[Rolken]

Did you miss me? :) I'm here takin over ur front page news cause I see a bunch of handwringing about dying, glory days, etc., and I've got a unique vantage point on that.

I founded TSC on the excitement of bringing people together to accomplish new and interesting things. TSC itself has no intrinsic value and never did. It's always been about people and what you accomplish.

In that spirit, I think it's good and right for people to move through cycles, even the community itself. There are wonderful things to learn and experience through a format like TSC, and there comes a time when you've experienced so many of them that it's more interesting to look outward to the next thing.

I don't visit here much anymore. I've been doing a lot of other things. Right now, I help people learn to make software, and more deeply, I help people learn what it means to think about their careers and their lives in a way that leads them to success.

So while I'm not here much anymore, perhaps you can see that I'm still acting in the same spirit that helped create TSC in the first place. This was my first shot at putting those principles into practice - community building, a crucible for achievement, fairness in competition, literal coding - and now I still spend most of my time thinking about those same things. I'm way better at them now. For me it's still glory days, perhaps more than ever.

Some unsolicited advice: go through the process of exploring and discovering what form of improving the world is deeply meaningful to you. This is hard work so don't underestimate it. If you find that what you really deeply want is for this whole sonic speedrunning thing to succeed, ask yourself and others how you can help make that happen. (As you can see, I chose that for awhile.) If you've got other ambitions, spend some time thinking about what those look like and how to pursue them.

And accept change. If you try to reject it, you'll only see the change that inevitably thrusts itself upon you, and that's usually not a nice kind. If you accept it, wonderful things can spring from it.

Do all this stuff, and you can make the glory days wherever you are.

- 2c from the critter formerly known as Rolken

[Spinballwizard]

Ohai Rolk. :o

Deep words.

Ah, the glory days. I think Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about them once. But those days were pretty fun. I was tearing up Adva2, trying my best at a few others... for a while I was pretty good. But after a few years it started getting stressful, and then life happened.

I started grad school. I picked up other hobbies. I found new [offline] friends. I got a job. I got a real job. Between that and people finding more ways to break the games (through glitches, etc.) I once had fun competing in, I wasn't having as fun competing as I originally had and I didn't have as much time to commit. So I backed off. Took a break. After all, if it's not fun, why bother? I went into a new cycle.

So far it seems to be going pretty well though. I finished that master's degree last week. I hit my one-year anniversary at my now-full-time job a couple months ago. I moved out (finally). Turns out I'm also a decent Warmachine player and an ok Magic player. To say I'm disappointed with where things are right now would be a pretty big lie.

I guess what I'm saying is change can be good.

I still dust off my Sonic games every once in a while. Heck, I'm competitive in nature so my speedrunning mind still takes hold every once in a while. (I'm also very rusty it turns out. And I still haven't technically finished Lost World 3DS...) Heck, I still poke around TSC every once in a while to see what's up. (How the hell am I still top 10 in Adva2!?)

Do I miss the old days? Sure. I miss BSing with Mike and RPG at odd hours of [my] night. I miss going back and forth with douglas on Adva2. (That got intense for a while. If you don't believe me, check out some of our many stat comments.) I remember the few records I had. The rom hack/DIY craze. Even a certain phase where myself, RPG, and Quartz (among others) all became basic bird Pokemon (Spearow, Starly, and Taillow) before SkyLghts brought an end to it. Heck, I even enjoyed the TSC Michigan meetup (and meetup redux when Mike was around). But I can't stand around reminiscing. People change. They grow. They move on.

I haven't submitted a stat in 3 1/2 years. I'm not disappointed... I just had a shift in priorities. Most people do. You can always look back. (I do. I remember when the chat topic in Wikkity was actually funny.) But you have to look forward too. Find your passion. Follow it. Let it change you. After all, when things get stagnant, that's when walls tend to be hit.

[FocusSight64]

Rolken, this was beautifully stated. I agree with every word stated. Without a doubt.

[Starlight_Glimmer]

AWW YAH! *chants* ROLKEN! ROLKEN! ROLKEN! queue epic music




It's your boy S&A here, I pester you from time to time to come back to TSC off site (not sure if you know that's actually me irl ^^)

why not in your free time drop in and help lead tsc back to success? I'm not saying you have to come everyday (maybe once a week?), and at least drop in and say hi. Your presence in tsc is powerful (and you probably just scared the shit out of srl... let alone SCD already knows we're awesome because of you, just saying ^^). I personally felt an old school gitty chill up my spine when I saw "topic creator rolken"

You have to remember a lot of members here didn't just grow up with sonic, we also grew up with rolken.

Best regards,
S&A

[Cybrax]

haha <3 you, I haven't checked this site in years, but I am watching a twitch stream with over 1700 viewers at 4a.m. and decided to check back in and was surprised you see you posting.

[Taco]

Holy moly there are a lot of old faces here. Definitely agree with the sentiments and thoughts here, and like many others I too have gone on to pursue other things. I do still do the occasional gaming and I still have my competitive side as well, but I haven't played or speedran a sonic game in years.

I happened to stumble across some sonic speedruns on youtube and curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check out how many of my records are obsolete now :p . It's really fascinating what new strategies players have come across now.

I guess I can't really speak for the community because I haven't been a part of it in so long but it's nice to see that the site is still up and running. Hope everyone's doing well :)

[Aitamen]

I still lurk, and I wish they'd put out something on the order of Colours so I'd want to play again... but alas.

But from what I've seen, few of us move on forever~

[F-Man]

To be honest, I've been mostly gone for 9 years now... and I feel like I've never been as happy as my TSC days since. The only good thing I can say for myself is I lead an easy, relaxed life. So the reason for my absence has merely been a lack of interest in video games, but frankly, the fandom I moved to is practically non-existent. I have almost no friends anymore and certainly not a family which is what I now consider TSC to be, looking back.

I don't know what my point really is; I'm sad to hear people are talking of the community dying. I was truly impressed by how long most of you guys stuck around, but maybe that's mostly no longer the case. I secretly hope that I can find it in myself to come back, and if I can, that would mean any of you can too. Some day, maybe.

[X-5]

Rolken, F-Man, Dan, everybody....good to see you guys. Especially you, Sir F! you're still the best damn player SADX has ever seen. Always will be. The same could have been said about SA2B as well if you actually cared about that game.

I'm sure nobody really thinks too much of me after what a psychopathic suicidal idiot I came off as all those years ago....but Hey, I was young, jobless, lonely in RL and depressed all the time. That's no excuse, but it is a reason. >.> Now I'm 26 with a decent job, and I even got my own little cabin up in the beautiful Appalachian mountains that I call home.

I can't mix it up in the time attack scene anymore cause I'm too old and slow...but I do enjoy watching the product of the new generation. They play so well it's incredible. I don't think I could compete with them even when I was at my best. (Which wasn't very good to begin with. Haha!)