Many of us have doubled our age during the time we’ve frequented this site. Obviously, most of the folks who have passed through here are long gone, and though a few folks still regularly haunt the forum, most folks visit only occasionally for old time’s sake.

Most of us are not the same people we were when we first starting visiting this site or participating in similar online communities.

I imagine most of the members who still pop in are of a similar demographic as mine; most of us were teenagers when we showed up, and now have finished our educations and are established in our careers, we are getting married, raising families, buying homes and settling in for the long-haul.

What differences have you seen yourself go through in the last few years? Has your life turned out how you hoped it would? When you sat in front of your 166MHz Pentium Pro, your fancy 4MB Voodoo Graphics Card and your Sound Blaster 32, staring at your 17” CRT monitor, listening to the squeals of your 56k modem, did you ever think about where you would be in 15 years?

Are you happy? What makes you happy? What doesn’t? I’m sure none of us are exactly where we wanted to be. Are you close? Have you changed?

I find that when I look in the mirror, I don’t see what I used to. My hair is a lot grayer, my face more tired. I don’t see someone who thinks about video games and movies and computers and pimples and having to walk or ride my bicycle everywhere. Instead, I think about refinancing a mortgage, should I buy a bigger car, and who is the best pediatrician around here?

I also find that looking at my son is like looking in a mirror. First, he looks a lot like me. Second, he acts like me. He has the same short temper; the same crooked, sideways smile; the same devious, tricky, rebellious streak. He’s not even very old yet, but I can already see the parts of his personality that will be a benefit and the parts that will be disadvantage, because they are the same as mine. I find myself thinking about the talks we’ll have when he’s a teenager, when I try to help him avoid the mistakes I made, and how he’ll ignore me and do what he wants, because that’s what I did and that’s what all kids do.

My job subjects me to the worst people society has to offer. I se how evil men can be, and how little anyone can do about it. My wife is expecting our second child, and I find myself thinking about all the things I need to do to prepare these two kids for the increasingly damaged world we live in. I don’t think about Xbox One or PS4; I think about which school district to live in. I don’t think about seeing Captain America or watching Game of Thrones; I think about what I should or shouldn’t let little eyes see on TV, or more importantly, what those eyes see me doing or watching. I think about how to teach my kids right from wrong; how to teach them to respect everyone, but not to tolerate everything; how to be discerning enough to know who to trust, but not to become jaded or disillusioned when that group is painfully small.

I found there’s a part of me that I didn’t know existed. It’s the part that of me that is selfless. The part that cares more for my family than anyone or anything else. My son was underfoot one day when I was cooking breakfast in the kitchen. He had a toy that he was swinging around, and it caught on the pancake griddle. He yanked on it and the griddle tumbled down. Before I knew what I was doing, I was cooking my own flesh on the griddle so my son wouldn’t get hit. I had second degree burns on my hand and arm, but I didn’t care.

I also discovered there’s a part of me where something dark lives. Something that I had never seen before. Something evil. On a particular occasion, in the course of doing my job, I encountered a person who told me if he ever had the chance, he would find my family and hurt them. This was a man who had proven he had the will to do so. I broke dozens of policies and regulations, stared straight into his eyes and promised him that if he tried anything of the sort, there is no force on this earth that would prevent me from ensuring that the last moments of his life were painful, and I would be there to personally send him on his way to hell. I felt an intensity in my voice and eyes that I had never felt before. It was like Pandora’s Box had been opened and all of the darkness within me was unleashed at him. He didn’t say anything, but he got the message. I didn’t know that part of me existed, and I wish I hadn’t found out. I hope I am never in another situation in which that box is opened. I’ve never told my wife that story; I don’t want her to know about that part of my job or my person.

