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Convicted was was many things to me -- a home, and a family, to name a few. When I hit the "Connect" button on May 5th, 2012, I hadn't the slightest clue what I was getting myself into. I'm certainly not saying that as a bad thing, of course; Convicted is one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life.

When I began my journey, I was an immature kid who had gotten Minecraft because most other kids I talked to said it was cool, and because I had played Pocket Edition and found it to be fun. I played Single Player for a while, about 2 and a half months, but slowly got bored with it. So, as I looked around MCF one day, under the Popular Topics section I found a topic called "Convicted Prison Server." Curious, I followed the link and came across this very forum. After reading the server description and the basics, I thought, "Huh, that would be fun to play on." So I connected late one night, and began my journey.

I remember stumbling around for a bit, confused on where to go, what to do, etc. as any new player probably once did. I remember a structure set up in the C Foyer that described a Hunger Games game, but when I clicked the button to go there nothing happened (I guess it had gone on earlier that day or something). So I continued, and found my way into the Tree Farm. I began chopping trees, but before long a passing Free saw me and threw me a diamond axe. I used it for a bit, but on my way to the shop I was killed. Not to be discouraged, I continued to work and, over the course of a few days, made my way to B Block through Tree Farm work and through voting.

Something you should know is that in these days, being killed was very common as a C-Prisoner. This was during the server's height of popularity -- the summer of 2012, where it was common to see as many as 70 people on at nearly any given time during the day. There was a lot of competition for resources, so the server was a very dangerous place. But I digress.

I fought my way through B Block just as I did in C Block, and spent all of my BP on diamonds to wreak vengeance upon the poor souls who thought it would be fun to kill me more than once (alas, it never actually worked out). Although, looking back on it, I'd have to say that it was fun to always beware the shadows. It added that sense of danger to the server, forced to you be aware of your surroundings, and gave you a great thrill rush when you successfully made it to the shop! I actually honestly don't remember much about my B-Prisoner days, but I know they were not lengthy. I remember working the Sandstone Mine occasionally, but more often than not, using the Tree Farm. I also remember that my way was mostly paid out (a theme that will admittedly be prevalent throughout my story) by a Free who I believe was quitting. I'm sorry to say that I can't remember their name, however. I only remember that I was at the old, original Event Room which used to be a part of the prison, next to B Block, in the room with all the chests. But anyways, I ranked up before too long and became an A-Prisoner.

It was likely during my month as an A-Prisoner that I was truly sucked into the server. I fought at the Mob Farm often, and mined occasionally. I believe dualbladez also became a Warden while I was an A-Prisoner. During this time, an event called Helmet Quest was created, and was open in the C Foyer for nearly a week. The goal was to travel through a PvP-Enabled parkour to sell chain helmets purchased at the beginning, and the further you went in the parkour, the more they sold for. All sorts of prisoners and Frees participated in this event, and brought with them armor (usually iron) and a sword (usually diamond). I used this to my advantage, and scavenged as much as I could for use in the Mob Farm. I made quite a bit of BP this way, but it still wasn't enough. Out of the 65,000 BP needed to graduate to Elite-Prisoner, I had maybe around 30,000.

It was during this time that I met a fellow A-Prisoner in one of the server's quiet times (late at night); his name was Tenobrus, and he was one of the 4 other players online at the time (of which two I can remember were foolBoy and Yort101). We climbed to the heavens in the Tree Farm (really we placed a ladder on one of the trees and ran around on the top), along with Yort. I have a screenshot of this time still to this day, because it was just one of those moments that really made me appreciate the server more. It was eventually Tenobrus who helped me out of A Block and into Elite, well after he'd already gotten through the prison and was Free. And thus, I became an Elite-Prisoner.

I don't remember much of my time as an Elite-Prisoner either honestly. I remember renting a cell and creating a Level 30 enchanting room (for that was the max enchant level at the time, and there were none in the prison). I remember digging around in the End Stone mine and obtaining redstone and lapis lazuli, and being confused because there wasn't a shop to sell them to despite many claims that there was. I grinded my way through Elite in this way. Late one night I was talking about how close I was to Free (needing 15k more), when someone messaged me offering to pay the rest of my way out. His name was MisterStrawman, and it's to him that I owe my freedom. Once Free, I strolled through the Prison entrance/exit doors of A Block and began my journey as a free man.

Randoman200 and another Free player named simdwhickman gave me a tour of Omega the same night I gained my freedom. It was around 2 AM by this time, and I was more intrigued than ever by the server. For a few weeks, I ran around Free, built an underground base with an entrance in the ocean surrounding the prison, mined in Omega, and also ran around the Prison. My underground base was eventually griefed, unfortunately, but I wasn't disheartened by it; in fact, it was probably a bit overdue since I had purchased and shared a Courtyard 2 plot with another friend, LegitCreed69, who was a Trainee. However, this life was also beginning to dull as my time on Single Player once had, and I knew that a change was needed. I turned my sights to Guard, and thus began my campaign.

