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| == Biography ==
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| My name is Michael Damiani, but I typically go by Mike to everyone who knows me. I was born on March 5th on Long Island, which is part of the state of New York. When I was five years old, my family moved to Dallas, Texas, where I lived most of my life. After graduating from the University of Texas, I moved out to San Diego, California, to begin my job hunt. I eventually landed my first professional career a few months later and ended up in Orange County. After spending two years there, I wound up in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, where I currently reside.
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| ===Origin of TSA===
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| Most people online, outside of my immediate friends, know me by the online handle/alias "TSA". When I first got online, my original screen name was ThePro. I used that name because I thought I was good at video games and it was the handle I used at laser tag events as a kid, as well as for high scores in arcades (I put in PRO). However, in high school, my teammates on the football team gave me the nickname "The Silent Assassin" because I hardly talked, but was known for being the best "gamer" in school. Most of them associated gaming with shooters, so that's where the Assassin part game from.
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| I kept the moniker for years primarily because I was a huge Metal Gear fan, and it sort of applied to Solid Snake, my favorite video game character. However, as I became more entrenched with the Zelda community over the years, I eventually turned the name into The Silent Adventurer since it could apply to Link, the mute hero fo the Zelda franchise. Additionally, Hitman 2 came out and had the subtitle "Silent Assassin", which pissed me off because everyone began thinking I liked Hitman, and I hate it.
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| However, as I expanded beyond Zelda, I simply kept the name "TSA" and made it stand for absolutely nothing, just as AOL has done. Unfortunately mere months after adopting this, the US government established the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. This has caused confusion amongst new people I meet online, and on numerous occasions people have asked if I work for them. However, since I have 15 years of history as "TSA", and because I came up with the name first, I have not changed it.
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| Ironically, my youngest brother informed me that back at my high school, some of his friends who are into gaming know me as "TSA", and since I left the school, apparently the name is still discussed because there's some stupid urban legend about how I went on to work for Nintendo and I was the kid from the movie "The Wizard" or something. That's not true, but I'll continue to let them think it is.
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| == Early Online Years ==
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| I first got into the bane of humanity's future known as the internet back in 1993 when I was visiting family friends back in New York. They had just gotten something known as America Online, which let you use a computer to go to these "documents" that were created by other people, and you could read them. You could also get news from various places instantly, and talk to people through electronic messages known as "email". A year later, we got a new computer and I put America Online on it. Thus began my foray into the unknown...
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| ===AOL Days (1993-1995)===
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| As mentioned before, I got on AOL back in 1994. I was immediately drawn to Nintendo Power Source, Nintendo's AOL channel, and GamePro Online on AOL. I was active on both their bulletin board systems, and I also started my own AOL Member Club known as the World's Elite Gaming Member's Association, or WEGMA. I had a few people sign up, and we discussed beating games with high scores and doing various tricks in games.
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| Sometime in 1995, I unfortunately made the mistake of claiming I knew somebody who worked for AOL in a public chat room. A watch dog (nick name for AOL chat mods back in the day) was present, and kicked me offline and issued me a 7 day ban for "impersonating AOL staff". My parents called up AOL when we couldn't sign on, and they reported the account was banned for violating the Terms of Service. They re-activated my account, but my parents pulled the plug on AOL and I would go internet-less for a year.
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| ===Prodigy Days (1996-1997)===
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| After my hiatus, we got a new computer in late 1996 that had a trial version of Prodigy. It allowed a 90 day trial of the service. I got online again, and quickly found most of my old keeps were gone (GamePro moved to a web address, Nintendo Power Source did the same and shut down their community area, and my AOL page was long gone). I had known that Lycos was a search engine from my time online before, and used it to seek out new sites. I did initially find Zelda Headquarters at this time, but I was not staff and was merely a fan of the site.
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| ===Cornerian Elite Force (1997)===
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| However, I did stumble across a site called the Cornerian Elite Force. It was a Star Fox fan site run by a guy who lived close to me in Texas. I was really into Star Fox at this time (Star Fox 64 was coming out), and so I got involved. I helped write guide pages for the games, and eventually submitted high scores for the game. There was also a "ranking" system for members, based on the military ranks you earn over your career, and the level of participation was unlike anything I had seen.
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| During this time, a member named StarFoxAlpha got in touch with me, and let me know he had a bigger fan site known as The Lylat Alliance, and wanted to know if I had any interest in their group.
