I've thought of this MANY times, as you know.
I have been to the deepest, most ancient parts of the forums a few times, and it's such a different world you'd think it was a different website altogether...oh wait! It was.
But really. I kind of wish I could have been there myself to see it. Perhaps there was more spam threads and certain people who would no doubt make the life of someone like me a veritable pain...but it was a more reckless time, a fun-loving wild circlejerk of lovely proportions...
and now, we can never get that time back again. Only look at the past in quiet and sterile silence.
Tell me...
Have you ever talked to the ancient ones? The grand, important men like Xaser, Dooey, RuneLancer, SeriousFace...the original movers and shakers of the Cave Story modding and hacking community? Alas, though their works and worlds stand as resolute as the heavens, they all mysteriously faded away at the height of their triumph, their profiles forever silenced, their monuments left in stasis. Broken hopes and unknown dreams dot the threads of granite.
It is true that, once in a blue moon, a member's shade is sighted. An example would be Shmitz's mini return during the winter of 2011. Many gushed at him, he replied in kind, and young, zealous LunarSoul told him of the metal ending he had crafted to a mod of silken fiber. Shmitz assured him he would seek this apprentice's work and tell of whether he approved.
But there is a certain irrefutable calling...the sorrowful truth from a guardian angel, or the silent pull of dreaming demons...perhaps, behind his flustered happiness, was a quiet worry, stemming from a latent knowledge of his fate. Did he leave because he didn't like the well-meaning necromorph, despite its efforts, but didn't want to bruise a budding achievement, not yet flowered? Did he believe this revival to be the only way to have a finished work, its original creator only wanting rest after so long? Or was it something else altogether?
Regardless of our thoughts, our speculation, it is likely we will never know. Shmitz never did get back to Lunar - now a regretful, altered young man named MagicDoors - and he once again fell into the cradle of the Real-life, never to be seen again.
And then there are the sides to a person you may have never known. Whether we accept - or even become aware - or not, we are all subject to the metamorphing winds of Time. I can only pray such a fate does not befall me, who can only peer anxiously into the darkness, phone in hand...
Let's look at possibly our most famous face. Let's look at Noxid.
Most new members know Noxid as a fearsome Modertator of the Heavens 2000, one who smites wrongdoers and makes snarky jokes with all of the wisdom of Booster and all of the power of King. Some particularly ignorant users even fancy Noxid the administrator of the Administrator of the entire forum!
But...
All of us, even the most powerful, even the most famous, started as a hesitant voice looking to find a friend.
I'd like to show those newer members Noxid in Alpha, Noxid from a time so long ago as to be a fairy tale.
Noxid said:
I know absolutely nothing about assembly, but these look pretty straightforward and with good directions. I will have to give it a try
I have a question however; Is it possible to use assembly hacking to modify the characteristics of npc's as well? More specifically, I'm interested in whether or not you can remove the "bounce" from the XP triangles. Looking at what you have for the fireball, I figure it wouldn't be impossible, so long as you knew where the data was stored. My guess is that finding that would be the hard part...
This is Noxid.
Noxid just joined the forums two days ago. He's not a hacking master - here, he is seen asking his predecessors Dooey, GIR and Lace for information he does not know. He's not a seasoned modder - in fact, he is still learning the ropes. And he's certainly no legendary moderator. So close to his genesis, so far away to our reality, Noxid is little more than another new member, only distinguished by his polite manner and optimistic, eager resolve to learn.
He also uses a
unironically.
That alone, perhaps, must leave a distant, echoing feeling of how far away that past is, and how much he gained...and lost.
It would be improper of me to dig up any more old spirits. But pick a member - almost any member, anyone you can think of - and go to the beginning of their profile comments or posts.
You may be surprised. Perhaps even frightened.
Let's go back further.
Far past Noxid and GIR, far past Fabulous and Cultr and Desu and Meta, all the way to the beginning of the forums.
I can't say I know very well of what transpired. I was not there, and such little record remains that, like the creation of heaven and earth, I can only have faith that it happened the way it did.
But regardless, there remains one at the center of it. You likely already know of SkyeWelse, the Alphadministrator, creator of tribute site and forum alike, and ancestor to our Omegadministrator andwhyisit. But do you know of all of the old staff, the true first settlers of this empty new forum?
There is the mysterious
darkannex, having joined even earlier than Thomas himself. But darkannex has no avatar, only one post (two if counting a Sattelite Lounge post), and almost no details of its connection to SkyeWelse or anything else. Just who was it?
There is
Shirofan, his longtime friend since 2001. It could be argued that Shiro was the most serious of the three lost administrators, having come back in 2009 to aid Skye in fixing up MiraiGamer.
And lastly, there is the enigmatic
PenPen. As the first and only female(?) administrator, as well as the only recorded Penguin Administrator in history, PenPen possessed a pure disposition and an innocent posting style.
Together, these four (if the sole thread I found can be trusted) created our original home, miraigamer.net.
...
There are untold souls I could not share here, interesting people and lovely threads that would take ever longer to display for us. I can only request that you look to the past. Sit, and browse, and wonder. For the requiem of a forum comes not with a 404, but with the cultural degradation of passing time, the rift between old and new, and silence.
★★★★★
So uh...yeah. Stuff has changed a bunch.
I'm still fine! Yeah...but I'll just go get some cookies and milk, because I /just/ got away from depression and I don't believe huge posts like these are good for my fledgling mental health. O_o
Sorry for accidentally making your thread into a funeral, Doors! D: