So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

[Gocnak]

Well… nothing good lasts forever.

I guess I can start with the “thanks” part:

I want to take time to thank Darkevil.

This guy, right here, is the sole reason I’m even able to be here, making this post. After he found my videos of me messing around in certain HL2 maps with ABH, he PMd me on YouTube asking if I wanted to join in on the “HL2 Re-Run” that was taking place on "SourceRuns.org.” I did, and we immediately started collaborating on the epic “Phase 1 of DWaHMoV.” This collaboration is what started my involvement with the community, working on completing Phase 1, and eventually onto competing for segments for Phase 2. So thank you again, Darkevil, for introducing me to this wonderful experience. <3

Now, let’s talk about me and my Twitch stream, shall we? Seems to be a hot topic at this point.

It all started off so innocent, with DWaHMoV segments. I started streaming just to do those, because sometimes people (the other runners) were bored and wanted to watch me do them. I also liked highlighting when I actually got the segment that we would end up using for the run. It was fun. The community, SourceRuns, back when I joined it, was a niche group formed from the remnants of the run that got me into speedrunning. It was fun. Everything about it appealed to me and my passion for going fast in a video game. It was fun.

I didn’t join SourceRuns just to do DWaHMoV, publish the final product, and become “internet famoose.” I just did a shit ton of segments because I had free time, and because I loved the idea of beating HL2 as fast as possible, and with the new engine having ABH, which was crazy fast, I just wanted to be a part of something special.

Of course, after the run was finished, I started to do RTA runs. Helping out with route-finding, we brought the original 2:30 WR (<3 you Tomsk) all the way down to 2:10, then eventually sub-2, then eventually… you get the point. Through these times, I had plenty of rivalry, from Sully and Tomsk and Colfra, to OVC (may he rest in sweet, solemn peace). Jukspa also made me more competitive, even for when the run was sub-1:40 and had far fewer runners.

I essentially paved the path from sub-1:40 to sub-1:30. That’s the only purposefully egotistical thing about this post, I promise. I went to two GDQs, represented the team as best as I could, and showed off a passion that I had grown over the last few years. It was fun. I got a Twitch partnership (literally from a silly dare from Lo1ts to try to apply for it, <3 you Lo1ts btw) and started to get money for my simple pastime hobby. It was fun.

However, after AGDQ 2015, things started to feel off. I returned to HL2 after taking my break for EP2, and pushed myself lower and lower with my PB/WR to the point where I started to get a little too into what I was doing. It wasn’t fun anymore, it was about getting an arbitrary goal and moving on to something else for the time being. This arbitrary goal, along with personal issues since literally HOURS before my run at AGDQ, brought me down, made me depressed and not want to stream. I thankfully realized I was taking streaming too seriously, focused on school and real life, and it passed.

When I had more free time (summer break) to try again for this goal, the depressing feelings started coming back. I would start saying things I didn’t quite mean to, like the jab about SourceRuns and the future of it, or quips about how fucking awful I was, how I wanted somebody to murder me because the game just wouldn’t finish the job, etc. Some days I didn’t even want to stream, so I didn’t. I watched other streams, played other games, and actually had fun again, for doing something else for a change.

But there were also times that, upon reading the SourceRuns Skype chat, I just didn’t feel like I was part of a community anymore. I felt like I was spectating a discussion that had no opening for a contribution from me, and that I was only now the “poster boy” of SourceRuns.

So I decided that, after getting my arbitrary goal, I would take a break from it all; from the group, from running the game, from doing segments. I would go and do other things, and be happy for a change.

And so far, I actually am. Sure, I don’t have 600 viewers watching me do that “boring shit” like code Botnak/Momentum Mod, or casually play through games. Sure, I don’t have epic raids anymore. But I don’t care. I actually can’t care. Sure, I get less money, sure, I get less popularity, but I never did Twitch streams for either of those. When I got my partnership, I promised to keep my stream as just a hobby, not a career. And I’m really glad I kept that promise.

So anyways, my break I’m taking from running the game is temporary, you do know that, right? I was going to come back around April 2016 and try to get back into the swing of things. But of course, my break started during the epic “save deletion discussion,” one that I casted my vote in multiple times (and also literally, in that poll).

I have a stance on it, and it may not be the majority’s vote, but when I say “run the game,” you do know what I’m implying, right? Coming from the guy that’s spent more than two years working on segments, and more than two years doing RTA runs, it really surprises me that people that don’t have anything to do with the game (or SPEEDRUNNING the game) want to declare rules for it!

We used to make fun of those people! The comments on Kotaku, YouTube, random “gaming journalism” posts, the morons that think they knew what they could define “a LEGIT WR, not a cheatrun WR!” I’m just really surprised that it’s changed, and the weird, almost outlandish backlash I get for making my stance just disgusts me even further.

So now, after Jared pretty much gave me the boot (based on two reasons I tried my best to explain above) I guess it’s time for me to say my farewells.

[Gocnak]

Darwin, Matmo, Z1m, Pruno and Yalter, you guys rock. I fucking loved hanging out with you guys on Skype, staying up til ass-o’clock grinding segments or just talking about random shit.

