When considering who I am, I tend to define myself as the sum of what surrounds me. I'm a network administrator because that's my job. I'm an overclocker because it is a hobby. And I'm a service provider because it provides a feeling of usefulness.
Specifically, I've been hosting Particle's Custom RPG since the early months of 2001. While the exact date I started hosting has long been lost in the confusion of history, I celebrate the server's anniversary on Valentine's Day each year. As such, it just recently turned eight years old. During that time there have been a lot of ups and downs. Today, now that I finally have come to appreciate the feeling my server provides, I realize that it is probably coming to an end. It would figure that I wouldn't appreciate what I had until it is beginning to wane, but that's just how life works most of the time.
In my case, the Tribes master servers (the place the Tribes game looks to for a listing of game servers) shut down late last year. Ever since then there have been very few newbies. What does that mean for my server's future? It means that player counts are pretty low right now, and once the people who already knew about my server have their fill and move on there won't be anyone coming in behind them to take their places. The end.
It wasn't that long ago that we still had a lot of people playing.
It's funny how these things can effect a person. It's not like the server is a family member or close friend, but it may as well be a beloved family pet--faithfully there and often out-of-mind until it is gone. I suppose I need to find something new to host now that my importance has diminished so far in the Tribes community. That's not easy to do. There are way more hosts for everything than there ever are players.
Today is a sad day.
To use a quote from Scout:
"The grass grows, birds fly, the sun shines, and brother...I host things."
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