Time, I guess. And most of the friends I made here, no longer seem to be here. When I first joined this community, I was new to online gaming and the internet in general. This place taught me everything and is unironically the reason I am still into many things like World of Tanks, Dota, anime to this day. I didn't know what 4chan or Reddit were. I was largely unaware of the internet culture and it was here, from most of the active members at that time, that I was introduced to much of it, things that I still enjoy. I spent day and night on these forums and in game, on skype. For the bigger part of 3 years, Disco was the only thing I knew. It's pretty wild, looking back at those days. I can't imagine getting anywhere close to that much time now, to spend on Disco. I am, by no means part of the old gang. Even back when I joined, there were old timers from 2000s reminiscing fondly about their time here and their old friends, like I do right now. Just that I never realized I would be doing the same, 8 years later.
I was active during the Skype and Teamspeak era, so most of the faction and personal chat history is gone now. Thousands of hours spent just chatting random things on the faction chats are no longer there. I don't even remember anyone here anymore, except maybe a few. The fond memories I had with most people here have mostly faded away and while I still have some nostalgia about this forum and the game, I just can't start again fresh. It's not a matter of ships or credits or content. I just can't start joining a bunch of new factions and make new friends here because my conscious won't allow that. It will always be a matter of comparison to the old times, to the people who no longer play the game and I will be doing a disservice to myself and the current active players by half arsing it. My relationship with this game was always defined by the wonderful people I met here and no amount of nostalgia will force me to pick up the game again. No idea, why I decided to randomly go through a bunch of old stuff today, but it's a relief. My yearly visit to the forums, I guess. To see this place still going on, chugging along. Rumours of Disco's demise have been there ever since I joined back in 2013. But this little part of the internet somehow keeps finding a way to stay alive and that makes me quite happy.
