GSM 2018 feelings and thoughts

Heya! I decided to write this pastebin for anyone that is interested about my feeling from this year's GSM aka Speedcon aka former ESA Germany (LUL)

---SUMMARY---

I am gonna start with the trip.
Fortunately, there were no delays/no shows from the trams in the morning unlike last year, so I had no problem catching my train and having a chill departure at 6:30AM. I was rocking solid 3 hours of sleep from the previous night, so you could imagine I was quite tired, especially later on in the day. Having downloaded several episodes of my latest series that I have been watching, I expected to go through at least 3 of those episodes, however, posting to twitter and discord and keeping up with social media took up a lot of my time until I arrived to Dresden, where my good pal SLWeed hopped on board! It was amazing finally meeting him in person and we had a good chat that quickly got us through the remaining 3 hours of the trip.

As we arrived to Potsdam, we were shocked at the sight of snow. Especially since here in Prague it was quite alright temperature wise.
The event took place at the same venue as last year, which was awesome and I had no problems finding it because of it. However, lack of any signs or directional help at the venue itself could surely cause confusion among the people attending for the first time.
Me and Weed arrived as pretty much the second people to the venue, since we took such an early train. We setup our laptops and did some practice as more and more people were arriving. Eventually rest of the PoP crew arrived and I was super happy to finally see them after a year, which did not even feel like a year. Time can truly fly.

Later on we went to our hotel, which is like a 10 minute walk from the venue, however, with the luggage and the snow, it seemed like ages. We did the check-in stuff just fine and wandered back to the venue. At around 6PM Caddie was supposed to arrive to the station, so I went there to pick him up. I found him and Xoneris and it was a pleasure to meet both of them. I was struggling to stay awake. Toca's run of Max Payne GBA in the evening was awesome and helped me get through the night 'till 1AM. Right before my run was Caddie's run, which I was on couch for, but at that point I did not know the gentlemen next to me and with a brutal headache and such a need to sleep, I barely said anything. At 1:30AM I was finally able to do my Outlast run. I will be talking about my runs specifically later on in the pastebin. Back to the hotel afterwards.

What was supposed to be a long night of sleep ended up in me waking up after like 6 hours and inability to sleep further. Day 2 was a blast as usual, even though some unfortunate events occured, we made it through. My next run was scheduled at 3:00AM. However, thanks to delays and whatnot, it was moved all the way to 4:00AM. Like how was I gonna survive this. Luckily, I chilled in the kitchen with some peepo and met new faces. Had a great time and thanks to a weird combo of vodka and wine I was able to stay up. TLOU happened and I was wandering back to the hotel at 7:30AM. Throughout the day I was combining practice of both TLOU and Uncharted, as my race was scheduled the next day and I did not want to disappoint.

Day 3 was indeed the race day and I again spent decent chunk of it derusting Uncharted. That being said, there was a block of my pop guys doing their runs and I did not want to miss those, so I couldn't practice as much as I would have wanted to. Their runs were a pleasure to couch for and I just had a great time as to be expected. In the evening Uncharted happened and I could have not been happier.

Day 4 was a run-free day for me, so I just chilled, watched runs, did a bit of practice here and there, but mostly just enjoyed the showcase of skill throughout the day. Heinki's, Eraser's and Heny's runs happened and again, I had so much fun watching and couching those. At this point there were so many people to chill with, that I had a hard time balancing everything and being able to talk to everyone. SO SO many amazing people attended the event.

Marathon was coming to a close on Day 5. Two runs remaining. Already had to say good bye to quite a few people, which made me super sad, but life is life. El Matador in the afternoon went awesome and I was hyped for my last run of the marathon, which was also the last run overall. It was the only run where I really cared about my performance a lot and I did not disappoint myself. Last night of drinking after the marathon and missed train in the morning because of it. Happens :D. Had a great time though, with bunch of great people.

---RUNS---
Outlast, Day 1: The only run of the marathon that went over estimate, I did literally zero practice for this and tried to show off some stuff (hence the Wernicke clip quitout). It went over estimate by only 1 minute (OR 10% AS SOME ASSHOLES SAY :D). Overall the run did what I wanted it to do and that was to entertain, I did my very best to shittalk the game because it is the only thing you can do during this run. People told me it was hilarious, so I will trust them.

