Topic: Goodbye/Vacation Thread

@Th3solution thank you 🙏

@LN78 I can't help it, but this just popped into my head

America for the festive season can be a cracking visit, for sure, though. Enjoy 😅

Is that coca cola in Kevin's wine glass there? I should certainly hope so!🤣

Anyway, taking a break from this site for a bit as I may be starting a new voluntary role soon and am choosing to focus more on real life stuff and my other hobbies/interests for the foreseeable.

Also, and more seriously, 😉 ,After completing Elden Ring, the final game on my checklist of Souls/Soulslike games directed by Miyazaki, I realised I could move on (as these were the games that first piqued my interest during an abstinence from gaming and prompted my return to the medium). I may return to FromSoftware and Miyazaki and complete the action-adventure masterpiece that is Sekiro(perhaps even Platinum it!)😎 , as well as play any future Miyazaki-directed that take my fancy (I'm not interested in the AC Series) that come out in 2026 or later.

But for the time being, it feels like music and literature are coming to the fore for me, so maybe I will write another ep/album, but for the time being I will be chilling out, playing guitar, listening to jazz and hip hop, reading books and watching films/anime, in addition to exploring my study of black and abstract art forms.

All the best to you!

Praise the Sun!,

BlAcK Sw0rDsMaN

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Happy Trails and Good Luck, Brother 👍

Back now after a short break, but still mostly lurking and posting in General Discussion Threads for the time being, still playing Sekiro, just beat the Great Serpent in that game while I was away and now getting ready to take on Gyoubu.

Looks like we’ve lost another one. LN78 appears to have nuked their account. They posted a day or two ago on here something simple like “Happy New Year. I’m out of here!”, or something like that. I wasn’t sure if that was an announcement of their departure permanently or not since LN had recently said they were taking a couple weeks off to go to New York for the holiday. I wonder what happened in NYC… 😅 Hopefully all is well.

New year, new priorities I guess

@Th3solution Shame, always liked the cut of their jib. I noticed a dead thread last night too, must have been theirs.

Happy Trails LN78 🍻

@Th3solution Probably a reminder to never visit NYC. 🌞

I guess all of us need change every now and again. Loss for the community, but hopefully they'll find something else worthwhile.

I just posted this over on Pure Xbox. It's not a goodbye as a whole, at least not yet. But the Game Club is coming to an end and I have been wanting to say something in both places for a while now as I haven't really posted properly in ages. It applies to both forums and there's so many people I've spoke to on Push Square, I remember almost all of the conversations I've had with people and all of the community events and threads I've been a part of, particularly through the pandemic and they are all very important to me and fond memories. (Don't be shy to say hi! Unless you've changed your username, I suspect I will remember interacting with you in the past!)

Hey all,

Sorry I've been quiet on this, I've spoke to Balta privately regarding dropping the admin side of things entirely. I was planning to write a proper goodbye message to my duties here but it seems that it might just end up being a goodbye to Game Club as a whole. I have to apologise, I didn't realise it would mean the end of Game Club.

I have had one foot in the door for a long time now. Pure Xbox and Push Square validated and valued me in lots of ways towards the end of a particularly dark period of my life. I've spent the last 2 years properly healing IRL and changing my life in meaningful and demonstrable ways.

I've had a complete career change. After a year of throwing out applications at any job that was different to what I was doing before, a teacher at a class I attend suggested I retrain to do what she does. Through a number of connections I was lucky to have because I was seeking help for my depression and anxiety, I was able to secure funding to retrain from the local council.

I've started my own business doing that thing and I honestly love it. It feels me with a lot of joy. I don't make much money off it right now but I'm confident the business will grow. It also gives me a lot of free time to do other stuff, whether it's other clubs, keeping active and healthy, maintaining and forging relationships, making music or just working on growing the business. My time is finally my own and I couldn't be happier.

A crucial part of that is making music. I've wanted to make an album since I was a kid if I'm honest but for the last 15 or so years, I've just had a complete writer's block. I wrote and recorded a song in late '23 as I was healing and in late '24, I wrote and recorded 3 more songs. I've adjusted my goal from releasing an album down to just releasing an EP which I think I'll be ready to do in the next month. The long term goal is still doing an album but I think I'm ready to put something out there ya know?

