What's your MGSF story?

[Dirty Duck]

I joined MGSF in 2009 after my friend and I got into MPO. I made a handful of posts exclusively in the MGS section over a few months (mainly about how cool Ocelot is).

There was an amusing mix of people. They either ignored how obviously young and stupid my posts were (such as matter-of-factly explaining why MGS5 should not be a game about the entirety of Ocelot’s life without passing any judgement at my idea)

Spoiler:

or on the flipside some (very fairly) responded like this:

Spoiler:

(The topic was “MGS4 Substance/Subsistence. Will they do it?”)

Fast forward to 2011 and after getting into Peace Walker and wanting to discuss it (my MPO friend didn’t pick it up) I remembered the forums. I figured my maturity and emoticon-restraint had progressed enough since then to feel my old account didn’t best represent me and just made a new one.

Username Background not necessarily pertaining to MGSF:

I’d been playing a fair amount of MGO2 at the time and had been in a clan called TheCOBRAS. The leader was TheJOY and I found the sort of soft role playing really cool (I’d previously bought my first character all of the Praying Mantis PMC stuff because I wanted to act as if he was a real soldier in the world) so my character for that clan was TheEND and I tried to be a sniper (and failed because I wasn’t good at the game).

Eventually I wanted to make my own clan where all the members corresponded to characters from a group in MGS (as most of TheCOBRAS were just regular players with only a few actual Cobra Unit members). I went with Outer Heaven as I felt the pixel art left the look of the characters open to some interpretation which would make it easier to resemble them with what MGO2 had customisation wise. I went with Dirty Duck after thinking he was the coolest (as well as the fact his main tactics in-game was just using hostages which meant I was free to use whichever noob weapons I was any good with lmao) and I think I maybe got one other random guy to be Machinegun Kid. I ended up mainly playing with TheCOBRAS even as Dirty Duck since MGO2 was on its way out at this point anyway.

I liked the name Dirty Duck and decided to use it when signing up the second time.

The community was large enough to be active but small enough to make it feel like you weren’t just a drop in the ocean. The MGS themed orgs tapped into that same part of my pleasure receptors that the clans I joined in MGO did. Dead Cell and Joe’s graphics tapped into every other part of aforementioned pleasure receptors. I am not immune to propaganda and so Dead Cell was the org I ended up in. The org camaraderie really upped my investment in the forums and made me a lot more active. I also remember Henry breaking border laws to compliment my sigs I’d made for myself which was a bit of a confidence boost at the time.

I shared the site with IRL friends that then all joined to try and troll me. I knew this would be their first thought so as Jason said, I told them my username was Granin. I remember one of them being like “it seems like you’re a really big member on there” and finding it really funny. Seems kind of mad that Granin’s influence is now scrubbed from the site and I’m still here. Hope he broke up with that woman and is just too embarrassed to come back rather than still be in a relationship like that.

In 2013 Departed hit me up about starting our own org. The idea of making something of our own sounded really cool and I was on board. At that point running an org felt like a really big deal! As much as I loved Dead Cell it was quite inactive and it felt a bit lonely. I remember I messaged Henry asking whether DC would be closed before I committed to Desperado Enforcement and made a post in Dead Cell’s PF apologising for jumping ship and all sorts. Srs bsns.

To my surprise looking back I wasn’t actually supposed to be in charge of the graphics. Shyne was supposed to be defecting from TSF and making graphics for us. He ended up doing neither as TSF activity picked up a bit so I stepped up to the plate and made the DE graphics. They were well received except for Nate who kept saying about parts of it looking messy…and despite my not changing it he was right. My DE sigs will always bother me. From the sloppy ink splat resolution to the obvious Dead Cell “inspiration” it was a bit amateur-but I was a self-taught GIMP user who was working graphics out as I went along so I was an amateur (not much has changed all this time later). I’m still quite fond of the eventual button though. I treated the org branding as a project and I got a lot of fulfilment from it. I remember telling Jason I’d been working on graphics and him being disappointed when I revealed I meant for the forum rather than for my fast-approaching graphic design coursework. (bit of trivia-this was the same conversation where I told him the org I was working on was going to be called WWE: Wank Wank Einstein. The rest is history.)

