Dark Age: Difference between revisions

To date the longest of the Dark Ages of WIDEVERSE, the 1st Dark Age was a truly dark time in the communities history. The age had long been coming, offset only by Shelarahns heroic, but futile, attempts to prevent the inevitable. After the failure of COMMUNISM to revive itself as a raiding guild, Shelarahn abandoned it all in pursuit of college, leaving the community without leader nor community. By happenstance, [[Petrus]] would find himself buying the guild off of a random officer Shelarahn had left it to, unknowingly saving WIDEVERSE from oblivion.

{{See also|The Great Slump of 2022|WIDEBOYS-SCJP Schism}}

Historians have long debated whether or not the post-COVID era of WIDEVERSE constitutes a Dark Age and when exactly it would have begun, though most agree that the downfall of [[WIDEFORCE]] in late February 2021 marks one of the most notable points of the WIDEVERSE's slide into inactivity. Early 2021 held many promises, such as the aforementioend WoW raid team, the surprisingly popularity of [[Valheim]], and the successful reformat of [[WEIRD WEDNESDAYS]]. All those things however failed to gain any real traction and quickly fell to the wayside. In May of 2021, Prude launched [[BEEFYBOYS.CLUB]] to little fanfare outside of the WIDEVERSE faithful. Summer saw a brief blip of activity as a small group of Biggers got addicted to Apex for a few months. Fall saw Prude attempt to revive interests in Guild Wars 2 via WvW PvP events, which were briefly successful but also failed to gain traction.

2022 showed even more promise, with the launched of The WIDEBOYS Communiyt Discord, [[WIDE Media Group]], and its [[The BEEFY BOYS]] and [[WIDEVANIA]] franchises, however both failed to reinvigorate the community. Fediverse remained a mainstay of happenings, but too had failed to attract any real attention, much to the chagrin of Prude and Taylor. Summer brought an unlikely boon in the form of Fortnite. A brief WIDETV relaunch was considered, but due to continuing infrastructer problems was quickly shuttered. Dragonflight showed promise, but due to multiple failures in the running of the new WIDEFORCE raid group, never got off the ground.

Things appeared grim going into 2023, as Taylor abdicated once again, eventually leaving the community entirely in Spring of that year. His departure and spats with WBC leadership would eventually lead to the 4th COMMUNISM Civil War: The WIDEBOYS-SCJP Schism.