Forerunner

I never said anything here when I left the team, not by intent, its just the way things happened. So, I thought I'd put something up here just to give everyone here who follows me an update. Firstly, I am ever so thankful for the kind messages written when I left the team, it meant the world to me.

TruckersMP was a big part of my life for over 5 years, yet it doesn't feel anything close to that long. I can still remember when I first started being active on the forums, posting little save editing mods when that was still a very niche thing. And I remember looking at the "Meet The Team" page, back then relatively small, and thinking to myself "I wish I could do that". I applied for forum moderator and got it first try, being made Forum Moderator on the 16th of April 2016 (in the UK this date is written as 16/04/2016, the first part of that would become a recurring number for me). I thought at first that was as far as I would get in the team - turns out my judgement about that was a little bit off. 

It wasn't until 2018, after a fair few role changes in the meantime, that I became a manager, just over 2 years after first joining. It was at that point I thought to myself, this is going a lot further than I thought. So I was there sat at the same PC as late 2016, now in charge of setting up a new team in TruckersMP; my own team, the Add-On Team. I, having seemingly not learned from last time, thought this was the peak of my time in TruckersMP - wasn't right about that either. I'd go on to be Vice Project Manager, Project Coordinator and Game Developer. Unfortunately other things got in the way each time, but I kept going regardless.

Despite the ups and downs over the years, I do not regret any of it. It was an incredible 5 years. I got to do amazing things, with amazing people and make amazing memories. And I'm proud that I made an impact on the history of TruckersMP and its community - the expansion of save editing, the Add-On Team, working on the first part of Road To Simulation, working on Real Operations. Its not often I drive on TruckersMP anymore, I do sometimes but not much. I drive on Convoy sometimes too - even with all the modding potential the game has, I still drive my save edited Volvo/Mercedes: I've been using it roughly 5 years now, it was given the fleet number 1604 by chance in a VTC, it still carries that number.

For those curious about my overall time in TruckersMP, while I don't know exact dates, here is a rough outline of it:

Moral of the story: there isn't one really. Maybe, don't put yourself down - never think you've reach the highest you can. I would say be careful though what you wish for, as if you want to aspire to those higher roles I would not discourage it - but I would say that its certainly not for everyone, and don't expect to get there over night.

I want to thank everyone here, for just that, being here. Thank you for taking the time to read all that, thank you for being part of the TruckersMP community. Thank you for making my contributions worthwhile. Whether we've driven together a lot or never even passed in game, thank you for being a part of TruckersMP. To those of you who have spent a particularly large amount of time with me in TruckersMP, thank you to you especially. Without everyone else, this incredible time wouldn't have ever happened.