Hello again all! It has been roughly 5 odd years since we had a proper server. It has been approximately been 13 years since ~Greatone helped to establish ~Tilde. Things have been quiet, we are all older. Some of us are doing the 9-5 Monday thru Friday, some of us have families, and some of us are finishing up university. But the reason we are all still in this group is that we all share fond, fun memories of playing Counter Strike together (or maybe you are too lazy to leave the group).

I still remember things like cliff ninjas, ~Jo0 playing music while we played, crazytanks glitching into the ground, towers of CT's facing off against a tower of T's in an old west showdown, and many other special (in all sense of the word) memories.

I have never lamented the opportunity to go out of my way to fund a server for us to be who we are and relish it, be surrounded by those that enjoy it likewise. Whether its break dance circle fights at hide_n_seek or burying someone with admin powers and slapping them. I love that I can be who I am with all of you. I have not met most of you in person, but I feel like I know all of you well, and I know that if I ever had to help I would do my best to support you.

So I have a big boy job that for the first time gives me plenty of economic freedom to indulge and enable us all in the form of counter strike, a game that has given so much to me via proxy of you all. For the past few days I have messaged many people to get an idea of what to expect and so far the feedback as been positive.

A point of contention with a group so big is whether to play on 1.6, Source, or GO. Well I have decided to get a 32 person 1.6 server and 32 person GO server.

I will keep both running until the end of September, at which point I will assess. If a server doesn't garner the support it needs I can potentially suspend it. Hopefully both are very successful and can continue to run for a long time.

This wont be our first server (technically this is our 6th), we know what we need to do. I will oversee the two servers, but primarily the 1.6 server. The GO server will be ~Panda's. I know a lot of us that want to contribute to the GO server, and you can, but just make sure it jives with what ~Panda is all about, her seniority has earned her as much and she is very even keeled, far more so than me. I hope that both servers can be made fun and popular. A place for us to play on the week nights and weekends with our friends, strangers, and friends to be.

The 1.6 server will be modeled after the old fun server, with maps and things like rope mod (I am looking into peoples opinion about installing Warcraft 3 mod as well).

The GO server will be the benefactor of a dearth of fun map servers. We won't flood the map cycle with crazy nipper maps, as it is up to ~Panda, but I would like to gradually add them in over time as we build a cadre of regulars, so if 1.6 falters we can all transition to GO and not have anything else to do.

Now again we all have more responsibilities than when we were in college, we will not have time like we did, I understand that. As such we have to work together where we can, and spread the IP address around when we start, also in reddit, and other forums, to get random people into the server. Message all your friends that play 1.6 or GO with the IP. I plan on establishing the servers this weekend after I get paid.

I want to just end on a note that I am happy that I am able to talk to you so casually after so many years of silence. I know we have all gone off in our different ways but I know we can make this work and have a lot of fun.

Thank you,

~Hyatt