Hey there,

I'm Gareth, though a lot of people online know me as "Spirited". My pronouns are he/him.

A bit about my background: I started in the Conquer Online community back in December 2009 on 4Botters and Epvp. I've been programming my own private servers and projects for over a decade now, experimenting with languages and server designs in C#, C++, and Go primarily. I was a site admin for 4Botters back in the day, and a moderator for Epvp. Now, I run my own site for Conquer Online development with the aim of developing community rather than just servers. I still have never hosted a public private server or worked for another server, and probably never will considering my contracts with game companies I work for.

On that topic... Outside of the Conquer Online community, I have a B.S. in Computer Science and work as a Senior Software Engineer in the game industry. I'm a former Blizzard employee (left in light of the horrific cultural problems discovered by the lawsuit and lack of confidence in leadership - I don't wish to discuss it). While I was there, I worked on Battle.net's shared microservices for social and game system features. I was the primary owner of matchmaking, game lobby routing, admission load balancing, leaderboards, and global account migration services. I also worked on accounts, friends, block lists, presence, and a few other social services. Before that, I worked in industrial automation, business cloud, commerce / point of sales, and data science. Feel free to ask me questions about education and the industry if you'd like (I always love talking to people getting started). Though to be clear, I'm really not interested in sharing my opinion about Blizzard news stories in particular.

Because of my job, significant other, and other social/time commitments, I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to Conquer Online anymore... but I do enjoy coming back to it now and then and being able to host this community. I also enjoy playing games, illustration, photography, video production, gardening, home automation, cosplay (like for the Renaissance Faire and conventions), and playing table top games (like Starfinder and DnD 5e). You can find more of my interests and small projects on my website or this board.

That's enough about me, I think. If you're reading this as a new member, then welcome to the board! I really encourage you to also introduce yourself in a new thread. Hope you have a wonderful time here, and I'm looking forward to chatting with you all more.

Cheers,
Spirited

thank you for your introduction Gareth. Your contributions to the CO2 community are extraordinary. I played CO2 back in the day and I'm now (also studied CS) interested in private server development as a hobby next to my job as the founder of a software co.

Your Comet project looks attractive as a base although for time constrained folks like me starting off with Redux felt like the better choice initially.

I really appreciate your efforts to create a welcoming and civilized community around the game.

Also your page on Chimera got me hooked, curious to read more...

Time is extremely scarce though, hoping to be able to keep finding time for these projects on the side.

fundobit wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 10:46 pm thank you for your introduction Gareth. Your contributions to the CO2 community are extraordinary. I played CO2 back in the day and I'm now (also studied CS) interested in private server development as a hobby next to my job as the founder of a software co.

Your Comet project looks attractive as a base although for time constrained folks like me starting off with Redux felt like the better choice initially.

I really appreciate your efforts to create a welcoming and civilized community around the game.

Also your page on Chimera got me hooked, curious to read more...

Time is extremely scarce though, hoping to be able to keep finding time for these projects on the side.

Thanks for the kind words. I don't have much time these days either, but I enjoy working on projects when I can. Everything is more or less on the back burner.