Four years. (No I am not retiring!)

It's been four years, my friends. Four years to the date since I joined the Oasis community.

There are a handful of you who know my story, but for the majority of y'all, you probably don't know me that well.

I never was the original owner of Oasis SMP. That honor belongs to the one and only ariley92 and sainteven. Both are fantastic people and if it wasn't for their decision to create a Minecraft server then I'm pretty sure none of us would be here right now.

So let's begin with my story.

I started as a Member this day four years ago. This here is proof. I know it's a bit long for a member app nowadays but back then I really wanted to say more than a couple of sentences explaining the "why" I thought I deserved member status. And I got it that same day too, much like it is today. I met so many nice and awesome players back then (some of which still pop in here and there just to see how the server's doing) and they were some of my closest friends.

I don't remember when I got Trusted. All I remember was that I signed on one time and I my name was blue, and I was super excited because it meant I could finally use lavakits! xD

However it would be a long time before my next promotion, which was to Artisan rank. I got it back in June/July of 2011 (I forget the month, but it was the same promotions that ariley announced the creation of two ranks - Trusted+ and the Guide test rank). I was SUPER excited not only because of the promotion but also because it came out of nowhere.

Two months later I applied for Veteran rank -> PROOF is right here. Now back then, this was Minecraft 1.8 BETA, aka "the Adventure Update". New elements that we take for granted today that were introduced were sprinting, hunger, creative mode, glass panes, more biomes, and so much more. This was the version of MC when I actually received Veteran rank. The first thing I spawned was a chicken spawner and I remember messing around in my house with some of the staff while I was spawning all these crazy things that I could never spawn before, and it was glorious. I thought I had reached the pinnacle of my oasis career as a player. Little did I know that I was dead wrong.

Fast forward to January of 2012. I applied for Guide to help out with the server. You see, during January we went through a set of "dark times". The map was vanilla, the server was old and laggy, and players just didn't seem to want to play on Oasis. They'd join to see if we'd updated to bukkit, and then leave after realizing we were still vanilla. This went on for at least a month or so, before we updated to MC release 1.1/1.2. I don't remember much about 1.1 or 1.2 other than how much crap went on in terms of players being disrespectful, rude, and greifing. It was a very dark time for the server, and that's mostly why I applied for Guide - I wanted to help the staff and keep the server as fun as it was when I was a player. Every monthly promotions I'd get excited not just for the possibility of myself being promoted, but also for my new friends as they'd get the chance to climb the ranks and mature into better players.

Long story short, I didn't get promoted to Guide until April 2012, which was four months after I applied for Guide. It was one of the best days on Oasis I had, next to getting promoted to Veteran back in November 2011. The staff team back when I was Guide was very different from what it is today. Regardless, I took this new promotion and worked as hard as I could to keep the server free of griefers and rude players and everything in-between. I remember logging in after work and seeing at least 15-20 guests online, tp-ing to all of them, and then banning them if needed. I remember helping people out so much that I earned the rank name "super guide". Ironically, I got this name two weeks before I was promoted to Moderator. This promotion was July of 2012. My mod days were fun because not only did I have worldedit, but I was able to help fix more things, mostly on the server-side and not with players (though I did help more players as well, lol!) The admin team recognized my hard work and offered me the chance to become an Administrator two months later.

I accepted the position, of course. This was during the transition phase as we were upgrading from and old host to a newer, faster, shinier host.

My admin days were all a blur. All I remember was that I just sort of took the wheel, so to speak, and started to manage the server as best I could while ariley and sainteven were AFK. I started doing the weekly maintenance, helped out more with the monthly promotions, organized staff promotions (including mod-to-admin promos!) and was just generally very very helpful and dedicated to the server. Eventually in May 2013 ariley himself asked me if I'd like to take over as Owner, and I agreed. I immediately asked Pax to be co-owner with me, and he obviously agreed. We announced the new ownership on May 7th, 2013. Interestingly enough, nothing really changed on the server except for a handful of staff demotions and some new server rules.

There is so much more to my story that I'd love to add, but I'll just give a shout-out to all the cool things we've done since I've been owner.
- Pixelmon server (September 2013 to January 2015, R.I.P)
- New, dedicated teamspeak server
- FTB (Feed the Beast)
- Yearly server upgrades
- Lots of new custom plugins
- A fantastic team of staff (even those who have retired).

Going to give more shout outs to current/former staff as well as long-time players whom if it wasn't for, I probably would not be in this position today. And yes I know some of these players were banned later on but when they weren't banned, they played a big part in my Oasis journey. Please do not slam those who have been banned in the comments below.

Shout-outs to:
- fastang488
- Kevo235
- WesleyMD
- cathald (toiletrollman)
- lcfrasso (ExtraSauce)
- Ntr323
- saetan
- sirporkrind
- Nova042
- BroadStreetBully
- leagle
- Krazo
- Taccy
- Gweedo358
- Paxination

It has been a wonderful four years. Thank you all so much for being part of this amazing community. You guys rock!

See you on the flipside!

I have a screenshot of you being guide, I remember that well. When they promoted you to mod, I was playing late one night (1.25) my first little house and area (just built the replica to that house in my town this weekend) I saw this ball of lava appear over my desert build then it changed to many other shapes. I went running to see who was creating such objects in the air. I get close enough I see Mad standing about 20 blocks off the ground and making all these cool we objects in the air, I stood there quite watching, till he left to go help someone. Thought that was the coolest thing to see. He made some little thing on the ground out of blue wool and when he left I fenced it off like a ufo had landed on my property. lol. I would show people "Yup Mad made that".

     Thank you sir for taking this server where it is today. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it. Thank you for your service to the community. Thank you for a lot of things.

As a relatively new member this was a really interesting read, and the fact I didn't realise that server had gone through such difficulty proves what an awesome job you and Pax have done. Thanks!

Congratz heres to the next several years!

Congrats on 4 years, Mad! I think its safe to say that you have served us stupendously. Thank you for all your hard work and the hard work that has yet to come. Have a good year!

Happy four years!   I'm very glad that I've joined Oasis, it literally changed my life in a good way. I want to thank you and everyone else for that!

My reaction to the title

then

Happy 4 years mad 

Very many congrats Mad, you are a great owner and an even better (and crazier) friend to all the Oasis community. Thanks for making this server what it is! 

  <3

Best owner. I love you Mike. No homo. Happy 4 years!

Damn son. One hell of a ride that was. Would do it over and over again, and change nothing.

Heisenberg wrote:-snip-

Paxi already knows he's the best. No need to say it c;

Mike, thank you for all the hard work you, Pax and your amazing staff team are putting in the server. Hope you stay with us for at least four more years! ;)

Congrats Mad on four years, and thanks for all you have done for the server I have truly enjoyed my year and a half on Oasis due to your and Pax diligent work and the hard work of the rest of the Oasis staff.