Hey guys,
As you know, I've officially retired from TFL as of 2 minutes before the "Signature Series: Marcelo Matere" raid was over.
Aside from my adminship and many contributions here... I finished in the top tier in 28 episodes. I won't stroke my ego by posting the full list here, but the list is on my profile, so feel free to examine it there. ;) At this point, I've accomplished every major goal possible - 19 Raid T1s (including five times in the top 10), 2 Campaign T1s, 3 PVP T1s, a six-day TVT win as part of a team, and 4 TVT T1s (including a six-day win/top 10 finish, with much assistance from Tez2099 and Tarheelmax, among others). I feel like there isn't much I have left to accomplish in this game aside from "how many more weeks of my life can I waste making T1 runs?," so it's definitely time to go.
For a few weeks, I had planned to retire by T1'ing one last raid. I had prepared the new lady in my life (who is freaking awesome, and who I doubt I will find another like, so, yeah) for this week of insanity, though I wasn't expecting the level of insanity we actually got. I had told her two things as well: one, that I would be uninstalling the game after the episode, and two, that, while she was initially very supportive of my run, that would change over the six days as she would come to learn what that actually entailed. WELL... when I picked her up last night after the episode, she asked me how I finished. I told her I finished 60th; she said... "Well, congratulations, honey, for finishing in the top 100. Did you uninstall the game?" without stopping for breath. So you can imagine how she feels about all this LOLOL.
If you've read my posts and Postmortems on this site, spoken to me in chat, and/or read my posts on other sites (most notably TFL United), you know how I feel about this "game," its developers, its customer service, its corporate ownership, and its "mechanics." I won't get into such talk here, as I want this to be a positive discussion and celebration.
I will not be disappearing from the site. I'm still an admin, and I'll still contribute when appropriate. If anything, I may be MORE helpful as an admin without the pressures of trying to do so while also playing TFL at the level to which I was accustomed.
Outside of the TFL communities, you can find me at my own forum, http://darkknightsmagic.proboards.com ... which you are all welcome to join. I plan on spending some more time there as the weeks and months progress. There is already talk of a TF RPG starting up there. :D I hope to be back on Facebook as "Red Wildrider" once the stupid block on that account is over; feel free to friend me there!
In closing, I want to thank all of you for your continued friendship and support throughout both my runs at TFL. Despite my membership in many TFL communities, and despite my being an admin here, this is always where my heart was; this was always where I felt I truly belonged, and I can only thank all of you for being that awesome to this crazy kid from Brooklyn. I had said something to Stinger last night in chat that I want to repeat here...
"I always wanted to be great at something, not just really good, but great... and my greatness came because I was lifted up by giants... all of you guys."
Peace and love to you all!
- god of cyanide