This is going out to the GM's.. and long overdue, on my part anyway. Mostly because I have no way to really thank them for all they do, and they do .. do.. a lot.

FIRST. Reim. Holy crap, I love this place. I hated it at the start. Ephya is a hybrid empath so it was a struggle, however, she has come into her own here. Melivn has helped her and Whirlin's group has been amazing. This is THE perfect place for big groups to go. Retser, you did an amazing job on this. It is so well designed and we have SO much fun going through it. It's as close to high end raiding as you can find in GS. Whirlin runs nightly groups through for capped and Ordim runs some groups through for some lower levels. It's really the ONLY place, besides invasions.. where big groups work. Even small groups work here and some solo, but this has been such an amazing experience and I have learned SO much about how other classes are played and how to play my class (thank you Siierra).

SECOND: The God Auction of 2016. I was simply blown away by how this all went down this year. Two tents, knowing what was going on in each tent. The bidding system.. no more hoping the GM could hear you. The chests under the table so you could see what was coming up next. Even the GM's handling it. I don't know how it all went down behind the scenes.. I know there was one hiccup with max bid prices.. but even with that, it went far beyond my expectations and I was extremely impressed.

THIRD: The Game Itself. For me personally, I have come back to GS periodically over the years, played for a while and then left again. It can be hard making new friends starting over from scratch and trying to level up. I came back over almost three years ago and got sucked in immediately with the Kenstrom storyline in the Landing. Having set days/times where you knew stuff was going to happen was great. I know the times were a bit late, but it really got me fired up to play. I SAW.. the population in the Landing grow. I SAW myself RP'ing when I had not really done that before. I saw others jumping in, in a way I had no seen before. It was fantastic. Add in Duskruin. Hybrid empath does not do so well in this, but I didn't care. It was not about max script for me, it was my own personal contest to see how far I could go.
Boosts. Spell changes. Verbs being added, changed. F2P. NYE GM Offices with the funny prenames. There has been SO many changes over the last few years and it's been amazing seeing the progression. New types of items (wounded wear, climate wear, adventure wear). I would come back and look at the boards from time to time and while there was some changes, it pales in comparison to the recent things happening. If this had been going on years ago, I don't imagine the player base would have shrunk as much as it has and it warms my heart to see it growing.

Wyrom. Kenstrom. Retser. Haliste. Xayle. Jainna. Tamuz... the list goes on and on. https://gswiki.play.net/GemStone_IV_staff_list
I get to play with some of you in game via NPC, and others I see taking spears on the boards for changes implemented.. and yet others are even more behind the scenes... and you don't hear from them at all. They take all the crap when things go wrong, yet keep plugging away for us. I know it's a game and we pay to play, however, you cannot discount the work they do, the effort they put in to KEEP us around and the fun they provide.

Leann, Player of Ephya