Saying goodbye is never easy, but in 3 days I will disembark from our beloved space station. After nearly 13 awesome cycles with all of you, team and Citizens, my journey has come to end. I am sad, but at the same time very grateful and full of love. Knowing about the upcoming features and awesome (not only nice!) UI upgrade, I see a bright future for Tau Station.
Writing such a blog is quite hard, because it’s a very emotional situation for me. Still, I want to share some thoughts and memories, although it’s impossible to mention everything after such a long time with you. Even for me, I am still in the process of realizing that an important milestone in my life is about to end. At this point, I want to underline that it was my personal decision to move on – otherwise I’d violate the personal quote of my Tau Station ID (see below). It was not an easy decision, because I feel very connected with the team, our unique project, and of course you, our outstanding Community.
I, StarGazer, joined Tau Station at 194.98/00:000 GCT. That’s nearly 13 cycles ago, and it was even before we started the Closed Alpha Test at 197.04 with the first 100 Citizens. Right from the start, I could feel the very unique spirit in the very international, passionate team behind the game.
What impressed me, no…really touched me, was to experience how this new Community evolved, being so deeply connected, supportive, and understanding while working on the first Community projects right with the start of the Closed Test. Therefore, I am happy that we created the Community Spotlight series which will be continued for sure, especially as there are 2 pending projects we’ve planned to showcase. After 12 years being in the gaming industry, also working on huge AAA titles, your spirit, mindset and positive, respectful interaction is one of the most impressive things I will always remember.
You introduced Tau Station’s special welcome culture, and the Happy New Cycle celebrations that even resulted in a first special in-game event. The various Community projects and cooperation with each other, you have been helping us spread the word about Tau Station, support us with detailed reports and lots of suggestions. I’ll really miss and will always remember the manifold conversations we had (not only those about coffee), either via mail, private message, on Discord, Social Media or during the Citizen Council (CC) meetings! Meeting several Citizens “in person” via video calls was always something very special and exciting for me.
Talking about the CC: I know that you will continue supporting the team and all Citizens as usual. The next CC election is on our list. Our activities on Kickstarter delayed everything a bit and with me now leaving the project, I hereby want to ask you “officially” to be lenient to the team about the time frame organizing the next elections although I know you’ve always been empathetic with the team.
The last three and half (old earth) years contain so much: we published around 300 blogs, started sharing changelogs, we rolled out 62 updates (not counting some minor sneaky changes), I created nearly 2.300 tickets on Github and a big part of it were your reports on the forums, in Discord, mail or PM you sent to me. We shared several hundred posts on our Social channels, 2 interns joined the team, we released the first trailers, now we’ll even have sound effects and music, an extended and interactive combat system and the precious new UI coming.
There is so much more that needs to be mentioned. I am deeply grateful for the time on the Tau Station project: for the people I met – team and Citizens, the new things I’ve learned (for example about accessibility), the joy and passion shared. I am happy being a part of it and that we created something, together, and this will remain!
Being open minded and talking to each other is crucial, as the assumption is the mother of all f**k-ups!
I will stay with the team on slack, and will take a look into the game and our Discord channel (we didn’t forget the emoticons for you!) once in a while. I will keep gazing at the stars of Tau Station for sure!
Thank you everyone – like Johnny Cash sung “we’ll meet again”.
Manni aka StarGazer