Ryan Dwyer

Ryan "Your Eliteness" 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 (abliet 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:

• The Elite Quote Database
• Forums-o-pwn
• The GameFAQs User Database

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 took over the reigns, and still updates ritually twice a week to this day. Ryan's experience in computers and programming, combined with his reliability and troubleshooting skills make him the perfect candidate for the Elite's updater.

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.

• WorldSkills Medal Listing

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. He currently has a job at a local electronics store, where he specialises in retail, web design, and administrating the ISP. He still plays Perfect Dark occasionally, but finds it difficult to get involved in the game like he was many years ago. And yes, he has friends.

Ryan still keeps a close eye on the Elite's message boards. He checks the Perfect Dark board at GameFAQs fairly regularly, although nowhere near as much as Web Design and Programming. He is almost always online and in the Elite's chatroom.

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 2003	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

Game List

In order of purchase:

1. Banjo-Kazooie
2. Dual Heroes
3. Super Mario 64
4. Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64)
5. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
6. Donkey Kong 64
7. Diddy Kong Racing
8. Mario Kart 64
9. Mario Party
10. GoldenEye 007
11. Banjo-Tooie
12. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
13. Perfect Dark
14. ???
15. ???
16. ???
17. ???
18. ???
19. ???
20. ???

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