Hello everyone and welcome to MEAN’s 2020 mid-year review.
Seeing this topic you might have some questions, like “what happened to the 2019 year in review?” or “why did the life-sized female companion doll i ordered from japan to cope with my loneliness get seized by customs?”.
Don’t worry, I’ll answer all these questions in a moment. But first, let me take some time to talk about the world we live in, because a lot has changed since we had our last review.
All of us are living through an extraordinary point in history. There’s currently a raging pandemic terrorizing the planet, and I’m not talking about the plague of adults who continue to make a conscious decision to log into World of Warcraft every day, although we should all be concerned about that because it’s a fucking travesty.
No, I’m talking about COVID-19. On the surface, you would have thought a mandate to stay home and play video games would be a blessing for our guild. You’d think we’d be resurgent again, getting a Doritos and Mountain Dew sponsorship and dominating the Valorant leaderboards.
But alas, this is not the case. The last time I logged into Discord someone seriously asked me if I wanted to play Guild Wars 2. I almost called the police.
It’s clear that mediocrity continues to rule the day for MEAN. But are there any bright spots? Is there anything to be proud of in 2020?
Yes and no. Let’s take a look at what’s happened in the past 12 months and what the future has in store for you degenerate perverts.
A brief moment of glory in Apex Legends
The start of 2019 felt like we were going to blow up again.
Everyone was playing Apex Legends. I’d log on and like seven people would spam message me about how they just slammed half a bottle of Adderall and were ready to get a squad together.
It was mostly great, except for the fact that everyone in this guild fucking sucks at first person shooters so there were a lot of last place finishes, 0 damage dealt and Mimi screaming “I’M SCARED”.
But those few matches we won. Those will stay with me forever. Mostly because of how hard I remember being carried in them.
RIP Apex Legends.
I actually became a fucking weeaboo
Listen, I joked back in 2016 that after spending a month in Tokyo, I had become a full-blown weeb.
But guess what, even though I had an amazing time in Japan, I never once indulged in anime or any other weeaboo shit, contrary to the libelous photos that have been spread of me here (those photos of me in Akihabara are photoshopped, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers).
But something happened this year. First it started innocently enough, with me rekindling my childhood love of fighting games and playing Dead or Alive 6. After dropping hundreds of dollars to outfit the female fighters in the game inscantily-clad bikinis functional activewear, I started delving deeper into weeb territory.
Before I knew it I was shouting “NANI” at Chie Satonaka for being a total yandere in Persona 4.
Anyway, it’s too late for me now. I’ve got a death grip on this toaster and I'm filling the bathtub with water because it’s time for me to put myself out of my misery before I’m ordering mangas and pocky direct from Japan like a guy who has to make up an excuse about what he did on the weekend because the real answer is watched 36 hours of new animes on Crunchyroll.
PS: Persona 4 is very good and you should absolutely be tainted by its weeb magic.
We continued our ascent in Black Desert
I don’t actually have an update about this game. But like, sometimes I see that Metalflames is playing it on Discord. So I think this is still a thing? Anyway, my running theory is that the majority of Black Desert’s online community is registered sex offenders.
World of Warcraft Classic
Thirteen years ago, I was visited with an extreme injustice which more than a decade later I have yet to recover from. I had stepped out to go to class and left my computer running WoW Glider so my undead priest could be leveled to 55. I just bought all this gold from a Chinese farmer, used it to buy a bunch of epic equipment from the auction house, and was ready to finally wear it when my priest was the right level.
When I got back from class, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My game was at the login screen and when I tried to login, I was told my account had been banned. After having WoW Glider put hundreds of hours into World of Warcraft, this was how Blizzard decided to treat me.
13 years later, World of Warcraft Classic launched so I could relive my trauma.
The horrible part about WoW Classic is that there’s no viable bot right now. I actually had to play the game.
And what I found out was that spamming 1 to kill Kobolds is actually a spiritually destructive experience. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” That is not true. I have a why. But spending that night in Elwynn Forest, running around and trying to tag mobs and reading the cursed global chat of the morbidly obese, the how consumed me.
I have never been the same since.
That one retro reunion in Division 2
There are only a handful of people who joined this guild in the year of our lord two thousand and five, the year that Vindictive was founded. And for the first time in years, four of those people got together and played a video game.
Spine, Genma, me and Stomp all decided to randomly hop on and play the Division 2 for a few hours. Laughs were had and it was almost like no time had passed at all. It was truly a special moment. We shot a bunch of dudes. We captured objectives. And then it was over.
Six months later, not a single person from that group has made an effort to set up another game. Either we all secretly can’t stand each other, or that was a magical night that we want to keep perfect in our memories forever.
I’ll never forget it.
Looking ahead to 2021
At the rate this pandemic is going, especially you fucking Americans who rather lick rats out of spite than listen to public health experts, it’s unlikely we’ll make it to 2021.
If we do, I have a feeling that we may very well be reunited in a new game. I know, I know, I say this shit every year. But with all the horribleness out there, what’s more comforting than familiarity?
Why not get the gang back together in a video game? Why not relive our past glory?
I don’t know what the game will be. But I hope that one day I can log on to Discord, and see all of your beautiful names in the same channel and hear your voices chatting warmly, sort of like the end scene of Titanic when Rose is 90 years old and she dreams all the dead people from the Titanic have been reincarnated and are applauding her as she moves up the stairs and into Leonardo Dicaprio’s loving embrace.
