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Tiberius Fireskull 01-22-2012 02:05 AM

Ashes of the Phoenix
 
This is a very hard post to make. The decision I have made right now is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make in this game, and probably among the top in my real life decisions as well. Putting the words down on this page is not easy, for many of the words I want to put cannot come to me. I will try my best to express everything I can.

We, the Shadow Sorcerors, are a Phoenix. We are mighty, powerful, bright, and something that many others look up to and marvel at. We are something that seems timeless, that cannot possibly die or disappear from the world. We always shall exist, and we can never die. We are mentioned in many pirate’s tales, looked up on, idolized even at times. In those senses, we are a Phoenix.

But while a phoenix’s majesty is unmatched, there comes a time when it turns to ash.

It pains me to continue.

For the past month and a half, we, the Shadow Sorcerors, a once mighty Phoenix, have lost our majesty and strength that we once had. Activity has gone from eight to over ten people online at a time to around four. Most of our officers have gone completely inactive or plan to go inactive, leaving only about two, and even they are not the most active. With activity down, it is hard to get new members to stay in the guild for more than a few days. The members we have that are active are very loyal, but it still does not compensate for the fact that activity is extremely low now.

Why can’t we fix this like we’ve fixed our other problems, you ask? The answer, sadly, is simple. It lies not with you, with the game, with new members, or with existing members. The answer lies with me.

Many of you have probably noticed that my activity has been lower than usual. In addition to not being able to get on during the weekdays, during the past month I often have not been able to get online for a whole day of the weekend, limiting my play time to Friday afternoon and maybe a few hours on a weekend day. Everything sort of ties in together with each other. Normally we would be able to fix these problems, or at least survive through them, but the problem is, I cannot be online to help, and with almost no active officers, it makes it impossible. With me not being able to help fix these problems, they are and have gotten worse and worse. Now, we’ve fell so deep that getting up under the circumstances we are currently in is just impossible. Life has just been very harsh on me lately, and I just do not have any more time to devote to the guild. Unfortunately, it is not my choice.

I am temporarily shutting down the Shadow Sorcerors guild. After two and a half years in the Caribbean, I think that we have finally hit a wall that we just cannot climb over, go around, or blast through. The guild has been finished. After two and a half years, we have been finished. Fate has willed us to end our journey as a guild now, and at this point, it is impossible to continue it. There is quite a bit that I want to say right now.

You see, on July 31st, 2009, I made a choice that would change my life. I clicked “Create Guild”. That simple button sent me on a journey that I could have never possibly imagined. It started out slow at first. It was barely even a guild, really. Just a name with a few players in it. I was almost always the only person online, and it was one of those guilds that you wouldn’t have even given a passing glance. Slowly, though, things began to change. We gained some members that truly made a difference in the guild. Spring of 2010, Sam Bladebeard. Summer of 2010, Prim. Winter of 2010, Dog Gunmorgan. Spring of 2011, Captain Sharktooth. Summer of 2011, Johnny Darkwalker and around the same time, Roger Swordshot and Mr Awesome. There are countless others I have not been able to name, because the list of our amazing guildmates goes on and on. It was not my effort, but the effort of all of us together, that was able to make the guild what it was at its peak. One of the strongest, most beautiful guilds that could have ever been shaped. You see, I always thought of this guild as a sort of a Nation. Not just in the way our guild functions, but in the way we are. We all come from different states, countries, and even continents, yet we all are together as one. One Nation, this one the Shadow Sorcerors. We are close, we have pride for ourselves. Most of all, we share a bond. A bond that probably is even closer than that of a nation’s. It is that of a family. That is what the Shadow Sorcerors is. Not was. Is. For what was, for now, and forever.

This guild took me on a journey. I don’t think I would be the same person that I am right now if I had not created this guild. I will not deny that I started this guild at first because I simply wanted to be a guildmaster. I had dreams that I would become a legend, and that I would become famous and that one pirate that everyone would stare at. But I soon changed. I understood what I had really created. I realized that I did not need anything that I had originally wanted. I had something better before me. All of you.

