[For those of you who don't know, I just restarted playing (and being active on the forums) a week ago after being pretty much inactive since the start of the New Year. Things have changed, I'm not going to lie, they had changed a lot. When I first came back I felt like I was still apart of the physical community but pretty devoid of the emotional side. I guess I'm lucky in that regard I missed a lot of drama. I thought I should share in this blog what I really feel about the community's metamorphosis in my time (both good and bad) with TEF and the impact it has had on me both in and outside the game. I hope you enjoy, I feel better anyways.]

"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly."-- Henri Bergson



I first started playing TEF in mid Oct. 2007, where I shortly joined the forums right before the Halloween Abio. From the way things looked at the time, I think TEF gained a boat load of new very active members during the Sep-early Nov time and was already starting to have a little more the "usual" forum activity. It was enough to where there was substance, but you could at least have a chance to skim through most of the threads. I personally loved being a fawn and a noob, people were pretty nice to me and took care of me but I could be stupid and ignorant and innocent because it was my right! The drama was at a minimum, but the community was really starting to take off. I imagine there were some "problems" then, but the whole "being new to the community and not knowing much about the past thing" makes it hard for me even now to find them. It certainly was like being a fawn.

When I backed away from TEF was right after the Something Awful people came to town (which I personally loved and had a great time with although not every else did). The community came together and stood up for itself, it faced opposition it had never seen before but remained strong, and became stronger. I was so proud of the people, the community, and even how Michael and Auriea reacted to it. It's my best memory of TEF. But during that time I started to notice there was drama starting to flare up. The element of "Does and Stag" mates started to weigh heavy on the community, file sharing started to become popular and it's existence and starting practice was also a hot issue. Tempers would flare, but most people felt that even if they didn't "agree" with the practices, they still could except it because the community WAS changing. Maybe it was a personal thing but during this time as my deer Shoe, I wasn't use to really being a stag (I had just be grown for a little under a month), I felt more like a mini-deer (which I kept Shoe as reflecting this feeling), a teenager.

When I came back I got this feeling of man I'm old, I even play Shoe more as a big stag because it reflects my personal feeling on "my place". Community wise I saw what felt like to me acceptance of the old hot topic issues (now I may be wrong on this one, I only got to dabble a little in it). I saw a HUGE increase in the amount of art people came out with (BTW it's all amazing, the amount of artistic talent on this site is phenomenal on so many levels). I was also insanely moved by the way everyone acted towards Run's death, the whole Run for Run idea and the monument of the flower and candles really hit me, they reminded me why I enjoyed the community so much. But with all the good things I also noticed some of the I feel negative changes. It seemed a lot of people loved the game, but loved it "too" much. Every few boards there would be a new pool of drama llama festering, it hurt me to see people argue about things so small and irrelevant in the big picture. Some people had let that love be so big that they took any whim of change or opposition to be an immediate threat to the TEF way of life and wanted to protect it. It's apart of human nature, to for fight what you hold dear (no pun intended) and people were fighting, but letting their emotions take control. I started to fear for the community as a whole because the emotions were becoming detrimental. I could see the change, the difference, TEF had grown.... I had grown.

This was when I realized that the TEF community changes and grows and that adaption is what keeps it stable. It's about unity and working together to solve differences, to overcome obstacles, to enjoy the game because thats what it's about FUN. But thats not only is that TEF, no, thats LIFE, growing, changing, maturing, and enjoying it along the way. I find it amazing that a little MMORPG game about deer is a reflection of life in the simple form. It's may not be my life and it shouldn't be a replacement for RL, but the metaphor of the endless forest is LIFE and is something that can be examined and learned from. I feel that I have matured in my time playing the game both as a community member and in my real life (college does that to ya too). I hope other people find the same joy I do from TEF, and can find the words to express themselves and get some of their feelings out in the open. It's a perfect time to, and the right place...a blog. My think we the community can work through this, see the differences, share our experiences and feelings and GROW! I certainly think it'll take time, and I'm pretty sure there will be some needed changes forced on the community (already with the forum removal and all), but I have full faith that we can adapt to it.

Anyways, I wish everyone the best of luck with the changes, life, everything in general and I have many thanks for Michael and Auriea for creating an amazing game that is such a great outlet for so many people. For me, I may be throwing up a few more blogs because I've had some mad fun the last few days and I can't wait to see other people's blogs/photos/art. Hopefully they will be easier to find here *fingers cross* and more people will start coming here! >.> Anyways, thanks for letting me share and experience. ~ Sock