There are many chapters in the story of how DNS came to be. This is one of the more real ones. Last year on January 18th 2016, DNS lost one of its founding members, Brandon Woofenden. Maybe better known to our users as MCwizard111. He fought a very short battle with cancer.
Now a little history before I speak about Brandon. When the pack started it was myself and d3adstorage all by our selves working on the pack. I was invited to work on a project. It was a mod list database, something that wasn't around at the time that was, for the most part, a good idea. The crew doing the grunt work was very small. It consisted of myself, Kenny, bigougit, and mcwizard111. The project died down as they do. Mostly because I stole the crew to work on DNS. For the longest it was Kenny, Brandon, and myself sitting in the irc or teamspeak working away at DNS. Developing new ideas, and creating mods that were needed for the pack at that time. I spent many hours over the next 2 years working and hanging with Brandon.
At the time we started working together I believe he was about 16. Still just a kid. I on the other hand was much older and we spent a lot of our time talking about life and what he should try to do with it. I know he had some rough home life. His family was by no mean well off and resources were limited to him. But I tried to coach him for a few interviews he was going on and try to council him when he didn't get one. I don't want to go as far as saying I thought of him as my kid or I was a father figure, but as a friend that need watching out for. he seem unsure of himself and very tame when I met him and I watch him grow into a pretty cool young man who wanted to take care of himself and his family.
I've only ever trust 2 other people with DNS, Iamomicron and Mcwizad111. No one else had ever seem to understand what I was doing and my vision for our users and the pack itself. Brandon was there from pretty much the beginning and work nonstop to help me and our users get as much enjoyment out of this game as they could. He built mods, launchers, installer and our first website. Our old forums that many of our users posted to was all built by him. Steven and I put together that actual site ( which is no big deal to some) but we knew nothing about putting together a forums database and Brandon figured it out and maintained them for years. Many of the things he worked on are not in use now as we moved on to other services that made all our lives easier with less maintaining, but I wont forget what he did to get us where we are today. DNS would still be a thing today even if Brandon had not have been a part of it, but I don't see it being where we are today without his help. I may have given up on it a long time ago.
In the middle of 2014 I found out I was going to be a father again and that's when I stepped away from DNS. Many of you know this. I want to be the best husband and farther I can be and that doesn't leave a lot time to play and work on games. Sucks I know but its how I wanted to do it. Then in Feb of 2015 my son was born and pretty much dropped off the internet. I lost touch with Brandon at that time. He himself was getting into the real world and working a job trying to make money and start his life. We tried to stay in contact through Skype, talking every few months here and there. We had this thing with starting a conversation by saying "Hey, you still alive?" Id say it to him and him to me. That was the last msg I sent him on Jan 20th 2016. 2 days after he had past away. Im not sad that I said it, cause it was our thing, but I am sad that I will never get an answer...............
In Oct of 2015 he was diagnosed with cancer after going to the doctor to see what the pain under his arm was. Turned out to be something serious. It only took 3 months for him to reach the end of his journey from that point. Life is short and there are things in the world that make it even shorter very fast. His presence will always be felt with DNS. Many of you have been helped by him either directly or indirectly and don't know it. It weird how it works now. Someone you never met in person can still mean a lot to you. I wish I was there during that time for him but I didn't know, he never told me he was sick. Ill miss my DNS brother for a long time.
Rest easy brother.