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| ===The Lylat Alliance (1997-1998)===
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| StarFoxAlpha welcomed me into The Lylat Alliance, where I met several people would were very important to my formative years as a "webmaster". He, along with FrankenRoc from the Cornerian Elite Force, taught me about web hosting, HTML, and other basic internet stuff that is common place for a five year old today. While writing articles for The Lylat Alliance, I began to practice creating my own HTML pages as well, which I would submit for the site.
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| After a year of being with this crew, and posting on our message board - one of the first of its kind that was not a BBS (bulletin board system), I was formally asked to be a part of the epic community project known as Tales from Nimbus. I had not seen anything else like this back then, nor have I seen anything like it since. Imagine taking the Zelda community, turning it into a fan fiction, where we all had avatars and went on adventures, but it was Zelda themed.
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| My character, The Silent Assassin, was a ninja fox, and StarFoxAlpha drew numerous sketches and wrote me into the plot to be a significant "vigilante" hero type, though a supporting role to the main cast. I would say that this was the most fun I ever had online, and I've noticed that at this age, which was high school years for me, is when most people going online are into these types of things (fan art, fan fiction, message boards for the purpose of social chatter, etc). I believe a lot of this stuff is either still online, or you can find it via Archive.org.
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| ===Tripod Fan Sites (1997-1998)===
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| I did a brief stint on Tripod trying to run my own three fan sites, The Mushroom Kingdom, The Lylat System, and The Kingdom of Hyrule. They were very basic fan pages, with very basic info and were my attempt at trying to learn more HTML and web hosting. I only did it for a year, and they are long gone with no trace (not even Archive.org could find them).
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| ===Nintendo Kids Panel===
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| Sometime in the fall of 1997, Nintendo of America held a Diddy Kong Racing mall tour across the United States. 64 participants were selected at random to enter in a tournament for the game. It was a 4 player race, and the winner advanced to the next round. I made it into the finals and won the finals pretty easily, especially since I had played the game from Blockbuster a week in advance (they ran a special promotion). I won a pretty sweet amount of prizes, including another N64 and games, but I also got to fill out some paperwork for something called the Nintendo Kids Panel.
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| Six kids would be selected from the six regions of the US to represent Nintendo, and in the end, I got selected for the south region. However, for months, nothing came from this deal. I was supposed to get advanced copies of games and fly to NOA to meet the staff of Nintendo. Never happened. My parents were calling Nintendo once a week, but it wasn't until March of 1998 that I finally got to do something. I package arrived with my backlog of games, and I got to meet with Nintendo staff at an office in Dallas, Texas, to test out some beta games. The games included Zelda 64 (partial original version, but also mostly what ended up in the E3 1998 show floor build), 1080 Snowboarding, F-Zero X, and Banjo-Kazooie. The program ran until the end of 1998, with my last game being Rogue Squadron.
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| == Early Zelda Fansite Years ==
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| While my first attempt at running my own sites was a miserable failure, it was a good learning experience. I also started to realize more and more I was being drawn back to Zelda. While A Link to the Past really got me hooked on the series right before I got online in 1993, it wasn't until the build up to Ocarina of Time and its eventual release that got me completely hooked on the fandom and wanting to be so active in the community.
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| ===Zelda Headquarters (1998-1999)===
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| I said earlier that I did find ZHQ.com back in 1996, but I was just a reader. I think I got my questions published in a few letters sections leading into 1998, when I finally began getting my own articles published on the site. I do not remember how, but I think I was submitting so much music that Conrad, the webmaster of the site at the time, invited me to run the Music section.
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| Now, at this point and time online, MIDIs were commonplace on web sites, and mp3s either didn't exist or weren't widespread yet due to everyone being on dial up still. However, my PC had a MIDI editor on it, which allowed you to edit each "instrument channel" in an existing MIDI, or if you had a keyboard, make your own MIDIs. But basically, aside from harvesting MIDIs from various sites, I would take existing MIDIs and edit the instrumentation and "remix" them as my own.
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| So, I became staff of ZHQ running the music section, and unknowingly was "taking" MIDIs from other people and not giving them credit. I was later told by the staff they got complaints after I left, but the honest truth was that I wasn't trying to take credit and I just didn't know how it worked online at that time with using content found on the internet (it was the wild west then).
