(beware, long fucking post)I think it is time for me to say goodbye.
I dont know who is the oldest member of the forums but I do know I am one of the older ones. I've seen most of the now-prominent members make their first posts. I've participated in all Wars but one. The people who shaped me as a player and as a community member are almost all gone now.
I started playing the game on 2009.09.30. I've made my first post on the forums almost exactly a year later, on 2010.09.04.
Since that, Elements was a huge part of my life. I'm not widely known as an Elements addict because after 2 years or so I wasn't very active, neither on forums nor ingame. But the game and the community teached me a lot and shaped me into the person I am. I learned a lot, including analytic thinking, seeing a sum of parts as a complex whole and identifying key parts of a system. On the forums, I learned a lot of english from you guys and I learned how to communicate in everyday english. I learned a lot about teamwork and even some about personalities. Not to mention that I had a lot of meaningful conversations and I learned a lot about the world in general.
I dont think that there ever was a day without me thinking about stuff you could do in EtG.
So why am I leaving? There are various reasons for that. Probably the most important is that the game and the community has became stale. The game itself havent been improving a lot since the last couple of years (if you know my opinion about shards then you probably know that I actually consider them as a step backwards). I honestly didn't see a new card that excited me since the Ghost of the Past. The issues with the servers, PVP and spectator havent ceased either (in fact, they are getting worse). All points to a dwindling attention from the game's developer and a game which is slowly dying.
And the community feels this as well. In the past two years I've seen most of the prominent members leaving. Some came back but most did not. And somehow I feel that the new faces dont really make an impact as big as their predecessors. Somehow I feel that the old branch cared a lot more. Way back, we had to come up with an underdog team for War to make sure that at least most of the applicants can participate. Now we can barely fill the main teams.
And that brings me to War. I honestly think that War is a genius idea. The sheer scale of it, the best of the best participating, all the brainstorming sessions, everything about it is just epic. So excuse me here, but in the next few lines I'll tell you my EtG story using War chronology. (you can skip it, theres nothing more to it than my nostalgia)
There was not a single more defining moment of my elements career than the moment when Kevkev recruited me in his warteam (this was war#2 and team
in case you were wondering). This was about the time when I finished my unupped card collection. By war#3 I finished my rare collection (this was still in the days of T50) and sometime around this I got bored by PVE. By the time of War#4, I was barely around on forums, except during Wartimes. I played some tournaments when the theme got me interested. I also participated in some PvP events, but again, they weren't too interesting to me (the last one I actually enjoyed was the Prisoner's Dilemma, some 3 years ago).
In case you were wondering, here is the list of my war participations, with the team and general (thank all of you guys, I learned much from you):
War2:
Kevkev
War3:
Kakerlake
War4:
RavingRabbid
War5:
Ralouf
War6:
Glennfoo
War7:
Jenkar
While War is great, I've also learned that it requires true dedication and lots of time if you wanna give your best. My old english teacher had a saying: "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well". I guess this also means that if you cannot do it well, then you shouldnt really be doing it at all. The thing is, I realized that I dont have the time and energy anymore to give my 100% to War. The reason for this is twofold: One, my spare time for gaming gets less and less. IRL happens. When I started playing Elements, I was attending an university. Now I am a fulltime researcher with a degree in my hands (molecular biology if case you were wondering), conducting my own research. I just cannot afford to brainstorm and playtest for 4-6 hours everyday during wartimes.
The second reason is that I wanna dedicate what is left of my spare time to Dota2. I started playing it about a year ago and I'm having lots of fun with it. I realized that I can apply a lot of what I learned in EtG to Dota with much success. BTW if you wanna play a game or two with me,
hit me up anytime.
So this brings me to a clear conclusion: It seems I cannot really give 100% during War anymore so I'd rather not participate at all, and since I dont really play anything but War, I guess it is time to say things how they are: I'm quitting. As I mentioned earlier, for me the biggest driving force behind EtG is interest, so if I see an interesting tournament, I might participate, or you may come across me in the PVP rooms every once in a while, but as of this moment, I am not planning on participating in anything long-term. I'm already not posting too much on the forums, but I guess this means I wont really be around from now on at all.
Except this one thing that I wanna do: Some of you may know my game analysis articles. Well, it happens that I have one in my head since a while ago, and I wanna finish it and post somewhere before I disappear. So to not go out on a sad note, expect an analysis from me in the very near future. It will be about (teaser:) metagame analysis, deck classyfying and countering (they have a lot in common) based on an idea I developed a while ago. It will also probably be my last post in a while, if not forever.
Shoutouts to:
- Kevkev
- Shantu
- Jenkar
- Chapuz
Guys, I know none of you is around anymore but you cannot imagine how much you shaped me as a player, as a thinker and as a person. I thank you for all the fun times.
And to each and every one of you Elements people, Thanks for everything.
Acs signing out
PS thank you if you made the effort to read through this