It is very hard for me to see this guild go, but at the same time, I believe that I knew that it had to come eventually. It must come eventually for any guild, and with that I feel at peace, knowing that we had a damn good run, and that one day, we will be back. Few guilds can say that they have gone two and a half years in the Caribbean, and you know what? I think that we did pretty well. We created a guild that was able to grow to around 420 members at its peak. We did some wonderful events together, ranging from parties, to fleets, to guild quests, to probably the biggest event that we had ever done: The Shadow Games. We fought through quite a few obstacles, from griefers, to our guild image, and countless others. We achieved many things that few guilds would ever dream of: A subforum on this site, a large group of friends, and most importantly, a deep friendship that will never be broken. Never.

I want to make something very clear right now: This guild did not fail. We are not dead. This guild has survived since the summer of 2009, and has only grown stronger until now. As I said, we achieved some very wonderful things. We built everlasting friendships, and united people that would have never been united otherwise. I know for a fact that because of this guild, I have made a lot of new friends that I am certain I will be friends with for a long time to come, I have learned a lot about myself, and I have learned a lot about other people. Asking anyone in the Shadow Sorcerors, I’m sure that they can tell you the same. While the in game guild may not be active anymore, I think that we are anything but dead. For our bonds and friendships are most likely even more alive than before. And isn’t that what counts? For isn’t what is in Pirates Online simply a guild, and the people inside of it what really matters?

Before I say any more, I will tell you what is going to happen. While I am shutting down the guild, I do not plan to disband it. I know that many of you, perhaps most of you, still wish to wear the guild tag with pride, even if the guild is inactive and even if you plan to go inactive. I truly thank you for that. It really makes me happy to know that you will stay with us, even in closing. I, personally, am not moving any of my pirates anywhere. I do not criticize you at all if you wish to seek out a new guild that will be active. If this is the case, our great friend Captain Del has told me that he will be accepting any Shadow Sorceror that applies to join Partners N Crime. I know that it is not the same as us, and for many of you it can never be a replacement, but I can guarantee you that you will love their wonderful guild. If you do not wish to join them, then I wish you the best of luck on your journey. It truly was a pleasure to have you with us. Our guild site will also stay online, and I do not plan on deleting it. I doubt that there will be many posts there, but it wouldn’t hurt to check occasionally, because I still think that we should name July 31st a Holiday. Should there be any news on the rebuilding of the guild, it will likely be posted there as well.

But this shut down is not forever. I have transferred the title of Guildmaster to Dog Gunmorgan’s smaller pirate, Dog O’fury. While the guild rests, he will be periodically checking up on you. In a few months, we plan to rebuild the guild once again. He will be the guildmaster of the Shadow Sorcerors, and those that remain will be the founders of it. While I plan to help when summer rolls around, I will not be taking the title of Guildmaster back. He will be your new Guildmaster. He will need your help if this guild is to rise back to its former glory, and I know that you will all be willing to help him.

To the administrators of Pirates Online Forums: I want to thank you so very much for the privilege of having a forum for our guild here. It truly was an honor, and I must say that it helped us a lot on our journey. Thank you very much. I ask that it is not shut down just yet, as I want to send a PM to an Administrator about this matter.

While we are for now leaving the Caribbean, our legacy shall forever remain in the minds and hearts of the pirates of the Caribbean Sea. We will return one day, and when we do, we will be ready to rebuild what has turned to ash, and we will rise to even greater heights than before. I am very proud of where we came, and I am even more proud to call myself the guildmaster of this amazing guild. But it is not me who created this. It was you.

And for this, I must thank you. Thank you for giving me the experience that I had. Thank you for taking me on the journey I did. Thank you for allowing me to realize who I truly was and what truly mattered. Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for never ceasing to amaze me. Thank you for making the last two and a half years some of the best of my life. Thank you for giving me so much more to live for.

Thank you for being who you are.
Now, I would like to bring back a little something that we haven’t sang for quite a long time. I want to sing the guild anthem, Hail to the Shadow Sorcerors!. I feel that it truly describes us, and it has described our journey to the peak of our guild. If you don’t remember, or weren’t around, I wrote this for Christmas of 2010, which was right before the peaking of our guild. Here it is:

Hail to the Shadow Sorcerors!