Seeing this topic you might have some questions, like “what happened to the 2019 year in review?” or “why did the life-sized female companion doll i ordered from japan to cope with my loneliness get seized by customs?”.
Don’t worry, I’ll answer all these questions in a moment. But first, let me take some time to talk about the world we live in, because a lot has changed since we had our last review.
All of us are living through an extraordinary point in history. There’s currently a raging pandemic terrorizing the planet, and I’m not talking about the plague of adults who continue to make a conscious decision to log into World of Warcraft every day, although we should all be concerned about that because it’s a fucking travesty.
No, I’m talking about COVID-19. On the surface, you would have thought a mandate to stay home and play video games would be a blessing for our guild. You’d think we’d be resurgent again, getting a Doritos and Mountain Dew sponsorship and dominating the Valorant leaderboards.
But alas, this is not the case. The last time I logged into Discord someone seriously asked me if I wanted to play Guild Wars 2. I almost called the police.
It’s clear that mediocrity continues to rule the day for MEAN. But are there any bright spots? Is there anything to be proud of in 2020?
Yes and no. Let’s take a look at what’s happened in the past 12 months and what the future has in store for you degenerate perverts.
A brief moment of glory in Apex Legends
The start of 2019 felt like we were going to blow up again.
Everyone was playing Apex Legends. I’d log on and like seven people would spam message me about how they just slammed half a bottle of Adderall and were ready to get a squad together.
It was mostly great, except for the fact that everyone in this guild fucking sucks at first person shooters so there were a lot of last place finishes, 0 damage dealt and Mimi screaming “I’M SCARED”.
But those few matches we won. Those will stay with me forever. Mostly because of how hard I remember being carried in them.
RIP Apex Legends.
I actually became a fucking weeaboo
Listen, I joked back in 2016 that after spending a month in Tokyo, I had become a full-blown weeb.
But guess what, even though I had an amazing time in Japan, I never once indulged in anime or any other weeaboo shit, contrary to the libelous photos that have been spread of me here (those photos of me in Akihabara are photoshopped, you’ll be hearing from my lawyers).
But something happened this year. First it started innocently enough, with me rekindling my childhood love of fighting games and playing Dead or Alive 6. After dropping hundreds of dollars to outfit the female fighters in the game in
Before I knew it I was shouting “NANI” at Chie Satonaka for being a total yandere in Persona 4.
Anyway, it’s too late for me now. I’ve got a death grip on this toaster and I'm filling the bathtub with water because it’s time for me to put myself out of my misery before I’m ordering mangas and pocky direct from Japan like a guy who has to make up an excuse about what he did on the weekend because the real answer is watched 36 hours of new animes on Crunchyroll.
PS: Persona 4 is very good and you should absolutely be tainted by its weeb magic.
We continued our ascent in Black Desert
I don’t actually have an update about this game. But like, sometimes I see that Metalflames is playing it on Discord. So I think this is still a thing? Anyway, my running theory is that the majority of Black Desert’s online community is registered sex offenders.
World of Warcraft Classic
Thirteen years ago, I was visited with an extreme injustice which more than a decade later I have yet to recover from. I had stepped out to go to class and left my computer running WoW Glider so my undead priest could be leveled to 55. I just bought all this gold from a Chinese farmer, used it to buy a bunch of epic equipment from the auction house, and was ready to finally wear it when my priest was the right level.
When I got back from class, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My game was at the login screen and when I tried to login, I was told my account had been banned. After having WoW Glider put hundreds of hours into World of Warcraft, this was how Blizzard decided to treat me.
13 years later, World of Warcraft Classic launched so I could relive my trauma.
The horrible part about WoW Classic is that there’s no viable bot right now. I actually had to play the game.
And what I found out was that spamming 1 to kill Kobolds is actually a spiritually destructive experience. Friedrich Nietzsche once said that “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” That is not true. I have a why. But spending that night in Elwynn Forest, running around and trying to tag mobs and reading the cursed global chat of the morbidly obese, the how consumed me.
I have never been the same since.
That one retro reunion in Division 2
There are only a handful of people who joined this guild in the year of our lord two thousand and five, the year that Vindictive was founded. And for the first time in years, four of those people got together and played a video game.
Spine, Genma, me and Stomp all decided to randomly hop on and play the Division 2 for a few hours. Laughs were had and it was almost like no time had passed at all. It was truly a special moment. We shot a bunch of dudes. We captured objectives. And then it was over.
Six months later, not a single person from that group has made an effort to set up another game. Either we all secretly can’t stand each other, or that was a magical night that we want to keep perfect in our memories forever.
I’ll never forget it.
Looking ahead to 2021
At the rate this pandemic is going, especially you fucking Americans who rather lick rats out of spite than listen to public health experts, it’s unlikely we’ll make it to 2021.
If we do, I have a feeling that we may very well be reunited in a new game. I know, I know, I say this shit every year. But with all the horribleness out there, what’s more comforting than familiarity?
Why not get the gang back together in a video game? Why not relive our past glory?
I don’t know what the game will be. But I hope that one day I can log on to Discord, and see all of your beautiful names in the same channel and hear your voices chatting warmly, sort of like the end scene of Titanic when Rose is 90 years old and she dreams all the dead people from the Titanic have been reincarnated and are applauding her as she moves up the stairs and into Leonardo Dicaprio’s loving embrace.