I'm not sure if I will be allowed to post it here when it's done as it might break the community rules about advertising? Not sure if I'll be exempt because it's more just an update on my life rather than me trying to sell anything (though it will be available for sale). Also, it'll probably dox me if I post it here so I'm a bit on the fence.

Anyway, with that, with my new business, with massive changes to my relationship and all of the other super fulfilling things that have come to be IRL, my actual time for gaming has gone to basically nothing. I've tried to play things at times but I have a burning need to engage in active hobbies that yield something tangible rather than passive hobbies. So every time I pick up that controller to game, I can't immerse myself because my mind is constantly drifting to the game of real life.

I do want to get back to gaming at some point. But maybe on my own terms? I think I want to get rid of/sell a lot of my physical backlog, delete all the random 99p Switch games, GwG rubbish and PS Plus nonsense. I just want to have less pressure and really try and get rid of the feeling of having to complete a game for the sake of it I guess. I still have a half completed Ni No Kuni save file from like 8 months ago. Probably about 50% of the way through it but the thought of picking it up, while I want to see it through to the end, just fills me with the feeling that I will be missing out on something more tangible IRL. I'm even considering selling off a few of my retro consoles.

Anyway that said, I do believe the community here that I helped to build with all of you is a tangible success. I absolutely loved it. It rewarded me in so many ways over the first couple of years. I am so proud of it that I actually have it on my CV under volunteering! But alas, it doesn't pay and doing what I used to and what Balta has been doing more recently is actually a lot of work. I did try applying for a few paid roles with Hookshot some time ago but was unsuccessful - no doubt because of my lack of experience in journalism. That was just before I stepped back from doing the bulk of the admin. I suppose the personal reward of helping to build the community not being ultimately rewarded professionally left me a little jaded. I was pretty embarrassed to admit that back then. After all, this Game Club is a community endeavour but after a few years that were very personally rewarding, I guess it did kind of get to me that I was sitting at home out of work with no money coming in while doing a bunch of unpaid work on here.

So I stepped back, Balta took over but because of the way the forum works, I had to stick around to keep changing the thread title and update the first post every month. Which for a while I was happy to do but I thought December 2024 might be a good time for this club to transition to a new thread and for me to step back completely from it. I'd still be around to participate on an ad-hoc basis but my role as creator, administrator and later co-administrator would come to an end. The Game Club could have a fresh start in 2025.

This post is probably more honest than I've ever been but fudge it, life is far too short to leave things unsaid. I'm not holding out hope for something more to come out of this and I do have my own life now that has grown at a pace where I'm more comfortable being honest about my most recent struggles/feelings.

I really do want to emphasise the impact that both the staff and community at Pure Xbox (and Push Square) have had on my life. I might be growing in a different direction now but when I was lost, alone in my own head and really had no hope of any meaningful change to my situation or even any realisation that I needed to change my situation - Pure Xbox and Push Square had my back. You all gave me a place where I felt at home, where I felt wanted, needed and valued, where I could be myself (whoever that was back then) and where I could be open about my struggles. I am not lying when I say how proud I am of this Game Club and the community around it. Every single person that has ever been on that tag list has contributed to this pride. I recognise this as an achievement and I am proud of it.

This community saved me before I even knew I needed saving. You kept me ticking over and kept me going until my immediate reality forced me to seek help and actually change my life into something worth living. I have changed, I hate to say I'm a new person but I think I have taken and combined all the best aspects of my last 34 years on this planet as well as discovering a shed load of new stuff about myself and I have become the best version of me so far.

I'll say a couple more things that are on my mind before I sign off for the evening. It's more applicable to Push Square but being a cross platform gamer, there is an extent to which I see the community as a whole. I think I am going to repost this over on Push Square as well because I've been wanting to say something like this over there for a while now too despite my extended absence.

I only ever blocked one person. They were from the Push Square forums. Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever do it but they were the kind of person that would constantly pee on your bonfire. Some people might think that I'm not resilient enough or that I give too much stock to what internet trolls think but after lots of self-reflection, I think going X amount of years and only ever blocking one person is probably pretty good going. More power to the users here who have never blocked anyone but personally, at the time, I came to these forums to escape the drudgery of real life, to share my then passion and excitement for gaming, films and television. So to have someone reply to every post just sucking the joy out of what I was feeling, well it just sucked to be honest. No I don't think that joy has to be absolute to be true joy, joy can be fleeting and it can be affected by others. So I don't regret blocking that person.