See our swords cut down our foes,
And hear our guns fire and reload.
Black and Red they stand for might,
Teach us to never give up the fight.

Our family couldn’t be more close,
We have shown to each other what matters most.
Not that sword that or throwing knives,
It’s that our family and friendship never die!

And through these times our friendships build...

HAIL TO THE SHADOW SORCERORS GUILD!!!


I don’t think that there is very much more I can say. What I can hope and know is that one day, another Phoenix shall rise out of these ashes, stronger than before. But the rest is left for all of you mates. My tale as the Guildmaster of Shadow Sorcerors is done. The blank pages are yours. The story of the Shadow Sorcerors shall forever be told by pirates, and I think that that will be a good story indeed.

Thank you for making the past two and a half years of my life the most enjoyable years I’ve had. Thank you so very much.

HAIL TO THE SHADOW SORCERORS, FOR WHAT WAS, FOR NOW, AND FOREVER!


Quote:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
-Sir Winston Churchill
http://i56.tinypic.com/inx17t.jpg

Mr. Awesome 01-22-2012 02:37 AM

Tiberius, words cannot discribe how much this guild means to me, in retrospect, I really wish I was a better Veteran, I wish I was more active, I wish I could have made more of an impact, and I wish I was there for the final meeting.

But, what YOU did is beyond amazing, you created a guild that I really think leaves more of an impact on the people who were in it than any other (maybe only PNC) No one joined the guild is the same today, and THAT truely means something.

So rest knowing that you have done both, become a legend, and create a guild that will be remembered, AND leave an impact, forever.

HAIL TO THE SHADOW SORCERORS.

P.S. Dog will make an AWESOME GM.

Captain Del 01-22-2012 03:17 AM

Watching a guild grow up from the outside is like watching a flower bloom over a period of time. You sit there, you feed it a little water, nudge it in to the sun a little; but other than that, there isn't much you can do. So if you're dedicated enough, you just sit there and watch it grow, hoping and praying with all your might that one day it reaches it's full potential and blossoms in to a spectacular, breath-taking creation.

Sure, you can do all you can to aid the flower in the beginning. You can make sure it has all the right support, you can feed it everything you have, and you can put all of your resources in to it - if you so wish, of course. Not once while I watched over your guild's development did I question what I was doing, and moreover why I was doing it. I just knew that I had to, because unlike all the other flowers in the garden, this one had the potential to become the most beautiful - this one would be the one to tower above all the other ones. It wasn't a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact.

And so, that's what I did. I still have some of the old messages that we used to exchange back and forth in the early days - your first days here on POForums. You would come with a question, and I would answer it with this whole big spiel of philosophy and hoopla. Maybe I was a little too much when it came to jumping to give hints or advice, but in reality, you can never be too pushy when it comes to aiding something that you truly believed in. And when I was a younger Davy Fireskull show up on the shores of POF, with a little guild tag and a big heart of energy and hope to carry it, I knew that this was something I would be comfortable believing in.

And there I sat in the garden. For the first few weeks and months, I didn't give everything I had, but rather, gave everything that I knew I should give. After all, what's the fun in making your own guild when you have all the material you need to build it? You can have all the inspiration and advice you can handle; without that sliver of emptiness, where you are all on your own, you'll never have as much fun as you could have. Needless to say, I helped you set up what you needed, but I made sure to never give you anything more. Of course, I didn't do that to be mean, and I'm sure we both know that - besides, who wants Old Del breathing down their backs every time they make a decision? My guild yells at me enough for that!

But even when I knew that I gave you everything I was supposed to, nothing more, nothing less, I was still like an old, worrisome mother. It was hard, watching your guild growing form itself after I stepped back; but at the same time, it was almost a little heart-warming.

