My personal favorite time of MCSG was within the first few months of April 2012. Back in those days, there was only one map we could play and the number of servers was severely limited. I enjoyed this phase so much because it wasn't required to add someone on Skype or get out of your way to play with them. The community was so close-knit that it wasn't rare to find people you knew in multiple games without really searching for them. Joining servers with someone else was also a lot easier to do.
I think the main reason why I enjoyed this time period so much was not because of the community; rather, the game itself. Those hour-long games were damn exciting. It was really difficult for me to even survive, let alone actually get gear! I would scrounge every resource I could find and never let anything go to waste. Survival Games 1 felt like a massive death arena in my perspective. I would venture out into the distance, and never know where I was going or how to get back. I was always lost. It felt a lot more like the Hunger Games I knew and loved from the book series.
I didn't care if I won or lost. I cherished the small victories; surviving past refill, getting my hands on some armor, killing another tribute and not starving to death were just a few of them. The friends that I had acquired along the way only compounded the experience I enjoyed so much.
Most people are mentioning that the best time in MCSG's history was 2013-2014. However, I took many hiatuses around that time so I never immersed myself in all of the great things that came around that time. When I played around that time, I managed to win my first game. It was exhilarating. Analogous to someone wanting to reach that high again, I became competitive. This competitiveness led to the downfall of my enjoyment. I was/am also very shy, so I didn't interact with other people very much outside of text.