Darwin, keep up the epic editing/media work you do. If I ever go into any media arts/film making, I hope to be half as good as you. Thanks for taking the heat with DWaHMoV editing too, as well as original SourceCast editing. If I ever go to Sweden, you’re legit the first person I want to meet. <3

Matmo, even though I don’t talk to you much now, it was a blast hanging out with you on Skype during DWaHMoV (and even after it for a while). You made getting segments hard, but really, really fun because you added competition. You took most of the cutscene maps, and for that, I can’t thank you enough, because those literally stopped the run at times. <3

Pruno, you, along with Matmo, made segment grinding for DWaHMoV what it was for me. The effort that both you and him put in to the run was amazing and commendable, and sometimes led to the run being dead-stopped since we had to compete to shave off just mere seconds at the time. If I ever go to France, you’re definitely the first person I would want to hang out with. Team Prunak for life! <3

Z1m, even though it’s been like a solid year since I’ve heard your voice or talked to you, thank you for being awesome during DWaHMoV and the many months afterwards. You got me into CS:GO, and overall, you’re a chill dude. If I still lived in Georgia, I would have totally hung out with you. <3

Yalter, please, don’t stop being you. Even if I saw a lot of weird russians in chat sometimes, I always remembered that there’s great people in that country, namely you. You’ve contributed so much to both the Source and GoldSrc community, and I want to thank you so much for everything you’ve done. Sorry again for stealing some segments in DWaHMoV from you, and if I could, I would go back in time and wait for you to improve them, as lame as that sounds lol… <3

Maxxuss, keep up the awesome streams, EP2 runs, and Black Mesa Source runs. Every time I watch your stream, it reminds me of the days before my partnership/ebin rise to famoose-ness, and it’s really, really nice. <3

Cameron:D, if you’re still out there, thank you for hosting the site, hosting torrents, and anything else behind-the-scenes you did/still do. You’re probably the most under-appreciated SourceRuns member, and I feel awful for that. Thanks again. <3

Exec, I never hated you, I promise. Even if our “beef” could go as far back as “USE THE BIND, GOCNAK!” on DWaHMoV segments, I never hated that. Even if I was 16 at the time, I still respected you, and thank you for your work that you’ve done; for DWaHMoV, video oversights, and the work you’ll continue to do with administration of SR. <3

Shoup, we tight. <3

PJC, same as Exec. No beef against you, I understand how you wanted to get a definitive answer on something that you do have administrative power over, and sorry if I came across as an angsty, teenaged HL2 runner trying to keep his barely contested WR from being changed. I appreciate what you do for the site as well. Keep up the great work!

Winded… I really don’t know you enough to say anything about you. Sorry. Keep… memeing, I guess? Idk.

Jared, you used to be cool. I don’t understand how defending a game I’ve invested almost half my life into, and saying something a bit negative on one of my down days (as mentioned above), counts as “so egotistical it makes (you) retch.” I’m sorry I wasn’t there tonight to answer you, I was out spending some time with the friends which I’m seldomly going to see in the next few months. But in my opinion, and in terms of administrating something, you were really brash about this. But eh, you pay the bills around here so whatever man. I won’t stop you from going back to… whatever it is you do other than pay the bills for the site and make suicide/drug jokes in the Skype group. Just keep up the fantastic work!

MooThing, I don’t know what happened. You used to support me, then something happened and now you hate my guts and everything I do. What boggles my mind is that, somehow, the Skype group accepted you? Maybe it was because of that whole “I’m a girl hehe ;)” thing you did at the beginning, but really I don’t know. It’s weird, but I guess you can have the gratitude of knowing that you were one of the main reasons I wanted to leave the Skype group in the first place. Grats.

Everybody else, if I know you, I most likely love you. Keep going on and doing what you love because you love it. Not for popularity, not for those epic YouTube gains, not for those insane viewer counts and followers on Twitch. But because you love to.

And with that, I’m out.

It’s been fun,
Gocnak

P.S: I’ll dissociate myself from anything SourceRuns related. Already did so on my Twitch channel, Facebook profile (which I totally use, lol), and anywhere else important to me. The least I can do after this post is give you guys more free advertising.

[anon3211469]

ok

[Enjoi]

Aw man, it sucks that it’s come to this, but do what you gotta do. Good luck going forward. I hope to still drop in the stream from time to time.

It all started off so innocent, with DWaHMoV segments. I started streaming just to do those, because sometimes people (the other runners) were bored and wanted to watch me do them. I also liked highlighting when I actually got the segment that we would end up using for the run.

These were the best of times man.. miss those days, even just as a viewer

[Jukspa]

@Gocnλk

So anyways, my break I’m taking from running the game is temporary, you do know that, right? I was going to come back around April 2016 and try to get back into the swing of things. But of course, my break started during the epic “save deletion discussion,” one that I casted my vote in multiple times (and also literally, in that poll).

I guess you’re meaning the survey that has been sent to people who have ran the game recently? As far as I know this is the only poll ever that hasn’t been public and has been limited to the people running the game. As it has been pretty controversial I think it’s completely fair that there is a poll about it. And it’s also only the second poll about this subject(although there were other questions in the poll).

It’s pretty rude to say that a ruleset discussion is “epic” as if you’re implying it’s for some reason ridiculous or something? Remember you used to be really against it at some point? When anyone tried to have a discussion back then you’d always try to dismiss it or get really upset so that people would stop talking about it. Basically the same thing as now. I don’t really like how a lot of people always try to dismiss any sort of discussion about rules as drama. People say things like “Just have fun guys it doesn’t matter, just play video games”, which is true, but if you don’t care about rules and just want to have fun then don’t take part in the discussion. It’s as simple as that.

Back to save deletion specifically. When Woobly originally made the post on reddit about save deletion I’m fairly certain there was no poll at all and instead there was some sort of discussion on the Sourceruns Skype group(but not in the HL2 Group) and the categories were decided there. To quote z1m:

After discussing it in the Sourceruns skype group (that I don't believe you're in), this is what came out as the obvious solution.

So back then people running the game didn't matter and instead people who were involved in Sourceruns could set the rules? Seems to be completely opposite to your current stance. For anyone who isn't aware, save deletion was originally disallowed because it broke the "continuity" of the run.

Scroll forward a little bit in time and Woobly makes a thread about it on the Sourceruns forums. A poll is added and save deletion being allowed wins 70%-30%. If we go by your logic of the runners deciding the ruleset isn’t this poll completely meaningless as it’s public to anyone on the forums? For some reason this is where you did a complete 180 on the subject and started doing runs with save deletion. After this you also claimed that you were never against it in the first place which simply isn’t true. Then you also claimed that this was a decision made by the people who ran this game, which I’m not sure what that’s based on, if there has been some sort of a poll on this that I’m not aware of.

