At the onset of the new forum I created a thread detailing my feelings and hope surrounding the move to the current forum. I guess now it's time we talked about things isn't it?
At the time I felt disheartened that we were leaving behind the old forum but glad because the ui was more intuitive and was far easier to navigate. The old forum had great moments that would never come again, silly arguments that may sometime come back and haunt us. Friends were made and players established themselves, the competitive scene was born though small as it was.
My hopes for the new forum were that people would be unafraid to be themselves in the forums, that they would be willing to have fun with the rest of the community. I hoped that the forums would remain silly in the special way that it does. I hoped that the community would remain as amazing and friendly as always; that we'd be willing to help out the new players instead of staying high and mighty as the old crowd. Do I believe we accomplished this? I think we have, I think that as a community we created something truly special hear.
Sure we had our ups and downs, arguments that probably threatened to tear the community in two, patches that angered a lot of people, changes that not a lot agreed with. But in the end we overcame them, we worked with what we could and made the best of it. It was never perfect with animosity cropping up here and there, old friends disappeared, never gone but not really there anymore. Arguments broke out in irrelevant areas, people taking sides over disputes.
Though in the end we always came together, sometimes fewer in number then before, sometimes a new person came in, not someone anyone really knew, but at some point they came to be a friend to all who knew them, sometimes old faces reappeared out of the blue and we welcomed them back with open arms, sometimes we'd end up in lobby somewhere, having a good a laugh after crushing each other repeatedly. And then sometimes people would just disappear, without much fanfare, sometimes without people noticing, they just end up just not being there, sad as it may be.
This next year is going be interesting I feel, with Adventure Mode being developed, an unknowable number of patches just waiting to stir up the hornets nest of discussion and arguments. I think the best bit is that there are always new people joining, those willing to learn, and those finding themselves a bit in love here. Now a very large amount of words. For those of us who have been here the longest we formed the core of the community, not in the fact we were important, but the fact we were there to ease new players into the community, and by that extension we helped this community grow and become what it is now. For those of you who joined us after release and the months that followed I thank you for sticking around and being here, you guys brought in new ideas and possibilities, for being friends and friendly rivals. For those of you just joining us, I can only hope you'll stick around for even longer, that I hope you find a place to be in this forum, that you'd be willing to be yourself around us and join us for a game or two. And to the Devs, you created this game and actively nurtured this community, without you, none of this would be possible, without you we wouldn't have this amazing game to play, without you we wouldn't have a reason to be here.
I don't have much more to say other than:
Happy New Years GoI, Stay Classy
~Piemanlives