I also find myself thinking I am happier now than I ever have been. I don’t say it very often, but I enjoy being a husband and a father. I have heard and read people say they don’t want kids. They don’t want to bring new lives into this wounded world. They don’t want a family. They say they don’t have the right personality or that it’s too hard or don’t want to overpopulate the planet. I understand that, but I don‘t care about it. Families aren’t easy. They aren’t always nice. But who cares? They’re fun. They make you laugh. Sometimes they make you shout and swear, but it’s not often. I get more pleasure from watching my wife and son dance to crappy old 80s songs than from any video game I’ve ever played. I enjoy wrestling with my son on the bed more than any movie I’ve ever seen or any event I’ve ever attended. Our second child is due in July; we’re not going to find out the sex until it’s born. I get excited when I think about having a baby girl, and how I’ll dance with her, how I’ll have tea parties with her (but won’t tell anyone), how I’ll get all awkward and weird when she starts turning into woman, how I’ll stare down every boy who looks at her, how she’ll meet some guy and how I’ll walk her down the aisle. Or, we might have another boy, and I’ll take the boys camping, and I’ll teach them how to ride motorcycles and shoot a gun and replace an alternator; I’ll show them how to treat a lady by how I love and respect their mother.

I never thought about those kind of things before a few years ago.

I’m not even close to the same person I was in 1998; and I’m nowhere near the person I thought I would become, but I’m lucky for it.

Now that you mention it, this year I will double the age I was in 2001 (13). So yes, I'll turn 26.

My age of course being just one of the many lies I've spread around these forums for most of the time I've been here (think SuperS51's confession except maybe a bit worse). All that stemming from a pool of mental issues I've had over the years, probably ultimately stemming from receiving full-body radiation treatment against myelodysplastic syndrome when I was 9 years old in 1997 (rendering me fully sterile, for starters). Perhaps most notably on these forums, these issues surfaced as the burgerboy shtick (starting in early 2005 when I was still 16) which turned my relatively benign reputation into something else over the years.

It's possible that a bunch of actually certified psychiatrists would disagree, but my mental health and status improved drastically when I undertook the task of finally finishing TODOA in July 2008-January 2010. It got a mostly positive reception and boosted my morale. It may or may not be a coincidence that breaking away from the suffocating backwater village I lived for the first 20 years of my life and beginning full-time employment in mid-2008 (technically it started out as mandatory non-military service (woo, Finland!) until mid-2009, when it turned into actual employment with a relatively nice paycheck for a single man who only moved away from his parents apartment in October 2011). Of course, the job's not glamorous and not exactly anything I'd recommend (immigration), but its social aspects (mainly work community) have improved my life drastically.

But TODOA was merely the starting point for Deus Ex: Nihilum, which was not only noted by the #1 gaming magazine in Finland (including a two-page article on the mod and featuring the photograph and real name of yours truly), but also by various major gaming sites on the Internet and even gained brief attention from fairly notable game developers. To reach this goal, however, I had to rearrange my life in a way where I was able to take a 2-year study leave from work, begin studies at the University of Helsinki (going through a very laborous entrance exam for a silly degree in soft sciences) and use the free time available to juggle my new life situation, studies and work on the mod (for a game that was already outdated by the time it came out).

So the transition from a cranky, annoying, immature Internet dolt required enjoyable social company, secured employment, university studies and two major mods for vastly antiquated computer games in order to turn FGR into a ... cranky, annoying, immature Internet dolt (interestingly in a mostly different way than before) who's still expecting for the "next big thing" to come up at some point in the future (perhaps actually doing something in order to finish my bachelor's degree might help, they're already wondering what's taking me so long), while not exactly hurrying for anything and taking as much advantage from this lax smooth stage of my life as possible - even if I can't seem to feel rested or concentrated enough to play videogames as I used to (finally playing through the Mass Effect trilogy took me ~6 months from October 2013 'til April 2014), or doing much else than listening to music.

But yeah, I'm still here after all these years, and chances are that in the last moments of #massassi, GBK (space_ghost) and I will be reshuffling SGC2C quotes for the umpteenth time.

Or is all of this yet another electronic scheme concoted by the Nikumubeki Internet Konstruct, well, regrettably I've managed to create a premise that this is always a (distinct) possibility. But for what it's worth, you can always give me an Inter-donation to kimochiwarui AT GMail DOT com, check your PayPal records for my name and throw it in this particular anagram generator. Hilarious!

You are very lucky, Steven.