At this time, it was early July. I put in my first application, which was pretty lengthy on Question 7 but otherwise didn't stand out much. After nearly 10 pages passed, I greatly spruced the app up and reposted it (I reposted it a bit under 10 pages since I was going on vacation the next day). Many people responded this time, and the application was actually accepted around within 3 hours of it begin posted. I was promoted just after a server restart. Thus, on July 13th, 2012, at around 9:30 PM, I was accepted as a TraineeGuard of Convicted.

Years later, I would discover that it was actually frootboy147 who had recommended me for promotion, and set me upon this path. For that, I will truly always be grateful. This may sound a bit sad, but being accepted as a Trainee is one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life. I learned so much and grew tremendously as a person during my time as a member of the staff of Convicted. If I hadn't been accepted, I can say without any uncertainty that I would not be the person I am today.

It was also during my time as a Trainee that I was banned for the first time. (Well, tempbanned, but who's keeping count?) My crime was bringing armor into one of Noakii's events on accident, which warranted a week tempban. Come to find out, I was extremely unlucky and (through a series of unfortunate events) never actually got the warning; the way it happened was that I saw Noakii say "Come click the gold block in the foyer!" I didn't know what it was, so I warped to C Foyer from Guard Spawn, and I went and clicked it; this warped me to a lobby with some other people. A few moments later, I was warped to C Bank and saw Noakii say "Tempbanning builder for a week." As I discovered on the forums through talking to a lot of people, apparently he had announced in broadcast that bringing in armor would result in a week tempban, a warning that I had missed because during this time period, Alphas frequently used broadcast for fake Tunnel Quest win messages ("___ has jsut won Tunnel Quest! (typo intentional)); therefore, I learned to ignore broadcast. There had also been signs in front of the gold block that I clicked; however, they all faced in the direction of the Cafeteria, and the warp I used from Guard Spawn sent me by the Tree Farm, opposite the direction the signs faced. After learning the reason for my suspension, I served my week tempban.

It was during my suspension that I also bought my alternate account, and began playing on the server with it. I got to D and saw it for the first time, and messed around there for a while before ranking back up through the ranks like the game was supposed to be played. After a while, my main account's tempban expired, and I began to play once more. This all took place during the first week of August, 2012.

August 13th, 2012, 12:43 AM -- the time of Convicted's first anniversary, and also the time of my promotion to Full Guard. I'll admit, I likely annoyed Viper and Noakii to death over this (and I do apologize), by casually but repeatedly talking about how cool it would be to be promoted at the time of the server's first birthday. I was promoted to Full Guard, and my time as a Trainee came to a close.

My reign as a Full Guard lasted from August 13th, 2012, to November 18th, 2012. It was during this time that I began to greatly mature, in part thanks to my responsibility as a Guard on the server. I jailed many rulebreakers, and likely killed twice as many, during this time. Some Alphas came and gone, but there was no way I could ever have predicted that my time would come so soon. On November 18th, 2012, around 6:15 PM, I was promoted to AlphaGuard. Thus began my time as a moderator (before the actual rank was created) of Convicted, and thus began a golden time of my life.

My reign as AlphaGuard was definitely one of the shorter ones. There was only one Warden promotion between my promotion to AlphaGuard and (spoiler alert!) my promotion to Warden: benjaminsaunders, the longest-serving AlphaGuard after MrDynamo, who retired (I believe) a bit before my promotion to Alpha. Benje's promotion came on July 19th, 2013, 8 months after my promotion to Alpha and 7 months before my promotion to Warden. I went through many trials and tribulations during my time as an Alpha, met so many people, and got to know my fellow Alphas on a much deeper level than I ever would have imagined that fateful day in May 2012. Finally, on February 9th, 2014, at around 2 PM, roughly 15 months after my promotion to AlphaGuard, I was promoted to Warden. I couldn't have been happier. Also promoted with me were maxcarey and Maaty_X, both to AlphaGuard. I actually remember that I played for 6 hours straight without rest. It was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me on Convicted.

You guys probably know the rest of the story from this point on, roughly a year later we closed the server for refurbishment, to hopefully revive a dwindling population. We re-opened our doors on August 13th, 2015. However, it wasn't enough. I will admit, I do feel somewhat responsible for what happened. I feel that if I had been more active, perhaps things could have turned out differently. I feel guilty for not having been around more, for not having done all that I could have to ensure that the server had a successful revival. It isn't that I couldn't have been around more, I had free time that could've been spent on the server; however, I instead spend it doing other things, on other hobbies. It's too late now to go back and change things, of course, and in my life I've found that it isn't healthy to dwell upon what could have been. But even still, that's just the way I feel.

So that's my story. There's many events I left out, seeing as there's no way I could possibly reconstruct this server's rich history in the span of a forum post. I'm sure I probably also left some people out of my story as well, and for that I apologize. So many of you all played a very important role in a very important part of my life, and I can never truly thank you all enough for all that you've done for me. I'm thankful, and I'm proud to have been a part of the staff of the formerly longest-running Prison Server out there. Truly, thank you all. I leave you all on the lyrics of the second opening song to a beautiful anime called Clannad:
I'll remember forever
Even if just about everything changes
It was just one, it was just one
Ordinary thing
But in the brilliance that I'll show you, there's only one thing that was fulfilled
I'll protect it forever and ever