The time running DE with Dep and the others was a high point of the forum for me. I really came into my own as a member and I made a lot of friends. The site was a much needed de-stress from real life at points. I was in sixth form and naturally a lot of stupid teething pains type drama happens in those years. The entertainment factor at points was far greater than a video game forum had any right to be. I became a moderator and tried my best to give back to the forums. On some level I maybe tried too hard at points but on another more stupid level I do think being a mod and running an org developed my management and leadership skills. But not enough to count as work experience on my CV, apparently.

I was active throughout. I eventually left Desperado to make a new org with Henry after we got closer. My graphics for The Philosophers didn’t really make any waves in my memory and they would end up being the last real graphics I debuted on MGSF (besides maybe the Ludens theme if anyone remembers that?). I tried very hard to do something more original compared to DE’s “not-DC” look. I still don’t really know if that paid off but I had fun making Phi and Henry and I became a lot closer through it. I don’t remember how long Phi lasted in reality but it felt short lived. I was a lot less invested after the change into Outer Heaven (Henry and I had proper disagreements over it. Remember-srs bsns). I decided to leave the graphics to someone else when we did Tokugawa Heavy Industries. (The name largely left me stumped for inspiration if I’m honest. And I thought maybe I’d lost the spark.) and then-

The Tapaning.
Just like that a site I’d invested so many hours into had become near unusable. The site’s activity had been dwindling and it felt like this put a stop in any of our ideas to rejuvenate it. It was sad. It was a reminder that our home wasn’t ours. We all sort of said goodbye to it.

I’d left university at this point and was starting my life in the “real world.” I didn’t want to commit to being a part of spearheading any attempts that followed to rebuild MGSF, both those that came to fruition and those that didn’t make it past a proposition. I still wanted to have that place to go on the internet but I felt like we’d seen that these things can disappear in an instant and I didn’t want to make something so fickle a priority when I was at that already fickle point where we’re aimlessly wandering through the wilderness of our lives. I wanted to be a part of it; I just didn’t want to be in charge of it.

I found niche community fulfilment and that “project feel” elsewhere for a while after a small grassroots Smash Ultimate scene started in my hometown. I lent into helping the tournament organiser by making graphics and running side-events and trying to bring more people in. It was a lot of fun and was good for meeting people during a time where I was far away from a lot of the friends that I had at university (except Jason who was also part of this Smash scene.) but covid happened and despite attempts to keep it up online during lockdown it never re-emerged afterwards. Another community went their separate ways.

I stayed in contact with a couple of us over those years but it’s just a lot harder without that centralised convergence point. The memories were kept very much alive through my IRL friendships with Jason and Henry throughout the gap years. I stayed with Henry for a while when I was in a rough spot and out of work and when people ask how I met him it always feels hilarious to say he was the admin of a Metal Gear forum I was a part of. I made so many genuine connections on the site over the years.

Sad messaged me about MGL when they made it and I was glad to see a lot of old faces. I signed up and was middlingly active my whole time there. I felt much more reserved as a poster compared to MGSF. I’m sure that’s largely just growing up and being lowkey beaten down by the world. On the other hand I wondered if it meant it was the end of Internet funnyman Dirty Duck. How will they view me if I’m not being an unnecessary dick?! But it was nice seeing what everyone was up to again and reading cult video game opinions.

When MGL was written-off I found myself once again having nowhere I actually wanted to go when I sat down at my computer. The internet felt hollow. I’m sure it felt the same for some of you. To have somewhere to visit to cut loose was vital to many of us and social media just doesn’t do that for a lot of people. I’m so against the direction the internet has gone down and the only way to protest that is to make a website. We can all do it (You should do it. MGF can be your affiliate?  ). I started figuring out this site because of that. It’s a learning curve but I’m really happy to have somewhere to discuss MGS and life again.

Crazy long post but it’s been a crazy long time.