Well... it's the month of April again! Which means it's time for another appreciation thread from yours truly. (link to last years letter: An open letter to the Guides )

Even though I'm in the middle of finishing the textures for the Fenmarch and Entwash, and I know not only @Darki but also @Eriol_Eandur and probably many others are waiting on me to finish that so progress can move on, today I simply felt this urge to take a couple of hours to express my thoughts in my, hopefully yearly, appreciation letter. This one goes to all the active members of our community.

What makes me write this?
Well, beginning with my promotion to Head Builder last summer I started focusing on ResourcePack development which made me realize how much further we can take MCME in terms of quality with proper RPs. Though in my extreme nature I began to become engrossed by this goal of texture pack perfection and started to isolate myself more and more in my work. That meant that I cut down on my contact with the majority of the community and renounced interactions like voice chat and casual chatter on the server for the sake of efficiency. Until recently I was under the impression that only a handful of people were motivated and put time into keeping the community going on a daily basis. I'm not entirely sure what changed... Maybe I started to engage more again or maybe the community did come out of hibernation lately. Nevertheless, I realized how many people are involved in the upkeep of our community so that's why I would like to express my thankfulness here.

I won't go through each member I am grateful for separately, as I would be risking forgetting someone which would make for an awkward situation, but I think at least these two deserve their own paragraph:

@barteldvn and @Eriol_Eandur
It might be because I've been working most closely with them for the past year but I really want to emphasize how vital these two members are to our community. I think by now everyone should be aware of what Eriol is doing on MCME. If you for some reason have no idea what his involvement with MCME is, just check his posts in the news channel or the development channels on Discord! We should all be grateful for his dedication over so many years. The plugins, the updates, the lore. I don't want to imagine where we would be right now without Eriol. Personally, however, I am most grateful for him taking the role of my mentor. A lot of the stuff I've learned and most of my motivation and inspiration comes from him which I can't overlook.
As for bart? I kinda hate him to be honest... My life would be so much easier if he would just be listening to me . Joking aside, I kinda pooped my pants when @BWOT came to me and asked if I wanted to be the next Head Builder last year. I knew there was only one builder that would be experienced and respected by the community enough to take that role but bart was very reluctant to dewit. In the end, I'm very grateful that he decided to take this challenge on and help me with the building side of things. And I couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. Bart stepped up to not only improve build quality but also communication between the builders and he even learned some texturing and terraforming in the past year. Personally, though, I have to thank him for filling in for me during the first couple of months of this year where I was struggling to balance real life and MCME a bit. And for keeping a lot of stuff off my back to allow me to concentrate on texturing.

Now I could not forget the rest of the Valar team:
I have to say, I was very concerned with the Admin activity last year around this time. But thinking back now I couldn't have asked for a better Valar team. The dedication these guys have is amazing. Both @Smaug_Niphredil and @Raffyyy have been amazing at their job. Very cooperative and helpful when it came to important decisions. I'm also very thankful for the more unpleasant tasks @Credoo offered to take off our shoulders .

As for the Staff team?
Well, they are a bunch of lazy glorified members of the community... Even though they've always been perceived as inactive in the community I have to assure you that there are many staff members that are very much active and help with tasks we couldn't take care of if it wasn't for them. I have to tip my hat to everyone that helped with the introduction of the Manager role. We had many long talks and very constructive criticism from them. Even though some of you might see them as this separate group that does whatever they like with the server I want to assure you that they try to keep in touch with the community as much as possible to ensure that our decisions stay in line with what is best for everyone. And that I'm really thankful for as I have not been able to do it as much as I would have liked to in the past year.

Now a couple of thankful words for our builders:
I have to admit. There hasn't been a lot of building going on lately. Nevertheless, I came to realize that many of our builders have tried to occupy themselves in different ways. Either by becoming more involved in helping new players or by picking up texturing or other behind the scenes work. You know who you are and I want to tell you that I'm very impressed by your ability to adapt. That shows true dedication and I'm grateful for your decision to stick with us during some not so exciting times building wise.

What about the guides?
Well... I have to say... I find it very hard to keep up with everything they are doing. Which is amazing! I'm impressed by what the guide team has become! I think they have been doing an amazing job keeping our increasing numbers of newcomers engaged. While I acknowledge @Raffyyy's and @Soars's amazing efforts to organize this team I have to give it to all of you for being the best guide team I could have asked for. Keep it up!

There are, of course, many other members I appreciate. The developers which have actually formed a pretty efficient team lately. The texturers which have been really patient with my perfectionism. The times editors that brought you an MCME times edition every two weeks since its resurrection without fail. The moderators who have a harder job than most of you would think. And the media team which is definitely coming back soon . And of course all the Commoners and Adventurers complimenting our builds and keeping us going. These are all people that help keep this community alive!

But of course, last but not least, we have to give it up to our God, our Creator, @q220 aka Eru Iluvatar who has been keeping this thing running for almost 10 years soon. I've been pming him with a lot of requests over the past year and he has put up with all that and been extremely nice and helpful. I assure you, we couldn't have asked for a better owner. <3


While writing this I realized that this is my way to say all the nice things people say in their resignation posts. Don't worry that one is not coming anytime soon. I also realized that thanksgiving would have been a better suited time to post this stuff... I encourage you nevertheless to reply with the things you are thankful for on MCME . I also realize that not everything is perfect around here so if you have any feedback please let me know. I'll be back to my colorful pixels now... please remind me to write one next April in case I forget!

Toti