Wasn't my post on topic? I was interacting with other users on this thread related to their interest.

 

Sorry @Darth_Hydraxis for ruining your beautiful thread. And sorry to everyone for my actions. I had no initial thoughts of accusing anyone or bringing them down from what I said, but as @Jdawger explained to me, I can see how it can be taken that way.

For what it’s worth, I edited the bad line out from the initial post and I’m going to edit the second post in a second.

-Coloratura

 

I’m glad you feel sorry for your actions @Iamjustapony . Let’s not have it happen again, ok :)

And as Darth said, let’s try to keep this thread friendly. No more talking about that past subject on this thread for ANYBODY.

 

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! #VictoryRoyale

 

I suppose I will add my life memoirs to the collection then...

Part 1 - The beginning

Well, I joined ECC back in 2011 - That's right, I'm a proper oldie. Fun fact: I only discovered minecraft because the person I had fallen for introduced me to it, and at the time had his own private minecraft server. Turned out that I had a talent for building with blocks (all those years of playing lego as I child must have paid off) and so I used minecraft as a strange attempt to impress him (disclaimer: it sadly didn't seem to work... I wonder why?).
Fast forward about a month and I was looking for a new server where I'd be able to build freely. I was never really interested in the economy side of ECC to be honest, and only ever wanted to build pretty things. Thankfully for me, a few weeks into my stay here I was lucky enough to find @Jmurph90 who invited me to join his town of Killarney. Killarney was a simple town with a few houses dotted around an idyllic lake - a welcomed change from the standard flattened 200x200 squares of rows upon rows of ugly houses. There I had the freedom that most builders could only dream of, with my mayor basically giving me free-reign to build whatever I felt the town needed. I built malls, banks, libraries and more, and received my first co-mayorship.

Part 2 - A fresh start

Then, just as I had finally saved up enough money for my mayor rank, Andrew announced that we would be wiping the old map and starting new. A new map, a fresh start. Sadly, whilst many towns were copied over to the new map, Killarney was not, and all my work there was lost. Nonetheless, I still had enough money to start my own town on the new map, and soon the city of Gemenon was born.
I had spent every penny that I had on just getting the town claimed, so I had no more money to build with. This is why Gemenon is built almost entirely of stone - it was the only material I could afford at the time.
Gradually the town grew, and over time it became known as one of the more desirable cities to live in. It was featured on the forums front page and through it's popularity I was able to sell enough property there to afford my president rank. As most players do, I placed my president town next to Gemenon, naming it Virgon, and planned out a 5 town expansion for Gemenon, with Virgon being the first stage of this.
In this vision for the town, Virgon would become the seat of my empire, dominated by the huge Virgon palace. Additional expansions would have included a city docks and many more impressive buildings which ultimately never materialised, as the plans were abandoned in favour of other projects.
It was also during this time that I first became a staff member. That's right, I was a mod... for a few months, before having to resign due to school commitments. Nonetheless, it was fun, and whilst I considered reapplying for staff many times in the years afterwards, I ultimately decided that it wasn't for me, and that I would rather focus on my towns.

Part 3 - Caprica

During the construction of Virgon I met my second real friend on the server, and another one who is lost to time: @xxHoboBunnyxX.
Together we discussed the idea of a new city, unlike Gemenon and Virgon with their medieval theme of building. This new city would ultimately become Caprica - a huge modern metropolis spanning over several jungle islands. Caprica was a real turning point for me, and ultimately set up what the Zodiac nation would become; collaborative projects, working with partners to create separate zodiac cities, each with a unique building style and theme. Caprica grew larger and larger, bordering the once great farm of @RockDassie, and became best known as the home of The Titanic. Eventually hobobunny left the server, and as I had to leave for university, my towns began to become inactive.

Part 4 - A new partnership

Enter @Joliver. As I couldn't get online whilst I was at uni, joliver offered to help run the towns in my absence. To be honest I didn't know him very well at the time, and was a little reluctant on the idea, but he was a high ranking staff member so I trusted him and decided to give him the reigns whilst I was gone. Thankfully, this turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made on the server, and even when I returned to the game the following year, we continued to work together, building even more zodiac colonies. Whilst I led the design and construction of the cities, Joliver would handle most of the selling and marketing of them, ensuring we were well financed for our many many expansions and future projects. Over time our group grew even more (@MystressLyssa, @dgam02 @annyonion @OlympiansAreGods and @Xx5mike5xX, among others). Together with @Calevmir we created the summer city of Scorpia with it's vineyards and Italian themed houses (although that partnership ended even more rocky than the city's mountainous terrain). Then later we worked on the sea-faring city of Picon, and the floating quartz palace of Aerilion, and eventually @OnSceneReporter joined us too.

Part 5 - Story time

December 2013 marked the first entry into the Zodiac story: the Picon bombing. Wanting to make our cities feel more alive and build on the nation's lore, we aimed to release stories on the forums, which would be reflected by real changed in game. The Picon bombing was our first attempt at this, and revolved around an attack on the colony of Picon. With clues given both ingame and on the forums, players were encouraged to investigate the bombing and try to discover who was responsible. This storyline ultimately set the scene for the rest of the Zodiac story, leading to the War in Caprica and even my 'in-game' death. The whole story can be read here, if anybody ever wanted to read it: https://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/the-zodiac-living-story.79704/

Part 6 - A new map... again

With the addition of rising, we once again had a new map to explore and make our mark on. Through the incredible business skills (and wallet) of @Joliver we were able to secure ourselves a spawn town, and with that the city of Tauron was born. Just like the other cities we had built, Tauron grew larger and larger and became one of our most impressive cities. The benefits of it being a spawn-town were obvious, and it even became the setting for one of ECC first and only quest-based events: The Midsummer Festival. We worked with the admin team to develop something that had never been done before on the server, building reward-based in-game quests for players to complete. Each week a new quest would go live, and players would have to complete it to receive special tokens that could be exchanged for unique prizes. The story of the festival was tied into the larger Zodiac Living Story, and saw a group of mafia type criminals try to destroy the festival through various means, and ultimately kidnapping the president of the nation before players could find and rescue him. The Midsummer Festival was by far one of the biggest highlights of my time on the server and I feel lucky to have been able to create it.

Part 7 - Coming to the end

In the years after the Midsummer Festival, Joliver and I gradually started to become less and less active. We continued to work on our towns, growing them and even adding new ones such as Canceron/ the EXPO complex. But we never quite got to the same level as we were previously. With dwindling numbers of players on the server, the housing economy died as people just weren't willing to spend significant amounts of money on them anymore. Our towns were largely abandoned, and the Zodiac nation gradually fell out of people's attention.

Today I occasionally find myself online, working on one of the many many towns that I never quite finished. I had a very good run on ECC, and despite telling myself that I would quit several times over the years, I think I will always be here in the background, silent observing as the occasional drama unfolds and a new generation of players come in. I hope that everybody who joins this server can find as much enjoyment from it as I have over the years.

Whilst I'm sure that nobody actually read that whole story, I've made a name for myself for writing pointless stories on these forums that nobody ever reads, so I thought I would respond in true outerlocal style.

To summarise, it's been a blast. Thanks ECC.