Thanksforallthefish.txt

[Guinessis]

Righto. I've been meaning to write something like this for a while, and now I can kill two birds with one stone. This is my official introduction (a few years too late), a note of appreciation, and an unofficial goodbye.

My name is Guinessis, and I'm a buildaholic. Blocktopia has been very good to me, giving me a rare creative outlet. I spend most of my time in life with unyielding mathematical systems, so the opportunity to build my own maps with no regards for safety or practicality and let them loose upon an unsuspecting community is very appealing. If you've enjoyed playing the maps just 10% as much as I've enjoyed making them and watching how players interact with them, then I consider them a success. And I apologize for the few creations you've all suffered through that went terribly wrong - oops?

Now I've spent far too many hours building things and helping others build over the past few years. However unlike previous game addictions such as warcraft, I do not view this time spent as a (complete) waste. I've met some nifty folks through minecraft, and I've enjoyed the time I've spent with you all. You all are a great community that has managed to survive where countless other communities have fallen, and you do it entirely through donations, not some bullshit donate $25 for diamond armor schemes or even advertisements.

Unfortunately time stops for no man, and the events of the past few months have increasingly shown me two things. Number one, I cannot keep playing as often as I do. Number two, telling myself that I'll cut back doesn't seem to work. When I started playing minecraft, I was a semi-employed graduate student bachelor, living in a small apartment in the city. Now I'm married, have a job that requires 50+ hours a week, and I'm going to be a father in a few short months (all of this in spite of my crippling building addiction - see playing vidja games does pay off!). And when I'm juggling priorities, the first ball that needs to fall is minecraft. Now I'm at a time in my life where I need to prioritize more.

This is not an official resignation. I have a few loose ends to tie up, then I'll begin to phase myself out. I plan on completing the build competition and getting those maps on the server, completing one or two additional lava smp maps for Ogarci (who has been very patient with me on this ), and I'll continue to stick around to help with map questions and configurations for a bit. So just like my previous two "vacations", I'll slip away when the time comes, and poke my head in now and then to see how things are going.

Remember that in any community everyone has to contribute in their own way to keep things running. This can be either through donations, volunteering time to staff and organize events, building new maps and levels, or just through welcoming new players. If GmK had decided to tell me that my first map was awful and I should feel terrible for submitting it rather than offering advice and pointing me towards building software, I don't think I would have stuck around. Now the last build competition for AoD had some very promising submissions, and I highly encourage all of you to keep at it even if you didn't win this time around. If you want to play new maps, you'll have to keep building them (and then keep pestering people to add them)! So if you take anything anyway from this wall-o-text, just remember the blocktopia community is built on the contributions of its members. No paid positions here, you get out what you put in, etc etc.

With that in mind, a few words of appreciation for everyone:

• Thanks to the devs for their many hours wrestling with minecraft and its terrible update/mod system. Thanks to them for putting up with the nonstop complaints and requests. The minecraft community in general is notoriously unkind to the mod developers (OMG Y U NO UPDATE YET WTF?), so thank you for dealing with all of that.
• Thanks to the directors for ensuring that things run smoothly, handling all of the behind-the-scenes issues and cultivating the communities through events and activities. Thank you for dealing with what I'm sure are mountains of messages so that the rest of us don't have to.
• Thanks to the controllers for whatever it is we do. Seriously, I'm not quite sure what our job description is besides look pretty and assist wherever possible, but damn are we good at it.
• Thanks to the operators for their many many hours devoted to staffing the servers, putting up with the "im not on wom hax ur off k?" from the people stuck in the WoM trap, and dealing with the numerous random rule breakers and cheaters who seem to sprout up every other round.
• Thanks to the trusted+ for being willing to help out wherever they can. The trusteds that I know put in the most in-game hours out of everyone, toiling away in relative obscurity to keep things moving.
• Thanks to all of the "Guinessis Builders." That was great fun while it lasted, and we built some pretty amazing maps. I still boot up the server sometimes and look around. I have every map ever made on the server backed up, so if you want to resume an unfinished project or want to import your old .lvls into premium maps (MCEdit is fantastic for this) just let me know and I'll PM you the files.
• Thanks to the players in the community. You are fantastic, and without you there wouldn't be any point to building. Thanks for putting up with my various "experimental" maps, and thank you for your feedback and suggestions.

And finally, thank you for reading this somewhat-smarmy wall o' text. I hope it wasn't too cringe-inducing.

