Is this the Golden Age of Donkey Kong Expertise?

[krehztim]

In the spirit of Mr. Riley - are we now living in the golden age of Donkey Kong expertise?  With Robbie's latest score, 4 of the current top 10 of ALL TIME are within the last 7 months.  Sitting at #5 chronologically is the revered Wes Copeland 1.218.  Has there ever been such an array of mindblowing DK talent, all performing at the highest levels imaginable, at the same time?  While I'm sure there are other time periods where 4 of the top 10 were within months of each other, we're talking about scores over 1.1 million. 

[homerwannabee]

Right now it's giants standing on the shoulders of giants.  I'm positive that if you were to go back 11  years, and tell Steve Wiebe that his 1,049,100 record would be beaten many times over and increased by 181,000 points, he'd say that you were crazy since to him he was already maxing out the points in his mind.
The revolution is mainly because of Dean Saglio, Ross Benzinger, Hank Chien, Vince Lemay, Wes Copeland, and Robbie Lakeman.  They found new methods and pushed each other to newer and higher levels.
As far as golden age of gaming.  Well that would imply that it will eventually end.  Yes the back and forth of records will eventually stop, but the super high level of play will never stop.  We've gone too far.  There will never be a time when we don't have at least one active 1.2 million player.  The players will change, but the high level of play is here to stay.

[krehztim]

Good point on the implication of it eventually ending, though eventually, everything will end.  I'm not talking so much about the actual points or strategies - everyone seems to be learning from each other, and pushing each other to ridiculous scores.  I'm wondering if at any point we'll see or have seen such action in the Top 10 within such a short span of time.  On the one hand, there are a dedicated group of players acquiring unprecedented levels of skill, with that content becoming easier to be found, viewed, and analyzed.  On the other hand, the possible scores become increasingly finite as they start popping out 1.23, 1.25, 1.28, etc.  I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where the Top 10 of this game will become so impossibly difficult to crack, we won't see 4 new scores in 7 months.  So, I guess my definition of "Golden Age" would be the number of people putting up top 10 scores over the past year. 

[ChrisP]

Apples and oranges, because it's really hard to compare a softer leaderboard of the past to one that's now in a "matured state," but honestly, right now pales in comparison to 2012-2013.

In July 2013 - which was the peak of DK hype just before KO3 - ALL of the top 10 scores (other than Billy and Steve's) were no more than a year or so old. By the time of the KO3 in November, Billy and Steve had already dropped 4 more spots.

Excluding the 2017 scores and Wes's WR in 2016, the five "old" scores now have an average age of 4+ years.

It's great to see that there's still action, but it's relatively mild compared to all the churning in the top 10 that took place during the era of the Denver Kong Offs.

If you're looking for a Golden Age, that was it. 

[dnickolas]

Standing on the shoulders of giants is exactly what’s happening. If I ever put a worthwhile game together  it’s because I played tens of thousands of boards trying to implement the techniques I flat out stole from Dean, Wes, Robbie, John, Jason, Thomas, Phil,  and the list goes on. Hell, when the rivet tries to get dirty I even go full Allen trying to survive. I literally never even tried to just get as far as I could - save states all the way.

It’s easier to experiment when you don’t have to spend 30 minutes getting a start to play the game that repeats 17 times.

[krehztim]

Well said, Chrispy.  I think that probably answers my original question. 

Happy New Year, everyone.