So what changed? Was it the fact that you realized that you could get sub Dwahmov with save deletion?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to run in a way you want, it’s completely fine to do your own thing. But when you start dictating the rules for a leaderboard that other people use as well, then there’s a problem. You should be unmodded from the leaderboards as you don’t seem to listen to other people’s opinions and just solo dictate the rules by yourself. I guess this is the point at where you draw the “you don’t even run the game” card. Which is sort of true I guess, albeit I’m probably gonna look into doing HL2 at some point and update my time a little bit.

[Gocnak]

@Jukspa

I guess you’re meaning the survey that has been sent to people who have ran the game recently?

And Jared, apparently.

In fact the majority of that paragraph was in response to him. But here, I’ll try to respond to explain better.

@Jukspa

As it has been pretty controversial I think it’s completely fair that there is a poll about it.

I agree. I like the poll, and I like how it’s private and only sent to people that have done runs recently. I’m not against it, and if better rules are shaped out of this, awesome.

@Jukspa

It’s pretty rude to say that a ruleset discussion is “epic” as if you’re implying it’s for some reason ridiculous or something?

Let me further explain, I wasn’t mocking the discussion. I was only regarding it to monumental, legendary even, because honestly, it’s a major point in this whole debacle. You could exchange “epic” with “legendary.” You even help me make this point:

@Jukspa

Remember you used to be really against it at some point? When anyone tried to have a discussion back then you’d always try to dismiss it or get really upset so that people would stop talking about it. Basically the same thing as now.

The whole discussion was publicized when it, I guess, shouldn’t have. I had people asking me about it in my stream if I would do it or not, for days after I had made my stance, and I guess it just got tiresome for me. Again, this was well over a year ago, and looking back at it now, I’m in the same boat.

And again. I was against doing it, not it existing. My runs were Any% No Save Deletion then, but in my mind, I was doing my “legitimate” Any% that I was used to. It was still technically Any%, but not as fast as it could have been, because I didn’t do save deletion. People were trying to bring up why I didn’t want to do it, and I said “because I don’t want to.” That’s as far as I got upset with it. Lo1ts donated to SGDQ asking if I’d do it, as a joke, and even then, I still sorta laughed it off, and said “I don’t want to talk about it,” in the sense that this meme was dying and I just wanted to run the game how I wanted to. In my opinion back then, I didn’t consider it a continuation of the game. So with that opinion, I continued doing runs without it. Because I didn’t want to do it.

Could you imagine what it would have been like if somebody broke WR using it? Maybe the discussion for categories would have happened there, who knows.

@Jukspa

I don’t really like how a lot of people always try to dismiss any sort of discussion about rules as drama. People say things like “Just have fun guys it doesn’t matter, just play video games”, which is true, but if you don’t care about rules and just want to have fun then don’t take part in the discussion. It’s as simple as that.

This is a fair point. I dismiss it because I’ve given my input, and whenever it’s brought up, it’s almost like it’s always about the great “what if someone takes a break halfway through…” and other hypothetical situations that I have YET to see/imagine someone benefiting from. Maybe I’m getting/gotten too cocky with that, sorry.

@Jukspa

Back to save deletion specifically… …To quote z1m…
So back then people running the game didn’t matter and instead people who were involved in Sourceruns could set the rules? Seems to be completely opposite to your current stance. For anyone who isn’t aware, save deletion was originally disallowed because it broke the “continuity” of the run.

Well… that thread didn’t really set any rules. In fact we still ended up going word of mouth with rules, and never really wrote them anywhere. People chose sides, I chose my opinion that I chose then, and stuck to it, and speedran the vidya game, my way. Should we have made concrete rules back then? Of course, and that is a brilliant point you made. I’m genuinely sorry I didn’t contribute to doing so back then. I saw it as drama, even though it was technically discussion, and wanted to stick to the norm I was familiar with.

@Jukspa

Scroll forward a little bit in time and Woobly makes a thread about it on the Sourceruns forums… For some reason this is where you did a complete 180 on the subject and started doing runs with save deletion.

Because I became more open about it. I realized that we really needed to discuss it, and because it was on the SR forums, and thus more HL2 runners could potentially see it and give input, that I would start to consider it more. The majority of the public was for it, yes, but the main point that stuck out to me was realizing “other games do crazier glitches.” That’s where I realized I was wrong about not wanting to do it. I figured I would give it a try in my runs, see how it works, and I ended up using it from there on out.

@Jukspa

After this you also claimed that you were never against it in the first place which simply isn’t true. Then you also claimed that this was a decision made by the people who ran this game, which I’m not sure what that’s based on, if there has been some sort of a poll on this that I’m not aware of.

Well, I already explained above what my stance was on it. I see that stance as wrong now. And by people who run the game, that’s referring to me. I get too cocky with generalizing (you see it in my SGDQ run) and refer to “we” a lot when I really meant “I.” That’s extremely selfish looking back at it, and I’m sorry.

@Jukspa

So what changed? Was it the fact that you realized that you could get sub Dwahmov with save deletion?

Explained above; the realization that other games technically do more crazy things in their Any%.

@Jukspa

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to run in a way you want, it’s completely fine to do your own thing. But when you start dictating the rules for a leaderboard that other people use as well, then there’s a problem.

I’m not dictating the rules…?

@Jukspa

You should be unmodded from the leaderboards

Woah, now. Let’s dissect this a bit more.

@Jukspa

as you don’t seem to listen to other people’s opinions

(who don’t run the game)

@Jukspa

and just solo dictate the rules by yourself.

You mean try to set up a skeleton ruleset on the speedrun leaderboard, that any other mod can also edit once we discuss it more? Which is what the poll was going to accomplish? The poll that I’m in favor for, no matter the outcome, as long as it’s kept to just people who have run the game?

But of course, you wouldn’t know my opinion on the poll until now, because of my break, and all you have is the “rant” I made in the comments of it (directed at the people who don’t run the game from SR higher-ups who will read it, which, surprise surprise).