Now, just because I can:

Zombie Maps:

1. 8Bit
2. Asylum
3. Babel
4. BasicTraining
5. Bootcamp
6. Carnival
7. Carson
8. Clockwork
9. Colony
10. Complex
11. Cyclone
12. Disco
13. Excavation
14. Excitebike
15. Experimental
16. Facility
17. Fortress
18. Frigate
19. Frostbite
20. GrandPrix
21. Institution
22. KingoftheHill
23. Lighthouse
24. Mystic
25. Pacmania
26. Pandora
27. Purgatory
28. Ravine
29. Reactor
30. Requiem
31. Rustbelt
32. Shrooms
33. Sunspots
34. ThePit
35. Tomb
36. Vault17

AoD Maps:

37. Abyss
38. Academy
39. AoDLobby
40. Artwood
41. Canopy
42. Clockwork
43. CloseQuarters
44. Cobwebs
45. Contaminated
46. DeadHouse_Gates
47. Divided
48. Explosive_Arena
49. MorseSummit
50. Oasis
51. PoolHall
52. Relic
53. Stronghold
54. VerdantSanctum
55. YGhatan

Lava SMP Maps:

56. Arrogant
57. Canyons* (WIP) (*these will not be as polished as I'd like them to be)
58. HighTide* (WIP)
59. Orbital* (WIP)
60. Rooted

60 seems like a good number to end on, right? I'm getting burnt out on building anyway.

o/

 

[karl_ravech]

Guin, you are the fucking man. Peace out and good luck.

 

[KingSam]

Make it 61? Kthx.

Joking aside, thanks for all the work you've put in, I've certainly noticed and appreciated it!

 

[Baker93]

WELCOEM 2 FORUM

But on another note - bye.

Guin. I've only known you (well) for what I consider a fairly short time, but dude. You have been awesome. Without your maps and help, AoD probably wouldn't be running as strong as it does. Your creative spark is amazing. I mean, you can create a top class, completely unique map in a day. Are you sure you don't go under the alias of Dynamo?:




It's a shame to hear that you are soon to leave us, but I completely understand why. Managing my time is hard enough (for me at least), but with a wife and soon to be a father, I'm somewhat honoured you have stayed with us this long. You're such a friendly guy, and your personality is simply fantastic. You will be a brilliant father. (Just try not to play with their Lego too much. No life-size skyscrapers.)

Don't think you have only had an impact through your maps though. You have dedicated hours upon hours of your busy life to staffing AoD, as well as god knows how many hours to giving us a face on Reddit. For this, I'm immensly grateful, and as such very relieved this is not an official resignation/departure.


That's pretty much all I have to say for now, I'll leave it pretty brief. That way, I can save it for when that time for an official goodbye comes. Till then;

o/

 

[Vatowski]

Goodbye man you were a awesome controller and a great map maker

 

[Danni122112]

Thanks for all the great work you have done, I will miss you, good luck in real life!

 

[Shinyshark]

Time flies by and I hope you'll catch up with it!
Congratulations in advance to your future baby and good luck in life!

 

[Prizyms]

"I think... I feel good about it" dies happily Seriously though, I wish you all the best in life.

 

[Guinessis]

Guin, you are the fucking man. Peace out and good luck.

Back at ya. Keep in touch!

But that's what ExplosiveArena was for .

It's a shame to hear that you are soon to leave us, but I completely understand why. Managing my time is hard enough (for me at least), but with a wife and soon to be a father, I'm somewhat honoured you have stayed with us this long. You're such a friendly guy, and your personality is simply fantastic. You will be a brilliant father. (Just try not to play with their Lego too much. No life-size skyscrapers.)

<3 been fun working with you.

I'll definitely be investing in a lot of Lego sets, Brio, various wooden scraps, etc. You know... for the kid. Yeah, that's it.

 

[superstein]

Goodbye Guin, leaving in style :)

 

[GmK]

If GmK had decided to tell me that my first map was awful and I should feel terrible for submitting it rather than offering advice and pointing me towards building software, I don't think I would have stuck around.

I don't remember this, but I am happy that I said what I said back then :)

You have been a real enrichment for the community, giving back to us and also enjoying it wherever you could. Your maps have added a distinguishing style to our servers, and raised the quality of players experience. Thank you for all the hard work you put into it - even if you yourself never considered it "work". One of the things I admired and liked most: Your total reliability.

If you are a family father in the same way you are around here, then gosh, your wife and kid are lucky to have you. Keep that spirit, and all the best!

 

[Dess]

I say we honor guin with a rotation full of his maps.

