loneliness and my will to live.

After weeks of enduring that pain, I decided to distance myself from this game and immerse myself in others, but it was difficult to quit this game. I had dedicated so many hours to it that it was incredibly hard to quit a game to which I had devoted so much time. I even had the idea of creating a new identity for myself so that people would forget me, but I forgot that it wouldn't help me at all.

I tried to quit this game, and fortunately, I was able to distance myself from this trash game to finish high school. But when I finished high school, I sometimes went back to the game, but seeing how dead the community was, my obsession with this game had disappeared.

It has been a while since I stopped playing this trash game. I could say that on one hand, I miss those moments I spent with my friends, but on the other hand, I want to forget all the harm that those people and this game did to my mental health.

Moreover, since I left this game, I realized that competition makes no sense at all and only serves to boost people's egos.
I also want to mention that I'm grateful for not having a trash WR because I had realized how foolish the players were behaving defending their WRs and feeling like the kings of this shitty game.

I would like to know if anyone here had a similar experience in speedrunning or in any competitive video game.

 

[carnivalforone]

i was top 6000 in osu i was involved with mapping, praised by my fellow players only for me to dissapear for one year due to mental health coming back and simply having lost my touch. i cried and cried i had lost the skill i had put so much time into achieving and i simply couldnt anymore, i ruined my once godly stats i lost my image of myself and kind of was let down by myself. i started getting into other games but i will never reach success the likes i did with osu unfortunately and i probably wont ever have time like i used to. im about to be 19 and i feel like ive grown up so much i hate how games feel like im throwing away my life or like i havent grown up and idk i guess im just lost overall. kinda similar not really but i understand what you went through having sunk so much time into a competitive game

 

[BeforeYouFallAsleep]

no i never did speedrunning or any competitive game but i do like the idea of seedrunning a lot. I also like watching speedruns of kinda shitty games, mostly when charlie (moistcritikal) does or watches them.

I don't think this is what you wanted to hear but i'm happy that you could overcome and leave this toxic community behind.
Maybe spend your time with some quality story games eventho competition, in a non toxic environment can be really fun, i could imagine <3

i hate how games feel like im throwing away my life

i have the same with watching series. So many episodes and each time i think what tf am i doing with my time.
Thankfully it's still different with gaming. I guess i am actively doing something, so it's not that of a waste.
I do enjoy watching some good movies/animes tho

 

[peace_van]

I used to spend a lot of time in competitive music games like osu mentioned by snowfallrising, but now I've lost interest in it. I was not very much into the competitive part of the game, but mostly the game itself- acting in accordance with rhythms is intrinsically pleasing, and I felt good when I played a challenging song perfectly.

And my avatar comes from a 5v5 moba game. It's the most popular game in my country and many of my peers play this game. I was being involved for a few years, and now I've quit. My teammates were so eager for winning, and they blamed me for my unique playing style whenever we lost. It's supposed to be a supportive role, but I'd always prefer to contribute some DPS. I showed the practicality of my style by my historical results (56% winning rate over 1000+ games) but they didn't take it.

I feel deeply connected with my avatar character, mostly because of his background story and the feeling when I use his DPS skill- I feel like being a freely flying little boy, watching and helping allies from the margin of the battlefield. I enjoyed this game not to win, but to be role-playing this character, and helping my peers in my way. The character, the gameplay itself, but not the moment of winning. My teammates said something like 'You shouldn't invest in that skill/he's a support/buy defensive armors/stand in front of us and take damage' blablabla... Prototyping. It sounds to me like 'Male should always stand in front of female and protect them'. My ex bf was one of my peers and we quarreled on this for many times and stopped playing this game together after a while. It deeply saddened me- even he cannot accept my true self.

Competition is what makes the world a hell. It boosts the dark side of humanity- greed, anger and obsession. I don't think there are true winners in competition. When the desire to win occurs to someone, they have already lost. Life itself should be beautiful just like the games, but competition twists it. People always want to win, making the process suffering.