The Joy of the Word "Community" [Archive]

katon

July 11th, 2003, 07:19

Joy of the Word "Community"
by katon

What is a community? It is simply a group of people having common interests. However, I found out over the past years that a community is so much more than a few several words. This discovery was made when I first entered the N64 emulation scene.

My emulation experience goes way back to the Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo emulators. The feeling was great as I could literally, relive my past and childhood. My friend first introduced me to CPS2 Arcade emulation about two years ago. Around that time, I found about kaillera while using the emulator Gens. Kaillera is “software called middleware. Middleware gives applications, such as emulators, the ability to do things not originally supported by the original application. Kaillera makes it possible to play emulators and other applications online. It adds little overhead, and little problem to the developers who choose to incorporate it.” ( http://www.kaillera.com/faq.php#1) In time, I started playing games such as Marvel vs. Capcom. Because of this new found fun, I became interested in the whole world of emulation.

During my late years at elementary school and and pracitcally of my years in junior high, my video-gaming revolved around the Nintendo 64. When I think back of the great times I had playing games such as Mario Kart 64, Mario Party and Super Smash Bros., nostalgic feelings come back into my head. I always wished that that experience could be shared online. Eventually, I saw a GoldenEye rom hosted on a kaillera server. It was being emulated by 1964. I quickly downloaded this emulator and tried to play a game with my friend but unfortunately, it could not be done. However, several months later, I went on kaillera and saw an N64 game being hosted by Project64k. Reluctantly, I asked some people if it actually worked. To my amazement, the people said that it worked, so then I went off and tried. I was so cheerful when I saw the rom load normally and controller two actually controlling the cursor on my screen. I talked some with hotquik, the creator of Project64k. He was a nice guy and seemed to really want to help the emulation community. What he did was take a program that was painstakingly made by great minds and great hearts by artisans such as Zilmar and Jabo and added an online element, which as a result changed the N64 online community. Hotquik put in the last remaining piece of a complex puzzle.

After a while, I found out that Jimbot was holding a Super Smash Bros. Tournament. I was excited at the thought. During the course of the tournament, I met different people, some nice ones, some jerks, some skilled ones, and some unskilled ones. We interacted in many ways such as playing some N64 games and helping out with the tournament by making webpages. Sooner or later, I made my own tournament for SSB with the help of Jimbot. I used the Emutalk forums (http://www.emutalk.net) as a registration for the tournament and made my own site (http://www.geocities.com/n64tournament). It was hard work and frustrating at times, but what I saw was people coming together as a community to play great games of the past. I even bought an adaptoid from the great people at Jandaman (http://www.jandaman.com) because of all this excitement. After a while during the end of the tournament, I lost interest in hosting this tournament and decided that I was just going to finish this one and not host future tournaments.

Eventually, I visited a site (Super Smash Bros.: Dark Online Tournament) by Tekkablade; this site was for another tournament for SSB, but it was team based. I liked the format of the site and asked if I could help out with the site. Over time, I made many revisions to his site and finally I produced a site that would look fun and interesting for the N64 online community. (http://www.geocities.com/ssbdot) During the course of making websites, I learned new things not only about web-building and photoshop, but people as well.

The first people who attempted to start making N64 emulators truly were the ones who founded this community. Great sites like Emulation64 (http://www.emulation64.com) keep us informed about the ground-breaking news regarding the new creations and breakthroughs in the N64 emulation community. Just recently, Martin, whom now I respect a lot, let me have a subdomain at Emulation64.com. Because of his generosity, this community can further expand. Whether it be coding, web-building, playing, or communicating, everyone who played a part in this N64 emulation community are all important. Every day that passes, new events occur in this community, and ultimately, it brings joy to my soul. I am certain that, in the end, the community will grow larger, stronger, and closer.