This article marks the second Anniversary of the Fort. At the same time this will also almost certainly be the final article I publish here. After today the Fort has to be considered being in “Hiatus” (to avoid phrases like “passed on”, “is no more”, “ceased to be”, “expired”, “bereft of life” or “Ex-Site”).
A year ago I have already mused in mild frustration about my plans and expectations, as well as about the failures on my part to bring those plans to fruition.
In the back of my head I’ve always approached the Fort in its current incarnation pretty much the same way back when it was hosted by PlanetFortress. I wrote as if I actually had a readership and I wrote as if anybody would care about my opinion. The latter was okay; that’s the proper way to do it if one feels one has to share something worth communicating.
But as for readership: I have no bloody idea how many people read the Fort outside the comparatively small group of friends in and around Clan WDG. If there are any most of them never bothered to make themselves heard. Given the fact that most people can’t keep their mouth shut about anything I’m led to believe my audience has indeed been rather small.
Actually that has been not much of a surprise. I did far too little to advertise the Fort, to make its existence known. Also – let’s face it – the majority of the Fort’s content might not have been too interesting for many people.
Back in the days of TF, when Bundy created the Fort, that kind of thoughts and reflections were relevant. Online gaming was still in its infancy and people were still learning the whats and whatnots. The number of people playing a game was relatively small, compared to what we have today. Even a few years later, in the heyday of TFC much of that was still true.
Today online gaming have become commonplace. Millions of people are doing it, on various platforms, on a variety of games. That online gaming has become an everyday activity has not improved the attitude and conduct of people; rather the contrary.
In a world like the opinions and values of the Fort has by no means lost their relevance. But I guess people are even less willing to think about it than they have been 10 years ago. If you do something in the same way that millions of other are doing it how could this possibly be wrong? And even if, why bother when still millions of people are doing it that way. Today the sentiments presented here are looking more like an anachronism than ever.
If one wants to present topics and values like I did on the Fort it must be presented in a different environment, preferably an environment with mixed content which garners the interest of gamers (like PlanetFortress did a decade ago or sites like Ubercharged are doing today). Doing it as a standalone blog was probably not the most promising move in the first place.
Well, though this might be labeled a failed project (in a number of aspects) I still don’t regret having done it. I felt like I had something to say, and that I did. The assessment if what I had to say was – or is – worth reading is up to you.
So with that I declare the Fort being in an indefinite hiatus. How long the site will still be online afterward will depend entirely on my gracious host r007.
I want to thank everybody who helped to get the site up and running (I can never thank r007 enough for helping me to set up the site and for hosting it on his server ... much kudos, mate).
I thank Clan WDG for having the Fort displayed in a very generous manner on their frontpage for almost its entire run.
I thank those people who have contributed to the site, either by comments or even by article. A special thanks goes to Junta in that regard. WP, mate.
And finally thanks to all you regular (or casual) readers who hopefully did not think that reading the articles here was a waste of your time 
Thus ends the third age of the Fort.
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