Goodbye, Moon

Sunday, July 9, 2006 12:00 AM EST

Two and some odd number years ago I started this website, Harvest Moon Eternity, out of simple boredom. I often wonder how many awesome websites out there would have never started if the webmaster had not been bored. The website was a simple, unplaned website designed with sprites that were yielded after searching on Google. The layout was nothing to scream over, but it was simple, balanced, and contained quite a few errors. Yet, all was right in the world.

A new webmaster seems to have undieing energy to give to his or her website, energy that, unfortunately, leaves most webmasters very quickly. I had the same energy, and I updated three or four or five times a day! I couldn't stand to wait to update the site and save some of the information for later. I joined topsites, sent requests for affiliations, and competed to make Harvest Moon Eternity a site that some day people would enjoy, know about, and talk about. My goal was to build a community of active members, where people could discuss Harvest Moon's finer aspects and have fun together. And in some ways, I achieved that goal, and in other ways I failed. All I know was that, for the most part, I had fun along the way.

So now, in Harvest Moon Eternity's final hours, it saddens me to see another Harvest Moon website slowly slip into oblivion. As far as I see it, the Golden Age of Harvest Moon is over. At one time, there were tons of Harvest Moon websites, another popping up each day — all of them great. They all had communities of active visitors, people who enjoyed Harvest Moon.

So, where did all of those sites go? Well, the vast majority of them merged, which presents pros and cons. Others simply faded away, left to linger on servers when the prospects of having a great community disappeared, and some webmasters just lost the interest in, the time, or the resources to run their websites. Whatever the reason, we are now left without any online community between websites — simply because there are not enough sites left. To the current Harvest Moon webmasters or any aspiring webmaster, stick in there as long as you can. Hold out through the storm, something I can no longer do with Harvest Moon Eternity.

Before I leave Harvest Moon Eternity to sit on this server for the rest of its days, I would like to provide some tools that might prove useful to current webmasters. Throughout my years online, I have aquired quite a bit of official art pretaining to the Harvest Moon series. A lot of this art can no longer be found, or can only be found on a select few websites. I think it would be wasteful to just let it all end up being deleted, so I invite you to download my official art collection and make use of it. All people may use it for any purpose, with out having to credit me or Harvest Moon Eternity. More information my be found in the side bar of this page on how to aquire my archives.

Thank you to all the webmasters and visitors out there who made Harvest Moon Eternity a fun project, and worth the time — all of you are awesome. Specific thanks goes out to all the members of the Harvest Moon Eternity Forums and RPG. Thank you to all the origninal veterans, you are the reason that Harvest Moon Eternity made it this far. (Serpia, The Tailed Madman, Some Dude, Danielle, HM Geek, HM Fan, Fire Eagle, Tari, Talon, Moocow, Goopimon the Great, HarvestStar, The Magic Talking Cookie, and anyone else out there I may have forgotten.) Also, thank you to all those great webmasters and their sites for being such an inspiration to me: Dustyboy316 and his site "Dusty Moon" (Thank you for creating such a great, inspirational site, and for running such wonderful forums while they lasted. Dusty Moon was truely one of the last great sites of the "Golden Age".), Safaia Ryuujin & Kyle Dove and their site "Evergreen" (Thank you for being a beacon of light for the Harvest Moon community. Although the HM Evergreen Alliance fell through, the principal of it is just what the Harvest Moon community needs — open collaberation between webmasters. Thank you for always helping Harvest Moon Eternity out when you could. I appreciate it. (Keep Evergreen going, you could single handedly restart the Harvest Moon community. I know you can do it.)), Kimby and her site "Harvest Time" (Thank you for being another inspiration, your website is amazing, and the achievements you make amaze me.), SmaShin'_Im and his late site "It's Harvest Moon!" (Thank you for essentially being the brother site to Harvest Moon Eternity. I remember joining the Dusty Moon topistes all those years ago and trying to compete, keep up, and out do your excellent website. You've done a great job.), and the now gone webmaster of Harvest Moon Cat. We'd been affiliate since the begining, and I enjoyed seeing your site grow. (Though it has been nearly a year since your site silently slipped off the air waves.)

Once again, thank you to anyone else I forgot, there are a lot of you out there to whom I owe an incredible amount of thanks. I apologize if I missed you, but I could never compile a comprehensive list.

And thanks to anyone who has read this far, for if you have, you have an incredible amount of care for Harvest Moon Eternity (or you have too much free time.)

I won't just disappear off of the internet, no I'll be around. Feel free to shout "hello" to me on message boards or forums if you catch that me signing name with "always." It would make my day.

If you would like to contact me via email (the most practical way), I will be answering email messages from hmeternity@hotmail.com for many years to come. I would love to hear what you've got to say.

So, for old times' sake, allow me to type my classic closing for one last time on Harvest Moon Eternity:

Always ~HMEternity
Harvest Moon is Forever...

Harvest Moon Eternity was online and open from February 16, 2004 to July 9, 2006. Thank you for visiting.
(I still think Harvest Moon is Forever, no matter what anyone says!) Please keep the memories alive.