Tribute to past SmiteFire members

It's been a while since I made one of these.

Today, I'd like to pay tribute to some of the members of this site and how they made it grow (How fitting for it to be posted on ANZAC Day).

I've been here for ages. I have watched the community of SmiteFire grow. It's grown to be a quite a remarkable community to be honest.

I started August 30th 2012. Pretty much when SmiteFire started. Back then, the community was small, but that's pretty obvious. There were basically only 1 or 2 posts a day on the forums, and many incredibly bad guides. When I saw these guides, I saw an opportunity to make myself shine, so I did. I made a He Bo guide. Mind you, this was the 5th or 4th guide to actually be released on the site.

The first comment on that is by someone who has long left the site, but was very active at the start. The person was hades4u. Basically, she (I think it's a she judging by her avatar on Dotafire) was a great signature maker, and would support many of the early guides, such as mine. However, she just vanished. She just stopped posting on the forums.

Next is OddArcade. He, along with myself and the famous Asmoday, were the first Veterans of the site. I considered him to be the god of guide-making. He has made numerous guides, all of which have been well rated and reviewed. I looked up to him in a way, but I also saw a slight rivalry, despite me clearly knowing his guides were better. I understand that this is the wrong way to see the community, so I forced myself to stop trying to compete with him. All mindless rambling aside (because this blog obviously isn't that entirely, yes that was sarcastic), he was a great person, and he is still active on his Youtube account, which I will shamelessly promote, because it is a fantastic channel. However, like Hades4u, he just slowly disappeared from the community. I respect him for how he had set a new standard for the quality of the guides that come out.

Next, I'd like to talk about Xareth. He had a short time on SmiteFire. This site was incredibly lucky to have him come at the time he did. He arrived at a time of where SmiteFire was at it's lowest. However, because of him, he stopped it from being a dead site, preventing it from being buried with the Heroes of Newerth sub-site of SmiteFire. Granted, he didn't single-handedly rekindle the fire of SmiteFire, as he joined at the same time as AnimusLiberus and SmellyHarry (someone else who I will talk about). We must thank them for making SmiteFire as active as it is today. Unfortunately, his contribution to this site stopped when he was in an argument with the well-renowned killer of any potential, Asmoday.

As stated above, the next person I will tribute to is SmellyHarry. He essentially helped SmiteFire the same way as Xareth did. He helped the community when it was at it's lowest. SmellyHarry always brought some logical discussion into the forums, and was undoubtedly one of the more educated members of SmiteFire. I even recommended him as an editor in the all mysterious Veteran's Hall, but his chances were cut short when he simply stopped posting.

Yuri was definitely one of the more quirkier and weirder members of SmiteFire. Despite his weird personality, he was definitely very lovable (and he'd love me back in a more sexual way). He always had an air of joy around him. I'm sorry I can't find anything more to say about him. He was just incredibly joyful to be around, and truly wish he was still around.

Finally, I come to a person I truly detest, but I must recognise his contributions to the early stages of SmiteFire. Most still surviving old members would instantly know who I am talking about. It's the ever-arrogant, selfish and stubborn Asmoday. He made great contributions to the site, but also stopped the progress of any future contributors. He simply could not accept any opinion that was not the same as his own, and would bully people into agreeing with him, and being outright condescending. Of course, he wasn't always like this. He kept order in a friendly manner at when SmiteFire was at it's earliest, and his 750 or so comments prove this. He was the first editor of this site. As he was the only editor of the time, the supposed higher authority over everyone else must've gotten to his head. The main reason he won his arguments was the sheep that did not want to get in a row with him, which I painfully admit I was one of them at one stage, backed him up. He left on an incredibly bad note. Read his bio which has remained untouched since he left. I believe everything in that is complete ********. I could continue ranting on about his bad qualities, but for this post, please do your best to recognise his good qualities, despite how hard my writing has made this seem.

Well, that's about all of the main ones. I just wanted to acknowledge these people before they are just completely forgotten from this site, and say my thanks to what they have done to make this community grow.

I want to also thank the current members, notably Ragingstorm, ElGrizz, AnimusLiberus, Silv3rX and LevasK for continuing to contribute and make this site grow into the community that it is today. Of course, we must not forget (even though I initially did and this is an edit of my original) Mowen and Matt, who has done a great job at maintaining the site.

I'll try to make these blogs more often, so feel free to make some requests on what you'd like to hear my two cents on.