Reflections

[XeNo]

Nearly 9 years ago I signed up to this community the same way as everyone else here. I picked a username, I chose a password, verified the stupid captcha, and the username XeNo was forever taken. While I sit here thinking of what to say, I feel an odd reminiscence of what events lead up to today. How it began and the person I was the day I first clicked "Register" and today, the day I honestly feel may be the first time in the history of my time here where I click "Log Out".

 

Reflecting on how I've changed over the years as I've grown with this community is a tough pill of pride to swallow. I was 18 when I joined, and I felt I had life figured out. Looking back at my posts and my early time here I realize how wrong I was, and I feel that it's a humbling experience to look back and notice the journey my life has taken up to this point. SG has been a huge part of my life, nearly one-third of my time alive has been spent off and on right here, within this very community. As the community has grown, died, and been reborn, I like to feel I followed a similar trend of growing through my own life. As I matured and grew with SG, I realized how important this place was to me. For me it was always the people within this community, the good and the bad. Both good people and bad people can show you who you are as a person. Good people can help you get back on track when you fall off the path, but bad people test who you are at your core. How you deal with situations and people will define who you are, and you can't understand what type of person you are unless you experience both good and bad. It is even harder to learn how to appreciate the good in your life without something to give you a taste of how bad it can get.

 

In my time here I have experienced a lot, I've met people that have quite literally changed my life. I've had a lot of laughs, a lot of fights, arguments and debates that seem to last hours or days. I've found love, happiness, heartache, and sadness with people from this community. It's through these experiences that have helped shape me into the person I am today. People often underrate the effect they can have on others, and especially online where people tend to believe it's easier or more entertaining to be cruel than kind. I won't pretend to say I am not a victim of this myself, as I look back on my past here I can confidently say I was definitely an asshole. It was kind people that I met here and in my real life that helped me change for the better, to grow into the much better person that I'd like to say I am now. This community attracts people from all walks of life, and that's something I have always been fascinated by. I have always enjoyed meeting new personalities and people from different cultures, learning what things in their lives made them so different from one another and from myself. It has always been the people, the players, that really kept me invested in SG my entire time here.

 

No matter what rank I was, my focus was always in making the community a better place. What does it mean to make it a better place? For me it was for the players, the regulars. Make it not only popular with amazing servers, but a place where people would enjoy not only the servers, but the people who they're playing with every day that they're in one of our servers. Creating a community where people didn't join just to play the servers, but joined for the people. This has been my passion ever since I started taking my time here more seriously, and one that every step of the way I worked to make more and more reality. Every rank I went up I thought of how I could push that rank to the limits to build a better community. I took every rank as not a promotion but a challenge, to see what I could do with it that would improve the community as a whole. No matter what rank you are, you can influence the community, you can do something with your rank to make the community a better place. With powers or no power at all, you can help improve the community just by personality alone. Make new players feel welcomed, make the servers filled with laughter instead of racism, and above all try to make them fun to play in for hours on end.

 

I appreciate the opportunities I was given here at SG, by everyone who was in power at the given time, to do my best to make this place a better community to game with. I am grateful to everyone in this community for helping it become what it is today. Lastly, I am thankful to everyone I've met along the way, who helped me get to where I am now. Whether they know who they are or not, I am thankful for them. I may never get the opportunity to manage something as big as SG ever again, and that's a hard thought to think about. This place has been a huge part of my life, and now that I've took the time to reflect on my time here, I can say that I will never forget it. This community has been such a unique experience for me, there's a good chance I will never experience being part of something as wonderful as this community has been for me. This has been a long crazy ride, and if given the chance to click that Register button again, I would not hesitate to do it all over again.

 

I can't say for sure I'll never be back here again, but for now this is goodbye. Thank you all for everything you've done for me. Whether you know it or not.

[SpikedRocker]

As I've told you earlier, you will be missed here. It won't be the same without you. We both have spent a significant amount of time here and most of it has been working together managing the community. We've learned a bunch from each other and grown into different people because of it. I was thankful for you speaking out and against me in several discussions we've had as BDs. It was always a good thing when we had our devils advocate sessions. You'll always be welcomed here. Hopefully this isn't goodbye, more of a see ya later.

 

Also...TACOS!!!

[Paralyzed]

Thank you so much for everything @XeNo. I've seen you grow over the years here in this community and you should indeed be proud of who you are today. We never really spoke much to each other, but from the times we did I knew you had the best intentions for this community. Good luck irl.

[Four]

Although I have only a handful of encounters with you, We've shared a few thoughts on the forums together. You will be missed @XeNo.

 

Good luck in the real world my friend.

[Rhyzhe]

Although I may just be a regular on the servers, I will always remember the good times that we shared on the servers I hope that you do well outside of SG and everything goes well. My word may not hold for much, but I would love to think that I am speaking for all of SG when I say that we will miss you and we will always welcome you back with open arms. Farewell, The Undisputed God of TTT.

[All Ts]

We haven't always been able to see eye to eye but from way back in 2011/2012 to now I knew you as a really fun & trolly dude around GMod TTT.

 

Thank you for the time, effort and hard work you've put into SG.

[grASSo (Wolf)]

God damn lots of Good old folks stepping down in the past 5 months but you were the biggest surprise. Very sad to see you go and i hope you come and visit again. Thanks for making this server great and all you have done for people to enjoy it. Just keep on

[Frostbitten]

When I first saw this, I immediately thought of this:

 

 

 

 

 

Legit talk, though. It's been great seeing you around the forums and on the servers. Seeing you take up the responsibilities of Vice President around here really made a difference, for real. Position-wise, I don't think anyone could replace someone like you, and if someone did, they'd have some pretty big shoes to fill. You really were someone people could look up to, even if it's just the internet.

 

 

Seriously, we'll miss you. It's been an illuminating experience with you around. I only wish the best for you.

[Souce Boss]

Looks like Xeno has moved on from SG and into my pocket:

 

 

Thanks for everything you did for SG! I've never seen such a stable community with so much professionalism before. I'm pretty confident in saying you had a very big part in that. Hope to see ya again soon!

[Wawa]

Damn this is giving me the feels ... really sucks to see this day come but at the same time, it's also a day for blokes like me to take the time to say how much we appreciate your time, work, and effort here. If there's one word I would use to describe you, Xeno, it's passion. I truly do deeply appreciate you for the passion you always put on display every single day you've been in this community; I will always remember you for it.