So I started a new Blog chronicling my life on the internet. I wasn't originally going to link the first article here due to fear of drama, but there have been worse things on the forum. Just know this before you read: You may not like it. I mean absolutely
nothing of insult when I post this. I want no drama at all, and, if any appears, I'll lock this thread immediately. This is just my opinion and what is going on my blog.
How I Survived The Internet (
http://howisurvivedtheinternet.blogspot.com/)
"Elements is a free online fantasy card game"
For such a simple statement, it has consumed darn near a year of my life. Elements, otherwise known as "online crack," is a gem among stones. It's a simple card game based in Flash, so it is played online. The thing about Elements is that it is kind of like an old toy. It doesn't have the "Super-Awesome-Amazing-Punch-Some-Faces-In" button like most toys today, but it can be used a million different ways if the user is creative. In this case, Elements is so special because there are a bunch of different things you can do with it if you're involved in the community. Of course, we are not here to talk about the game, but the community behind it, how I became to be involved, and my eventual leaving of the community.
I started playing Elements around late March of 2010. I remember it was late March because, about a week after I started playing, a card named Holy Cow came to Elements as a joke card during April Fools. Curious about what the card actually did, I went searching for it and stumbled upon the Elements community. My very first interaction with any of the players was in the chat client, and I found myself quickly in over my head. Two renowned players named Puppychow and Jmizzle7 were debating about a card in the game called Shard of Gratitude. "What is Shard of Gratitude?" I thought. "What does metagame mean?" I pondered. Thus, it peaked my curiosity, so I observed the debate and learned as much as I could before I posted.
Here is the forum I stalked:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.phpNow you may be asking yourself why I didn't just ask these things while I was there. I am the type to observe a community as much as possible before even registering an account, and, in this case, it took me a good month and a half before I finally registered my account Dragoon1140. Why I chose that user name is for a future post, but for now I'll emphasize that, no, it isn't from Legend of Dragoon.
My very first post can be found here:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,7171.msg84909#msg84909Now if one looked at that thread I posted in, they would notice that I have the biggest "stats" of the thread, like the most posts and so on. However, that is now and not then. Back then, I was a young newbie who wanted to get into a debate with Malduk and MrBlonde, both very prolific players, both then and now. Of course I was totally wrong when I was debating, but I did like how well the community debated and it made me want to help out a bit more than the average player.
I have a Youtube account called Dragoon1140, which will definitely be the subject of a future blog post. On that account, I decided to switch the focus from my other videos to Elements. After making my first twelve or so Elements videos, which should never see the light of day because they are quite horrible in my opinion, both the administrator of the forum, ScaredGirl, and the creator, artist, and programmer of Elements itself, Zanzarino, posted responses about them whilst I was with them in the chat client.
[05:21:57] zanzarino: I saw your youtube tutorials dragoon, good stuff.
[21:35:16] Scaredgirl: I'm really blown away by those videos, Dragoon1140. Very nice work indeed.
They were just being nice, of course, but it was still neat to be talking to the developer of a decently popular game compliment something I made based on his creation. This feeling encouraged me to create more videos about Elements and, thus, I became popular rather fast among the community. I remember a time when, every time I would create a new video and link it in the chat client, somebody like Gl1tch or a few others whom I considered friends would point out every single pronunciation error I made in a five minute long video. Hilarious. I started talking with more and more people and came to know people on a personal level, including Jmizzle7 (whom was mentioned earlier in this post), Gl1tch, Purity_Riot, and a few select others. It was awesome meeting new people and hearing their stories. After that, though, it when things started changing fast, and not necessarily for the best.
Something came around called the Council. The Council was created by the admin of the forums, ScaredGirl, to ease some of the workload he has on the forum. I figured I had a decent chance to make it onto Council if I played my cards right, and, much to my surprise, I ended up with the third most votes on the forum. To me, that was the greatest virtual honor I've received, and I did the best I could at the position. However, I quickly realized it's really not all it's put up to be. We just made the occasional thread about needing a staff position on the forum, talked about it a bit, created a poll, and voted. Sure, we got some perks like alpha testing a forum game, but it really was nothing more. After about a month into Council, we realized that we need a few more people to fill the position called Competition Organizer. Competitions on the forum are basically contests to see who is the best at doing random things, whether it be taking pictures or creating cards for Elements. I thought it would be awesome so I applied for the position. In the end, three of us got the position, all Council Members. I loved that position more than anything else on the forum, and the people I worked with like Kuroaitou were just plain fun to be around.
Two months later, we're looking at the election for the next Council, if it could be called that. I apply again, hoping to do at least as well as I did last time. I'm still not sure why I applied again, since I didn't really like being on the first Council, but I quite a few people wanted me to stay on so I did. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had the second most votes on the Council this time, meaning that I was the second in command. A vice president, if you will. However, instead of the same process as last time, there was an added goal: Debate. When I say debate, I mean debate like the life of a kitten was dependent on it. Council wasn't boring anymore, it, instead, turned into a giant mess of people arguing until they got what they wanted, at least in my eyes. Things still got done at the same pace, but a whole lot more discussion went on in the meantime.
After some time, an event on the forums called Trials were starting again. Trials, essentially, is a competition where a total of sixty players would compete for twelve titles. One title, called Master of Aether, was the one that I wanted to earn. After all, and without getting into too much detail, I helped team Aether in a very large Player vs. Player event. There were three others signed up for competing: icecoldbro, pikachufan, and Higurashi. In the spirit of competition, I looked at the chances of me beating them in the popular vote section of the competition, since my Elements skills are rather mediocre. I knew I could beat icecoldbro easily, since he was easily tempered and not well embraced by the community. pikachufan was somebody nobody heard of at the time, so I wasn't worried about him. Higurashi, on the other hand, was incredibly popular on the chat client, which made a huge difference in the Trials, and is somebody whom I helped make a Tournament Organizer and, consequentially, a moderator of the chat client. I ended up failing the PvP phase and, since the organizers decided to switch the sections of the Trials, I also failed the popular vote because of it.
Something interesting was posted by Higurashi that I will never forget though:
"You've contradicted yourself while trying to trash-talk others, and now you want out. Very sad. I've lost a lot of respect for you."
Source:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20041.msg277263#msg277263Did I make a mistake by trying to avoid drama? Was I supposed to argue like an imbecile over the littlest of things like that? That is something that I suppose I'll never know. It's like a stranger insulting you on the street, cursing at you for something you've done in the past. They demand answers though they have no place in doing so, so you stutter in confusion, trying to avoid the stranger, but he is just there constantly going. I am over exaggerating, of course, but it hurt me a little that Higurashi never apologized for such a statement made. Anyway, after that, I tried to avoid that person to the best of my abilities. It didn't work since he is a chat mod and is arguably the most popular player in all of the Elements community, but I still tried. Because of that person, and among reasons posted earlier, I decided not to become part of the third Council. It seems others followed suit, and left as well. The third Council will have many new members.
And now, we reach the present. Whenever I log into chat, no longer can I have a civilized conversation without potatoes, a random anime, forum drama, or certain users entering the picture. There are exceptions to this, of course, since people like 3D House of Beef and Terroking still log on occasionally, but the new generation of Elements players isn't something that I'm fond of. They'll do great things for the community and the game itself, no doubt, but I just cannot bring myself to role playing in the chat client all of the time.
I'll stay on the forum as long as I am needed, but not likely long after that. If there is anything I've learned from being on the Elements forum, then it's one of two things. Either I learned to embrace the fact that communities can and will change, or I realized that I need to voice my opinion and not always play Mr. Nice, or, other wise, people will take advantage of me.