Again, I don’t want to dictate how to speedrun a video game. It’s true, I run/ran HL2 how I wanted, and I’ve told many people that in my stream as well. I didn’t dictate “YOU MUST RUN IT MY WAY OR DIE,” or anything crazy like that. I just ran it, and because I was one of few doing so, I ran it with rules I thought we’d had. (See, more shitty generalizing, I’m sorry.)

Once the rules are updated, we (for real this time) can update the WR time accordingly, and after my break is done, I’ll come back and run under the rules we all agreed upon.

@Jukspa

I’m probably gonna look into doing HL2 at some point and update my time a little bit.

Yes! You may want to wait until new rules are agreed upon/set, but I’m actually really happy to hear this!

Other than Woobly, I’ve had nobody else get close to my time recently, and it was getting boring with no competition. I’m really excited, it’s been so long haha.

Again Jukspa, I don’t hate you or anybody else that runs this game, and I’m more than willing to help discuss this in a group with other runners. Sorry if I was being ignorant about it.

I realize now that discussion between runners has been so… bad. I think I assumed that I was pretty much the only one left, and ran with the rules I wanted to. If you want, we can create a new Skype group and discuss in further depth. Even if I’m on my break, I would love to help out with this, because it’ll affect me when I come back to running.

[BitRain]

…so sad that it should come to this, we tried to warn you all but oh deaaaaaaaaar.

Also moo hates you because a bunch of us had a field day with that AMD/Intel CPU debacle in the mumble and I guess that changed his outlook on you.

@Gocnλk

@Jukspa

Scroll forward a little bit in time and Woobly makes a thread about it on the Sourceruns forums… For some reason this is where you did a complete 180 on the subject and started doing runs with save deletion.

Because I became more open about it. I realized that we really needed to discuss it, and because it was on the SR forums, and thus more HL2 runners could potentially see it and give input, that I would start to consider it more. The majority of the public was for it, yes, but the main point that stuck out to me was realizing “other games do crazier glitches.” That’s where I realized I was wrong about not wanting to do it. I figured I would give it a try in my runs, see how it works, and I ended up using it from there on out.

Are you sure it’s not because you were getting super sick of the game and sick of getting 1:29s and 1:35s? Constantly trying to get that 1:27 you longed for but just couldn’t get it, which is why you’d get super aggressive when people said “rip run” in the chat? So you decided save-deletion is the ultimate strat to get you that 1:27 quick and easy so you went ahead and did runs with it before the rules were decided upon for sure?

I recon if you had just waited a few weeks none of this would have happened, and you would’ve got WR under any% with the new rule set.

Also, do you wanna get a seg in Estranged Done Quick before you go?

[Jukspa]

And Jared, apparently.

I guess I should elaborate more on the poll. It started off as me suggesting that one of the admins on the leaderboards should message people and ask them about their opinions on the rules. Maxxuss decided to take this task and I suggested him a bunch of questions and he made the poll. He also posted the link to it so we could see early revisions to suggest improvements. We sorta talked about who should be allowed to vote but we didn’t really come to an agreement on it and as such some people who aren’t that active any more decided to vote anyway. I don’t really agree with this either and I think it would be just best to count people who have done runs recently.

Let me further explain, I wasn’t mocking the discussion. I was only regarding it to monumental, legendary even, because honestly, it’s a major point in this whole debacle. You could exchange “epic” with “legendary.” You even help me make this point:[/quote]

I think you were using the word ironically and you’re now just trying to back away from it.

And again. I was against doing it, not it existing.

I’m not sure what this even means. You clearly didn’t like it and you didn’t want it to be included in Any%. I think it’s completely fine to change your opinion on something but don’t try to claim you were never against it.

Well… that thread didn’t really set any rules. In fact we still ended up going word of mouth with rules, and never really wrote them anywhere. People chose sides, I chose my opinion that I chose then, and stuck to it, and speedran the vidya game, my way. Should we have made concrete rules back then?

Even though concrete rules weren’t written anywhere it was obvious that any run using save deletion wasn’t going to be accepted on the leaderboards.

I’m not dictating the rules…?

You are though even if it might not seem like it. You do a run using whatever you think is legitimate and then you submit your run and then verify it yourself. By doing this you set a new standard on what is allowed.

You mean try to set up a skeleton ruleset on the speedrun leaderboard, that any other mod can also edit once we discuss it more? Which is what the poll was going to accomplish? The poll that I’m in favor for, no matter the outcome, as long as it’s kept to just people who have run the game?

But of course, you wouldn’t know my opinion on the poll until now, because of my break, and all you have is the “rant” I made in the comments of it (directed at the people who don’t run the game from SR higher-ups who will read it, which, surprise surprise).

Again, I don’t want to dictate how to speedrun a video game. It’s true, I run/ran HL2 how I wanted, and I’ve told many people that in my stream as well. I didn’t dictate “YOU MUST RUN IT MY WAY OR DIE,” or anything crazy like that. I just ran it, and because I was one of few doing so, I ran it with rules I thought we’d had. (See, more shitty generalizing, I’m sorry.)

Once the rules are updated, we (for real this time) can update the WR time accordingly, and after my break is done, I’ll come back and run under the rules we all agreed upon.

Just clarifying I’m not against writing down what the current rules were that were just spread previously by word of mouth. And yeah I agree that obviously you can do whatever you want but the leaderboards should follow what the majority of the community thinks should be allowed(which you seemed to agree with as well).

Yes! You may want to wait until new rules are agreed upon/set, but I’m actually really happy to hear this!

Other than Woobly, I’ve had nobody else get close to my time recently, and it was getting boring with no competition. I’m really excited, it’s been so long haha.

Again Jukspa, I don’t hate you or anybody else that runs this game, and I’m more than willing to help discuss this in a group with other runners. Sorry if I was being ignorant about it.

I realize now that discussion between runners has been so… bad. I think I assumed that I was pretty much the only one left, and ran with the rules I wanted to. If you want, we can create a new Skype group and discuss in further depth. Even if I’m on my break, I would love to help out with this, because it’ll affect me when I come back to running.

