Sporkfire Says Goodbye

[Strygun]

Not long after the departure of T. Ray from the dev team, Sporkfire announced today his plans to leave SOE by the end of the week. Victor "SporkfirePS" Wachter is the Community Relations Manager for Planetside, and has participated in many of PSU's Ask the Devs interviews. He has been a very active leader of the Planetside community, and on behalf of the PS Community, we say "Thank You Spork, and We'll Miss You!" Here's his goodbye:

Well, folks�

What do you say to a community that you helped build when it comes time to say goodbye? This is the question I have been wrestling with for the past week. At the end of this week, I will be leaving the PlanetSide team and SOE for new opportunities. I�ve made many friends here at SOE, but perhaps the hardest thing to leave behind are the fantastic people who made up this game community, sharing ideas, posting info, creating web sites, coming to interviews, debating, flaming, trolling, and spamming. I am truly lucky to have had one of the coolest jobs anyone could ever ask for, and to have been able to share with all of you. You guys made this the experience that it has been and I have to say thanks to all of you.

I am sure the community is wondering about the how�s, why�s and what�s of my departure. It comes down to the fact that I�m still young, and there are opportunities all over the place. Now�s the time to follow them. I�ve enjoyed my time on PlanetSide and will continue to be a part of the community, but it�s time to move on from being your Community Relations Manager. The cool thing about working in MMOG communities is that I can reasonably hope to see many of you again on my next project and so it's not really goodbye.

As some of you Google searchers know, I am huge Star Trek geek. And so I am reminded of the theme of the Deep Space 9 finale, All That You Take With You is What You Leave Behind. If that�s the case, I am taking a whole hell of a lot with me. So, let�s share some memories:

• Strip Creator comics (if anyone can find eliangonzales� strip, please post it. I can�t locate it. I mean, what keyword would I search on?)
• Nerfing the tomato.
• The whole adventure of PlanetSide beta.
• Monthly Ask the Devs Shoutcasts (Samhayne is under explicit orders to keep this up)
• Impromptu TeamSpeak interviews � MAN, Ostekake can talk.
• Post playtest mass destruction.
• Your profit is limit only by your ability to bang spork.

Some specific thanks go to PlanetSide Universe for more help building this community than I could ever ask for, the organizers of PSUMA and the upcoming Mobilization: Bravo, Stratics for their interest and assistance in promoting PlanetSide to their audience, TSR-JoelS for serving the tech community so well, Hayoo for the Requests Tracker and IdeaLab, Rev for PSStats, SmokeJumper for friendship and collaboration, marcopolouk007 and TigerBot for all their work to help promote PlanetSide at the grassroots level and all the people who assisted in capturing footage for the Bending and BFR videos. There are more people to thank, but that would be a very very long list.

I'll still be here doing some minor trolling for the rest of the week, but you're in Samhayne's hands mostly for now, and he'll be keeping you posted on who follows me in the future.

What does this mean for the future of Planetside? How does it effect the community? Discuss it in our forums.

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