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| Anyway, aside from that, I was active in helping with the Zelda V guide (Ocarina of Time), and posted on the staff e-mail listing, which served as our staff boards. Lots of my "tutoring" in terms of becoming a "Zelda Expert" as some of you claim I am began here, with Master of Hyrule explaining lots of his theories to me, and Rod Jones discussing Zelda strategies. I wasn't very active on the forums, though, which were called Kakariko Village Square, aka KVS, which I regret because I think some of the "beginnings" of "4chan" culture began in those forums...when I found KVS a few years later after ZHQ closed, it was really...crazy.
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| Unfortunately, as I just hinted at, ZHQ would come to a sudden end in 1999. Niels came back, was unhappy with ZHQ's direction, and had these new ideas. Essentially, he was going to change what made ZHQ what it was (all the fan aspects and personality) in exchange for modernizing it. In the long run, modernization would have been the best course for long-term high traffic, but even to this day, that would have killed off the essence of what made that site great. The two of us had a falling out, with me claiming the site would be dead in mere months with his direction.
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| ===Freelance Days (1999)===
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| I was left without a home, though, and so I gave other sites a shot in the meantime. I started off by working as a staff member for Zelda Infinite (the same one that's still around today). However, nothing really got done on the site, and I was eventually contacted by some guys who wanted to start a site called Zlda.com. They were former staff of The Golden Land, and heard I used to help out at ZHQ. The project got off the ground, but quickly sputtered out, again due to inactivity from all of us. I then started submitting a few articles here and there to various fan sites.
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| ===Zelda Classic (2000-2002)===
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| After aimlessly wandering around, I decided to check out Zelda Classic over at Armageddon Games Network. ZHQ had covered the project back in 1999, but I never managed to get the site to work. I quickly warmed up to the members and staff there, and during my first few months as a member, I was already engrossed by Zelda Classic and ZQuest - the program that created custom quests to be played on Zelda Classic.
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| At the height of my participation in making custom quests, an "official third quest" contest came about. I entered, along with several others, but was initially disqualified because my submission file had a virus in it. I eventually convinced the team to accept it and said it wasn't my doing, but unfortunately the person heading the judging team went inactive. So, I took on the task of judging the quests, and tossed mine out to prevent any conflict of interest.
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| After this event, though, I eventually became cynical of the staff, and became rather hot headed and reckless. I would continually pick fights with moderators and members, get caught up in flame wars, and along with a few friends, just outright create turmoil. I started a meme known as "Karma, Bitch!", which was to go to a random board or forum, and flood every topic with that phrase and an image of Tonberry from Final Fantasy X.
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| I also became extremely obsess with my post count, and when a board purge had me losing a lot of my posts, I protested and made a big deal out of it. Eventually I realized I was being consumed by this forum and site, and not only was it making me a moron online, but my offline life was suffering as well. I said goodbye to the forum, and departed for good, ending one of the more idiotic phases of my life. However, for a time during the start, I feel it was the most productive I had ever been. I also learned a lot about Zelda 1 which would aid me in speedruns down the road.
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| ===ZHQ 2 (2003-2004)===
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| During my days over with Zelda Classic, I had made a really good online friend - Mak X, known better as Mak. The two of us began hitting up new Zelda forums, and eventually found our way to Legends of Zelda's forums, where we met with Davogones. I think it was then that everyone began getting real serious about "timeline" discussion, and the obsession with "Japanese" source materials and debunking NOA's theories.
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| Also back at Zelda Classic was Kris Smith, one of the staff members of ZHQ. While I initially had a dislike for him based on a stupid prejudice I had against all of ZHQ, I quickly realized I was being stupid and we became friends. Mak, Kris, and I constantly discussed making our own Zelda site, and other various things. It wasn't until my friend Hermit came along, who was also a Zelda Classic veteran, that our ideas would become a potential reality.
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| The idea of reviving the greatest fan site ever was our plan - ZHQ. We had most of the site files left over from the final zip of the site Niels put online before ZHQ closed. Our idea was to put the old ZHQ back online as-is, and continue updating it. But we didn't want to step on anyone's toes, so I found Niels' contact info, as well as Conrad's, who was now running Hyrule.com, and asked them their thoughts.
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| Niels never replied, and Conrad was against the idea, insisting he and the remainder of the ZHQ staff who went to Hyrule.com, had the right. However, when I tried to get time tables for his team to bring it back, I got the impression it was "never" because they were flat out lazy and spent all their time e-mailing each other like we did back at ZHQ. With Niels not responding, and my passion for bringing the site back at an all time high, I went forward with plan B.