Yeah that was the plan even though I haven’t really looked at boatless yet so I probably won’t do runs very soon. I also wanna state that this wasn’t anything personal I just haven’t been a fan of how the HL2 rules have been handled. Since you said that you are fine with the survey deciding the rules(provided that people who don’t run the game don’t get to vote) then I have no more complaints, have a good break.

[Elgu]

Wording Jukspas posts.
Also wording the PJC post below.

@Gocnλk

What boggles my mind is that, somehow, the Skype group accepted you?

µ was added to HL2DQer group and later added to SR group. A lot of ppl from there was added.
And he actually contributes to most of the discussion there.

[PJC]

Usually I try to avoid making personal posts and just remain neutral whilst addressing certain points in a discussion; for this I’m going to make an exception because I believe it might actually help. Before I begin, keep in mind that everything I say is criticism that I hope you will take into account. I’m not looking to hold grudges; I just want you to hear me out and whatever you do with this is of course up to you, but it will certainly affect mine and many others’ stances whether for the worse or the better.

Well… nothing good lasts forever.

I guess I can start with the “thanks” part:

I want to take time to thank Darkevil.

This guy, right here, is the sole reason I’m even able to be here, making this post. After he found my videos of me messing around in certain HL2 maps with ABH, he PMd me on YouTube asking if I wanted to join in on the “HL2 Re-Run” that was taking place on "SourceRuns.org.” I did, and we immediately started collaborating on the epic “Phase 1 of DWaHMoV.” This collaboration is what started my involvement with the community, working on completing Phase 1, and eventually onto competing for segments for Phase 2. So thank you again, Darkevil, for introducing me to this wonderful experience. <3

I told myself for the longest time that I didn’t have a problem with you, but now I realize I actually do. This is one fine example of why.

Every time there is discussion or criticism that concerns or involves you, you write these unnecessarily over-dramatic, long and emotionally charged texts (whether it be here, pastebin, Skype, reddit; whatever). Don’t get me wrong, I understand that you’re passionate about speedrunning and so am I, so I obviously respect that. The problem I have is this sort of self-importance thing you have going on. Yes, you have a fairly large fan base, but that doesn’t mean you need to disclose every detail of your personal life to explain why you haven’t been streaming, or whatever the problem is at hand. I understand you’re probably just trying to explain yourself to your viewers, but what you probably don’t realize is that it actually comes across as a type of arrogance, especially when (and I don’t mean to point-score here) there are people in this community that have probably been through hell compared to what you have.

When I first joined SourceRuns just under two years ago, your stream was my favourite. You were relaxed and polite. If I remember right, this was around the time you started to get more popular so obviously spamming and other problems that come with popularity came into play. You then began to take the frustration of these problems out on your viewers; people like me who would say simple things or ask simple questions, and you’d just respond to them in a passive aggressive or generally negative way. Eventually I stopped watching, unfollowed, stopped subscribing etc. Now, occasionally I check in and maybe this is just a bad coincidence, but every time I’ve stopped by you’ve been upset/angry/complaining about something and it continues to put me (as well as others) off.

Furthermore, seeing people come into the SourceRuns Marathon chat saying stuff like “nobody cares about the others, we’re just here to see Gocnak” really annoyed me. This obviously isn’t your fault, but when I saw that clip of you suggesting that you’re the sole reason why “people know about us” other than the YouTube channel, it made me wonder whether you’re *actually *doing a good job of representing the community.

The other thing that put me off your stream is how “robotic” it has become. I’m not one of those people who thinks that making money from doing something you actually enjoy is “being a sellout”, in fact I respect people who are able to do that and I’m all for people making a living doing it. What I mean by robotic is that you’ve joined this bandwagon of other “professional” streamers doing the whole “, thanks for the subscription man it really helps me out! Welcome to the , enjoy your emotes, badge etc” type thing. Yes, I understand you need to make your fans feel appreciated and that you’re grateful that they’re contributing your income, but a simple humanly “thank you” is good enough. Whilst you might think that saying all that stuff makes people think it’s coming from the heart, it actually makes it seem like you’re in it more for the money when I don’t believe you really are. Things like this ruin the uniqueness of your stream because we see it everywhere else. This is one reason why I favour people like coolkid and Cubeface’s streams.

@Gocnλk

PJC, same as Exec. No beef against you, I understand how you wanted to get a definitive answer on something that you do have administrative power over, and sorry if I came across as an angsty, teenaged HL2 runner trying to keep his barely contested WR from being changed. I appreciate what you do for the site as well. Keep up the great work!

I have “administrative power” over the forums and decisions made for the community/site (which is shared with 5 other people), not for making rules that don’t affect me. Everyone is entitled to give their two cents on what they think about certain topics even if they don’t run the game, because in the process they will most likely make some valid points regardless. Should these people actually get to vote on these rules? No, because it won’t affect them, but they are allowed to put forward arguments, especially when the games they run share similarities with the game you run.

The problem here is that time and time again you’ve implied that *you *are the only person that runs Half-Life 2, just because you are the only active RTA runner, meaning that you should be the only person that gets to vote. Rules that aren’t related to the category should apply to all types of runs, whether that be SS, RTA, Segmented, TAS etc, so the people creating segmented runs right now (HL2DQer, HL2TSA, HL2EP1 etc) are also affected.

@Jukspa

I don’t really like how a lot of people always try to dismiss any sort of discussion about rules as drama. People say things like “Just have fun guys it doesn’t matter, just play video games”, which is true, but if you don’t care about rules and just want to have fun then don’t take part in the discussion. It’s as simple as that.

Words cannot express how glad I am someone else brought this up. As seemingly one of the few people openly and willing to discuss this kind of stuff in-depth until a solution is found, I’m usually the one that has to inform, implement and enforce this kind of stuff in the HL1 community simply because nobody else will do it, and that’s where people get mad at me; a sort-of “shoot the messenger” kind of approach. They think that I’m trying to drag them into some kind of “drama”, when actually I merely want their thoughts/vote so that the rule set can be representative of the community.

