QQ Home

There once was a community that occupied my entire childhood, QQ Home. In the era of feature phones, QQ Home introduced me to the Internet and games for the first time, but later it inexplicably shut down in 2015?

I remember it was in 2012, I was only 10 years old, holding my mom's Samsung phone; the phone was very bulky, only 3G, opened QQ Space, scrolled to the bottom, discovered a link to Home, and thus my fate with QQ Home began.

Encounter with The Path of Chivalry

The Path of Chivalry was the first game I played; it is a pure web-based text game. I started in 2012, it occupied my entire childhood. At that time, you could top up money for the game by SMS payment, and a single top-up could be 2 yuan; so I often, every day, used my parents' phone, topping up two yuan each day, two yuan daily, very anxious but unable to stop.

Back then, next door there was a chubby older brother, about 6-8 years older than me. He had already stopped studying and came to Beilun with his parents to work. He said I was his first friend in Beilun; we played very well, so he said: "Come, come to my house to play games, I'll top you up." In the hot summer, no air conditioning, sweating profusely, I could play at his house for an afternoon. Unfortunately the place where he used to live has since been demolished; when I went back last time I couldn't find Fat Brother; it's really a pity, and I had no contact information...

The Shutdown of QQ Home and a Return to Home

By 2015, QQ Home suddenly shut down without warning; the game had been played for 2-3 years and then disappeared; it's really hard to part. A lot of blood and sweat had been poured into it, and many acquaintances didn't get a chance to exchange contact information; it's a great regret.

Later, every year I would recall these memories several times, I would search on Baidu for information about "QQ Home" and "The Path of Chivalry," always fantasizing that someone back then would extract the source code and revive it.

Never would I have guessed; yesterday I checked, and someone really rebuilt it, and after registering, it felt as original as ever. I immediately contacted the site's administrator, and it's a small coincidence that this administrator is the one I knew a few years ago.

He then provided my old game IDs and could restore my old data; it was really nostalgic.

The Current Path of Chivalry

Now, according to Xiao Ou (the game's owner), the daily players are around 15, and the server rental is cheap, not requiring high configuration; these ten-plus players are all old players, joining for nostalgia. Compared to its peak, when no matter what time there were at least 500 online, now with just over ten it's really quiet...

And the game's revenue also surprised me: though few players, the ladder leaderboard is dominated by those who have recharged tens of thousands, even more than a hundred thousand. It’s very similar to old browser games like Legend of Conquest and Fantasy Westward Journey, carrying the youthful memories of a generation. The people who played back then, the youngest among them would have gone to college by now, including me, and the majority have long since started families and have steady jobs to play in their leisure.

Finally, in the data from my old account, I found my former game mentor, named Youyou; back then she was very kind to me, guiding me through dungeons and gifting me top-tier equipment, etc.

Coincidentally, I also saw that she recently came online. On August 5, 2022, I was very happy to ask the game's owner Xiao Ou for Youyou's contact information, hoping to talk to her about these years. Unexpectedly, I learned some unfortunate news.

For a moment my head went blank; I didn't know what to think, there were too many things I wanted to recount with Youyou, but she is no longer with us. I can only lament the fragility of life and pray that Youyou didn't suffer too much in her final illness.