The other thing that has been on my mind recently is the loss of RogerRoger. We chatted a lot on these forums and then also off the forums playing games online on Playstation. I trusted them and they were an important pillar of support for me. Unfortunately they deleted me off PSN as well. Of course it's their perogative to do so but I do just kind of want to know they are okay. I am not going to dox them by posting what we talked about online but if anyone still has them as a friend on PSN, I'd really like to know if they've been online recently - just so I can put my worries about them to bed. The worry that something has happened to them is far greater than any upset I feel about being deleted. The latter is a loss but it is something I will get over. The worry will just niggle at me.

So anyway, thank you all. Every staff member at Pure Xbox and Push Square and every community member from both sites that I've interacted with since I've been a member. It has been a pleasure. I've particularly loved having deep chats with folks over at Push Square, it's probably going back some years now so you might not all remember but I have a ridiculously good memory and I remember a lot! You have all helped me profoundly in ways that you probably don't realise. I'm still about, probably as much as I have been for the last year or two which isn't much but I'm still just a tag away if anyone wants to chat.

Peace out! 🙂🧡

@ralphdibny Hey, my friend, thanks for the follow up and congratulations on your new venture. I’m happy for you that it seems to finally be a place you can really feel satisfied with in your career. Wishing you all the best for success in the business.

And I suspect that that Rog deleted everyone from Push Square all at once. So I don’t think it was anything personal against you or anyone else in particular. I’m guessing it was just a new start that was need for him. It does leave some mystery and uncertainty, but in our last communication he seemed okay, insofar as analyzing a simple PSN message can indicate, that is. I don’t know. Maybe he was about to publish his book and become famous so he needed to sever all ties of his former life? That’s what I choose to believe anyway.

@ralphdibny ✌️ we’ll miss you yellow-poo 😉

@ralphdibny Glad you have found a job you enjoy doing, those can be hard to come by. Hope it all goes well for you.

I wouldn't take it to heart about Roger deleting you from PSN, sounds like he did a clean sweep. He seemed to be his usual self when I messaged him just before.

@PorkChopExpress There's no one left to leave! Except for the really weird ones, like you and me. 🌞

@ralphdibny Do what you gotta do. To me the site's a place where I might check in daily for a while and then not engage with for months to come. I appreciate the community here, but being a part of it, just like gaming itself, shouldn't feel like an obligation. Just drop in whenever you feel like, it's what I do. 🌞

@ralphdibny Good luck and god speed with you future endeavours sir! All sounds like exciting times for you at the moment and it must be nice to have more control and ownership over your time these days with the issues you've had with work previously.

I'd be interested to hear what you put together and (to combine this post and the music thread one) bandcamp might be the best place because, as you say, it can be listened to for free or bought.

All the best to you though.

I was wondering what had happened to @LN78 and now I realise @ralphdibny has gone too. Christ, this place is becoming a bit of a ghost town. Definitely feels like the heart was sucked out of the place when Rog went but any sense of community has dried up by now. The distance between staff and regulars has never felt larger, partly due to a lack of community-engaged moderators. I’m not sure I really see much of a path forward for the forums unless new regulars come in and restart some of the old events, like we didn’t even have the screenshot competition last year for example. It’s sad really.

@nessisonett Forums are kinda of a odd thing of late I noticed. While alot of old forum user are leaving for various reason it seems the younger crowd just doesn't partake in forums like they did 10-15 years ago. I find that alot of younger generation use service like Discord alot more then just the random forum. That and I don't know maybe it's me but the younger generation just doesn't seem as socialable.

@Tasuki Yeah, Discord has largely replaced traditional forums. I’m only on here because I was a subscriber of ONM, which then shut down and I moved to their forums… which then shut down and they recommended Nintendo Life. They still have some of the old lot contribute every so often like Chris Scullion and Matthew Castle after all. Then it was a sideways leap to this site when I got my PS4. It just feels a bit like the soul has left the site in recent months with regulars going and things like AI generated thumbnails being edited out after I called it out with zero acknowledgement, articles being labelled news despite having a heavy editorial slant etc. It’s hard, I hit 10 years last year but we’re supposed to be in the height of the PS5’s lifespan and both enthusiasm and engagement is the lowest I’ve seen it.

@nessisonett Yeah it's not just here that's like that Pure Xbox sees very little activity and the only reason Nintendo Life is as active is because of the pending announcement of the Switch 2.