Once upon a time, one pretty broken soul entered this gaming community in hope to find pleasure and peace in a very difficult and tough time of my quite horrendous yet fantastic life. It was through an old friend of mine, a cold winter evening, when the snow was pouring down the sky on the empty streets of my town, I first saw and quite quickly discovered the delicacy with San Andreas Multiplayer. This friend showed me a server, where you could chat and participate in other's happening within the game. This was something completely new to me, as I scarcely ever played any sorts of video games. The server was called Argonath RPG, where my friend had a gang of green skinned thug life soldiers, who were down for anything. I observed every move of his while sitting next to him when he played, the adrenaline was pumping and my only thought was to get this game on my own personal computer. We quite simply said goodbye the next, and I was heading to my apartment in a rush.
The game was installed, the adrenaline was almost in the same level as when you received your first Christmas present in your early age. I slowly connected and entered the Internet Protocol address for the server. Here I was, registering my account in the late days of March. I registered myself under the name "WoodyL". Woody, which was one of the biggest timber companies in Sweden back then, and the lonely L to spice things up a little gangsterish. I pretty soon realized I had no idea how to role-play, so I simply found my friend and his gang, starting to release punches on them all, believing this was what's up. I soon got shot back, and quickly understood I had no chance without some heat. We made peace and I was introduced to his friends. One of them were a pretty unknown dude to me, his name was Carhartt. We all held together for a while in this beautiful area of Jefferson. Carhartt, me and a bunch of other fellow comrades became good friends. The time passed by quickly and I had been a registered player for a couple of months. Carhartt was a property admin, one of the most precious things you could had on your admin task. As Carhartt were busy with his work, the whole crew divided into separate groups and companies. I decided to search for new possibilities, new creative souls like myself; and I found a new guy, whose origin was also Sweden. His name was Malcolm Ecks, which is now one of Argonath's finest players, under the name [Rstar]Malcolm. I showed him around the server and the community itself and we hung out, like Swedes usually do. He was from this point one of my closest, and still is.
A month later, I became a close friend to an American individual called Joe K. We together; created a Mexican mafia family called "La Familia Alvarez". I made my first topic, but as my English weren't the best, I let Joe handle the writing; I made the design. Joe and I recruited an unknown fellow called Hustle, together with a huge amount of random individuals, new as veterans. Malcolm were also within the mafia, where he improved; both role-playingly and also as a person. Joe K, had a delightful plan how to be rich. The whole group followed. We sat during the night, for multiple hours, creating new accounts to earn easy money. We bought big fancy houses, together with luxury cars and tastefully clothes. The sad truth quickly crawled upon us one night when most of us got banned. I succeeded to evade, but was no longer in a position I could lead a group. Joe K was one of the banned players. He spread the thought to several individuals that he was going to create his own role-play server. Me and another fellow called Chase Greggor quickly stamped into the thought of a self-owned community, with our own rules and scripts.
The summer came, and we started to finish up the script. We had the days before; decided to make peace with Argonath after controversial decisions of ours to steal players from the community we used to be so in love with, to our own self-made one. This was the first time I saw and spoke to Gandalf. A guy who was nearly a legend in everybody's eyes, were my sworn enemy from the start. The community did not last long because we merged with another community, which had totally different perspectives of things. I disappeared to my real life for the first time in months, my body had nearly decomposed, and my head had shrunken into a small square-formed box, not cleverer than a crushed egg.
After the summer, I attempted to make a return to Argonath. I posted an unban request through my friends account on a warm summer night. I was hoping I'd get any sort support from some of the players, some of my old friends.
(The unban topic can be found here: http://www.argonathrpg.eu/forum/index.php?topic=21052.0) I was obviously shocked that everybody seemed to wish me good luck. Admins to new players. I simply couldn't understand how much love this community had inside of itself, after me being such a genuine dick. I had one hot argumentation with Aragorn, which I see today he was right with everything he said. But back then, I didn't understood the meaning of his posts. I guess you learn things by time. I got unbanned after some time, and the love I felt when I first joined the community just erupted again. I was home.
Since that day, I've been here. That's nearly four years ago. Of course, there has been some ups and down, just as in a relationship to someone you love. I wrote this topic to understand how long and how much I've learned by being here. It's not only about a game this community matters, it's a loving place where thousands of individuals from various countries have been, sharing their stories, their creativity, their knowledge. That's why I am so happy this community is still up. And it's all thanks to our Server Owners, our Community Leaders, the hoster, donators and especially our admins. We more than often serve them with more bullcrap than we share love. I, myself is one of them. That's why I decided to re-think for a moment, make something different, and actually show how much you actually mean to people. If it wasn't because of this community, I would be into serious drug issues after my dad lost his life. May him rest in peace. Regardless how much dick-thinking I can be sometimes, there will be nothing that can take these four years away from me. Gandalf, Aragorn, Sauron, xcasio, Cutter and also Kojak for his great injection the last half year; I'm saying thanks with a warm and open heart. You made a world of its own, and it's just great that you've been holding it up for so long. Thank you and enjoy the future.
Love and respect,
From Que.