A Thank You Letter to the Community, Grinding Gear Games, and Chris Wilson

The Lake of Kalandra expansion will mark a decade of me playing Path of Exile. I find it a little symbolic that an expansion dedicated to the most elusive and mythic part of the lore coincided with my anniversary.


Path of Exile is a game that holds a very special place in my heart, a decade is a long time, filled with an incredible amount of life experiences that can spread across the entire spectrum of a rainbow.


A decade ago I was somewhere in my very early twenties, sweating my trousers off in a distant desert, deployed thousands miles away from home, using every available opportunity of deadtime to slay some monsters in this new place called Wraeclast. Ironically I felt similar to the characters banished to the shores, exiled to a distant land and making the best out the situation to try and survive.


Like many, I came across Path of Exile while trying to find the next ARPG-fix after years of playing Diablo 2. I still remember the feeling of my jaw dropping when I opened the passive tree for the first time, the gentle shivers of excitement when I realised that I can drastically alter skill behavior by experimenting with support gems, "I can cast... Three fireballs now?! AND FORK them?!".


So many of the systems and mechanics felt so innovative and were such a huge breath of fresh air, so fresh in fact, I was hooked, and felt compelled to support this young and ambitious Kiwi developer, and soon after a silver Kiwi started running around with me, while I destroy hordes of vile, bloodthirsty monsters.


With every expansion, new complexities were introduced, both to Path of Exile and my life. I got discharged, with my boots standing on the tarmac of "my" land, I felt hopeless. I got in the service and met a bunch of friends, who later became brothers, but got out with phone numbers that will never answer the phone again.


Path of Exile, once again was there to occupy the mind of this exile from some of the nightmares and struggles that commandeered his psyche. Every time I kill Malachai, I cannot but feel a little shiver down my spine when I hear his dying quote, why was I, so obsessed with death really?


Some more years pass, I got married. Then divorced that cheating monster. Then happily got married again. Started what seems so far to be a successful career. And given the fact that my life could not realistically keep up with the increasing number of new systems Path of Exile introduced every quarter of a year, I never felt pressured or forcefully gated out of the increasingly distant, but very prestigious "endgame" content.


Having said that, I never killed the Shaper, Maven, Zana(we kill her now, yes? I am not really sure). And it never bothered me, because to me this game is and always was, a method of meditation, there is no goal to complete it, there is no tangible "end" for me every time I fire it up. I usually play SSFHC anyway, it simplifies everything. You get one chance, one life, you try to stay sane, for as long as you can, as far as you can, akin to life itself.


Path of Exile is a game I can always escape to, voluntarily exile myself into a phantasy land when I needed a mental break from whatever demons are chasing me in real life. I cannot think of any other game I invested so much time in, not a single title that had the same positive impact on my life, not a single entertainment medium that helped me more to cope with some of the harsher aspect of reality.


And for that, I am thankful to you, the community, the people of Grinding Gear Games, and to Chris Wilson, for creating this beautiful piece of software. I am not sure Chris can fully comprehend the amount of humans he indirectly pulled out of some of their darkest moments in life.


I can only hope each time he reads a letter similar to this one, he will be reminded that his, and his team's work is not solely for the vanity of the masses, but also for the small minority of people who found in it a meditative sanctum for themselves.


Thank you.

I hope to meet some of you next year at ExileCon.

Stay sane, exiles.

You are an oasis of inspiration in a desert full of complaints.

Thank you for this, good read, and can relate (coming from somewhere else, with a different background and a different way over all those years).

Happy poe-anniversary, exile :)

"

Kulthos wrote:

Zana(we kill her now, yes?)

Happy poeversery brother! I love this game also and always find myself thinking, "man they are going to run out of ideas"... nope :-) I think GGG has done an amazing job. Anytime I take a break and play other games and then come back for a league I get that "I'm home" feeling. As much as I look forward to PoE2 I'm sorta conflicted also :-/

Happy anniversary sir!

"

Kulthos wrote:

...

And for that, I am thankful to you, the community, the people of Grinding Gear Games, and to Chris Wilson, for creating this beautiful piece of software. I am not sure Chris can fully comprehend the amount of humans he indirectly pulled out of some of their darkest moments in life.

...
Stay sane, exiles.

I'm one of them.
Happy POE Anniversary Kulthos.

Stay sane, Exile.
:)

"

chaoticwon wrote:

Happy poeversery brother! I love this game also and always find myself thinking, "man they are going to run out of ideas"... nope :-) I think GGG has done an amazing job. Anytime I take a break and play other games and then come back for a league I get that "I'm home" feeling. As much as I look forward to PoE2 I'm sorta conflicted also :-/

They cannot run out of ideas when everything is copy pasted from previous leagues and reworked to look different.

To the OP : Don't you have a church in your town ?

Church is a place worse than hell itself, if you think about it

Thank you for your service. I hope you have fun in Lake of Kalandra.

I was thinking about writing a similar post the other day, got my beta key around 1st of August 10 years ago, happy to see people enjoying the game after all these years! :)

Good luck and have fun in the upcoming league fellow exiles! :)