Warning: major wall of text below. If you have the chance to read it all I think it explains its own existence pretty well, but I'll add a TL;DR at the end just in case.
Now all we need is for Flipper to comment here...
I figured it would be somewhat overly self-serving to respond before anyone else. That said, I'd be honored to take on the role. I am somewhat hesitant, however, since quite honestly I'm not sure where my life is going at this point. I could be starting a part-time school/part-time work routine, I could be doing a full-time school shtick, and either way I'm not sure how much time I'll end up having to put aside for gaming.
On that note, I mentioned it in my intro post but at the moment I'm not actually playing any games. I've purposely avoided reassembling my desktop computer in order to avoid the trap of addiction which I've often fallen into in the past. I'm still following games/game news via my laptop, and still watching a shit-load of Dota 2, but in terms of actually playing games I've been deliberately avoiding them. To be completely candid, my history involves a lot (and I mean
a lot) of days spent gaming for 12+ hours and sleeping the rest of the day without any "real" human contact. Needless to say, I really, really don't want to go back there, but due to my somewhat obsessive personality it's a real risk I run if I reassemble my desktop and log back onto Steam. I was for many years quite literally a gaming addict, and at this point I'm really only 113 days completely "clean". I'll be deciding some time within the next 1-2 weeks which route (PT school/PT work or FT school) I will take at least for the more immediate future, but it may well be several months before I've reached a point where I'm comfortable returning to actually playing games.
Now that I've said that, y'alls are probably wondering what the hell I'm doing here in TEST Squadron and all that. The answer is that once I have my life in order and have established a routine and presence in the real world, I fully intend to return to gaming proper, but in the meantime the risk of relapse is frighteningly high. As for why TEST Squadron specifically, I was first drawn to this organization by memories of all the EVE Online news articles I've read over the years where TEST Alliance was at the forefront of the truly emergent gameplay. TEST Squadron is and will be different than TEST Alliance, but many of the core principles will be similar: #1 priority = fun for all, and as long as something exploded the op was a success. That's the kind of attitude I look for in whatever game I play, and TEST Squadron seemed like the right fit (turns out I was right!).
Alright, sorry for that wall of text, but I want to fully explain my current position in life since it seems extremely relevant here. If my "kingdom" as Community Manager was primarily the forums,
maybe with some TeamSpeak involved, that could work fine and I'd be more than happy to help. However since I'm unable to join in actually game playing, I thought I would leave it up to Montoya and y'alls to decide if that's prohibitive to whatever duties I'd be assuming.
TL;DR - I'd be thrilled to take on the role of Community Manager, but with the caveat that I won't be actually playing any games until I have my real life in order, which I can't really give a time estimate for.
Cheers!
-Flipper
