10 years on

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thehackercat
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10 years on

Post by thehackercat »

Has it really been so long?

I missed the actual date (back in August) but evidently I joined this forum 10 years ago. (And I'm one of the new guys.)

A lot can change in 10 years. I've been all over the continent and worked all kinds of jobs. My interest here has waxed and waned as real life reared its ugly head. But I'm glad to see this place is still around (and active! Wow - so many new members).

I don't know how often I'll get to check in or if I'll ever get my mod(s) to a playable state. But I'm definitely not gone for good. Here's to another 10 years! :old
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Benvolio
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Benvolio »

A place like this forum with such earnest interest in its subject matter is very valuable for those who avail of it, and I would encourage you, and those who engage with the PCKF at a similar frequency to you, to keep in touch. Maybe when I first publically engaged with the Keen community about 15 years ago I didn't have much of an active social life but nowadays I have a perfectly adequate (for me) personal and professional social circle, so rather than in some way substituting for a social life, the PCKF rather supplements it nicely.

Also, it is very healthy for the forum to have an expanded nebula of longstanding adherents, however infrequently they are active, to keep the activity of the more regular contributors buoyed afloat. The numbers of new contributors seems to have significantly decreased over the past 5 years. This makes it all the more important to have a solid base of users in at least some sort of contact. It is sad to see some people completely vanish, despite having been daily posters and in some cases having four figure post counts.

Do keep us updated about any of the interesting IRL stuff you get up to, I know you had some very interesting tales to tell in the past on here! I probably miss out on the "real" PCKF content because I never bothered to do the instant messaging stuff.

And as for mods, it can be difficult to get something to completion at a standard that one is happy with. We all have this problem. But at least with Vorticons it is fairly feasible to get something acceptable completed once one has had a burst of somewhat sustained inspiration.
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MoffD
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Re: 10 years on

Post by MoffD »

Always good to see you THC, happy decaversary on the forums :birthday
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NY00123
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Re: 10 years on

Post by NY00123 »

Joining this thread somewhat late, great to see that you've rechecked the place!

It's recently been past 10 years for me as well...

According to my logs, I joined the old #pckf IRC channel back on Sep 5 2009; As for these forums, I joined them about a day later. The main reason (or so I (mis)remembered?) was this one level pack I worked on back then, but my actual first post seemed to be about Keen 8: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=762&p=16258#p16258
shikadi
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Re: 10 years on

Post by shikadi »

My 10 years passed by quietly as well. :o
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Keening_Product
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Keening_Product »

Oh hey, it's my 10 years today too! (Not under this account obvs.)

It has been wonderful to be a part of this place. Thank you to everyone who makes it happen, and to everyone who has made signing in for all these years worthwhile.

My goal for the next decade is to contribute more than just one (crappy) level and some derivative art, but we'll see how that goes haha. Also wtf I'll be 37 in a decade.

Congrats to everyone else on this thread (and those not), apparently I'd missed it until now!

(Edited to fix tenses!)
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Syllypryde
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Syllypryde »

It was a complete coincidence but I joined this forum on the exact day Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the US. So it has been over 11 years for me.
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Nisaba
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Nisaba »

happy anniversary Keen_Product!

do you have a folder with unused Keen related modifications on your computer? if so, I'd be very much interested to examine your files and pick a couple of ideas to integrate them into my Foray in the Forest project. As you might already know, it is my main goal to bring back life to abandoned stuff made by the community...

quick trip down memory lane:
many many years ago I was randomly looking for something Keen related and stumbled across this forum only by chance. I think this was before we switched from ezboard hosting to phpBB. it was Ceilick's mod "The Keys of Krodacia" that made me stick to this place. I clearly can remember the feeling I had when I just discovered that one could actually build new levels for my childhood hero. I was amazed and totally blown away. I can even remember the place I've been at that very moment. And damn, that was like 13 years ago...
over the years I switched accounts and have been active to varying degrees. But I always come back to this place. Lemme quote Keen_Product on this:

"It has been wonderful to be a part of this place. Thank you to everyone who makes it happen, and to everyone who makes signing in for all these years worthwhile."
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RoboBlue
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Re: 10 years on

Post by RoboBlue »

I joined the prior PCKF in the summer of 2001 so it's been almost 20 years for me. :old
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Commander Spleen
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Commander Spleen »

Wish I'd known about the place sooner. Would have made my high school years a bit more bearable.

