So Long and Thanks For All the Fish
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- Created on Thursday, 21 February 2013 19:15
- Last Updated on Thursday, 02 May 2013 19:08
- Written by Rooster
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Thanks for all the fish..
A couple of our former members have thrown out this line, from a book name in the popular Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. A light-hearted, friendly way of saying good-bye. Today, it’s my turn to thank YOU all for all the fish.
It’s been 6 years (swear it was 7-8, must be thinking of our ~wOw~ time). We started off with a bang, tons of active members, tons of fun, tons of new and fresh blood coming in, and often. In those 6 years, we amassed about 70 members over our ‘lifetime’, which I think is great (the number would have been about 100 if I counted all the times Tick”Tickster” joined and left and joined, hehe!). Only problem was, after COD5 we started a downward spiral.
cKs always hung in there, though. We’d rally back in times when I thought were darkest, each time persevering and rising back up in numbers and activity.
Like any ‘family’ we struggled from time to time internally. Personal believes, political beliefs, even religious beliefs got in the way from time to time and made for some real interesting reading, and the not so fun moments where I had to try and diffuse tricky situations between members.
I wish I had a counter I could reflect upon and say we have xxxxxx hours of great times. Like I recently posted to Gadget, who just left us, he (and you ALL) made every difficult moment in my real life absolutely worth it. I will treasure our time “online” forever and never forget any one of you. (well at least the active ones – I’m not going to lie in my final post as a clan/gaming community – I’m a little upset with all ya’ll who we handed out a golden ticket of membership to and ya bailed, rofl, ya’ll kina suck!).
I always felt there was something different about “our” guys at cKs. Resurrection and I put forth real strict guidelines when we founded the joint – Because it really worked well at ~wOw~. And I think, for the most part it worked here, too. I mean, I literally would do anything for you guys, and hope you felt the same way. That’s one of the things we always strived for. Sure, you had to be a Christian – But that was only part of it. It was about YOU, as a person. It was about those funny things, the awkward things, the ‘crazy relative’ in real life that was your clan mate – your squad mate, you fellow cKs member.
But even with all that awesomeness in each personality, we fought day after day to keep servers populated. We were HUGE in cod4. Heck, we had 3 commonly full servers, featuring every time of play possible.. (custom mod, standard, and crouch/tactical). But as newer titles came out, we struggled to get out there for some reason and keep the bodies. Partially because of a downfall, and internal issue with what type of server to run with newer titles, I suspect. Then when BF3 launched, I hoped for a big boom of activity, as many our core members from the early days were huge BF2 fans. Alas however, most of the BF3 community already had their favorite places from BF2, and other places picked up and got hot on their niche or just accrued the players from previous games that said, “oh look, those guys have a bf3 server”. Long story short, my vision didn’t quite pan out.
Midway through, Monte dropped a huge nugget of ideas that BBD then picked up and ran with as Monte silently exited (well, not silently, he said so long and thanks for all the fish, heh!). Anyhow – BBD really pushed to make change, and to be honest, I thought things were going really well – But I suppose I wear blinders.
Over the last year, several people important to me have left cKs. Some came back shortly after, others off into the vast unknown. Every time one of those members, friends left, it really killed me inside. So often I’ve just sat here unable to sleep wondering what I could have done, what I could do more to prevent that. And while Gadget’s departure is not responsible for this, it was my sign I feel to end cKs.
When we first formed, we had a good mix of “new people we didn’t know” and former members from ~wOw~. There were a good handful though from ~wOw~ that didn’t come, not right away. See, they knew their leader, Justy/Justified, and didn’t want to hurt him with leaving, jumping ship, even though (I think) they knew it was over there, and nothing was going to change. One day, a short while after cKs formed, I presume Justy went on one of his periods of being away, as many of those members finally came on board. I respected that – we always had an open door policy for any former ~wOw~ to come on board, no questions asked.
I can’t shake this feeling. The feeling that so many of you guys, my friends are doing just that. Praying I’d go afk awhile or do something to make or let you know it’s okay to move on. That you really aren’t happy here anymore or not getting what you need, but stay because.. Well, I’m Rooster. (heh). Maybe that’s not the right way to word it, maybe your not praying I’d go afk, but just you don’t want to leave but you want to.
So today is my “So long and thanks for all the fish” day. cKs is no longer a gaming clan. I’m going to handle this like a brilliant dude in Left for Dead 2 did. cKs will remain as a Christian Gaming Community. There was this dude, his name was Hellion. He ran a really cool modded L4D2 server, and ended up with a community of support. They became “WKH” (We Know Hellion). That’s us. You’re welcome to stay tagged up as cKs and ride it out, be part of it and hang with us from now till the day I die (and the website/ts don’t get paid). I’m not going anywhere. If you like it here, throw on the ‘cKs’ tags. No memberships, no crap, just tag up and get your game on. Dual clan? No need, we’re not a clan, we’re a community. Join whoever you want, add us in your name, or don’t, no probs.
What I’m trying to say is.. If you’ve felt like you want to leave, now is the time. It’s okay. If you don’t want to leave, it’s cool – I’m not shutting the place down, but I am switching gears and changing things up.
here’s how the following will be handled:
cKs: (the clan/community) Officially “JUST” a community now. Go off, join other clans to get your gaming on, or remain cKs and get your gaming on (on other places servers). Anyone can tag up as cKs if you support/desire it. Only requirement is family-friendly God first.
Website: Will remain up – I’m historical like that, preserving data, etc.. You’re all welcome to continue using it, for those who ever did, anyway. Feel free to post about other family-friendly Christian clans out there, feel free to promote whatever/wherever to help anyone wanting to go elsewhere do so.
TS: Will also remain up. It’s not going away, even it no one uses it (lol) down the road. This also means our non WOTC non cKs friends who do Minecraft have nothing to fear – Your TS home is not in jeopardy, I will continue to support and welcome you too!!
EDIT: I'm not really done with this, but after checking the site and seeing BBD posted as well, I need to get this up and online. More tweaking/editing will continue as I explain what to expect.
Edit/addendum #1: I would like to thank each and every one of you who’ve ever donated a cent toward the cause, who’ve donated your time in-game, and/or in comms. Without your generosity we would not have made it this far.
EDIT 2: Stand by while the dust settles and Rooster ponders the PM's and messages that have been coming in.