It’s pretty rude to say that a ruleset discussion is “epic” as if you’re implying it’s for some reason ridiculous or something?

[/quote]

This is another problem I have with you; your sarcasm and passive-aggressiveness. Do you think Jukspa doesn’t know what epic means? This is just immature and isn’t helpful in the slightest.

EDIT:

@Gocnλk

Maybe it was because of that whole "I’m a girl hehe " thing you did at the beginning, but really I don’t know.

Yet another immature and unnecessary comment that makes fun of something that Moo already disclosed was a personal problem. Why should we care about your personal life when you can’t even respect other people’s?

@Gocnλk

it’s almost like it’s always about the great “what if someone takes a break halfway through…” and other hypothetical situations that I have YET to see/imagine someone benefiting from.

The problem is that it is theoretically possible and therefore stupid to allow. If you base a rule off the fact that nobody will abuse it then suddenly decide to reject somebody’s run when they *do *abuse it, you’re being unfair on them because they have all the right to submit a run under what the rules suggest.

@Gocnλk

I’m not dictating the rules…?

When you’re aware that there’s community discussion going on about something controversial, then decide to bypass that discussion, do the controversial thing in your run, submit and verify your run and then claim that it is the all-glorious “Sub DWaHMoV in RTA World Record!!!”, that’s dictating the rules in your favour. Then what follows is the kiss-ass part of your fanbase spamming the DWaHMoV comments section saying “YOU GOT OWNED GOCNAK BEAT YOU!!!” when they have no clue what they are talking about. You should be discouraging and dismissing circle-jerk/hive-mind behavior like that.

I just fried my brain writing all this and now I can’t think of anything else to say, so for now I’m done.

[Maxam]

I’m looking forward to your return to HL2 speedrunning. In the meanwhile, be happy and don’t worry about this stuff. This is an emotional matter and people tend to say things they don’t mean. There is no reason to be mean to each other, what’s happened is happened. What this community needs is a more organized and formal way of dictating rules and this kind of stuff usually takes a lot of more time than needed so it’s understandable that current runners are inpatient about this stuff. (Unrelated: We should try end the HL1 multi-skill related subject, since it’s been going on for a long time and I imagine Tryedz has been kinda put off lately because of this). Get things straight fast to not slow down the progression of the speedrun.

[Maxx]

@Gocnλk

Maxxuss, keep up the awesome streams, EP2 runs, and Black Mesa Source runs. Every time I watch your stream, it reminds me of the days before my partnership/ebin rise to famoose-ness, and it’s really, really nice. <3

Thank you Gocnak for being 1 of 2 people who inspired me to start speed running in the first place. I’ll never forget coming to some of your later segment grinding streams and just spamming !eeeeeh all the time as I thought it was the funniest thing heh…

It’s always a good thing to take a break from speedrunning after grinding for a while, you don’t want it to feel like a chore!

[Gocnak]

@BitRain

moo hates you because a bunch of us had a field day with that AMD/Intel CPU debacle in the mumble and I guess that changed his outlook on you.

You sure? I’m more than certain his/her hatred of me started way before then. Albeit, it was just in my chat, and I ended up banning him/her for it, so maybe that’s when. :-\

@BitRain

Are you sure it’s not because you were getting super sick of the game and sick of getting 1:29s and 1:35s? Constantly trying to get that 1:27 you longed for but just couldn’t get it,

I’m sure. My goal was: get a 1:29 then take a break. Save Deletion discussion starts, and I reconsider using it. I start using it in runs to see how much time save is possible, and the goal shifts to sub-DWaHMoV’s time due to all the timesave I begin to notice. Arguments of how to time it arise from everyone, but I still run it as is for the time being, seeing just how low I could get.

@BitRain

which is why you’d get super aggressive when people said “rip run” in the chat?

This was annoying to me way before sub-DWaHMoV was even possible. But okay.

@BitRain

So you decided save-deletion is the ultimate strat to get you that 1:27 quick and easy so you went ahead and did runs with it before the rules were decided upon for sure?

I just wanted to run the video game. I didn’t want sub-1:27 “quick and easy” (but I do like your uninformed version of this). Since the rules would have determined timing for the menuing, which would be the only thing to affect it, I kept running because I honestly wanted to see how low I could go with my time.

@BitRain

I recon if you had just waited a few weeks none of this would have happened,

Weeks? You underestimate people sometimes. Especially speedrunners.

Sure, I guess I could be considered impatient here. But I wanted to run. People were taking forever trying to argue about something they didn’t run anymore (or at all), so I just went and continued doing runs.

Ignorant and impatient? Yes. But after giving my stance on it, I didn’t want to sit around. I had a goal to get, and then it could be all over.

@BitRain

Also, do you wanna get a seg in Estranged Done Quick before you go?

Nah, I’m okay. I know I started to plan/route it back when the mod was back in alpha with Matmo, but I have faith in your abilities. Kill it, man.

---

@Jukspa

You clearly didn’t like it and you didn’t want it to be included in Any%. I think it’s completely fine to change your opinion on something but don’t try to claim you were never against it.

Yep! That’s exactly what I wrote in my original reply to you. I was against it, yes. I didn’t do it in my runs for the longest time, and reconsidered it recently.

@Jukspa

Even though concrete rules weren’t written anywhere it was obvious that any run using save deletion wasn’t going to be accepted on the leaderboards.

Accepted by me, probably not, but I don’t know if speedrun.com leaderboards existed back then. Maybe my opinion popularized negativity towards it. But if I’d blame my own opinion from stopping other people from doing a run with a glitch they want, then I would be seeing myself as a dictator setting the rules for… oh.

@Jukspa

You are though even if it might not seem like it. You do a run using whatever you think is legitimate and then you submit your run and then verify it yourself. By doing this you set a new standard on what is allowed.

