How the years pass

Man, It feels like just yesterday that I started playing Abandoned Realms. I was so helpless, didn't know about purple potions, accidentally wandered into justice cabal. Got slept and full looted by a necromancer while requesting from the Knight in emerald, so many memories. This was before I met my wife, and we had kids. Today we are celebrating my twins 20th birthday, that means I have probably been playing for 23-24 years now? Just wanted to remind the playerbase of the importance of family and tell you all that you guys are(and gals) are great.

Truer words never spoken! I've been playing this game since... Middle or high school? I graduated HS in 2003, too. Got 2 kids of my own, married, and in a full fledged career. I even played this game while deployed in Afghanistan. My how times change, but yet they stay the same. Life's a ride that we need to enjoy.

Honestly, I'm slightly envious of you all. The mud I grew up playing is dead and all the people and memories are just that - long gone memories. Even the way back machine can't bring back the old logs and forums and fun shenanigans, it was too long ago.

I think what you guys have here is really cool. I'm enjoying learning and adapting and hopefully becoming better (my 40 year old brain is not memorizing room names and locations like my 14 year old brain used to). I feel like I'm slowly working my way in, but it will never be what you guys have - the decades of history, playing the same game you used to play as a kid - with some of the same people. That's something special and really unique. I'm glad you guys can appreciate that.

And to all the imms, thank you for the work you guys put into this place. It's a labor of love and it certainly seems like it's a lot of labor sometimes. But the work you do is tangible and real and the player base appreciates it.

Gross, jk, it has been a long time. I even tried playing from Iraq when deployed. I got my honorable discharge in 2009.

Kids are also grown, so are we racing to see who plays from the retirement home?

My youngest will turn 22 this year and was playing before my oldest kid was born.

Not trying to 1 up anyone, my level of commitment is no where near Dogran, I assume.

Thanks again for the updates over the years. I was me who pissed off that server company years ago when AR was down and I called to see if they could reset or something. ;)

If you look at the logs section and go to the last page, the logs are 11 years ago, but all the char names feel familiar like they're recent. Crazy.