One year Ago, I saw this browser game on Reddit
One year ago, I saw a post about a little browser game called War Era on Reddit.
I remember thinking:
"Oh, this looks fun and interesting."
So I clicked it.
That may have been a mistake.
A year later, I've fought wars across the world, stayed awake at completely unreasonable hours watching battle timers, somehow ended up involved in government and politics, served in Congress, became Vice President more times than any sensible person should, travelled around the game's world, started writing increasingly ridiculous articles about my adventures, and developed a Khajiit alter ego called Binya_Elsweyr who now refers to himself exclusively as "this one."
But none of that is really why I'm writing this.
The best thing War Era gave me wasn't a position, a battle victory or a number on a leaderboard.
It was the people.
I've made friends from South Africa and from countries all over the world — people I almost certainly never would have met if we hadn't all stumbled into the same strange little browser game.
There have been late-night calls.
Quiz nights. Games. Ridiculous conversations.
Triumphs when something we'd worked towards finally succeeded and disappointment when it didn't.
We've built our own community events around the game, and right now we're spending October running Spooktober, where little ghosts have invaded our Discord and everyone is hunting them, solving riddles, changing profiles and slowly discovering that I've probably spent far too much time planning this nonsense.
And honestly?
Watching people have fun with it has been one of my favourite parts of the year.
War Era itself is a persistent multiplayer geopolitical game. You choose a country, work, trade, fight in wars, join military units, participate in politics, build businesses, write newspapers and inevitably become emotionally invested in a coloured piece of a map at an hour when you should be sleeping.
But the game is really just the starting point.
The communities that form around it are what kept me playing.
So this post is partly a thank you to everyone I've met during the past year.
But it's also an invitation.
If you're reading this the same way I read a random Reddit post one year ago and thinking, "Huh, that sounds interesting"... come give it a try.
You don't need to know what you're doing.
I certainly didn't.
If you end up in South Africa, come say hello. We've got an active community, people willing to help you learn, military units to join, community events, quizzes and games, and currently several escaped ghosts that really need to be returned to containment.
And if South Africa isn't for you, that's okay too. Pick somewhere interesting. Meet the community. Get involved. Make some friends. Start a business. Become a soldier. Get into politics.
Or do what I did and somehow end up doing all of them.
Maybe you'll play for twenty minutes and decide it isn't for you.
Maybe you'll still be there a year later writing a Reddit post like this one.
Either way, to everyone who made my first year what it was:
Thank you.
For the friendships, the calls, the quizzes, the games, the battles, the ridiculousness and all the memories.
One year ago, Reddit introduced me to War Era.
So it seems only fair that one year later, I return the favour.
Come play with us.
And if you happen to meet a Khajiit carrying a journal...
This one probably knows nothing about it.