Reflecting on GarnetGaming and my potential future...

[Jared Cox 650]

Hi, everyone!

 

I'm not sure if you've seen my name snooping around forums recently, but, if you don't know who I am, my name is Jared! I have been a part of the GarnetGaming community since August of 2016, right before I started my freshman year of high school!

 

Quick synopsis of my time on GG:

- I started playing my first stint of MRP near the fall of 2016, ended around the middle of 2017(?) It's honestly been so long I can't quite remember the exact timeframe. I was an active player mainly on the Marines during the days of CSCDesert with people such as Davidson, senorisgrig, Zach Jones, yokedPREDATOR, North, and many more that may pop into your heads. I first messed around playing SAS and had a blast with our dogshit base that Garnet would faint in disgust nowadays. (If you lot from SAS are still around somehow, hello!) 

- Afterwards I then came back for a short stint as an Army officer, had some fun with that, and was a part of MRP staff for a little while

- I then moved over to DRP and eventually became staff

- My last and most recent MRP run was in 2021 during the pandemic, became a part of AwesomeAidan's Green Beret, still love that group, lots of homies

 

Why am I telling you guys this? Well...I'm graduating college in less than a month from now. I can't believe that I am still here on these forums after almost 8 years. Eight years of my life have gone by, and, in a weird way, this community reminds me of the journey I went through on a personal level in order to get to this point. Since the days of August 2016, I have graduated high school, got a girlfriend of over two years, lost my virginity, and now I am very close to earning my bachelor's degree in cybersecurity! I am truly a Garnet Gamer!

 

Even though I may not know you, I just wanted to quickly say thank you. Thank you for everyone in this community who has impacted my life. You all have helped mold me into the man I am today...ready to conquer the world. I may not have become a general in MRP like I wanted to all those years ago, or a Super Admin, or a prominent figure in this community, but I have become a man ready to succeed...in REAL LIFE of course! My most prominent memories of growing up have been from playing with this community of leeches, cunts, and dickwads, and I wouldn't want it any other way. 

 

I really wish I could've played GMod with you guys consistently for 8 years, but the sad truth is that our personal lives are more important than a video game. As corny as it is to say, it genuinely hurts me that life got in the way. However, I think it is for the greater good. Could I come back and play? I doubt it. I have a woman to worry about now. I have myself to worry about now. Is roleplaying as an Army private who is being instructed by a 14 year old kid from California to go and capture an objective from the Taliban even important in my life anymore? Probably not. I am 22 years old. I am an "old" man for GG standards at this rate.

 

Current members of GG, please enjoy these moments. You are at the peak of your lives, you just don't know it yet. Yes...you're playing a modded version of Half-Life 2 that got released as a fully-fledged standalone game in 2006, where you roleplay as a Star Wars character, or a military man, or some other stupid shit. But you don't need to think of it like that. DON'T think of it like that. Think of how many friendships you've made in this commmunity, and how much fun you've had. Once you start paying bills on your own, you'll regret not living in the moment. 

 

Just thought I'd speak my peace. Thank you all for making my life a little less shitty.

 

Jared

[1998Corolla 328]

7 hours ago, Jared Cox said:

Is roleplaying as an Army private who is being instructed by a 14 year old kid from California to go and capture an objective from the Taliban even important in my life anymore? Probably not. I am 22 years old. I am an "old" man for GG standards at this rate.

I graduated college in 2014, and mostly thought the same thing to your points. I'm 32 now, I've been married for 7 years. 

 

Life doesn't really "get" in the way of anything, that just is life. I've played on gaming communities for probably 20 years now starting on CS 1.6, and still kick it in Gmod, or still occasionally CSS. Gaming has just been a past time for me when I've got nothing else going on, it's my way to relax after work.  The whole reason I started to play Gmod more frequently in the last 2 years I've been on GG is because it's a gaming forum and community. 

 

I will say, that many of you don't know how good you have it to have a dedicated gaming community to play on. These communities were everywhere in the 00's and started to die off more in the mid 2010's, and are more rare it seems in the 2020s. For those who play the servers, and frequent the forums, you are all a part of a gaming tradition that is slowly being lost due to the change of gaming as a whole, and time itself.  

 

There's that line from The Office where Andy says "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days, before you've actually left them". And as probably fucking cringe it is for me to say that, I certainly think of the good old days playing on the PF and HG servers in CSS in the early 2010s that I've dumped thousands of hours into.  

 

There is going to come a day this website, and the servers shut down. So soak in the time that you can play on these communities while you can.