That could be applied to recently, sure. I did runs without Save Deletion and submitted it to Any% since it technically was still Any%, just slow. Then I start using the glitch, and continue to submit it under Any%. The timing may be off (for now), and we’ll correct that, and read my reply to BitRain about how I feel about what I did.

---

@Centaur1um

you are not even close to the reason why we got popular.

I never said I was the reason you guys got popular. The YT channel is great, DWaHMoV wasn’t promoted single-handedly from me or anything. I was part of it, sure, but it isn’t the reason it got famous. I was a literal who back then, in that run.

What I meant is I was helping out with advertising the team for essentially free, as my Twitch channel got more popular. I did so because I really felt I was part of it back then. In my view, having the SourceRuns twitch team, logo in my stream, and details in the bio were helping you guys (us) get attention.

I linked to the wiki, to the forums, and talked about the group as if I was some part of it.

But when I started to feel like I wasn’t part of it anymore, I started to feel like it just wasn’t worth it anymore. I said what I said in that VOD. It was one of my depressing things I’ve said. Did I mean it? Not completely, I even said that in my original post.

I figured the “sorry” would be implied there. But in case it wasn’t clear, I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean anything personal against you, or anyone in the group really. In case you were wondering, I don’t want anybody to murder me, I don’t actually think I’m the worst human being in the world, and I don’t think I was the only one popularizing SourceRuns.

@Centaur1um

That’s because you rarely participate in it.

Because honestly, I didn’t feel like I should have. It had changed to random shit the majority of the time, spam almost every day. I would read it, all of it, for sure. Trying to see if there were things I could give any of my input for, which was starting to dwindle down in the last few weeks before I left. Except for the save deletion discussion, which in my opinion was turning into an argument at the time, there was very little for me to try to talk about.

@Centaur1um

Yeah, because you told us to figure it out on our own.

As in, don’t include me in this argument anymore. I already addressed this in my response to BitRain and Jukspa.

@Centaur1um

You don’t take your frustration out with streaming HL2 on a community while you’re streaming to a large audience.

→

You don't say, think, or do what you want on your own stream, how dare you!

@Centaur1um

Believe it or not, but I stuck up for you A LOT whenever I heard someone say something negative about you because I stick up for my members,

Well… thank you for that. You never told me about this but I respect that you did this. Unless you’re talking about YouTube comments.

I mean, I (used to) get shit all the time in my chat. I know there are people out there that legit hate me, and protecting me from those people is awesome, and I respect you. But I am going to loosely quote you here:

How could I have known that?

Furthermore, most of the shit was happening in your own group and you didn’t do anything about it. If you can dig through my VODs, feel free to also dig through the Skype group and see more examples.

As for the rest of your post, I don’t have beef against you. You’re free to change your opinion about me. If you want to run HL2 new engine, you can have a say in the change of the rules. This isn’t me allowing you to like some sort of dictator, I’m just saying that you’re always able to, if you want to. I didn’t know you still showed interest in running source games, so that’s why I didn’t consider your opinion on something about HL2. Sorry about that ignorance.

---

@PJC

Every time there is discussion or criticism that concerns or involves you, you write these unnecessarily over-dramatic, long and emotionally charged texts (whether it be here, pastebin, Skype, reddit; whatever).

Sorry I can’t fit my opinions in 128 characters or less.

@PJC

The problem I have is this sort of self-importance thing you have going on. Yes, you have a fairly large fan base, but that doesn’t mean you need to disclose every detail of your personal life to explain why you haven’t been streaming, or whatever the problem is at hand. I understand you’re probably just trying to explain yourself to your viewers, but what you probably don’t realize is that it actually comes across as a type of arrogance, especially when (and I don’t mean to point-score here) there are people in this community that have probably been through hell compared to what you have.

If anybody asserts any sort of opinion, there’s going to be arrogance with it. Naturally, as per an argument based on whose opinion is right. But none of these posts, except ones around Save Deletion, were opinionated arguments. If you’re upset with how I try to explain myself, that’s okay. I know you’d think I’ll write novels about how I like to explain myself, but in this case, your opinion is completely fine. Some people don’t like reading a lot of words or something, some people don’t like “unnecessary details” and that’s fine. I put out what I write and it’s up to the reader to determine how much they want to read.

I’m sorry that I like explaining. I see you understand it. When I feel I need to explain myself, I do so with lots of words. Maybe I’ll become some sort of author or something in the future. Who knows.

@PJC

You then began to take the frustration of these problems out on your viewers; people like me who would say simple things or ask simple questions, and you’d just respond to them in a passive aggressive or generally negative way.

I could primarily blame running the game over and over again, but I do want to blame myself here as well. I have people that have stuck through the shittiest times on my stream, and honestly, I couldn’t be more grateful.

I really tried to not be so negative on my stream when I did runs. I really miss the days before hand, when it was so simple; the times you were talking about.

Popularity can get to you. You could probably find the one time I had like 800 viewers and I was salty almost the entire time. It’s just… ugh.

@PJC

Now, occasionally I check in and maybe this is just a bad coincidence, but every time I’ve stopped by you’ve been upset/angry/complaining about something and it continues to put me (as well as others) off.

Was it during HL2 run streams? Yeah… :-\

Just hasn’t been the same. It’s better now, I promise. But I don’t blame you if you don’t want to stop by anymore.

@PJC

Furthermore, seeing people come into the SourceRuns Marathon chat saying stuff like “nobody cares about the others, we’re just here to see Gocnak” really annoyed me.

→

Taking the uncontrollable monster that is known as Twitch Chat seriously made me upset.

I can’t help that. You understand.

@PJC

when I saw that clip of you suggesting that you’re the sole reason why “people know about us” other than the YouTube channel, it made me wonder whether you’re *actually *doing a good job of representing the community.

If all those people saw the clip and then formed their concrete opinion about the group, then displayed that opinion in the chat and YouTube comments, then I’m sorry.

A bonus is you don’t have to worry about me even trying to represent the community anymore.