 

[James81818]

Guin, I didn't know you well, but I was lucky enough to enjoy a lot of your maps on zombie survival!
You have been an amazing member of this community, and I remember how you were a great inspiration to me when I was struggling to make one map.
"guin has made like 50, why can't I make one?!

This community won't be quite the same with out you, you will be missed! However thank you for all the time and effort you have put into maps, playing the servers, and also just being there as a friend when people needed you.

I am sure you will be a fantastic father, and good luck in life!

 

[paceboys]

I wanted to let you know
I've played every single one of your maps (except the 3 middle LSMP ones)
And i have loved every single one of them.
Cya around, guin.

 

[Silvuss]

Guin, when I first came to Blocktopia I used to play on the classical zombie, and on some of your maps. When I started playing premium and AoD, one of things I noticed was that one person created most of the maps, Guinessis. I decided that if this person could create all of these maps, couldn't I create one?
After that I started creating my first map I discovered the joys of building maps, terraforming landscapes and having that bit of pride when you completed a map and after that I started creating more.
I used to watch the forums and say 'wow that looks great' everytime you posted one of those maps and because of this I have a list (yeah a LIST) of inspiring ideas that I hopefully want to build in the future.

In short what I am trying to say is that you where my inspiration, role model for what I wanted to be like in this community, and I am sorry to see you go, allthough we all knew you couldn't stay forever (
but I wish you could )

I hope you have a great life and enjoy every bit of what is to come.

 

[DKnucklehead]

Congratulations on your upcoming fatherhood! Maybe once he grows up you can teach him the ropes of map building (assuming minecraft survives until then)

I don't know of many others to have left a larger footprint than what you have done. The quantity and quality of your maps are outstanding, and we'll always have fun playing on them.

Walruses are tha best! So long and thanks for all the maps!

 

[ZombiePineapple]

Goodbye Guin you are and always will be an awesome map creator I remember that time on zombie when I was on and you were and you got a throne in the sky and you told everyone to bow down to you and I rejected. You are just an awesome guy

 

[Thymos]

Obaider Guin! I appreciate all you've done, and thoroughly enjoyed making Carnival with you. Thank you for letting me build on your server way back when it was still around. Enjoy your life, and live it well!

 

[Wyrer]

Guin. I can't begin to thank you for all you've done in the community. Your maps, if nothing else, made the zombie server what it is today. Quality maps, if nothing else, set us apart from many other servers, and your inspiration to our players to make maps of the same caliber as you is simply remarkable.

Whether you're here in real life or simply in spirit, you're an irreplaceable part of the community, and I will sorely miss your Walrus-y antics on zombie. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and hope that if you ever have the time, you'll check in on us.

Your most loyal and humble Rooster,
-Wyrer

 

[RMcraft]

Bye bud, Good luck with your Baby :) Enjoy all your moments with him/her ! :D

 

[Chillingworth]

Ah, Guin. You probably don't realize the amount of maps you've inspired over your time here; so many people look up to you and strive to make maps as good as yours.

As for being a staff member - thanks for being so dedicated and helpful. You were one of the Operators on Zombie that stuck out to me when I was a mere player. I'm not ashamed to say I did indeed look up to you, and styled my staffing experience after you somewhat.

As a friend - you're a great person to be around. I'll never forget our little := hellos on Zombie and various other chats. We had plenty of good times, and I think they span back over a year! [I joined in April of 2011].

Farewell, Guin. I'm sure you'll be oh so missed. I know I'll miss you. Congratulations on your marriage, and here's to a wonderful and healthy baby!

Best of luck in life, friend.

 

[JohnOgozalek]

Goodbye Guin, hope you have a great life and Congratulations!

Cya around some time -JohnO. <3
P.S. Asylum is the best map I've ever played on! Felt like sharing that with you just once

 

[ReyvnNova]

Thank you for everything Guin. You gave so much variety to Zombie and it was the best variety could offer. It's a shame I didn't know you as well as I would want, but time can be scarce. You also inspired me to make my first map (like many others) and I've never looked back.

Good luck, and I hope you find a nice spaceship to hitch-hike on after sharing our fish!

 

[Love]

Thanks for all the maps you have created, and good luck with everything.
Never really saw you much, as I am not a very long-time competitor, but the maps I have seen are awesome.

Ayo, see ya around.

 

[Jubjubers]

You're the builder. Without your maps, I don't doubt the fact Zombie would be a shell of it's current self.
So long, you whiskered wizard of blocks.