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Ryan Dwyer
Introduction to gaming
Ryan played a Nintendo 64 for the first time at a friend's place in 1997, when he was 10 years old. The game was GoldenEye, which had just been released. From that moment on, Ryan started saving his pocket money for a Nintendo 64 of his own. When he eventually had enough money, he purchased his Nintendo 64 for $187AU. This occurred while Ryan was living in Theodore, a small country town in Central Queensland, Australia.
Ryan had his Nintendo 64 for a few years before he purchased GoldenEye or Perfect Dark. See the Game List for the list of games he owned. During this time, Ryan's family moved to Nambour (South East Queensland, Australia). His parents split up in July 2000, when Ryan was 13 years old. His father moved to Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, however Ryan stayed in Nambour with his mother because of friends, school, and fact that Broken Hill is a very small town in the middle of nowhere. At this point in Ryan's life he had very little experience in computers.
Ryan finished primary school and thus had to go to another school for grade 8 onwards. He mixed with new friends there, and started to form a deeper understanding of the Windows operating system, as well as computer hardware in general. In Grade 10 (2002), Ryan's IT class at school did basic HTML for a term. While the class itself taught invalid and deprecated HTML, Ryan developed an interest and started to advance his knowledge on web design using tutorials on the Internet. This was a constant, slow process which happened gradually over the course of three years.
Introduction to the Elite
Ryan frequently searched the Internet in search of cheats for his games. In October 2002, one particular search brought him to the Perfect Dark FAQ List on GameFAQs. He read some of the posts on the Perfect Dark message board at GameFAQs from users such as Jimbo007 and KillerSim7. Some of these users had links to their times pages in their signatures. After viewing their pages, Ryan concluded that speedrunning these games was cool. He quickly found The Elite, which was linked from their times pages. He downloaded videos from the PD Fastest Videos page (ableit slowly, using dialup). Ryan had his mind set that he would eventually become first on the rankings. He knew he could do it. But he was shy, as he'd never joined an Internet community before.
Your Eliteness: The Name
On October 22, 2002, Ryan was attempting to register a username on GameFAQs. He was choosing usernames which indicated success at Perfect Dark (eg. PD King), but they kept getting denied as they were already taken. Ryan realised his alias shouldn't be related to Perfect Dark, as he may want to post in other games and boards in the future. Eventually, he settled for the username "Your Eliteness". It was meant to be read as someone who is elite, much like "Your Royalness" means someone who is royal. Instead, it was read as my eliteness, which doesn't make sense at all. But the name was chosen, and it stuck.
Ryan currently wishes he could change his alias or drop it altogether, but this is not an option after all the success and fame it has received.
From Zero to Hero
Ryan didn't start playing Perfect Dark for speed right away. He posted frequently on the Perfect Dark board at GameFAQs, helping users with their problems. It wasn't until December, when Ryan started playing for speed due to boredom during the school holidays. It wasn't long before he was challenged by KillerSim7 to join The Elite. Ryan made a times page and joined the rankings at 167th place (points) on January 3, 2003, at the age of 15 years. Throughout the course of 2003, Ryan used every spare moment he had to play Perfect Dark.
On February 14, Ryan's house was broken into and over $1000AU worth of equipment was stolen. Ryan's entire collection of Nintendo 64 games was stolen, except for Perfect Dark which was still in the Nintendo 64 itself. Ryan also had a Gamecube at this point and three games for it: Burnout, Resident Evil (remake) and TimeSplitters 2. These were all stolen as well.
Ryan started to get the uncommon world records (ie. not Defection/Duel) around June - July. In August, Ryan paid Karl Jobst for his NTSC (American) console, and received it shortly after. He went on an NTSC rampage over the next few months, getting world records one after another. Ryan eventually passed Karl on December 24 2003 (Australian time) to become the Perfect Dark Champion. This was a very exciting day for The Elite, as Bryan Bosshardt passed Wouter Jansen to become the Champion of GoldenEye just hours later.
The Aftermath
Ryan kept playing in 2004, though his rate of playing started to decrease slowly. On June 12 2004, his mother made him move out to live with his father, for reasons completely unrelated to his gaming career (she said she "couldn't raise him like a father can"). After moving, Ryan was without a computer for three months. His play rate took a severe hit. His computer was eventually shipped to him, but Ryan already had another interest in life: Web Design. In January 2005, Ryan started learning PHP, a server side scripting language. His skill in this field constantly grew.
His most notable works of PHP are:
Ryan still played Perfect Dark occasionally, with the low average of one new time per month.
Reign as Updater
In May 2005, Bryan Youse gave up the task of updating the Perfect Dark and GoldenEye rankings. Ryan's experience in computers and programming, combined with his reliability and troubleshooting skills made him the perfect candidate for the Elite's updater. He consequently took over the reigns, updating ritually twice a week until January 1 2008 when he was succeeded by Octo.
WorldSkills
Ryan was invited to participate in the WorldSkills regional web design competition in late 2005. Ryan did so and won the competition. He moved on to the state gathering, which wasn't a competition but more of a compulsory practice for nationals. In May 2006, Ryan went to Melbourne, Victoria for the national competition and won silver. This made Ryan a temporary celebrity in the local paper, appearing as many as three times in a week, once on the front page.
Current Life
Life took a massive leap for Ryan in 2006. His father decided to move to a town even more remote than Broken Hill. Ryan decided not to go, and instead started renting a flat by himself at the age of 18. In October 2006, his friend bought a house and Ryan moved in, before discovering it was unable to get broadband. He currently has a job at a local newspaper, where he specialises in web design, but also handles advert creation and newspaper layout. He is also currently in the process of buying a house himself. And yes, it will have broadband.
Ryan still keeps a close eye on the Elite's message boards as well as GameFAQs. He comes online about once per day but usually cannot join the Elite's chatroom because his connection is not fast enough.
Summary
| Date | Age | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 10 | Played Nintendo 64 for the first time |
| 1998 | 11 | Purchased Nintendo 64 |
| Mid 1999 | 12 | Moved to Nambour |
| February 2000 | 12 | Developed an interest in computers |
| July 2000 | 13 | Parents divorced, father moved away |
| February 2002 | 14 | Developed an interest in web design |
| October 2002 | 15 | Registered "Your Eliteness" at GameFAQs |
| January 2003 | 15 | Joined the Perfect Dark rankings |
| February 2003 | 15 | House broken into, games stolen |
| August 2003 | 16 | Received the NTSC console and game |
| December 2003 | 16 | Became the Perfect Dark Champion |
| June 2004 | 17 | Moved to Broken Hill to live with father |
| January 2005 | 17 | Started learning PHP at an incredible speed |
| May 2005 | 17 | Became the rankings updater |
| September 2005 | 18 | Started work at local electronics store |
| January 2006 | 18 | Started living by himself |
| May 2006 | 18 | Won silver at WorldSkills national competition |
| October 2006 | 19 | Moved into house with friend and lost broadband access |
| January 2008 | 20 | Left role of rankings updater |
Game List
In order of purchase:
- Banjo-Kazooie
- Dual Heroes
- Super Mario 64
- Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64)
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Donkey Kong 64
- Diddy Kong Racing
- Mario Kart 64
- Mario Party
- GoldenEye 007
- Banjo-Tooie
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
- Perfect Dark
- ???
- ???
- ???
- ???
- ???
- ???
- ???
It is unknown in which order these games were purchased:
- ECW Hardcore Revolution
- Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko
- Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers
- The World Is Not Enough
- Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
- Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding
- Winback: Covert Operations
Contact Information
- AIM: YourElitenessPD
- Email: YourEliteness@gmail.com