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| Plan B was to re-use the assets from the old ZHQ, but make a new layout and design. Thus, ZHQ2 was born. I think initially I got a lot of e-mails from old-time friends praising the site for returning, but I got the impression there was a misconception going around. Still, I knew a site wasn't enough, and I wanted to have the best online community out of all the Zelda community.
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| Kris worked on graphics, and even made this really sweet Cowboy Bebop "Tank!" video with me that I wish to god I still had (it was a spoof of the intro with Zelda stuff, it was seriously pro stuff), while Hermit began work on what I still insist would become the greatest forums ever in the Zelda community. Initially, we started out on tripod and had an EZboard. Then I got the domains and a host, and The Gaming Universe - a community for fan games much like Armageddon Games Network was - hosted our forums.
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| Unfortunately, Niels found out about all this, and blogged about how I stole ZHQ. Kris and I were shocked, and tried contacting him. Eventually, Conrad, Niels, and I got into contact, and after it was all said and done, I think nothing got settled. Just a lot of bad feelings and agree to disagree remarks. But on my end, I said basically "piss off" to both of them, killed all ties to the "original" ZHQ by removing assets that weren't mine, and rebuilt the site with 100% original content and images. I re-hosted the old ZHQ so people could still see it.
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| The site never really made a dent until 2005, when I finally got my act together and began forcing myself to actually update the site rather than goof off online for hours. We really nailed E3 2005 and we weren't even present, and I remember that being the first time the site was getting any sort of respect from the community. Still, I realized just how antiquated my updating methods were.
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| == Golden Years ==
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| Even before I realized I needed to move beyond ZHQ 2, I had started three other relatively big things that actually were earning me both good and bad reputations. These actually took place during my early ZHQ 2 years, and one of them was primarily responsible for why I didn't update the site as much.
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| ===Realms of Hyrule (2003-2005)===
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| Back in 1995, Nintendo Power Source ran an interactive story known as The Hyrulean Adventure (not the Four Swords Adventures mode), which was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. Interactive stories were huge in the 1990s, and this one had the backing of NOA. There was a Metroid one before it, Blood of the Chozo, as well as I think a Final Fantasy one (I forget right now, so don't yell if I am wrong). Anyway, I loved the feeling I got from participating in that event, and wanted to recreate it for a new generation. So Hermit and I got together and worked out the beginnings of Realms of Hyrule, the site you all know today. Hermit worked his magic and patched a dead "RPG" hack for one of Invision's old free forum software (before they made it a paid-only thing), and I had Melora, known as one of the best fan artists in the community, create original artwork for the project.
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| The original version of Realms of Hyrule was amazing, with a really intricate RPG system automated by the forum software and the hacks. Hermit also made a really awesome layout, and integrated much of Melora's work into the design nicely. Unfortunately, due to a server move, Invision charging for new version of their forums resulting in security holes in older versions, and Hermit not being able to move the hacks to the new version even if we could get it, the project really died off in 2005. However, the members who were helping to run it took over, and they've preserved it in part to this day, though they "relaunched" it sometime ago, only re-using very little of what was in the original version.
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| ===GANNON-BANNED (2003-Present)===
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| I finally can clear this one up. GANNON-BANNED was started by myself and an online friend of mine back at Camp Hyrule 2003. There was a camp award known as the GANNON award for the person who was the worst speller. Little did Nintendo know, that they had in fact spelled Ganon wrong themselves, unintentionally. So we started trolling people in The Lost Woods chat room, where I held my annual trivia challenge, with the phrase "GANNON-BANNED" whenever people spellled Zelda terms incorrectly.
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| Later on, after the event, I thought it would be funny if I made the saying into an entire website with rules. I used the term quite frequently, and eventually it got old and people wanted me to stop using the term. However, the term spread to other forums, like GameFAQs and SomethingAwful, eventually becoming a meme. It earned me a bad reputation for creating the term, and it was even a bannable offense on the GameFAQs boards to use the term. In all honesty, while it did annoy me that some common mistakes were made back then, I've realized it's better to help out those who make mistakes than rub it in their faces. Also, much of the list now is simply me trolling.
