As many of the senior members of ArdaCraft will note, I haven’t been online since August of 2016. This is mainly for personal reasons, also because I had to save for and build a new computer. So I thought if anyone were interested I’d just post here and let you know why I was away for so long. If you don’t want to know or don’t care, skip down to the bottom of the post. (We all know how I write novels, not posts 
)
I won’t get into the drama on the server around the time leading up to me leaving, because drama is best left in the past. But I stretched myself too thin in many regards and was trying to do too much at once, which lead to nothing actually getting done, which lead to frustration on my part because I don’t like stagnation. This coupled with the computer destruction was enough to make me put most everything online on hold and just focus on work and home-life in the coming months. I was still active on youtube comments and the occasional reddit post but that was about it.
Shortly after I left, the wife and I decided to expand the family so to speak, and so we went with the surrogacy option of having a child. So fear the day that our offspring is allowed to vote and make decisions! jk. Thats frightening in and of itself, because just when you think everything is figured out something else pops up and you begin to question everything again. Like “why the fuck do diapers cost so much money?!” or “What color do you think we should repaint the spare bedroom?!” Lots of little things, adds up over time, leads to more stress.
I tried to stay “in-the-know” with ArdaCraft albeit from a distance during this time, mainly through the use of Dukon’s vids or that really enthusiastic guy that speaks like 1,000 words per minute (on a side note, holy shit he talks so fast). Build progress-wise I kept up with everything, but the inner workings of the community such as the comings and goings of members I paid no attention to if only to avoid the temptation of trying to log in again before I had everything in life semi-sorted out. I never logged into the forums or contacted anyone during this time just for the sake of not wanting all that pressure to build up again.
Found out Atlan had been banned, via Guan, when I logged in the other day. RIP Sweet Prince.
So for now I think it best to simply say hello to everyone again, and hello to all the new members because I barely recognized any names when I logged in the other day for the first time in 9 months. Its going to be a while before I can become a contributing member of the community again, and hopefully when it does happen I can devote time and attention to ArdaCraft that it deserves. But for now, hi, and I’m not dead…yet anyway.
- Phe