Wow, I don't even know where to start. Sure has been a while!

You see a lot of the old timers still around, just popping in now and then. But not many are left as regulars. Kind of a shame, but I guess it's inevitable all things considered.

I haven't been here for the whole two years, but I have been here for the better part of a year and a half, so I figured I'd comment anyway

I miss Denryu's surveys. I know he still does them occansionally, but it's not like before where there was almost a new one every week, and they almost never hit the 100-person limit.

I miss the "smallness" of the community back then. Don't get me wrong, it's great that there are a bunch more people interested in the game, but I used to know the screennames of pretty much every person who posted on a regular basis. You used to be able to read every new reply in every thread on the boards in an hour or two each day. Now it's almost impossible to keep up with just one subforum.

I also miss the sense of anticipation. Waiting for the first beta to come out was so excruciating

I'll end my list of things I miss with saying that I miss the attempts to get inside jokes into the game. Bear calvary, obviously, but who remembers the Legendary Toothpicks of Boogiebac? (I'm also disappointed neither of those made it into the game, but that's another subject )

I know I've been a lot less active than I used to be. Mostly that's because school is taking up much more time than I expected it to.

Oh, one more thing I almost forgot; I miss Wintersong's many chaning avatars. Back when the community was smaller and I knew everyone, I always found it entertaining to see what new avatar he would have each week/day/hour

kyogre, you're definitely someone I remember as 'old guard' and I'm glad you replied. My main sentimental reason for this thread was thinking about how different things were when we had just posts and a few rapidly-aging screen caps from the devs.

I manage to catch a post from Denryu every now and then, but I can't remember the last time he did a survey-monkey poll. Still kind of wish one of us who was flush with disposable income had just bought him the full license; I think he might have kept doing them if it hadn't become so easy to fill the hundred free slots.

Seeing Tamren's name makes me think of NTJedi, who is still pouring on the details re combat and making interesting general gameplay suggestions. Maybe Tamren left because it became clear that combat was never going to be complicated enough for him?

Thinking about Wintersong's ever-changing forum faces made me wonder whatever happened to Spartan--he's hasn't been around since the beginning of last summer. And whatever happened to that swell old idea of a heraldry tool for the game. I've read what's out of the Ice and Fire saga since the boards launched, and hardly a chapter went by when I didn't think about how neat it would be to be able to create blazons for my own Onion Knight or whatever.