Funny, just this morning I was thinking I should just quit my ****ing "respectable" management job; I only work here so I can give money to ex-wife for "child support" but it's not like she's having a hard time (and I can probably make at least the amount of money I give to her by freelancing); I more and more am coming to understand this job takes away the time I could've otherwise be spending with my children and is making me generally depressed. I have always believed that the best way to raise a child is through example, not words, and I'd always believed in being honest with yourself and those around you ... and you are right about children being like mirrors; when my daughter was 4, she asked me, "Daddy, when all time will end, will everyone be dead?" I was feeling rather proud, heh. I do not want to answer your question in any more detail because I am tired of being insulted on this forum, but once again, I think you are very lucky. Best to you & your family.

I'm not happy.

I'm a damn sight older than I thought I'd ever be. I'm a qualified domestic installer with no money to expand, and I can't quite get the jobs to get the contacts to get the jobs, and I narrowly missed out on a decent opportunity because of nebulous, bureaucratic bull****. But I never thought I'd have my own company, either, nor would be interested in doing this sort of thing. I enjoy the stuff I've learnt and the stuff I do - I mean, today, I replaced a light fitting for a relative. Nothing serious or taxing, but it's technical (to an extent), keeps me occupied, and I think I'll cope with that sort of hands-on thing way more than trying to be a chucklef*** of a manager.

But I don't think I've grown up all that much. I think that's the scariest part of everything. I'm older, I'm still clumsy and cackhanded, I'm still terrified of failure.

The biggest new thing is a dedication to try and exercise, though. I've been enjoying training for distance running, despite how ****ing hard it is starting from nothing.

Tony, I highly recommend freeletics. It helped me change my body last year, and now I'm doing it again; I think twice a week freeletics and twice a week running should keep you fit and happy. Well, it's gonna keep me fit & happy, at least, I hope.

https://www.freeletics.com/en

As for "growing up," I don't think anything can truly our natures, who we're born as ... you can change the way you behave, the way you talk, even how you think, but essentially, it won't make you a different person, just the same person acting differently; I think it's important to realize this and live accordingly.

I started visiting when I was 16, and I'm now 30, so just about half my life. I frequent here, as I have for most of my time here, because of my involvement with the Interactive Story Board, namely the Never-ending Story Thread. Were it not for the latter, I'd be one of those people long gone.



In some ways, I haven't gone through as many changes as I'd hoped, though I suspect I'm not aware of a lot of the changes I've gone through either.

Physically, I'm now recently seeing the standard aging signs of someone my age: seeing actual weight gain mostly around my stomach, seeing my hair line recede and thin some, finding even less energy to do things I did before. I really should start taking exercise seriously while it's easier to do, though my motivation to do so is low, as it's normally been.

Mentally, I feel I've grown both smarter and dumber. I've studied various arts and humanities, particularly game design, and I'm frustrated with myself that I've not applied that knowledge as much as I'd like. I've recently been forced to learn programming, which I've felt I've become even dumber with than before, and concepts I remember grasping relatively easy in elementary school now feel new and difficult for me. In hindsight, I wish I had really pursued more into learning programming earlier, as it's continually been an intimidating challenge since college.

Socially, I've grown a little. I've traveled to various places, even across the world, to spend time with friends who have written for the Never-ending Story thread. I've taken improvised acting the past couple years, which has both increased my social circles and given me new perspectives. As far as romance, while I've made some very small strides, I've changed little in that regard, and I have myself to blame for that. As Steven speaks of the joys of having children, I watch my sister raise her own son with fear fueled by my own insecurities about myself, much less the power and responsibility of raising a new human into something that isn't dead or terrible.

As for non-first world problems, I've not done too bad for myself. Instead of having to hit cold reality on my own, I took far too long in both college and living in my dad's place, then moved into a friend's house before moving to rent my sister's house while she's living out of country. I currently make about the national median for my personal wage in a job as a software tester for an online school system, a job that's generally not stressful and provides other decent upsides. I consider myself well-off in the grand scheme of things.


At this point in my life, I'm not happy. As indicated before, I'm still single and my continued employment is threatened at this time due to my job's requirements changing. Moreso, even before my job requirements changed, I was unhappy to have moved away from the game industry. It was a decision I made after examining my likely future in said industry, which I determined to be poor due mostly to unstable employment (either no work or too much work). However, games are where my passion lie, and I moved in the hopes of not burning out my passion and pursuing it on the side. Instead, I find myself lacking the means to feed my passion.