Perhaps you've never known this, or perhaps I never made it clear enough, but Davy, I have always admired you and your members. Your guild is one of the rare gems in the Caribbean that has never stopped striving, never stopping moving, never stopped believing. Not once have I ever seen you or your members throw in the towel or give up a fight - I have only seen you pick yourself up and move on. It's courage and determination in a guild like yours that reminds me that there are still guilds other than my own who I can feel comfortable rooting for, and be fine with losing all of my teeth, gold, and even rum defending. I may have given you some inspiration here and there, but don't you ever forget that against it all, YOU have always served as an inspiration of mine. And do not ever forget it.

And through all of my worrying, there was faith in that you would guide your guild on to shores you could never imagine. As we both have come to understand, and what all Guildmasters come to understand, a guild is not the ship that takes the journey; it is not the wind that guides the journey; and it is not the crew who seeks to understand it. The guild, in itself, is the journey, and every day we move onward to live it, to seize it.

And my faith, as I had hoped, prevailed. Before my eyes, I watched flower unfurl in to a showcase of pure majesty. Even though I was now watching at a distance much further than before, I could still see everything that radiated from it with the clearest of detail; friendship, kindness, compassion. Loyalty. Love.

And from there, your journey continued. I stepped away with security in my heart, knowing that you had done this well, and that you would now push the frontiers that I stood on as well - that we would not work as teacher and student, but as colleagues. As friends. We pushed one another as far as we could go, not only because we ourselves wanted to succeed, but because we wanted each other to succeed. From there on, we both took this wild journey together, as a team - a lopsided team of a "partner" and a "sorceror," but nevertheless, we were a pretty good one ;)

And I never really imagined the day when our journies would come at a crossroads. I knew that it would come sooner or later, but I never really thought about it until.. well, now. Putting it in to perspective was as hard as one could imagine not only mentally, but emotionally, and even with all the arguments we may have had, and all the bickering we have done, I never wanted to imagine it. Was it ignorant of me to not think of what it would be like? No, not really - ignorance never comes in to form when it comes to dreaming, after all.

But, here we are. The path diverges in to two - and our fates lead us down the separate paths. I will continue down mine, and you will continue down yours - this is what destiny has planned for us, and we must not fight it. We are prisoners to our own reality, Davy; we can only hope that just the slightest bit of fantasy in the mix will carry us through the pain. But as we prepare to diverge down our separate paths, let me make one thing clear:

Watching your guild grow in to what it is today has only been the greatest pleasure for me. Never in my time in the Caribbean have I gotten the satisfaction from a guild other than my own that yours has given me, and I must thank you for that. You have made this old pirate heart light up on numerous occasions, and that is something I will never be able to put down in words.

Will our paths meet up further down the road? I'm sure they will. So, Mister Fireskull, let's make one last deal, shall we? You keep heading down your road, no matter what obstacles are thrown in your path, and I will make sure Dog does the same - just like old times.

See you for now, Davy. And, always remember:

You have made me so, so incredibly proud.


Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho :buds:

Captain Sharktooth 01-22-2012 03:58 AM

This is hard to read and to reply to. I posted a longer post on our Guild Site. I remember back in November of 2010 when I first joined on little Apocalypse.... seeing and meeting so many new pirates, whom are now my family. I felt closer to the guild when I joined in February of last year on Captain Sharktooth. What we had as a whole was something very special. It is very sad to see this guild go temporarily AFK, if you will. I can't wait for the new Era that will soon come, I'm hoping to having The Apocalypse maxed by that time... hats of to Dog for taking on this challenge. Until then, Sorcerors!!

