DoctorDave5001: Ayyy, we got another one over here! That's awesome! I kinda agree about the "familiar noise" aspect of it since I'm usually watching runs of games that I've already played multiple times myself.

16bitkiller: For me I like nostalgia games with no commentary if I'm planning to relax at night to it. Stuff like DK64, Banjo-Kazooie, SM64, etc do it for me!

chryoyo gets it ;)

chryoyo: Thank you! I'm definitely in this for the fun of it and I'm really looking forward to learning about everything from getting started to perfecting a run. I'm also really looking forward to getting to know people here too, I always love how tight knit and nice the speedrunning community in general seems, especially to newer runners. Also about the recording programs, I actually use OBS for my streaming and recording my drawings for speedpaints so I'm already quite knowledgeable about it! That's a plus, for sure. :D

16bitkiller: I don't know what relaxing to speedruns has to do with being able to talk to someone, honestly haha. Is it bad to relax while watching a speedrun? They're cool to watch when I just want to unwind before sleeping and if I happen to fall asleep, well it happens, what can I say? :D Anyway, I appreciate the advice! It's nice to have a community so open to people asking questions and stuff, that's for sure. I've been taking a look at a few runs for the game I wanna do as well as some shorter games so I'm hoping to burn some strats into my mind that way until I actually have a bit of time to attempt anything~

Hey guys, my name is IcemilkMagic but I just go by Icemilk online! I'm a Canadian artist, cosplayer, and Twitch streamer (though that's had to be on hold for a few months due to life happenings). It's nice to meet you all!

I guess I'll start with a little bit about why I joined up here and my history with speedrunning:

It was years ago when I started really getting into watching LPs on YouTube (specifically batman9502's) that I found out about speedrunning being a thing. I of course looked around the internet for more information and since then I've been hooked. I can't count how many hours I've watched of speedruns but they're basically my favorite thing to put on as background noise or something to relax/fall asleep with. Now here we are, many years later and I think I'm ready to get started on trying my own speedruns!

I'm not sure if I should get started with a short, easier game to get used to everything first or if I should just dive right into the main game I want to speedrun. What do you guys believe is smart? Or do you think it's simply based on preference? The game I am wanting to speedrun mainly is .hack//G.U. Vol.1: Rebirth, especially with the remaster of the series freshly released. These games have been my favorite hands down since their release on PS2 and I've replayed it many times (especially the first volume). I'd say I'm fairly knowledgeable about it, but not enough to plan routes or do hardcore calculations for timesaves as I imagine that's the kind of stuff that comes to you as you keep speedrunning anyway.

While I have been into speedrunning for years, I actually don't know a lot about the technical or planning side of it, so any advice or help I can get would be lovely!

Anyway, this has been extremely long winded... thanks for stickin with me! I look forward to getting to know you all and integrating myself into the community very soon~