@PJC

The other thing that put me off your stream is how “robotic” it has become. …

I appreciate this criticism. Thank you for it. I will take it into consideration as I move forward with my stream. I picked up the “welcome to the gocnation” shpeal like a month after I got sub button, and I agree, it’s really tasteless now. I’ll try switching it up, it may take me a bit to get used to.

@PJC

Everyone is entitled to give their two cents …

I completely agree. This is an excellent point. It kinda ties into my “I’ll leave it to you” explanation I had for Jared. I made my argument and didn’t want to be part of it anymore, so that’s why I said that.

Again, people can have opinions, I’m all for it. For instance, there are people that absolutely hate Save Buffering and Prop Clipping and the ugly routes they have spawned. But they were valid glitches, and we adopted them into Any%.

@PJC

just because you are the only active RTA runner, meaning that you should be the only person that gets to vote.

Was it coming across as that? I’m sorry. Everybody that has something to do with the game should be able to vote. See my stance on the poll, in my original reply to Jukspa.

@PJC

Do you think Jukspa doesn’t know what epic means?

No, I was correcting which meaning of “epic” I was using. I thought that he was thinking I was using it as “epic fail LOL” instead of just a historic discussion. I guess it was a wrong choice of a word to use. Sorry.

@PJC

Yet another immature and unnecessary comment that makes fun of something that Moo already disclosed was a personal problem. Why should we care about your personal life when you can’t even respect other people’s?

Lying about your gender is a personal problem? Or was it another sort of personal dealio, like Moo is actually… oh.

Well I apologize if that’s the case. I couldn’t have known. Sorry.

And I never said you have to care about my personal life. But I guess you could see that implied with my long novels I write for explaining myself. But I don’t want you to care if you don’t want/have to. I think I even wrote that in one of my other explanations I did about my stream on pastebin.

@PJC

If you base a rule off the fact that nobody will abuse it then suddenly decide to reject somebody’s run when they *do *abuse it, you’re being unfair on them because they have all the right to submit a run under what the rules suggest.

I never said I would reject their run if they did it. I just said, in my opinion, that doing something like that wouldn’t really benefit you. It can be banned it in the new ruleset, if the poll eventually comes through to making it so, and it won’t be a problem.

@PJC

Then what follows is the kiss-ass part of your fanbase spamming the DWaHMoV comments section saying “YOU GOT OWNED GOCNAK BEAT YOU!!!” when they have no clue what they are talking about. You should be discouraging and dismissing circle-jerk/hive-mind behavior like that.

I never even told them to do that. I would have never told them to do that. I don’t ever want to promote circle-jerky behavior. I really am sorry that a hive-mind I didn’t have control of spread to the YT page.

I explained what I thought about the whole situation in a podcast I did for one of my viewers. I never linked this in chat or anything because it was done fairly recently (and I don’t blame you for not knowing about it), and therefore too late.

@PJC

I just fried my brain writing all this and now I can’t think of anything else to say, so for now I’m done.

Me too, and thank you for your criticism and thoughts. I really appreciate it.

---

I guess I’m done too, and I’ll leave it at this.

If you guys need something, you have ways to contact me.

I want to leave peacefully. I just felt like explaining myself before I did so.

Good bye.

[execut4ble]

Well, it was fun while it lasted, buddy. We had some good and bad times, but yeah, everything comes to an end.

Just keep doing what makes you happy and uh… best of luck in your future endeavors!

P.S. whatever you do… DONT FORGET TO USE THE BIND!!

[IAmWako]

This saddens me.

Even though it means nothing to you. Just remember my thoughts will be with you. Hope you have a fun time with whatever you digress too. Sad to see you go bro.

• Wako, Sleepie, Manifst

[chinese_soup]

@Gocnλk

Shoup, we tight. <3

**Hello. **
I don’t really care about all this stuff you people were arguing about, I don’t care about this drama, I don’t care about rules for HL2 and people here can surely call me ignorant, but this thread doesn’t exist just so people can shit on each other’s heads for reasons that are IMO beyond ridiculous…

All I really wanted to do is say goodbye, because you were one of the first few speedrunners I have ever watched and I enjoyed the streams, the memes and all that jazz a lot.
I thank you for being part of this community. I also thank you for accepting a retard like me enough to be mentioned in your “goodbye post”. All I can really give back for that is a shitty meme.
**
So here you go: **(C88) [Shoup] 送別 | Soubetsu (Farewell) [English] [Digital]
It’s just a thing. The only kind of thing I am good at, which is… well, making bad memes.

I know that you’ve said in your last post that you are not going to reply and that is fine by me, but I would be glad if you at least lurked around and read our farewells.

See you on SGDQ 2016, hopefully… I guess it’s time to stop being a NEETo (well during holidays, anyway) memer, get a job and save money up so I can *actually *go there. :^)
PS: No, Colfra does not stream anymore, the “Colfra raid” group is sorry for having your hopes up.
Bye for now. (^_^)/~

[BitRain]

This saddens me.

Even though it means nothing to you. Just remember my thoughts will be with you. Hope you have a fun time with whatever you digress too. Sad to see you go bro.

• Wako, Sleepie, Manifst

Why the fuck do you keep coming here, we’ve banned you 3 fucking times you spineless fool.

[IAmWako]

I came to show my respect to someone who did something amazing to this community.
Now pipe the fuck down and show some respect to this fucking thread you inbred imbecilic mule.

[Centaurium]

bye wako. we had our fun but it’s over.

[BitRain]

I came to show my respect to someone who did something amazing to this community.
Now pipe the fuck down and show some respect to this fucking thread you inbred imbecilic mule.

Ooo dem fightin’ words.

I find it funny that someone who bullshit to gocnak about fake strats on multiple occasions, lied his way into a run and showed zero interest in collaborating in, CONTINUED to bullshit about having a “24 minute HL1 PB”, insulted the runners and others, gets banned and tries to pull the same Shit again 6 months later under an alias then vandalised public property with the Sourceruns logo as some form of revenge WANTS RESPECT FROM US.

rip wako

Good luck with that. Go away.