The Last of Us, Day 2: Really late into the night, I was really happy with how this run went. Having done this with full commentary so many times, it is effortless for me to make this game entertaining enough for even first time viewers. I proved this to myself once again, as so many people commended me on the commentary I provided through this 2 hour 41 minute run. Having bunch of friends giving me company for the first half and couch guy for the second half was great. The run itself was pretty sloppy execution wise in several areas (dying to David for the first time), but executing all of the skips first try and being able to showcase the glitches was my main focus and once again, I managed to do that. 4 minutes under estimate marked this as only my second run ever at GSM to go under estimate, along with SoT from last year.

Uncharted, Day 3: Damn. This was quite something. Both me and Xoneris shittalked each other so much while having absolutely horrible practice runs :D. I was afraid of getting destroyed or destroying Xoneris, which would make an unfun race to watch. However, already the start of the run with some of the jokes (Turkish being basically German LUL) I was super hyped. And when through the first 30 minutes of the run anytime I checked Xone's screen, we were dead even I was thinking to myself: "What the fuck, this race is so god damn good". Even through several mistakes in chapter 4, which got me quite far behing at first, I managed to get ahead by around 20-25s. I could've played it safe and not done puzzle skip, but that is not me. I knew if I failed it, I would most likely lose, but I wanted to show this off. Hardest sequence break in the game. Got the pause timing right, but unforunately missed the room because of bad jump angle. My first thought was severe disappointment, had I gotten that, that was an easy victory. However, getting it second try flawlessly and hearing the crowd clap for me diminished that feeling. I knew I lost the race, but won the hearts of the people. I realized that the victor did not matter in this race. We both won, the audience and people on the stream won. It was a great race, where we both played out of our minds. We also went 14 minutes under estimate and got to show off some cool stuff, which was awesome. After this, I felt amazing.

El Matador, Day 5: I did two practice runs before my showcase on the stream. Both were under estimate, but not great overall. 23 and 22 minutes RTA is not amazing. I tried to practice hotel as much as possible and it paid off in the run. The audience coming together to watch an unknown run and just having a blast was phenomenal, I was stoked when I turned around and saw so many people sitting there. Hotel boost went amazing with me hitting a wall and bouncing off of it and ending up on the rooftop. Lucky, but that counts. Rest of the run went really damn well, no big mistakes, not many reloads needed. Randomly launching into the air from a box in Chapter 6.2 was just an icing on the cake of a low 19 minute run, which was only 2 minutes behind RTA of WR. When I looked at the timer and saw it, I was really, really happy.

Dark Souls, Day 5: Last run of the marathon, no pressure, right :D. I never really commentated a full Dark Souls run while trying to play my best at the same time, so I was afraid of the result. I did not want to fail. After all, this was my game. This is what I had been playing for the past 5 months. First scary moment came at O&S where I got trolled and got hit through the foggate. Fortunately, I was able to kill O&S 2nd try and all was cool. I tried to play a lot of the stuff safe, was not taking unnecessary risks at bosses like Priscilla. Brood donating was great and gave me extra energy to perform better, as I knew SpeedSouls members were watching. I tried my best to combine educational commentary with entertainment and judging from the crowd, I think I managed to succeed. Not fully, there are things I could have done or said better, but I was happy with my talking throughout this run. Next death came before Capra, which was really unfortunate other than anything else. That also marked the last death of the run. I managed to say 'fuck off' to Miyazaki, which is one of the most popular clips from the entire event. Finishing with 1:20 RTA (estimate was 1:30) and 1:13:56 IGT I felt thrilled. It was a time that would have been TOP 10 if it was my actual pb. A rock dropped from my heart, as I managed to close off a second marathon in a row with a good run (shoutouts to Shaddex). Being able to thank the crew and everyone else as the last runner of the marathon was a huge honor and I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given. 5 runs to one dude is a big risk, but I hope it paid off.

Overall this event was amazing, I managed to meet up with old friends of mine, got to know new ones and it strengthened several of my relationships. It felt truly surreal, amazing event with 4/5 of my runs going under estimate. Can't wait for next year...