Being Kurogakure: An Obituary

I've lost a friend today, we've been gaming together since seven years ago.

2008 is the year I started to got into online gaming, my first game was Perfect World from PWE, local server of course and has really really screwed up community, so I began searching for another way to a more civilized talk with people, I found a forum called gozine (defunct), that's where I met Kurogakure, a moderator and regular contributor

As of 2009 there's a new game opened up on our local server, Lineage 2, we discussed the possibility to make a clan together, we did, the three of us, Kuro has a way with people, he's smart and authorative as clan leader, even as I discovered that he's three years younger than me. Our family quickly grows (he always used that term: family), we're succesfully maintained a casual type of play although Lineage 2 is labeled a hardcore grinding game, we had our first fight about PVP and I left for year, when I came back we enjoyed a moment before server politics, bad publisher, bots, exploits, cheats, and hardcore grind halted our progress. We had our first real meeting though, it's the first time I met him on solid ground, a year since it was all begin

I quickly jumped to WOW, while he relentlessly tried to find another game, 'to create a new family' as he again said, He never liked WOW as he deemed it as 'too mainstream', we tried some games, like Guild Wars, Aion and City of Heroes, but it didn't last, I came back to WOW while he tried some beat em up online. When he heard that a revolutionary game called Guild Wars 2 is coming, he ecstaticedly call me, 'it's awesome' he said 'it'll be great' he said again, 'we'll invite local players to our guild' and I was like 'a guild?' I'm always sceptical about locals in online games since they pretty much destroyed the 'social aspect' on online games, and as I just get off a really failed IRL relationship (which he helped me got through somehow) I really didn't trust local people both online or real at all. But in the end I said okay, 'let's get 10 people, raid size, we're already got three so let's find seven more' I laughed at that time, so he set up a thread on a local forum

In the end we got a hundred member, well more or less, but definitely more than ten =))

Some of my finest gaming moment was in Guild Wars 2, the PVE was great, the WWW was awesome, and even I started to enjoy PVP, our voice chat channel was always a party on Friday nights, unfortunately lack of content grow on us, we started to login less and less, my work and family matters started to tried my time, in the end I stopped playing, I influenced people to try FFXIV though, one thing he always indefferent towards me 'How the hell you pulled people for new game and then the first to bail out, idiot Blizz fanboy" I grinned all the time, can't help it, I'm always a game jumper.

We have several RL meetings with guild people, it was fun, but over a year we grew distant, it could be our works, it could be private, Our last conversation was bitter to the most, I never really knew his personal life, maybe we discuss it on occasion, but most of the time it was games, and when we have no similar game to talk about, it quiets down, then he got hospitalized, I tried to go (we live on distant cities) but sickness, accident, and works killed my time again

And six month later he was gone, just like that

I actually have no right to talk about him, since I knew very little about him outside of MMORPGs, but I recognized his passion on building a good community, although at the end he was indifferent towards it, I should be more tactful about it, he always said Guild Wars 2 will be his last game, not in term last MMORPG, last game, final, 'I always joked about it, why the hell fixed on a game when there are hundreds of them out there' I think  it was a sign and I dismiss it casually, I just hoped he find peace on his final moment, and hope he forgives me for not at his side

Rest In Peace my brother, Kurogakure, thank you for all the good times