It's weird how Keen already seemed retro and obsolete barely a decade after its release. And now two more have happened and we still manage to keep it alive.
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Benvolio »

Keeping Keen activity alive has happened because a remarkably large number of people (when you think about it) have really made PCKF and/or other Keenish pursuits an integral part of their way of life. It is also remarkable how many avid contributors have appeared in the community long after the first bunch of people really got going as a community around the milennium time. I always have a fear that some of our old contibutors will vanish for good, and yes plenty have but equally just when a hiatus of a few months or even a few years occurs, people just reappear and make their presence known again which is wonderful. Now... where has KeenRush been all 2020?
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Keening_Product »

I think it's canon that KeenRush travels at such great speed (hence the "rush" in their name) they occasionally blip in and out of the future, bringing advanced new mods back with them.
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proYorp
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Re: 10 years on

Post by proYorp »

The first mention I think I ever saw of a "www.pckf.com" was in the summer of 2010 when my friend gave me the mod Dead in the Desert. So for me, it's been 10 years since I'd only heard about PCKF. :helmet (Well, 11 years now, since I couldn't post about it last year. Wasn't 2020 just the best? :p )

Since then, I'd always intended to check the place out someday. I was definitely intrigued by the idea of "modding," whatever that entailed (somehow I'd always dreamed about making my own Commander Keen games), and a community dedicated to that sounded like the coolest thing. It was 2016 when I started really lurking, and finally joined in 2017. This is my first and only account (on any forum, actually, barring Keen:Modding and a very short-lived use of a Lego message board years ago which I apparently wasn't actually allowed to use at the time :rolleyes ).

In a place where membership is often measured in decades, I suppose my 4 years is really not that long, though I have already been a diehard Keen fan for most of my life. Now that I'm finally here, I intend to stick around indefinitely, maybe eventually becoming one of the recurrently revisiting members that never quite stays gone. ;) I have to say, I've become more than a little emotionally invested into the community here. Y'all are stuck with me for a little while. :mortlol Someday I'll pass 10 years myself.
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Quillax
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Quillax »

First memory I ever have of the PCKF is when I looked at a topic for Battle of the Brains, back when it was still in development. That mod was released in early 2011, so that would mean I've been around the PCKF for over 10 years now, even if I didn't create an account until 2015. Can't believe I had an account for over 6 years, now that I think about it!

It's really nice to see that this community is still going well! It goes to show how well the Keen games have aged! I don't know if I'll ever leave this place, it's like I'm a Schoolfish that just wouldn't leave the hero with the helmet alone! There's some people who have left and will be missed, such as Tulip, levellass, and Vikingboybilly, but at least we have plenty of good people that keep the activity up nicely, like proYorp and Soul Monster! And who knows, maybe someday the people that have left will come back in a later day to relive the Keening experience! That actually seems to happen quite often here. I mean, Stupidbunny returned after a long absence, and it looks like he'll be sticking around for a while. :)

I actually sometimes miss the old PCKF design that was around when I first came here. Don't get me wrong, I love the cute Yorp sitting on the sign -- I just prefer the more boxy and less-mobile-like board design. I also feel like having the names and avatars on the left looked better than on the right, although I think I've gotten so used to having them on the right for a while now.
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Nospike
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Re: 10 years on

Post by Nospike »

Holy moley, it's actually also been more than 10 years for me. :D Feels like yesterday.

I've experienced some great moments with you guys and all your amazing work. Keen will forever be one of my favorite game franchises and it's only fitting that it has such a splendid fanbase full of talent. I'm truly happy to come back to the PCKF once in a while and see it alive and kicking.

One of these days I ought to replay UTUIT, the series that brought me here in 2010. :) Thanks for all this, guys.
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