It was Easter of 2015.
My brother Joel and I had gotten a brand new Xbox One, and at the moment, the only game we had for it was Minecraft. We wanted to get more games for it in order to not make the console a waste of money. The only other game we could think of was Terraria. We heard little things about the game at the time. We just heard that it was good.
Fast forward to the summer of 2015. My mom and Joel went out to do stuff (can’t remember what, exactly) while I stayed home. When they came back, Joel had a copy of Terraria for the Xbox One in his hands. This was completely unexpected. It seems like they took a pit stop at the game store.
We started playing the game immediately. We had fun exploring the world, dying to umbrella slimes, and questioning the idea of cactus armor. I remember when we encountered the dungeon. Funny enough, I was one of the few noobs to NOT die to the dungeon guardian. Instead, we respected the wishes of the old man and waited until nighttime to confront his master. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened next.
I didn’t get really hardcore about the game until October of 2015, however. I decided to start a new world by myself without Joel. Over the course of several months, I taught myself how to play the game using only the wiki. How did I do it? Well, I looked at the list of bosses, figured out the order you have to defeat them, looked at strategies on how to beat them, and looked at even more pages when the wiki mentioned something I didn’t know about. I eventually started playing on PC sometime in the first quarter of 2016.
Now how did I end up in the forums? Well, back when I was a super hardcore fan of Minecraft (I still like the game), I always hung around this forum for a Minecraft PvP server, not to mention names (don’t worry, I’ll get into Terraria soon). This forum was a super toxic place, and I can’t even remember why I liked hanging out there at all. The reason I signed up was because I was falsely banned for hacking, and after several months, I had to get unbanned by admitting that I was hacking (I wasn’t).
Hanging around there got me to sign up for more forums for Minecraft PvP servers that I liked, and I got to experience the joys of being a part of a community on the internet. Eventually, I decided to sign up for the Terraria Community Forums in December of 2015, and I started to become active during the summer of 2016.
Obviously, my first year or two was very cringey for me. I was just a huge embarrassment. However, slowly over time, that changed.
Now, as of May 2019, Terraria remains my #1 favorite game, I made lots of friends within the community, and I’m even playing a big role in the Terraria Community Team. Things change, don’t they?
It’s been one hell of a ride, and I’m still looking forward to my future in this community. Maybe one day, the time will come where I can achieve my dream of being a community representative.
Happy birthday, Terraria, and thanks so much for the fun times and friends!