Thank You From The Team

[Wakamaru]

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From: Wakamaru

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Hello, A3ers! It's that time of the year again - A3 is having a birthday. Can you believe it? This last year has just flown by for me, so I can hardly believe it's that time again. Here we are though!

Azeroth Adoption Agency continues to grow and amaze me each year. We started off as a tiny group of forum-goers looking to help new collectors just starting out with their collections but sharing our spare inventory with them. That quickly grew as more people had extra inventory to contribute. During our first few months we grew slowly, but steadily, gaining more members and more pets to share. The community really took off when we moved onto a forum, giving everyone a more reliable way to communicate with us and one another.

Shortly (very) after the addition the of the forum, WarcraftPets.com featured the community on their site. We grew tremendously following this! We quickly gained more than 300 new members over the next two weeks. This was a rocky period for A3 though. Unfortunately, along with the positive growth, there also came negative members looking for an easy way to scam and make gold in-game. Luckily though, the admins at the time and the newly added team were diligent and were quickly able to thwart these types. Although we do still see the occasional scam or cheating attempt, it is very rare compared to the initial new member rush. Thankfully the positive, helpful attitude of our core member base thrives over negative attitudes such as these!

In the year following our first member boom, we saw the addition of team members. This was by far the greatest addition to the community! Although not all of our team members have worked out, in general, they have all worked and strived to lift and improve A3 through hard work and creativity. The addition of the team is the single greatest thing that I am thankful for. Without the team, A3 would not have continued to expand into the many-faceted community that it is. Following the addition of the team, we were able to expand the number of ways that we interact with members and distribute pet. The first year also saw the addition of donation drives, events, special giveaways, and so much more. These new additions really helped to shape the A3 that you know today.

In the second year, we took what we learned from our first year and applied it to the design of events and donation drives, further shaping them to better suit the community. Some events have been more successful than others, and we use these to learn about what the community enjoys the most. We also very excitedly reached the 6,000 pets rehomed milestone in year two, near the end of November. We were so thrilled to celebrate this in conjunction with the 2nd anniversary.

At the very beginning of year 3, we added the best feature to A3: Discord! Discord allowed A3 to adopt a more cross-server cross-faction guild-style of interaction with its members. Discord has been wildly popular among the members and the team! The server features a constant stream of chatter amongst our members, allows interaction between the members and the team, allows for real-time assistance, and also has fun games and giveaways. At this time we have 126 members on our Discord server (you should join if you haven't)!

Year three also saw a lot of behind-the-scenes changes. We've gone through quite the team shuffle, parting ways with some of our favorite A3 veterans as they needed to move on to other things. Over the summer the team reached an all-time low number of 7 members. Although this was enough to continue to function normally on the front end, we considered it a skeleton crew because if anything came up or went wrong, we'd be hard-pressed to cope time-wise. The senior members and admins were running on fumes for a while there, to say the least. Luckily though, toward the end of summer, we started picking up new team members allowing the team a sense of security and a chance to breathe again! We also picked up a few non-team helpers during this time.

During this same time, A3 excitedly started to develop a closer relationship with the amazing Aranesh from Xu-Fu's Pet Guides - our absolute favorite battle pet resource! We got to sneak peek and test out great upcoming features (which are now available) and learn more about the Xu-Fu's team. Because of all of this, we switched over to using the Xu-Fu's site as our primary way of checking out members collections. Xu-Fu's strategies, collection viewer, Magpie, and export to spreadsheet features are A3's best friends! Xu-Fu's also featured A3 on their community blog, which brought more members our way - allowing us to adopt out even more battle pets!

The summer and autumn seasons have been particularly busy for me personally as well. With a huge move, a severe injury, and starting a new job it I feel that I've been pulled in 100 directions this year. It has at times proved challenging to keep up with all of my A3 responsibilities, but at the end of the day, the team is always here for me to lean on and the community has been here with an open ear when I needed destress. These things are priceless and I have to say thank you to everyone who has pitched in to keep me standing in one form or another these last few months. I <3 all of you!

So... this is where we are! I'm honestly so excited to see where we go in year 4! We have so many new pets coming out way in game and I can't wait to rehome a bunch of them to the community!

Thank you for another amazing year!
Waka

[Hollthulhu]

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From: Hollthulhu

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I'd love to thank the Community for being.. well, just that! An amazing community. I love chatting and playing with all of you, and it gives me something to look forward to in my free time. If it wasn't for the awesome community of A3, I would likely not be playing WoW nearly as much as I currently am. You guys are fun, quirky, and supportive, and I love that! Thanks everyone, and Happy Anniversary A3!

[Sandwalker]

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From: Sandwalker

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Wow, it's been a year already? Seems like only just last year since we had the second anniversary. So, what can I say?

The fact that A3 is celebrating its third anniversary is a testament to the energy and time the team put into making sure the organization is the best it can be. We've rehomed thousands of pets -- it's mindboggling just how many it's been in only three years, and much more will find their way into new pet journals in the future.

