The Alphagamer.net forums used to be a small to medium size gaming community with about 1,400 members, 7,000 discussion topics and 67,000 posts as of early 2006. At that point some of the moderators also organized LAN parties (everybody would take his computer/laptop and hook it up on a local area network to play multiplayer games), this might feel strange now with nearly every game being playable online.
Things changed over time (relationships, kids and work) together with the change in the gaming industry which resulted in a decline of my activity on Alphagamer.net.
With that in mind I am looking for old-school Alphagamer.net members. If you were a member of the forums in the early 2000’s please drop a reply here with your member name. Would be great to get back in touch with the old school members and very curious to hear how you are doing and if you are still playing games.
A lot of time passed since the forum went offline somewhere towards the end of 2008. Obviously a lot of time has passed and a lot changed for me, as expected. I will try to keep it as brief as possible
In chronological order…
After working for about 6 years in IT consulting I went back to school in 2011 to do a part-time Master in Business Administration. During this 2 year program, that allowed me to visit all part of the world (including the US, China, Mexico, Hungary), I met my girlfriend.
At the end of 2015 we moved to London, UK from Amsterdam, NL where I started working for a Finance/IT Consulting firm. We lived in Westminster, literally 5 minutes walking from the Westminster Abbey and in Shoreditch (a very hype and active area in London with lots of pubs, restaurants, art and clubs).
This is also the period when my girlfriend and I got married! In 2018 to be exact
In the middle of 2019 we exchanged London for Brooklyn in New York, US, which is where I still am to this day. The start of the US adventure was a bit strange as we just got adjusted to being in the US and then the pandemic hit early 2020 (which was not a great time for anyone but for sure not a great time to be in New York City). But shit happens and we made it work, we are here now for 3.5 years and are fully adjusted
That is in a nutshell my path between end of 2008 and now Really looking forward to reading about your journeys.
That is not so strange, I think I took the forum offline in 2008… so yeah, not strange. I do have a list of folks I will start to reach out to over time, we will see what happens.
Are you talking about Fishbone (I think this was your friend Niels, right)? Or is your girlfriend working for Klimaat Techniek SP? If so, than yes, my friend (Nils) was actually 1 of the founders of Alphagamer in early 2000’s but I think it was more me pitching the idea to him than him wanting to be founder of an online gaming community
Hi guys! How many times have I remembered how fun times we had playing Diablo 2 (on dial-up internet even) with the happy bunch here. Specially when D2 was released in xbox (yeah I’m a console gamer now)… It just wasn’t the same.
So to recap 20 years… Got married in 2008, became dad in 2009 and 2011. Working in IT 20 years (guess I’m getting old) and currently working a the best toy shop in the Benelux: ToyChamp
Do I game? Yep, I game. Rocket League and since 3 weeks Diablo 4. Got D2 on console but playing alone isn’t fun.
Hope I’m old school enough I remembered Auri(llius prime) for example.
Welcome back mate, really great to see you found your way back I think you were one of the first core members to join with the Diablo 2 crew (Auri, Remco, Tyson TT etc) so you are definitely old school enough
Time flies indeed, you got married and by now have 2 big kids I remember you being a Techie, I see you still are. Same here (also 20+ years by now! ).
I am playing Diablo 4 as well, just leveled the new Spiritborn class to level 60, still figuring out if I like the class and expansion. Feel free to add me to your friendslist, you can find me as “Pieces#2102”. Would be great to connect again and you can join the oldschool Alphagamer Diablo 4 clan hahaha I am on the US server so on a 6 hour time difference with Belgium but should still have opportunities to play.
Looking forward to catch up dude. Take care!
Alpha
I moved to New Zealand in 2013 and I’m still there (or here). My wife and I had been thinking/ dreaming of such a move for a very long time and we finally decided around Christmas 2012 that the next year we would try everything we could to make it happen - there were always many practical reasons why we didn’t make the jump before, and to be fair: leaving everything and everyone behind is hard.
So now we just celebrated our 11th anniversary here in Wellington (well we actually live on a small farm just outside of Wellington, in Upper Hutt) and we have been working here and our son completed school. My son works for a small technology services company, and he has a NZ girl friend.
That adds a bit of complexity for the day that we want to move back to Europe is coming closer, and it’s uncertain what our son will do. He’s definitely a gamer (pc, not console luckily ) .
I don’t have a recent game pc at the moment, and all I can play is D3 and Skyrim (but not very often). I am spending more time outdoors these days - I am training for a quarter triathlon on 2 November.
and very curious to hear how you are doing and if you are still playing games.
).