Sat April 18th 3pm EST!

Okay. As many of you know and have on occasion pointed out, this is a farce. You know it. I know it. Nobody shows up to these any more because, let's face it, pub games are just better. We're not drowning in noobs anymore and you can join any decently populated server and get a good game.

With that in mind, let's look at the purpose of this group: To provide fun, organized games for the veterans and the skilled players of the community every week. A coming-together and celebration of our skilled members, a place of teamwork and camaraderie for a few hours every Saturday.

What really happened was one or two weeks where this was true... And then it became a chore. We'd have to invite-spam and pull people out of pub games specifically so they could show up here, which defeated the original purpose; people just got fed up or bored and left.

I didn't expect to be running this. Simon created the group and event idea in response to the fallout of the recent Empires PUG. He added me as an admin because... Well, I don't know. Because.

And then Simon dropped off the face of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Earth.

Not that I blame him. I'm sure he's dealing with something in real life. It's just that, with his departure, I'm left holding the reins to the sole Empires organized games series. I kept trying to go through the motions, but it's obvious that's not going to cut it anymore.

So, that brings us to the here and now: what is to be done with this idea and this block of users?

Well, for starters, I'm putting the current "PUG 2.0" in a state of limbo. I could say I am outright killing it, but I don't think that's accurate.

Rather, many others and I are going to re-evaluate what a series of organized Empires games should be, how it should be conducted, and most of all how to keep it fun and interesting for everyone involved.

Long story short, the future is uncertain. If you have any concerns, comments, suggestions, or anything else you'd like to get off your mind, please feel free to contact me through Steam or a PM through the empiresmod.com forums, or hit me up on IRC in #empiresmod.

Further information may or may not be coming. We'll see.

There will be no event on Saturday, June 13th, 2009.