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| ===Speedruns (2003-2006)===
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| I've always been a competitive gamer, though I'm not typically skilled in the three modern competitive genres - RTS, FPS, and Fighting. What I've excelled at is beating single player games quickly and effectively. When Super Mario 64 came out, I would practice beating the game as fast as possible, so far as I ended up in some bet with the manager of a Blockbuster over whether or not I could beat the game in under two hours (which I won). However, it was always just something local or restricted to fan sites, I never knew anything existed for the sake of competitive "single player" gaming.
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| Then I think sometime in 2003 while I was in college, I saw a segment on G4 TV about a Tomb Raider "speedrun", and how the guy who did it had a brother who was going to beat Zelda 1 in the fastest time. I went to G4's boards and asked how you proved you did such a thing. I was directed to Twin Galaxies, and got in contact with Robert Mruczek, who informed me of what I needed to do. I eventually submitted a speedrun of A Link to the Past, which clocked in at under 2 hours (1:59:57 I think). Without my knowledge, the Twin Galaxies team submitted my record in the form of a write-up to various news outlets, and my feat was reported on all over the internet.
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| From there, I did runs of The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and Ocarina of Time. But as I spent more time there, I was wondering about how I could show off my videos to people. Basically, Twin Galaxies accepted VHS tapes at that time, and they would hold the tape and not put the footage online. The video was kept secret. However, I wanted to show off the video since my intent was to "prove" I got the time. Something about another person "verifying" the video, but it still wasn't public, didn't sit right with me. So eventually a guy named Radix contacted me one day about my new A Link to the Past run I was attempting, and said he could host it online.
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| Speed Demos Archive was his site, and I would quickly learn that SDA was the type of community I had been searching for for a long time. I would eventually submit runs for The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening DX, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures, and The Minish Cap. I would submit multiple runs on a few of them as well. While the under two hour run of A Link to the Past got me noticed, my under five hour run of Ocarina of Time was a huge labor that paid off with a lot of respect from my peers. I never did these things for fame or fortune as some claim - I never saw a dime from my runs, and internet fame does not mean jack in person. I think one person I've met ever in my life recognized me in person as "that guy who beat Zelda fast".
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| It was an experience unlike anything else. Working with other hardcore fans to find every possible secret and trick to shave off time. It was insane and so much fun. However, there were always obstacles with this type of work. I had a lot of people accuse me of cheating and such. There were, I admit, some minor issues with a few runs due to technical difficulties by my lack of video encoding and capture at that time. Like my first A Link to the Past run submitted to SDA was in .wmv format in three parts. I had originally broke the run up into segments after capturing it all and encoded them in DivX. However Radix wanted it all together, but I was running low on space so I deleted the "original" raw file, and pieced together the segmented files back into three .wmv files. So there were numerous "DivX" watermarks popping up, which made it suspect.
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| With longer runs like in Ocarina of Time, the file size would have been WAY too great for a single capture. So I would sometimes manually "stop" a capture during play, saving the file, usually at a temple entrance or cave. I would be entering it during the capture before stopping, and then after stopping capture, I would exit immediately, re-enter, and start capture upon re-entering. Thus, sometimes clips didn't match up here and there. There was one Ocarina of Time run where I accidentally hit a bush with the sword while doing this, and I earned rupees so the rupee count didn't match up. However, regardless of these issues, all runs were done on REAL consoles by me in real time in a single setting, unless they were segmented and marked as such. The only thing is the capture might not have been continuous, due to limitations.
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| There was also the issue of TAS vs Speedrun. A Tool-Assisted Speedrun (TAS) was done with an emulator and used various features of that emulator, in particular save states, to piece together a more-than-human effort to achieve speedruns that were pretty much impossible on a normal console. There was a lot of bad blood between the two factions, but in general, the TAS was rendering the speedrun less "valuable" to some because they were far more entertaining. However, for me, I always viewed a speedrun as proving your skill, and it was never about entertaining people. But what did start to get to me was the increase of serious bugs/glitches in runs, such as Ocarina of Time, that were just flat out ridiculous. My passion is for beating games, within the confines of the rules of the game, in the fastest way as possible. Now, bugs and glitches are possible in a game, but many circumvent programming. Sure, some stuff was never intended to be done, like jumping over a large gap without a special item, but clipping through walls and hovering in mid-air with a glitch just seemed a bit too excessive.