Games make me happy, though I get most of my joy from playing with others, and more of my friends are at the point in their lives where games are a waste, like with Steven. While I'd probably get as much joy from playing games with families, most people I know who have kids have very young kids, where it's more so toys, if anything. I've found myself enjoying less video games and more board and other 'analog' games, though I do enjoy the video games that seem to still push the artistic and gameplay creativity.

Writing also makes me happy, and in large part, writing for the Never-ending Story. I've become unhappy as it's become more and more difficult to bring in and/or keep writers. I'm frustrated that I'm not more skilled in marketing or otherwise spreading interest in one of my strong passions, and as the community has dwindled, it's become more difficult for me to keep interest in writing for it. I'm fortunate that TheBritt has been so active and pushing in so many ways to keep it going, and I worry about the day that he too will drop. I've considered trying my hand at my own writing projects, though I've found it hard to think I'll have any success with them.

Overall, as has been the theme of my life, I've been far slower, in growing and achieving the things I've wanted, than I'd like. Unfortunately, any attempts I've made in trying to grow or achieve quicker has resulted in disaster: exercising at the pace recommended for most makes me weaker and more worn out, learning certain things at any reasonable pace have me hitting walls, trying to throw myself into more social and romance-related situations result in feeling more alienated and antisocial than before. I am happy I've been able to succeed in the things that I have, and I'm still dreading the reasonable possibility than I may never achieve some very basic goals.

I'm glad you started this thread, Steven. It's nice to hear the stories of real successes and hardships of people that, in a strange way, I feel some significant connection. For those who aren't doing so well, please keep pressing on. While I firmly don't believe that things will work out if you just "want it enough" (ugh), I do believe that things have a better chance if you give it a chance, for better or worse.

I'm pretty much the same person I was when I was 15, except a lot more misanthropic and asocial. Careers? Cars? Schooling? Mortgages? Children? Pfffft. I'll be dead before you can saddle me with that stuff. It's a good thing I don't want those things because they aren't realistic for the majority of our generation to have anyway.

I thought you were studying architecture?

I also think he was (is?) married. Or close to it, anyway.

It's funny, I always imagined FGR to be older than me, not younger slightly.

I started coming here here in 2001, some clanmate i ad started playing with suggested the site for finding a mode and I thought it was cool. One day I started posting, the first was on a model by Gonk, and then I still haven't stopped. I've had friends of so many countries and origins. However I couldn't even have given you you an answer on their lives today if challenged. A few I make the best I can to be at least a little visible to them, but many are gone from what I once had with them. Some I've gotten the to thankfully sit and break bread with in person, thats something I am grateful for. One even accidentally helped me find someone that I thought was going to have in my life forever. Many years you were my true friends, the people I wanted to spend time with, and usually the only people that would be there to do so. Throughout school it took many years for an to be included by people I considered friends in their lives, and many it never happened. You guys I have mental histories of though. I'm happy to hold you guys in my heart and I hope to meet as many of you as possible by the end of it.

My life right now is a big question for me. Should I be pursuing this here. Why do I keep panicking at certain things. Why do I still deeply care for a woman that left me alone after I changed so much of my life to be around her? I'm working on not panic about things, I'm working on finding my freedom again. I'm finding myself running away to what made me stay with you guys for so long. I don't know how to talk to those real friends around me and I don't know if its me or if I've just always managed to be a mental invisible spot to them, at least that's always been my big fear on the topic.

I'm rebuilding myself. I try going out as I can afford, local music mostly. I've been getting better towards talking to women, but haven' been making strides on any. I only minor panicked when I saw Her last night at the show, quickly drank a heavy beer and then still proceeded to just enjoy the music while I was there. I'm working on it, figuring out what makes me happy because I thought I had it, but it changed.

Today fit in the happy part.

