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Back in the day, I was part of this wonderful little Super Smash Bros Melee high score community. There was a scoreboard, complete with a ranking system, were players like me could go to show off their scores, discuss strategies, and help each other improve as players. Since this was (at the time) a relatively small site, we all grew to become good friends, friendships that continue to this day. It was one of the tightest-knit communities I've ever been a part of, and I thought of it as my "home" on the internet.

One day in late 2007, without warning, this web site shut down. While no reason was given, the site had grown by an order of magnitude in just a few short years. it's suspected that the site grew too big too fast and became too expensive to justify maintaining. I didn't think much of it, at the time; the site was filled with pointless spam and speculation about upcoming games, and I looked forward to regrouping with my friends there on another smaller website, where we could start living in our own little world again. But many of the people I played with didn't come back. Over time, I found myself missing the sense of "community" I had gained there, and decided it was time to find a new place to hang out. And that's how I wound up here.

My main objective in coming here was to make new friends, people that I could just hang out with and chat about whatever. While I made friends quickly, few of them grew into lasting friendships that I was looking for.

Since then, neal has created AllIsBrawl, a web site dedicated exclusively to the Super Smash Bros series community. I've been getting more and more active on the site since I joined in '08. The site has thus become my new "home" online.

Recently I was offered a moderation position on AllisBrawl. The site had several moderators that had gone corrupt with power, and I was the staff's first choice for a replacement (I had expressed an interest in a moderation position prior to all this). While the deal isn't final yet, I'm already finding myself preparing for the work ahead of me, and interacting with the site more.

Since AllisBrawl has essentially replaced GaiaOnline as my primary online hangout community, I've started to wonder if my participation here is redundant. As thus I'm considering quitting GaiaOnline.

I've amassed quite a collection of gold and items over the years here. Between my two accounts, I estimate I'm worth well over 60 million gold. If I quit, would I be comfortable giving away that much stuff? And if so, are there any friends here who deserve to receive that much? Even more important, are the few meaningful friendships I have here worth giving up or moving elsewhere to get more time for my responsibilities on AllisBrawl--especially since I have other ways to continue my contact with them (I try to make myself easy to contact)? Tough questions.

I haven't really made any final decisions yet, but I feel it's only a matter of time before I won't be coming here anymore. I'm not one of those people who likes to just disappear without saying a word and never come back. So I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.