Hey everyone, today is Valence's 1-Year Anniversary!

We opened Valence to the public on the 25th of September, 2021. Back then we were running a couple of versions of Minecraft back, with a staff team of a dozen or so, and a couple hundred people in the discord. In summary - we've come a long way since that.

I wanted to celebrate the occasion to taking many of you on a trip back to the week of the 25th of October, 2021. Many of y'all joined up with us around that time, we had a TikTok or two go viral (thanks @Kay btw) and that blew us up!

What some of you may have forgotten is that our server was down at that time. See, @Star had gone on vacation with his family and during that a critical renewal we forgot about came through and - since he wasn't at his desk back home - it didn't get done. So our servers were down for that whole weekend and the better part of that next week.

I remember hopping in channels with a bunch of different folks - most notable the TESCO bunch + @Gangry - which included @Bharles, @Naomi Dean, @Saint_Christopher, @Szeñor SAUL, @Ultra and many others.

That excitement that people had about being able to come on and play - it was infectious, it was real. I remember bouncing from channel to channel, each full of people eager to play and looking forward to what we had in store.

I also distinctly remember spending a good 40-50 hours with @Kay and @Star that week trying to get things up and running, looking at different hosts and services, heck, I even bought them both dinner I think.

That era of Valence is long in the rear-view mirror, but I still look back fondly at that time. When folks like @Zack and I were still trying to figure out the best way to engage all of y'all, make things cool and interesting.

We tried tons of different things, court RP was one of the big ones I tried out. That Tinkerer's Cove v. Kingdom of Shining Time case was crazy, and I still hear some people talk about that here and there.

In closing - I've taken a bunch of time in the last couple days to reflect on what we've built, who we are, and where we're going. The good friends I've made, the challenges I've faced, what I've learnt. I wouldn't trade this for anything.

This community is everything to me, thank y'all so much for being apart of it. Here's to another year!

Terence / Doc

General Manager

Valence SMP