I have never been so excited for the release of anything before. I first found out about HumanKind last year when I was just looking for some random game to keep me occupied so I could escape from the drama of my crazy life.  I played Cities: Skylines and then I got civilization 6, I played Civ 6 for about a couple hours before I stumbled upon the Humankind YouTube and watched a view gamer reviewers on youtune talk about this game. GamerZakh was the main person I watched, and I was totally hooked, I never really tried to get into Civ 6, I would always say it was too complicated but really I just never put in anytime since I knew Humankind would be released within a year or so and I could devote my time to learning that game instead of messing around with Civ 6 since I never really was interested in it anyway.  

I have played 2 of the Open Dev's and as crazy as this sounds, it gave me a reason to live, something to look forward to.  When the announcement for the Delay came out, I was upset initially but it gave me more time to read everything in these forums and learn as much about this game as possible.  The different cultures and how well the Game Developers put in to make sure everything was as historically accurate as possible.  

I know sometimes people use games to give them a outlet or a way to separate themselves from the drama of life, I have never been a huge "gamer" but being a part of these forums and participating in the open devs has been such a great experience for me, I still have hectic life and so much weighting me down, these past several months has given me some reprieve from my drama and made things not as gloomy (if that makes sense) 

I just wanted to say thank you for this amazing opportunity, to be a part of the beginning stages of a game. I have enjoyed every moment of it. I am in the process of a HUGE life change, I may be leaving the state and moving and starting over from scratch, it's so scary as I have never left my comfort zone this far before. It's so scary sometimes I feel the best thing to do would be to...... just be gone, but I REALLY want to and am motivated to hang around until august for the release of Humankind.  

If I can be strong enough to leave, and trust that I am capable of rebuilding an amazing life and making things work then honestly my biggest motivation is to play Humankind, I am excited to get "tanks" and units like that, durning the Open Devs I never made it far enough down the Technology tree to really experience the later Eras and such, I am so looking forward to doing that, and the DLC's That I am sure will be released.  I know that people that started out in the Civilization franchise have been very loyal to the game and I know that Humankind will be that game for me, that I am getting all the DLC's and learning everything I can and putting in hundreds and thousands of hours playing, and hopefully I will be able to give good feedback and maybe even good ideas in the future for the game.

Anyway, thank you so much, to all the Dev's and the people in these forums for this experience being a part of a new game in early development and seeing it progress through the months.  Reading everyones posts and seeing just how detailed, and how much work is put into this and the attention to detail is just astounding.  I am so glad to have been able to be a part (small part) and participate in the progress through the announcement of Humankind to the final release in august.   

I am motivated in life by different things (lately not much but...), the thought to one day soon to sit in front of a vivid large screen with the speakers turned up playing & being immersed in such an amazing historically accurate 4X strategy game for hours is something that I look forward to and motivates me to do what I need to do in life in order to see that day come.  

Thank you :) 

It takes courage, to openly write or talk with someone about our deepest feelings and fears. It takes courage... to admit that something in our life is not going well. It takes courage... to move out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to the world and learn from it, I believe that you my friend have the courage it takes to make your journey a bright one and to not give up on the strains of life, so that you may understand it's sweet fruits with the knowledge you will gain.

Be ruthless and never give up, hang on in there mate! An hug and best wishes!