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| This rise of new bugs and tricks, compounded with the fact that you'd spend months on a long run like Ocarina of Time, only to have your time beaten shortly after, really took its toll on me. I was no longer enjoying some of these Zelda games I had loved, and I was getting tired of people always asking me what game I would speedrun next, how they could beat my Zelda time, or just outright bombarding me like some celeb when all I ever thought of myself was as another fan like everyone else. So, I quit speedruns in early 2006 while in the middle of my segmented Ocarina of Time run, which was using serious bugs and glitches.
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| ===The Hylia (2005-2007)===
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| Even though I had created my own version of ZHQ, I was not content to be associated with the old ZHQ and that all my "fame" or "reputation" came from being a staff member of that site. I wanted to exceed that notion, and prove everyone wrong. Thus, I set out to create a Zelda site I knew would be unlike anything done before, and would assault fans with content on all fronts. Basically it would pump out content fast enough to satisfy me, who was a Zelda attention-deficit-disorder victim.
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| Initially I hesitated to utilize any form of a CMS to handle the site's content, instead option for traditional HTML. The Hylia had a solid design thanks to Martin Anderson, aka MDTA, and I pretty much handled all content myself for several months. Almost immediately, the site gained notoriety among other fan sites, and our community, backed by Hermit's awesome coding skills. However, the one thing I noticed was really hurting us was updating when big news hit - we still hand coded pages and other sites would beat us to the punch of big stuff, though we were excellent at picking up smaller stories and putting up TONS of media and editorials.
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| Eventually I was convinced to switch to a CMS, and we also decided to change the site's design to be more "elegant". We relaunched in 2006 right around E3. Not only did we have a better site structure and design, but we were also at E3 providing coverage. Because we focused only on Zelda - Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess - we seriously rocked. We had more videos and more "exclusive information" tidbits than almost any site. For the next six months, The Hylia was skyrocketing with activity and coverage, hitting an apex with our advanced review and complete video guide of the entire game, both versions.
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| ===Wii Ambassador (2006-2007)===
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| Now, not all of this was attributed to solely my staff and I's ability to get content up fast, and create good content, and get tons of media. We were also aided by the fact that Nintendo had selected me as a Wii Ambassador that year. In September of 2006, I was selected as one of these "ambassadors" who got to have a "Wii Party". Mine was the first in the US, and it was 1 day after the official press event in New York City that let the press play the system for the first time since E3. I got to play the demo again, though new stuff was present (like the Goron Mines boss name, Twilit Inferno Fyrus).
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| Additionally, I got my Wii and several games, including Twilight Princess, a week in advance of the launch date. This allowed me to be able to beat the game and write the review ahead of time, and get a lot of the video guide going. So when the game launched with the console, we had a blitz of content. Again, it had a lot to do with being one of these ambassadors, and being in an area they always gave priority to in terms of timing for receiving these advanced gifts. So, while Nintendo got me to be a spokesperson for their product, I was using them back to further The Hylia.
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| == Professional Years ==
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| It was sometime in 2007 that I got the bright idea that maybe I could take what I was doing with The Hylia, touch it up a bit, and make it into something a bit more "professional". It was this line of thinking that resulted in the creation of Zentendo, and eventually my departure from the site to work for GameTrailers.com. Also, I learned just how quickly Nintendo was becoming very reluctant to assist "enthusiast" sites anymore, and I was getting frustrated with their lack of co-operation, especially in getting us crap that held up our coverage of OTHER company's games. That glass ceiling is really what prompted me to try to take a chance working the games industry as a profession, not just a hobby.
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| ===E3 (2007)===
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| Before all this began, though, there was E3 2007. I really had no idea on that April day when Nintendo called me out of the blue at work. Some lady asked if I was interested in helping Nintendo out again, but this time it would be at E3. The lady also said it would be helping them show off the "new" Zelda. Naturally, since Phantom Hourglass was known by then, and Twilight Princess was already out, I assumed this was a BRAND NEW Zelda game not known. A week later after agreeing, I get a call from NOA explaining more of the details, and it's actually just to go on stage and show off Phantom Hourglass. Still, who the heck gets a chance as a fan to be a part of E3, especially in Nintendo's press conference.
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| Now, up till this point, Nintendo was known for catering to fans and making awesome games. The whole "casual" fallout hadn't ignited just yet, especially with Brawl, Galaxy, and Corruption in the pipeline. I started to realize something wasn't exactly right when they told me they needed to film these "lifestyle" shots for the "introduction" of this portion of the show. Trying to have me talk about how "hardcore" I was and how Phantom Hourglass would be "hardcore". I hadn't played the game yet (May 2007). Then I got Phantom Hourglass in June. I played it through. It was good, but it was by no means hardcore. I was a bit worried about how this presentation was gonna turn out.
