Are you what you expected to be?

[-Skykanden-]

Hi there, long time I didn't see this place and I just thought about soldat and all the stuff I did years ago in here, and now I'm asking myself, how's that community doing? Did you change since you arrived here? I will tell you something, this place taught me a lot and if I'm doing what I do right now, it's because of a lot of people in here.

What I am? I'm a game developer and a programmer now, I must say thanks to the ones who remember me.
I don't come arround here too often just because I remember years ago and I can't figure out how much this has changed.

[DarkCrusade]

Welcome back, Skykanden. We did not talk for a long time, and not even on Facebook, but it's nice to hear from you again and I'm happy to hear you found your way into business life. How is your guitar playing doing? I quit playing guitar on a regular basis months ago to have more time for my apprenticeship, off-the-job training and some personal life with my friends and my girlfriend.

This place has changed a lot during the time you were off the forums. The activity has decreased severly, there are less contributions from the community (mods, maps, scripts etc.) and every off-topic discussion which so much delighted us back in the good ol' days is directly removed. The hardcore-fans are still around, but a lot of the veterans have not been active for the last couple of months at least.

When I first started writing on these forums, I thought that one day I would be studying business informatics or game design just like you, underlined by the fact that informatics always was my best subject at school (constantly had A+'s in exams), but one day I was thinking about life and where I thought I'd be in my late 20's, and I came to the conclusion that programming and gaming is not what I expected from my life. I quit gaming and assigned for an apprenticeship as a "Handelsfachwirt", (which is impossible to translate, because it's a term only used in Germany and Austria) a professional tradesman with focus on accounting, human resources, logistics, marketing; it is similiar to a M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration), but it is not a degree awarded by a university. So basically, I made a 180° turn.

If you wanna talk, drop me a message on Facebook

[-Skykanden-]

I'm not arround facebook too much, but if I come arround I'll tell you.
I'm happy you found something that motivates you.

Would be amazing to play soldat some day as I haven't played for a long time.

[ds dude]

When I joined the soldat forums I was 12 years old.

I'm going to be 19 years old this June.

[jrgp]

I joined the forums in 2004, when I was 11. I pretended to be 20 up until I was over the legal age limit to be on forums.

Worked my up the ranks to Moderator, Global Mod, then Administrator, while sudo getting access to the physical servers, commit-access to the Soldat source code (I commitedd a few bugfixes and I may again someday), rewriting from scratch/managing the Soldat Server Lobby, and maintaining this SMF forum installation and coding the backend for the main Soldat/Kag2D sites. I owe essentially all of it to FliesLikeABrick, as I kept asking and asking him Linux/programming questions in 2006 and he kept answering with great answers and teaching me demonstrably useful job skills. ElephantHunter (a mutual friend betwene FLAB and I) also vouched for making me admin in his absence as he left briefly before he completely left. FLAB even taught me DNS and SMTP/mx-records at the last minute when I was about to be hired for a web host. I've met FLAB 3 times in person over the past 4 years, and MM once.

Currently 19 now. I wouldn't be able to work in a System Integrations Engineer position at HostDime if I hadn't gotten the experience the above made me get.

I would like Soldat to be more active again, but I don't know if that's going to happen. MM's new KAG community is very active, but I don't find it as fun or as playable/simple as Soldat. It's still badass in some parts though.

I have not been as active in the communties as I was before I finished high school. Back then, I just did computer stuff and didn't really care about homework and managed to barely pass every time. I started my job at HostDime right when I graduated high school as an entry level support postion, but moved my way up into a dev position a year later which is where I am now. I put most of my time into my job at HD, partying/going out with friends, and working on my game rentals company instead of going on the forums as much. I just have less time and more responsibility that needs tending.

I do still refresh the active topics page a few times a day and keep the version of SMF current though. I have zero intension of leaving Soldat whatsoever, as it is responsible for me learning the stuff that makes my current income.

edit: good god, almost 10 years of Soldat for me. I found it on the 6th page of a google search for "free 3D shooter." It certainly wasn't a 3d shooter but it was fun as hell.