I feel like most of us are still here because we feel a special connection- not to the game, but to the Community in general. You may be wondering what I mean, so allow me to explain this:
People of all ages play this game. There are middle-aged people, there are even kids. The way I see it, many people use smaller communities like our own as a stepping stone to something bigger. At least, that's how it's been with me.
I joined Warmerise around 2015. I played no other games back then. I don't remember how long it took me before I actually registered, but I named myself after a player who I was a fan of. I never knew that I'd come to be clanmates with this player in the end. The player I'm talking of is BlueDragonFire. I was a huge fan of BDF. I remember watching him destroy the blue team with the G36 on Skygates. Maybe that's where my love of that weapon comes from; or maybe I'll never know.
I went on to play on a laptop my best friend's family had given to my own. It was all I had. No one else in my family used it, so I began to think of it as mine. But, clearly the thing was not made for playing FPS shooters. As 2016 came around, the thing encountered many issues and the game froze the whole device just by joining a match. I was not here for Warmerise's final days before the shutdown, but I did promise myself one thing: that I would return, better than before.
And I guess you could say that it's true, that it happened. But not exactly the way I'd planned. Back then, you see, I was a sniper. I remember playing on Only Sniper and watching the coins spring up from my opponents' corpses. When I returned to Warmerise in 2017 on my mother's old computer (she'd gotten a new one), I had simply lost my sniping skills. I resulted to using the STG-12 until I convinced my father to buy me Warmerise cash. That was when I got the G36 for myself- when I became one with automatic weapons.
I went on to compete in the 2017 WWC Tournament with my own team, which I named the 501st Legion. We ultimately got eliminated, but were picked up for one last match as a filler team. My team wasn't the best. For my first match, only one other player aside from myself showed up. We lost to the other team. For my second match, only I out of eight players showed up and my team won of the other forfeiting. The rest I don't remember.
Eventually, I remade my old account, RedDragonFire03, and occasionally used it. It seemed to me that my sniping skills were bound to the name. Eventually, I changed the e.m.a.i.l and forgot what it was, until I had a talk with Max and then on gained access to my secondary account once again.
In 2017, I became good friends with two amazing people who forever changed my lives: Wispy21 and THEROCK666 (now known simply as R0CK). They offered me something I couldn't refuse: to join Deadly Squad. I accepted. I was proud, but eventually something began to feel off. I left. Later on, I requested to rejoin. R0CK was more than skeptical, but ultimately allowed me back in. I began to talk of creating my own clan, Blood Squadron, and as soon as my clan leader found out, I was kicked and therefore lost his trust. It killed me inside. I ended up in a few months of depression over it. But that depression taught me a lot, and I certainly learned of my mistakes.
Once I'd recovered enough mental stability, I finally created Blood Squadron. Later on, it was followed up by a second clan, Clone Trooper. As time passed, I grew to be great friends with several members of Murder Inc, including Chrono, Vivek, Joseph, and Matt. Vivek and Joseph nominated me to join- which had been my dream clan since I joined Warmerise from the beginning. I was overwhelmed with excitement when I was accepted in April of 2018. But there was one problem; multiclanning was not permitted. I didn't know what to do about my two clans. I was stuck between deleting them and damaging my reputation or rejecting my friends. That was when I contacted Max. He helped me to transfer the ownership of my clans to Avenger782 and ToonYoshi. I trusted them to carry on what I had started. After that, I joined Murder Inc without hesitation and was immediately accepted, as if I had been one of them for years. They became my forever, permanent home.
I went on to get to know other players such as DeathBringer himself and Faerie. They told me of a tournament being organized and I applied as streamer, just getting more into YouTube. Sterben accepted and allowed me to be a streamer. Little did I know that I would stream nearly every match. There were days where I was confused and uncertain and days where I knew exactly what to do. Often, Faerie and I were commentating together, just the two of us. It was kind of lonely, but it was good to have someone else to talk to. The Warmerise Legends Championship of 2018 taught me and left me with many things of which I am glad of. They gave me a sense of community and helped me bond with other players. I was honored and still am, to have helped with the tournament.
Then 2019 came, along with 2.5.3 and 2.5.4 updates of Warmerise. And then, something happened. The game lagged too much and didn't run smoothly as I played. I was unable to record Warmerise videos anymore. My interest in the game dropped drastically. My only hope is that the next updates of the game majorly improve performance.
It was near the end of 2019 when my computer was finally able to handle playing Warmerise again. I started off 2020 strong, but my interest had been deminished badly by 2019. I fell back into only playing once a week, for video recording. In January, we began work on planning the WWC for the year.
In April (or sometime around then), Konfusion randomly popped up with his own tournament, catching our team off guard. We debated helping him. I was personally against it, for the selfish reason of it not being our tournament. I forget why or how, but eventually I did end up helping. But it didn't go well. Konfusion kept changing things and going against his forum. I got annoyed by the lack of consistency, and dropped out. Max eventually came to the conclusion that it was a flopped tournament and cancelled it himself. After that, I declared our 2020 WWC my last tournament.
We came back to our tournament in July, after we'd lost one of the most important organizers; STERBEN99. His tasks fell to us. We were left scrambling to figure out timezones and messages. A couple weeks into the tournament, we found a good pace. We'd send out the messages after the last match of each weekend. Everything became smoother after that. We had little trouble communicating with teams and getting all players to their matches. There were only one or two forfeits throughout the entire duration of the tournament. The final came and was a really close match, really fun to watch. It felt like a fitting end to my final tournament. I was satisfied with it. I was, and still am, proud of the work my fellow organizers and I put into it. It had been well worth the time, effort, and stress given toward it. It had ended perfectly. It couldn't have been better.
But with the new year (2019 at the time of the creation of this forum), I also began to join more online groups and meet more people. It was only then that I realized that Warmerise has only ever been a major stepping stone, essentially a starting point, for me. In that way, I am still bonded to the people and the Community. It's that what doesn't allow me to leave, even though I cannot play- the knowledge of that everyone I've met here is what created the me I am today. The depression of rejection taught me that everyone has a dark side, no matter who they may be. It taught me that life isn't all fun and games. And even though I have made up with the one I had upset, I am forever grateful that I did what I did to begin with. I learned from my mistakes and became a better person. Everyone here has made me a step closer to the becoming the person I am meant to be. And I am forever grateful, forever attached to the people of Warmerise.
I know now that my time here in this community is coming to a close. I feel I've left behind a legacy that I'm proud of; not the clan problems of my early days, but my kindness and my desire to help others out. I feel that by helping with the tournaments and doing things for the Community with my friends, I've set an example for future players. I can only hope that some of today's newer players will go on to play for years, then reflect on their history like I have, before they, too, eventually move on. Warmerise is just a chapter of our lives, it prepares us for what we will come to face later on.
Thank you all, for making me who I am. Best regards to all of you, always,
~StarWarsCrazy
Edited to account for 2020. 11/10/20.
