I think Blockland is one of the very first computer games I ever played. It was certainly the first multiplayer game I played, and it left a mark. I love this game so much.
If I dig deep enough into my email folder, I can still find the email that delivered my key to me - six and a half years ago. My BLID was 4947, and I can remember when that marked me as a newbie. Now, IDs are into 150,000.
I played this game for years and years, and I dumped thousands of hours into it. Thanks to add-ons, there were so many things to do with this game: TDMs, zombie survival, trench wars, city RPs, jumping puzzle, dogfighting servers, freebuilds, fort wars... I played a little of everything, and loved every minute of it. I remember waiting for months with eager anticipation for V9, and how amazing wrench events were when it finally came out.
The community was never the game's strongest point, I admit, but it's what first got me so in love with multiplayer gaming. Over six years later, I'm sitting here at a custom-built gaming PC, and I might never have gotten into PC gaming at all if it weren't for Blockland.
Recently, I came back to the game after an absence of years, and I've found Blockland a shadow of what it used to be. There are fewer servers, much fewer people playing, and so many of the people I remember are gone. Probably the worst thing is that RtB is gone. RtB's add-on curation and social features were a huge boost to the game, and it's a huge loss to have them gone. I was gutted when I googled "return to blockland", hoping to install it again, and instead saw results mourning the site's shutdown. The game itself seems to have more or less ceased active development.
I suppose I should've expected this, but it still hit me hard. Very hard. I really can't describe how much it hurts to see the game fading away like this, to find so many things I remember so fondly from my childhood completely gone. It's not an exaggeration to say I'm heartbroken.
Some of the little things hit the hardest. The bedroom is gone, and with it all its secrets and quirks and interesting building spots. The main menu no longer makes those harsh musical tones when you mouse over the options. Even Slate is gone; you can closely approximate it with the new environment system, but not exactly, and it just doesn't feel right with the new lighting.
The game isn't dead yet, but it's getting there. So much of what made this game so great is now gone. People have moved on, add-ons and projects have been abandoned, and the community has dwindled. It's arguably inevitable that an online game of any sort must eventually die, but that doesn't make it any less painful to watch, especially when it's a game that's as close to your heart as Blockland is to mine.
Six and half years on, I'd like to thank you guys.
Thanks to Ephialtes, Kaje, Spaceguy, Ace, Bushido, Kalphiter, Gravity Cat, Barnabus, Iban, and all the rest of you whose names I can't recall at the moment, for making brilliant add-ons, hosting brilliant servers, and helping to make the game so great.
Thanks to Badspot and co. for making the game. You may have made some questionable choices with regards to the community and development recently, but even so, you have my utmost thanks for making one of the greatest games of my childhood.
Thanks to all of you. Thanks for giving me so many good memories, so many thousands of hours of enjoyment, and so much enjoyment. Thank you for making this silly little internet LEGOs game one of the best games I've ever played.
