Took me a while to put together a post so here it is.
Drizz and I butted heads at first due to differing opinions on game design, but I loved how he was both a top skilled player and not an asshole to people, which is extremely rare in gaming. He helped tons of people learn the game. While I didn't get to play with him much, we interacted more in direct conversation. I'd drill him for how to get better at the game and he'd drill me for engine trivia to try and figure out if he could push certain things farther.
He was also always looking out for everyone. He was the defacto mod-ish person for the destiny threads here, in addition to his stewardship in Destiny itself. My first Mercury run was with him, and he was patient the entire way and never showed frustration with me, and we know he didn't with anyone else.
One time it got particularly heated over there, and I bounced out of the thread. He sent out a
PM (edited to remove personal deets) to me, which he didn't even need to do, to tell me he wanted to see to see my posts again. I think he's the only forumer to do that to just about anyone on the internet, and I don't doubt he sent similar PMs to other people. He even playfully ribbed me over my
"interesting" account when he played as my account for the second Trials emblem I wanted, because he was just that good and helpful and patient that he'd just play as you if you couldn't get the time to play Trials with him.
When I saw the news about his death, that's the first time in a long while I've actually felt my heart sink. We just saw him posting a couple days earlier. Those sudden deaths kind of freak me out, even moreso with CO poisoning. One day you're there, the next you're gone from a silent, invisible killer. Just from doing what thousands of people do every day, working on their own home. Don't know why he had to die. In the "that's not even fucking fair" lists of deaths, Drizzay is now a solid #1 on the list.
Not gonna even lie, the release of Rise of Iron just feels a bit empty now. For every new piece of information I don't get to read Drizz's reaction to it or his breakdown of all the details. The wind just isn't in those sails right now.
Since he enjoyed dgaf engine posts, I'd figure I would do something I know he would like, and have a little humor, so I wrote him a tribute in the form of an engine post:
"Drizzay is one of the kindest men on the planet. From his first revision, he was always engineered by his creator for kindness and compassion. The Drizzay engine always caches and remembers those that need him the most, and his runtime doesn't allow for any malicious code. He expanded his reach beyond the horizons of his own world and into the instances of other people. However, much like the Destiny engine, he always needed 8 hours overnight to compile new changes to his world. He will be missed."