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| Unfortunately, I am not allowed to discuss specifics beyond this point as to what went on behind the scenes in the days leading up to E3. That's under a massive NDA I signed, that expires the day I die or when Nintendo goes under, whichever comes first. But basically, all I can say is that they wanted me to play Phantom Hourglass on stage showing off one level, and I was originally supposed to talk with Bill Trinen while playing. That part got cut out the day before the show, and I also was asked to play the game in a really gimped way. In order for the camera to capture the footage clearly to display on screen (not the direct feed from the Nitro unit - the DS capture device), I had to play right handed only to not obscure the view of the camera guy. On top of that, the DS unit was not held down, so it would slide if I put too much pressure on it.
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| So, despite all this, I agreed to play - hey, I am supposed to be one of the best Zelda players ever, so this should be a cake walk. Before I go on stage during the presentation, somebody like, did something to the DS unit, and when I began, Link was in a corner surrounded by monsters and boxed in. I was like "oh give me a break". No sweat, got out of there, did the whole thing with only one mistake (bomb tossing, and I was trying to do a trick but it didn't work). Most everybody who matters to me knew it was a great play through, though one idiot trolled me for the bomb shit, but oh well, guess I did mess up there, heh. Anyway, despite it looking good on stage, there were some slight issues in the days leading up to that event. Also, it seems like as soon as E3 ended, Nintendo completely forgot about me. Aside from a few occasional games I get every now and then, I have no contact with NOA anymore since October of 2007.
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| ===Zentendo (2007-2008)===
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| One thing that you should always adhere to is taking criticism, but never caving into peer pressure and public opinion. The Hylia was a great site, and was the best site I ever ran. However, I was not satisfied with people when we expanded the site's coverage from just Zelda to everything Nintendo after the Wii launched. We looked like a Zelda site and had a Zelda name. No matter what we did, we couldn't shake that stigma. So in early 2007, brainstorming began on Zentendo with Martin, my new coding pal Justin, and I discussing possibilities for the new site. So after hearing about the E3 deal, I made a mandate to LAUNCH by E3 so we could get the biggest pimp advertising ever - a plug at Nintendo's media briefing. That didn't pan out (we did launch, but we kinda got screwed over by the production team handling the video for Nintendo's conference), but Zentendo enjoyed a healthy launch.
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| Under my supervision, Zentendo earned its way into being factored into Metacritic and GameRankings scores, we expanded our contacts with PR outlets to numerous third parties, we were invited to more publisher events (including a preview event at Square-Enix), and we continued to have great coverage of conventions (our Brawl coverage at E For All got tons of attention). However, I had sold The Hylia's domain name in order to finance Zentendo's launch and creation, and we lost all that traffic. We never came close to the popularity of The Hylia (though it currently is approaching The Hylia's popularity levels pre-Wii launch), but we were respected. However, we weren't making money on ads to cover our dedicated server. I was eating 100 bucks a month on that alone, plus cost of renting/buying games to review, plus cost of travel to events for coverage. I also spent countless hours each night working on the site, and would wake up late and be late to work enough that my boss wasn't happy.
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| Basically, I was worried running this site was gonna cost me my real job, and it was more effort to run than The Hylia (covering more than Zelda), and I could do it alone. I had good staff members, but not enough. I was truly worried I would get burned out and lose interest in it, and things weren't going well in my personal life, either. A change was in order, so in February of 2008, I began seeking a career in the games industry in order to make my living covering the gaming industry.
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| ===GameTrailers (2008-Present)===
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| So one of the many places I applied to was GameTrailers since I saw a listing on MTV's site for an online editor for gaming. I got an interview in mid February, but I didn't hear back after two weeks, thinking like the other positions I applied for, I was just not qualified or something (and had a bad interview). Things were getting worse at my day job, and right as it was about to hit the boiling point, I got a call at the end of March asking if I wanted the job. So I said yes, and in April I became the newest member of the GameTrailers editorial team. However, this meant I had to leave Zentendo behind, and so I turned it over to the staff to continue running it in my absence, just in case someday I might return. I'm still currently at GameTrailers.
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| == Q&A ==
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| This section is reserved for questions I will answer that are asked in my discussion page. Please discuss questions and my answers there, do not edit this page for that reason.
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