The Kingdom of Gao Public TF2 Server!

An Official Statement Regarding the Kingdom of Gao

I will be speaking on behalf of the Kingdom of Gao.
If you are only interested in what is happening currently and the future of the Kingdom of Gao, please skip to the next segment.

As you may or may not have noticed, we recently had our group's one-year anniversary (March 8th). We never imagined we could get this far, and we would like thank you all for joining us on this wild journey, as we certainly found it an extremely enjoyable year.

Nearly exactly one year ago, a group of friends and I were addicted to TF2. We went onto public Chinese servers and sometimes even American servers to play. There was a problem, however. These servers usually had obnoxious ads, undesirable maps, and annoying mods. In order to create a "safe haven" for us to play on, I created the server dubbed "The Kingdom of Gao." We played over the weekends, vacations, and basically any free time we had. Random people came and went, joining us for a few rounds before leaving and never being seen again. Over a period of a few weeks, we gradually began to see a few of the same users over and over again, joining us as we played hours on end throughout the evening all the way until midnight. Complete strangers on the internet became regulars to the server, playing with us, chatting with us, laughing with us. It was a completely incredible experience, and what I wouldn't give to relive it all over again. I would like to give all these people a huge shoutout. You guys are awesome; we could have never gotten this far without you all. There is so much I would like to say, but I guess I’m just feeling a bit over sentimental. Its kind of like watching your child grow up and leaving the house, and who knows when they'll come back. Hope you guys understand.

I understand our members are currently confused about the absence of activity, nonexistence of feedback, and lack of the actual server, and we deeply regret and immensely sorry for the inconvenience. I would like to explain everything to everyone who reads this post.

First off the missing server is not because of the admins neglecting or forgetting about it. As users of the server as well, we also would like to have it back. However, as I am the one who is hosting it, I have run into some technical difficulties in hosting the server, more specifically the problem lies in port forwarding. I recently changed internet service providers, routers, modems, all of that stuff, and in the end it messed with my original configurations. Simply put, I can technically host the server, but no one will be able to connect to it. Other reasons for the absent server include a lack of interest caused by a lack of time. Since my friends and I are still in school, we are currently trying to cope with our schedule, homework, and tests. I haven’t really been looking into different alternatives because of this. Buying another server online isn’t really a good solution either. With these issues in the way, I do not see a workaround, unless someone can either provide me an alternative method, or host the server for us altogether.

It is hard to say for sure what will happen to this group. A few friends and I currently have moved on to play Dota 2 occasionally, so perhaps if you’re interested in joining you can message one of us. It’s pretty fun, and we’re all terrible so maybe you can come destroy us in our lobbies. And if you’re new to the game, well it’s a great time to start now and learn together with us. On the other hand, we still have a place in our heart for competitive TF2, as after years of playing, we definitely would want to see our skill level in comparison to other players. When competitive does come out of beta, you can expect us to play TF2 again. Besides Dota 2 or the release of Competitive TF2, I’m not sure there are any other ways for us to play together.

I’m really sad to see things to turn out the way they are now. Everyone has gone their separate ways and moved on from the Kingdom of Gao ever since its passing. Even if I were to miraculously pull out the server from out of nowhere, who knows how many people would still play on it, and who knows how long that would last. However, mark my words, the Kingdom of Gao is going to come back one way or another, and we will always be a welcoming and loving community. It might be a month, might be a year, maybe even more than that, but sometime in the future we shall come back together to play once again….

Thank you everyone for being with us this entire time. We sincerely wish you enjoyed the Kingdom of Gao while it lasted. We hope to see you again in the future.

Stay awesome guys,

-74, and all the Kingdom of Gao admins.