- Joined
- Mar 6, 2008
- Messages
- 525
I was looking back at my Google Chrome bookmarks when TheHiveWorkshop caught my attention. Almost five years and it still stood there silently, a piece of memories standing in the bookmarks of a web browser. How much time had I spent on that website... Time of my childhood, time I preferred to spend on a videogame rather than going out with friends. Five years later and I regret nothing of that period of time.
I swipe through the content I uploaded on TheHiveWorkshop, smiling with a little bitterness. Skins and icons I made by watching some tutorials on Youtube, spells with very few variables. My hand wants to lay on my head to perform a facepalm due to both the low level of what I uploaded and the high amount of mistakes, but is busy scrolling the page to see all the comments. Great comments, that despite the fact the content is poor, they appreciate the work I put in it, the passion I had for a game like Warcraft 3. My memory is one of the worst, and that's why it's awesome to re-discover that piece of my life. I don't remember much, but what I do remember is being extremely satisfied for a 3/5 rating from a moderator, the approval of something I uploaded. I remember people telling me how I should learn JASS which at the time looked too complicated for a 13 years old child; yet the potential was there, and it developed afterwards leading me to become a programmer.
I remember a great community that didn't care who you were or where you were from, it didn't care how much you were experienced. The community just loved what you loved, and appreciated the effort you put to make that sort of realm better, even if it wasn't that good.
I remember making new friends online, so far from me but yet so close, so different but at the same time with a shared passion. And I remember how they would post nice comments on the stuff I uploaded, even though we both knew it was not that good.
I remember my parents telling me to stop wasting my time on a video game, to go out with friends, but I didn't want to. It actually looked like I was wasting my time, but deep in my heart I knew I was just enjoying my time.
I look back at all of this and realize that after all this time passed, I want more of it. The community now seems too big to feel like a family, and for some reason the members are not as kind as they used to be. Or maybe they have never been, and it was just the innocence of a child to filter the badness behind it. However I do believe we can take it back, I can't be the only one that wants it. I'm trying hard to remember how I actually stopped playing Warcraft, or even why I did so, but I can't find an answer.
With this question in mind, I try and go back in time by feeling the same emotions I had as a child.
I put the Warcraft 3 CD in the pc socket and wait for it to load. I click on the install button, and as soon as it's ready I launch the game. I look for the graphics settings in order to increase the low screen resolution as we are all used to do now, but it's already maxed out. I'm fine with it. I join the Battle.NET, type in the silly username and the 5 characters password and the typical chain rolling sound plays. A breeze goes through my skin.
I search a match in the Custom Matches, but all the games are hosted by bots and too few people join in order to start the game. After 10 minutes I give up and queue for a standard 1v1 match. After quite a while, I'm in a game. The struggle is real, I am not used to move so many units at the same time, my hours spent on Dota 2 haven't helped at all, but in the end I win, somehow. It might have been an isolated case, but the opponent I found was such a nice person, he didn't hate once or say any bad word. Nowadays you can consider yourself lucky if you find a match with someone that even talks without blaming you for every single action of the game.
Well, all I wanted to do with this post is give a big thank you to this community, for some reason I left it without even saying goodbye. Now I'm back, and all I can remember after all this time is that despite the adversities, I just have been...
Happy.
PS: I will be playing a few games these days, who wants to join me?
I swipe through the content I uploaded on TheHiveWorkshop, smiling with a little bitterness. Skins and icons I made by watching some tutorials on Youtube, spells with very few variables. My hand wants to lay on my head to perform a facepalm due to both the low level of what I uploaded and the high amount of mistakes, but is busy scrolling the page to see all the comments. Great comments, that despite the fact the content is poor, they appreciate the work I put in it, the passion I had for a game like Warcraft 3. My memory is one of the worst, and that's why it's awesome to re-discover that piece of my life. I don't remember much, but what I do remember is being extremely satisfied for a 3/5 rating from a moderator, the approval of something I uploaded. I remember people telling me how I should learn JASS which at the time looked too complicated for a 13 years old child; yet the potential was there, and it developed afterwards leading me to become a programmer.
I remember a great community that didn't care who you were or where you were from, it didn't care how much you were experienced. The community just loved what you loved, and appreciated the effort you put to make that sort of realm better, even if it wasn't that good.
I remember making new friends online, so far from me but yet so close, so different but at the same time with a shared passion. And I remember how they would post nice comments on the stuff I uploaded, even though we both knew it was not that good.
I remember my parents telling me to stop wasting my time on a video game, to go out with friends, but I didn't want to. It actually looked like I was wasting my time, but deep in my heart I knew I was just enjoying my time.
I look back at all of this and realize that after all this time passed, I want more of it. The community now seems too big to feel like a family, and for some reason the members are not as kind as they used to be. Or maybe they have never been, and it was just the innocence of a child to filter the badness behind it. However I do believe we can take it back, I can't be the only one that wants it. I'm trying hard to remember how I actually stopped playing Warcraft, or even why I did so, but I can't find an answer.
With this question in mind, I try and go back in time by feeling the same emotions I had as a child.
I put the Warcraft 3 CD in the pc socket and wait for it to load. I click on the install button, and as soon as it's ready I launch the game. I look for the graphics settings in order to increase the low screen resolution as we are all used to do now, but it's already maxed out. I'm fine with it. I join the Battle.NET, type in the silly username and the 5 characters password and the typical chain rolling sound plays. A breeze goes through my skin.
I search a match in the Custom Matches, but all the games are hosted by bots and too few people join in order to start the game. After 10 minutes I give up and queue for a standard 1v1 match. After quite a while, I'm in a game. The struggle is real, I am not used to move so many units at the same time, my hours spent on Dota 2 haven't helped at all, but in the end I win, somehow. It might have been an isolated case, but the opponent I found was such a nice person, he didn't hate once or say any bad word. Nowadays you can consider yourself lucky if you find a match with someone that even talks without blaming you for every single action of the game.
Well, all I wanted to do with this post is give a big thank you to this community, for some reason I left it without even saying goodbye. Now I'm back, and all I can remember after all this time is that despite the adversities, I just have been...
Happy.
PS: I will be playing a few games these days, who wants to join me?
