Hello and welcome!

[gpa-gone-west]

Popped into Preys-world to find it gone. I had a brief moment of panic and grabbed my comfort blanket. Crikey, too many night shifts and other shenanigans at work these past few months.

I had better update my links.

[Snowy]

He posted a long message in the mod folder on PW and I asked him if it was alright to quote part of it just so that he could say goodbye to everyone without just fading away, as he was intending to make that his last post on PW too. He said yes, but obviously then changed his mind. I don't think he really wants any links with this place. He also said that he'd actually prefer that any messages of thanks or goodbye be posted in the closing down thread on PW, which closes tonight at 6 I should remind you. I hope some of you are around to see the end of days.

I sent him a PM in the final days which I think he was glad of, he said that I was the only person who had said anything to him, so I trawled through the closure thread and some of the others and pulled out all the nice comments people had made thanking him and sent it back via a PM with each person credited by comment. He was grateful for my doing so and touched by all the messages. He was finding it hard to even log in, which I can understand. I think it is just Dave being Dave, he has always been a mercurial soul. I hope that one day he will decide to poke his head in here, I know he would get a warm welcome, but I guess time will tell.

[Gibby]

Thanks for doing that, Snowy. I'd be gutted to think he left it all behind thinking no one had anything to say to him.

[Maturin]

Yeah I had a PM chat with him the week before.

I hope he doesn't let the PW closure effect him too much. I'd hate the idea of him being down about it - but I think he's quite a nostalgic/sensitive sort of guy (I'm the same to a certain degree).

Like i said - I hope he keeps in touch with one or two on here one way or another. There's nothing set in stone that states he needs to break off all contact with people that were part of PW. I actually think it would be a good, positive thing for him to sign up here as a standard member and just relax, keep in touch occasionally, etc.

[Snowy]

No worries, I could tell that he was upset by what he saw was everyone getting over their initial shock and then quickly shifting their focus to the Gamer's Arms and thanking Mantis for setting it up. I knew from my own reading of the posts in the final days that loads of us had said some really nice things to him (including you Gibby - I had to truncate yours ) in the course of some of the threads. I figured (confirmed by his reply) that he was finding it tough to spend any time in the forum so pulled them all together both for him and for the OP's of each comment. He needed it and it would have been a shame for people's thanks to him to go unread.

[Mantis]

It didn't occur to me to do that actually, so I'm glad you did, Ian. He announced the place would be closing so abruptly that it was all a bit of a mad rush to try and set up a replacement as soon as possible. I hope he doesn't take the fact that people jumped over here as any sort of slight, because as far as we were all concerned he initially wanted the old forum shut down within a few days of announcing it.

I hope he does decide to come and sign up eventually, he always stimulated a lot of passionate discussion about whatever game he was currently heavily into.

[Snowy]

I think there might have been a bit of that Dave, mostly I think it was just that he hadn't been on the forum much, if at all, so getting a PM made him think folks maybe didn't care. I was happy to set him straight with my PM full of quoted comments though, and he was genuinely happy that I did.

[Sly Boots]

I sincerely mean all the nice things I've said about Prey and genuinely hope we haven't seen the last of him.

But that said:

*Posts notice of closure of forum apropros of nothing with less than a week's notice*
*Doesn't log on or read threads*
*Gets upset at lack of adoration (which actually was there)*

[The Jackal]

Eh, fuck 'im if that's the case.

[Maturin]

Eh, fuck 'im if that's the case.

Not at all. I'd welcome him here any time.

I think he had a much, much deeper connection to that place than any of us realise. He was pretty torn up about the whole thing. Things aren't always straightforward.

[Gibby]

Must be a kick in the shins to see the new place all abuzz with activity as well, but I think the threat of losing a forum for this community has got us all a bit more keen to stay active. Helps that some fond old favourites have returned as well.

[Mantis]

He was logging in during the final couple of weeks, I assumed he would have read the threads.

I think it would be very difficult for any of us to really understand just what effect the website had on him. Consider that between 2003 and about 2008/9 it had a main page which he poured quite a lot of time into trying to run it as a gaming news site, which never really attracted the attention to make up for his invested time. Then we tried the magazine, which sadly was killed before it ever fully had a chance to become anything. Add in the stresses of dealing with the people who he invariably disagreed with who then spent their time effectively DDoSiNg the place and burning through our bandwidth constantly. It was clearly quite painful for him to see the place drop from 100+ active members down to 20-30 or so in the later years when he had such high ambitions originally; he definitely considered closing the place down a couple of times in the past.

Ultimately he did a cracking job and should be proud that through every incarnation the site went through it ultimately turned into a nice close-knit community of really decent individuals where we could all just chat about whatever we like. He doesn't want any of the stigma of PW attached to this place and so has chosen not to register for that reason (alongside wanting to focus on family) and whilst he is welcome here whenever he likes, I respect his decision.

I just ask now that we let the issue rest, as I don't think it does him justice to continue to talk about him whilst he isn't here.

[Alan]

Do you think a guy called Prey, in this day and age, would get away with setting up a private forum to talk to young teenage boys?

[ManBearSquid]

Evening!

Although I was never really the most active user on Prey's I realised that I had been reading it for over 10 years and that I wasn't quite ready to stop. So here I am, formerly Burberry Knight (I got a bit sick of that name), and hopefully I'll get my lazy arse to interact more!

[Snowy]

Welcome aboard