In addition to the pets, community participation is pretty good too, in our various giveaways and competitions. This anniversary will be no exception, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to seeing the results already!

*raises a glass* Here's to three years in business, and for the years to come!

[flameflash]

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From: FlameFlash

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Thank you to everybody who has joined us in this very busy year! I feel like we've seen more folks come in, joined us, and celebrated how awesome the critters that Blizzard has given us are.
I'm looking forward to entering Battle for Azeroth and all the new pets that will bring with all of you sometime next year (hopefully ;) ).

[piwakawaka]

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From: Piwakawaka

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Hello everyone at A3, Would you believe it's been 3 years already? I joined A3 almost from the very start, when Rusti, our founder, was floundering, and Wakamaru our intrepid leader was taking over because the smallest idea, getting pets from long time collectors to new collectors who needed a leg up suddenly became much much larger than anybody anticipated. It was a challenge to myself more than anything, a way to try and get talking to people again.

A lot has changed over the years, I started with a simple job, sending pets from Tab 3, as other staff moved on with their lives jobs have shuffled, I had a break from sending pets as we attempted to streamline how we operated, I gained a newsletter, and now I run all the tabs, sending you your pets each week.

It's not just staff faces and roles that have changed though. We've previously tried a mumble server, for better communication amongst our members, (it was never used) but with Discord, and the fact it brings both a solid text chat, and quality voice chat our community has flourished.

I came late to WoW not really getting into the game until Cataclysm. I've heard the stories of peoples guilds, friends banding together to take on Azeroth and all she contains. I have trouble approaching people and making friends, I never had a guild where i could do that. A3 has given me the confidence, and the friends, to do just that. And to my mind, this shows me just what can be achieved when we look at each others similarities, rather than our differences.

I look forward to seeing where we are this time next year. If Battle for Azeroth has been released, we are potentially looking at an entirely new shift in our community. With the changes they introduce to our social interactions, it is possible we will see our community expand even further, and that we will achieve a greater ability to help our members, and create new friendships.

People say WoW is dead. I say, if we can make a community this amazing, through all the sharding, and all the crz, and everything else people blame, WoW cannot die, you just need to keep looking for the community that fits you.

-Piwakawaka

[Jedikitten]

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From: Jedikitten

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Hi everyone!

I can't believe another year has come and gone already! This year has gone by so quickly. I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone involved with A3 for being such wonderful people. This community has grown so much in the past year, and the people we have here are just so amazing. I don't know how I managed before joining this great group.

When I joined I was just happy to be able to be a member, I never dreamed I'd be able to be one of the "behind-the-scenes" helpers, let alone a staff member. I'm so grateful to Wakamaru for letting me join the team and help her and all of our other wonderful staff members out. I'm looking forward to what the future holds for us all, as a team, as a community, as a bunch of WoW addicts.

Thanks again to everyone on the team and all of our members! Hope you all have a wonderful Chrismas and a Happy New Year!

Jedikitten >^.,.^< (meow)

[OzinLA]

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From: OzinLA

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As another A3versary passes, I stop to remember the ride. Sometimes bumpy, mostly smooth, but always fun. Looking forward to another year with all the A3ers, veterans of pet collecting, and the newly initiated alike.

Oz.

[Vivienne]

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From: Vivienne

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Hey there! It's Vivienne and I'm stopping by to give thanks to this great community of fellow pet collectors. Without you all, A3 wouldn't be possible. I look forward to another year of fun and excitement.

Thanks for being awesome!
Vivienne

[Aerotsune]

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From: Aerotsune

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Thanks for putting up with me, my horrible sense of humor, and my excessive use of smilies. I'm looking forward to another year!

[YarnSnob]

I want to thank the team!

Thank you, all of you. I'm socially awkward, sometimes saturated with worry, and have both a dry and unusual sense of humor. With all the pointy parts of my personality everyone makes me feel welcome and included. Thank you all. Looking forward to the next 3 years!

[moondaisy]

Mid-year I found this group. I had also made it my goal to meet new folks and do new things every week. I'm so glad this was one of those things. Even if I'm not very talkative I'm here and feel this group has helped me grow as a person. So thanks team for all you do.

[Minkey]

I haven't had much time to jump on Discord recently with a crazy work schedule, but I can't stress enough how awesome this community is and how selfless the A3 leadership is with its members. Cheers to another successful year!

[Kementari]

I wasn't sure where to post this so here seemed like the best place

I want to thank all the team for the great job they did with the anniversary giveaway! I had a blast doing all the games.
I also want to congratulate ALL the winners, there were so many! I would not want to be the one handing out all those prizes that's a huge task you have ahead of you. lol

As for me, I still don't have a working PC and this laptop doesn't have WoW installed. I hope that's not going to be a issue with prizes claiming

Once again congratulations to all the winners and thank you A3