Nogg-aholic is dead, long live Nogg-aholic

Nogg-aholic Forum

Hello there, fellow Nogg-aholics.

There’s been a year since we created the Nogg-aholic forum, and during this time, we’ve managed to grow from a bunch of friends to a well-established community of 10 000 members. Back then, it marked a change for all of us, that even though we’ve just lost our wings, our spirits was as great as ever.

For those of you who weren’t with us from the beginning, I’m talking about the release of patch 1.9.0, and with that, the removal of wallwalking. But this didn’t let anyone of us down, and instead of being the end, it was a new beginning. Together we could accomplish anything. So very much like that, I’m writing to you today, not because this is going to be the end, but it’s about a new beginning.

As you might have noticed, the forums have been completely locked down, and no one is able to post anything anymore. The reason for this, is that I no longer see the same Nogg-aholic today, as I saw a year ago.

For me, Nogg-aholic stood for stretching the boundaries of both the limitations of the game, and that for our imaginations aswell. In a sense, we were a bunch of rebels trying to stand up against big brother by breaking the rules. But it was never about that. It was about a forgotten aspect of World of Warcrafts game design, exploration itself.

Explore; to search in the purpose of discovery.

Today, most people don’t come here in hopes to find like minded explorers, but rather in the hopes of finding some exploit that they can use to gain an unfair advantage in the game. We, the Nogg-aholics, have always been against exploiting the knowledge we possess. A lot of people don’t understand why we insist in doing so, since everything is going to get nerfed or spread eventually anyhow.

The thing is, sharing this responsibility together is what has made us united as a group. Now when a lot of people are betraying this responsibility, the group is breaking apart. We no longer feel like we belong to each others, but rather to some big anonymous collective mass.

Newcomers aren’t greeted with open arms like they used to, and the mood on the forums is only getting gloomier by the day. This saddens me. People who can’t show enough respect for each others, just because they’re feeling anonymous behind a virtual identity.

This is not the Nogg-aholic me and a bunch of friends created a year ago. That is why I now would like to thank you for the time you’ve spent with us, as I’ve decided to close it down. We will let the IRC channel (#nogg-aholic @ quakenet) stay alive.

But as I said earlier, this isn’t going to be the end, it’s a new beginning. From the ashes of the old community, rises a new one, spearheaded by Nayra and those of you who haven’t forgotten what it was like to fly.

Glowing Mushroom - http://not.nogg-aholic.org/