Back in 2003, a friend of mine showed me LF2 and I became addicted to it. Fighting wasn’t really my domain, so one day, I checked the folders. Back then, I thought it was a mystery that the graphics are all located in the sprite-folder and when you edit those, you’ll see the result in-game. These were the first beginnings of trying to understand how the game works. Pretty basic stuff at that time, I know. The dat-files were a mystery for me at that time, as I had no program to open them. I became bored and quit LF2.
3 years later, I re-discovered the game on my computer. I played it once again, remembered the cool experiences I had and started to look again for a way to open the dats. I stumbled over the DCer a bit later and began to mess around with the dat-files. Having no knowledge those days almost made me to quit once again but I discovered self-made characters on the web. They were usually just basic modifications of the original characters but I still liked it, as they were different. I checked out the dat-files and noticed some changes (mainly the injury-values, they were usually multiplied by 1000. I didn’t understand the rest). I went back to the original LF2 and edited the dats a little, too. Just increasing the injury-values is not something hard to do but it was my very first attempt to do DCing and so I was very proud of myself. I knew that by altering just one value in a 2000-lines-dat-file won’t be enough in the future.

Figuring out what each tag is doing by trial-and-error is a nasty work, so I checked the internet for any tutorials on making a character. In the beginning of 2007, I found LFE. I copied and learned every basic DCing-advice. There was this neat Allround-section which contained all the information I needed. Occasionally, I checked out the forums, at that point running with danethical services. On October 5th, 2007 I finally registered. My beginnings were rather small; I helped fellow DCers solving problems or asked for DCing help. It was really encouraging that the community answered pretty much every problem within less than a day. I remember Marshall’s comment that I’m quite familiar with the DCing matter already. Marshall was an admin at that time, so it felt really good to know how caring people around here are. This positive atmosphere kept me in.

Then, a guy named zxcv created a Naruto-Mod (I do not condemn him but the events that followed). From then on, LFE experienced a Naruto-lovers-flood; people were trying to make a mod as well or asked elementary DCing questions. I think, the NSTD-topic became one of the biggest threads in the forums. Mostly because 80% consisted of spammy messages. The flood was incredible, and nearly everybody that has been registered for a time already was sick of this.
A little before that, I was promoted to “Advanced DCer”-rank. Of course, it was a great honor for me to be among other, well-known DCers. Then, the problems began. Danethical became a victim of hacking attacks and lost certain bits of data. For whatever reason, account #669 was always affected. And guess who registered with account #669? Right, it was me. Seeing my account deleted three or four times a week wasn’t rare. I remember becoming friends with Az during this period, as his account crashed as well. Pretty much two guys with the same problem.
We all knew that this couldn’t go on like this. Then, on March 7th, 2008, MH made a new forum. The old one was being kept as an information source.

A huge amount of staff was necessary to switch to the new forums and ensure everything runs flawlessly. 5 admins, MH, Sinow, Marshall, Cirno, and Rodrigo, guaranteed that any MyBB-bug (MyBB is the forum software we’re running on) would be killed. I was promoted to a global mod. Since I totally loved these functions a mod has, I received the nick name “Evilmod”. Any post (and really any) that was only slightly off-topic was brutally trashed or somehow else annihilated.
Then, MH established a tournament system, in the hope to attract the best LF2-players on the world as well as getting “back to the roots”: putting the game play more into the foreground. Well, fighters had to be moved into a new group called “fighters”. By now we just had one admin, and so MH asked me if I would help him with moving all applicants to the new user group. I said yes and thus becoming 2nd admin of LFE. Sooner or later I wasn’t only moving people into different user groups but actually “administrating” the forums: caring for functionality, implementing new plugins, and so on. Helping out with the graphics has been a really annoying job sometimes but I think, 3 forums skins, a bunch of icons, and the mainsite skin are quite an acceptable off-payment.
Besides a few exceptions, we got along quite well with each other. Yes, there were some exceptions, for example the case Cirno vs. Guigs or Hypermodder vs. pretty much the rest; just to name a few. But everywhere, where many people encounter each other, conflicts appear, so it’s alright; although I’m really not too fond of those. Repetitious questions seem inevitable, too. As annoying as they are, regardless of where you look, you’ll find them; everywhere on the internet. These are bad things, inevitable but yet still somewhat acceptable. There was one case, however that was really unacceptable. I’m talking about KaywonnJuto, who created many accounts, spammed with those, flamed, and, worst of all, spread a JavaScript-virus. There is just one way to get rid of such problems, and this is the perma-ban. A really big Thank You to KadajNoir who discovered the truth.
Regardless of how many bad things there were, one thing stayed the same: the community was still helpful, and although I didn’t expect it, I’ve learned new stuff about LF2 till today. The friendly atmosphere got a little more subtle, yet still, you can’t complain about it.
Unfortunately, Cirno quit less than 2 weeks ago but he has done a great job moderating these forums. A big Thank You to him as well. Hope you enjoy your time as a “regular” VIP.
I don’t want to neglect the other two moderators: Silva, a guy that I have always admired for his hex-editing skills (I’ve given up on understanding asm), is keeping the hex-forums clean from the biggest junk. Phil, you have to admit, he’s friendliness in person, cares for the Stories-forum; hopefully he’ll continue his job as enthusiastic as now.
Yet still, there are some people forgotten, STM, Sinow, Marshall, Ramond, Azriel, Phil, Evil Sonidow, and everybody else that has some when in time done something to help LFE. I owe you all big Thanks!

Looking back at everything that has happened till now I must say, it’s a whole lot. A friendly atmosphere and members that visit LFE on a regular basis have kept me in here. Help is almost guaranteed. I’ve learned a whole lot about DCing, spriting, and the game’s physics. The forum has become a part of me, I’ve invested quite some time into it and helped building and maintaining parts of it. Despite all difficulties that we have mastered, it has been an enjoyable time here. There’s just one thing left to say:

THANK YOU, LFE!

LFE is the best fansite in the universe, and that's why thank You again, LFE!!!