Dog Gunmorgan 01-22-2012 04:47 AM

/sigh This is a hard thing to read, and to reply to. Back in December of 2010 when I came back to this game after a long hiatus due to technical issues with my computer, I was crushed to see that my guild I had worked so hard on in the previous year or so (before leaving) called Dog's Daggers, had fallen.. I was honestly, depressed, and wondering what on earth I was going to do. As I wandered around Tortuga on one of the A servers, (keep in mind this was back in the day that the COOL people hung out on those servers) I was fortunate enough to run into Mr Davy Fireskull, who then invited me to join his guild. I decided I'd give it a chance because I was currently searching for a good guild to join. After just over two weeks in the guild to my surprise I was already being promoted to Veteran, and feeling like a respected member of the family. (As we call it) and as you all know, it wasn't long before I made my way through the ranks and finally reached CO-GM (still in shock about that BTW) But anyway, though this year has been very hard on me IRL, it has been the best year of my life because of the friendships I have made in this guild, and because of that it kills me to see it fall. and THAT is the very reason I willfully volunteered to take over the position of guildmaster when it comes time to arise from the ashes and start the next chapter in our epic tail.

I truly appreciate the support that I am already receiving in this quest to rebuild the Sorcerors under my leadership, and I hope that you all will support me in due time, because I am just one man, I cannot do this alone, I NEED each and every one of you (the remaining Sorcerors) to help me to do this right.

Davy, you have become through this past year, far more than a guildmaster to me. You have become what I consider a true friend, and as you've worded it before, a brother. I must thank you for all you've done for me, all the times you've been there for me, and the opprotunity to carry on the legacy that you've begun with this guild, I only hope that I am able to fill that role, though I know I will never do so, as well as you have.

And to Mr. Darkskull up there. I have had nothing but respect for you since the day I met you, and you have been a great friend and role model to me in and outside of the game. Though we've had times that we bickered and fought over silly things, I look forward to working with you as a fellow guildmaster in the Carribean, and hope that one day the Sorcerors will rise up and be able to stand alongside your guild as two of the most powerful, well known, and closest guilds in this game



Remember mates, as it's been said by Davy, and a few others, this is NOT the end of our story, simply the beginning of a brand new chapter. The Shadow Sorcerors will NEVER die whether it is being run by Davy, or by me, or anyone who may come after me in the future, it will not die out.


HAIL TO THE SHADOW SORCERORS GUILD (FOREVER)

Captain Hector 01-22-2012 05:18 AM

I will bear the name "Shadow Sorcerors" under my Character name until we rebuild the guild.

HammyTheSquirrel 01-22-2012 08:19 PM

It's sad to see the guild end, but it has been one of the best guilds I have known. I believe that when the guild rises again from the ashes, it will become just as notorious (if not more) as the previous guild.

:buds:HAIL TO THE SHADOW SORCERORS GUILD FOREVER! <3:buds:

Meg McBones 01-22-2012 11:13 PM

This literally brought tears to my eyes!
I think I will never forget when you invited me to the Shadow Sorcerors in the late fall of 2009. You did not only invite me to guild, you invited me to family. Thank you for inviting me Tiberius! You are a true friend and it is hard to watch you leave. And I promise that when the phoenix decides it's time to rise again I will and I shall help him rebuild his former glory and strength! :)

“We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it a guild.”

andyspins 01-24-2012 05:32 PM

I will miss this guild dearly, I await the day of return with great excitement. Farewell my friends...

WitchdoctorDan 02-05-2012 07:27 AM

WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Sniffle.

It feels strange reading this. The one thing I never expected to happen, really. I hope to see you all again. I have the feeling that this is just a stage, and that we'll rebound again after activity fluctuates over the summer. I hope so. Because, to be honest, the best times I've ever had in the game came from this guild. The Sorcerors were really the only reason I played POTCO.

As for Tubby himself, I remember looking on the little guild forum posting we had and seeing how everyone seemed to love him as a GM. I remember back when he was Davy Fireskull. This mutual respect between the GM and the Guild was what made me decide to join up. Now I feel proud to call him a friend.

As for my membership in the guild, Dan is most definitely staying in the guild. For when the guild comes back 'round again, I don't wanna miss it. My upper level pirate, Jason Suncutter, will either be joining back to his old guild or I'll be shooting Del a message to see if he'll tolerate me in PnC. :P But, most likely, I'll be going inactive myself. Resting, if you will. Waiting for the guild to spring up again. And when it does, you'd better believe I'll be on deck with the rest of you.

As Tiberius and the gang always said:
HAIL TO THE SHADOW SORCERORS GUILD!


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