Well, kids, times are hard. I guess Obama's healthcare plan made Middle Eastern oil super cheap for a couple of days, and the economy imploded. Nobody is immune to this whatever-it-is that is obviously Obama's fault - not even TenTonHammer. We're doing better than, say, Massively, but there have been some cuts. One of those cuts is me.
I'll be honest - this job ran a lot longer than I thought it would when it started back in the fall of 2010, and I've been grateful for every moment of it. Even when it might have seemed as though I considered the whole thing a damned inconvenience. The folks here are swell people and have been a pleasure to work with.
That being said, there's no goddamn way the Grumpy Gamer can go out with anything like class, so here are some parting shots at a few of my favorite staffers - these bridges aren't going to burn themselves. Be warned, I am petty and foul, so some of these are probably just malevolent lies:
Reuben, AKA Sardu: If you've ever been in a phone call with Reuben, or chatted via Skype or Ventrilo, you will know, as I do, that he has an inhumanly boring voice. It's never the content - really, Reuben is a fascinating dude - it's all in the delivery. Even all those times when he was tearing a strip off my ass for something and shit was getting intense, I had to struggle to stay awake through the incessant drone. It's like using a rubber mallet wrapped in a down-filled pillow to drive a beige spike into your hippocampus, causing your body to be flooded with tryptophan and Xanax while your high school Geography teacher lectures you about meridians. On a more interesting note, when Reuben assumes the role of his alter-ego, Barlow, he tears the heads off of doves, then sews them back on and reanimates the corpses as zombie-doves, which he uses as a message-delivery system in lieu of texting.
David, AKA Xerin: I've always secretly assumed that Xerin hated me because he was super-jealous of my obviously-superior grasp of English grammar - when he was my managing editor on SWTORHub, I think it rankled him that he never needed to edit my punctuation. It is a little-known secret that Xerin yearns for the simple life - living day-to-day, wearing camo overalls, listening to Hank Williams Jr and Merle Haggard, shooting beavers in backwater swamps, growing his beard to epic length, and sacrificing his fellow furries to Mighty Yog-Sothoth, Lurker at the Threshold, Opener of the Way.
Lewis, AKA PersistentWorld: When society collapses under the weight of its own hubris and mankind descends into warring tribes that slowly but inevitably destroy themselves, at the end of the Time of Man, there will be two final champions representing the duality of humankind. On the one side, there will be me, wielding a mighty war-axe, representing justice and epic heroism. On the other side will be my arch-nemesis Lewis, wielding pocket-sand and a fist full of frayed bungee cords, who represents everything that is sucky and weird.
I don't know the rest of the staff as well as these three, but I believe they're all Nazis, Satanists, cult terrorists who hate freedom and your precious American 1st and 2nd Amendments, or dope-fiends. I'm reasonably certain that Boomjack is all four of those things. I've never really talked to him in person - that's just what his prostitutes tell me, and they seem like a nice bunch of folks, even with all the bizarre genetic abnormalities.
This is running long, so... keep on trolling, internet. And keep a weather eye open for TehGunky in a MMO near you, because I'll be the one trolling back.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Outward Game Page.