My life has improved in many ways. Like most humans, I'm terrible at self-reflection, & won't pretend that it's not possible that my change in circumstances aren't more responsible for the changes in my life, than any sort of intellectual advantage that I've gained. I think that I've become decent at pretending to be what I think of as "mature", but I'm often unsure of just how convincing my act is. I don't place much value in material things, with the exception of the electronic tools that I use to access information, to communicate, etc. I don't like to read about current events because I find it depressing, but I do read popular science & technology articles, books, & news, because it's typically less depressing, but I don't dig too deep, because it'll cause me to question the current career path that I've chosen, & I'm not quite ready to abandon this one yet. I'm not content with most jobs once I discover the fact that my employer's appreciation & interest in me isn't authentic or to the extent that I would like it to be. When I work, I tend to imagine that I'm the owner, & when the actual owner doesn't live up to my expectations of how I would run his business, I tend to become irritable. I love my wife & we have our moments, but I don't like it when I lose that tingly sensation that I get when I kiss or touch someone new, & the lack of mystery leaves much to be desired. My daughter is a blast, & I love her, but sometimes she inconveniences me, & though I've become accustomed to it, you tend to lose some of yourself when you have to spend so much time on others. It's maybe a small price to pay, but it's a price nonetheless. I can relate to your superman story because my daughter was recently in an accident & I spent 12+ hours in the E.R. with her, & 3 days a week for the past 3 weeks going back & forth to the hospital for monitoring. It may be cliché to say, but people that don't have children can't possibly understand just how much one can love another person. I would do nearly anything for my wife, but that sort of commitment came through years of work. I had that sort of commitment & beyond, with my daughter, the first moment that I saw her. I like to think that I've become an improved version of what I once was, but I can't pretend like much of what was there, isn't still there, & that much more of it would be, should my circumstances become more similar to how it was then.

I don't have time at the moment to type out a big story, but I think it's a given that I've changed a lot. I went from being 9 years old to 21, *almost* middle school to 3rd year of university. Then I wanted to have nice internet, a good computer (I remember idolizing ATi Radeon 9800s when I had a GeForce 2 MX200), and to be older and "cool" in the chat. Now I'm engaged, finishing up a degree in electrical engineering in the next semester, doing research in optics, and hoping to pursue a PhD in physics come Fall 2015.

E: holy **** i keep reading and rereading this thread and you're all fantastic. you all impacted me in magnificent ways. I'll type up something more significant when I get the time (end of the semester sucks)

I'll go ahead and put my story in here...

I was at one point a miserable college student in a degree program I had no interest in. Everyone knows I grew up with an abusive father. My troubles with alcohol have been well documented. I smoked around a pack and a half each day. I was generally resigned to a life of terrible jobs, misery, loneliness, and probably an early death.

I'm headed back to school in a few weeks. My father is dead. I've been sober nearly a year. I quit smoking about two months ago. I'm in a stable long-term boring-as-hell relationship.

Generally I'm a pretty happy guy.

I still hate all of you, though.

I had to reset my password to brag^H^H^H^H report in this thread. I am more or less where I wanted to be. I have a lovely loving wife, an awesome son and a big house to put them in. I like my job (though I hate my bosses), I lost some weight (work in progress) and regularly see my best friend (though not as long as I would like). My sex life is great and still constantly improving, which kind of turned into a hobby.

Of course we have some problems, especially with the house. We have less money than we would like, but we're comfortable and don't have to look at every penny.

I'd really like to have some time to play video games. While my wife was pregnant we started playing The Old Republic. It was much fun, especially playing together, but we didn't even finish the first chapter.
I would also like to watch some movies or TV shows. We stopped watching Game of Thrones after season 2 and haven't even started with Breaking Bad.
Or read a book. I've still got plenty of mediocre Star Wars novels to go through before they go out of print.

But as the kid grows older I have more and more time for myself and my wife, so my life is constantly improving.

All things considered I am happy how everything turned out. Although I have no idea how I got to where I am today. It all just went too fast to comprehend. I guess that's part of the reason it went so well. I didn't linger much on every decision, I just went with the flow. Of course I had very much luck.

Cool thread. I used to bounce around here in 04-05 -- There were a lot of members and the site wasn't really about the game anymore. DJ Yoshi was always quarreling on threads, Genk was around. MBeggar was around and helped me with PhotoShopping. Some guy 'Wolf' was a frequent poster. Some guys Mech_Warrior and ghost were getting banned a lot.
It was always a cool place to talk about ANYTHING life-related. Like a giant life FAQ discussion.

I disliked some of the mods at the time, who banned me in 05 when I said I saw an early copy of SW Ep 3, that my friend had 'downloaded', apparently too illegal for Massassi discussion.

I forgot to add, that I've got an awesome Batman belt buckle!

I never had to game on dialup.

Haven't really changed much except I got out of that spastic xD randum phase and now I'm just kind of a jerk nobody pays attention to.

I wanna be joncy when i grow up

Great thread, it's awesome to hear where you guys are all at.

I found Massassi when I was 11 or so. I'd been frequenting the fansite thrawn.com (RIP), since I loved the Heir to the Empire books (go figure). At one point they posted a JK screenshot as part of a caption contest. 11 year old me had no idea that game modding was a thing, so it kinda blew me away.

From that point to a few years ago, I didn't do a lot of growing up, I think. I made some music, got better at drawing, learned 3D modelling, and took part in a lot of game modding projects. But I had a lot of difficulty socializing, and I never had the drive or discipline to really get as good at any of my creative pursuits as I wanted. My first relationships were fumbling online messes. I had no good friends in high school and when I graduated I continued living at home, going to community college and having no good friends there either. I probably would have continued along those lines UNTIL

I transferred to a new school where I'm in possibly the best non-private Animation/Illustration program there is. In the past 3 years I've made the best friends of my life, have an awesome girlfriend, improved my work ethic and art skills tremendously, and am on track to something resembling a career, I think. I'm living away from home, paying my own rent with money from a job, for the first time.

I'm 25 next week. I have another 2 years before I graduate, and that bothers me. Most of my high school classmates have graduated by now. But I keep telling myself that just because I ****ed around for a few years doesn't mean I have to keep ****ing around, that if I can maintain the focus I've been learning to bring to my work and learning I haven't squandered my opportunities just yet.

It's intimidating and there's always the potentiality that this could all collapse and I'll end up back where I was, but I think I'm less scared of the world, and less scared of hard work than I used to be. I think I'm gonna be okay. In any case I can't understate the impact Massassi had on my life. I don't think I knew what I wanted to do before I came here. Thanks guys! <3

My life turned out way different than I thought.

I joined Massassi when I was probably 13 or 14. I guess the reason I've stuck around so long is that Massassi was the first discussion forum I joined. I didn't even know what forums were prior to Massassi, I was pretty much strictly a single-player PC gamer. I was a big fan of Jedi Knight and read about Massassi in PC Gamer.

I had a lot of problems growing up and high school pretty much sucked for me. I had no real friends, terrible social skills, and was a massive underachiever in school. The only thing I had going on was playing PC games. My parents got divorced when I was 12 and that hit me pretty hard, too. Because all I did was play on the computer I thought that I wanted to make video games for a living, but I had no patience to learn programming or visual art. I tried to create so many maps for JK and later JO, but I find visual art very frustrating. I still have some games and mod tools/design ideas on my computer but I'm 99% sure I'll never get around to making them.

What turned things around for me was playing the guitar. I didn't take any music classes in high school until grade 12 when I started playing in my school's jazz band. That was the beginning of a long process of turning my life around. I was still useless socially but finally I had something that I was successful at and I just ran with it. High school jazz got me into music college, got me a B. Mus in guitar, which in turn got me a career as an elementary school music teacher. Now I love my job, play in a couple bands, and have a great social circle and girlfriend.

In retrospect I wish I didn't waste so much of my time playing video games and had done other more "traditional" activities instead. If I had taken more opportunities to do activities like play sports and taken music earlier I probably would have enjoyed my childhood/teenage years more. Video games are OK I guess but IMO they're very easy to take to an unhealthy level...now that I'm a teacher it always kills me to see kids who would rather play xbox than come out for basketball or badminton or band or any number of other fun activities offered in school.

Does anyone know what happened to DJ Yoshi?

That guy was aways pretty fun to watch on here

Got addicted to heroin and started scamming people for drug money.

Yeah, here's the story: http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?55417-Got-Scammed-for-350-bucks-by-DJ_Yoshi&highlight=

One of the greatest occurences of karma/irony/misconceptions in Massassi history, the drug advocate getting into financial trouble and scamming fellow Massassians.