Th the years before the v1.5 update added the Summit to the game, people found an early, rough version of the summit in the game assets and it was the stuff of Legends. People came up with endless stories of whether it was even supposed to be there or whether it was abandoned like the cutscene at the beginning of the game in the Bus. Nevertheless the speculation ran rampant for years. I forget now if you could use NoClip to bypass the limits at the top of the Mountains map and then the unfinished summit map was connected and accessible, but I think I remember DF doing this in an early video.
When the Summit was finished with the cutscene and everything there in v1.5 it was a revelation, like a dream you were having suddenly crystallized into reality as you woke, instead of the opposite of reality destroying your fading, disconcerting dream*. The thing deeply wrapped in the mists of time immemorial was now detaching from the stories of the elders, crystallizing into a reality you can experience and revel in.
It was nirvana hidden behind an unfortunate grotto of Golden Walnuts and those confounded Parrots. I denied myself nirvana for a while to refute the smugness of our avian overlords, but eventually gave in with the help of the Wiki. Unabashedly proud of abusing the Wiki to get all those dastardly walnuts! Boulder removed, slowly approaching the summit, not much matches that anticipation after so many years waiting, wishing, wondering, imagining.
I'd finished everything by midwinter but waited the extra 2 weeks to buy that infernal Clock because there was no way I wasn't gonna experience it on Spring 1, ending the first phase of the game 5 years to the day of when it was started. It was worth it to meet Emily there and ponder our existence with the cool early Spring mountaintop breezes instilling just enough of a chill to need a bit of a cuddle.
10/10
LOL but won't do it again because of Parrot Walnuts!
* Often the better outcome when being chased by bad things which are always faster or nekkid in school or forgot to turn in any homework all semester or didn't study for the big test or forgot to drop a class and now it's the day of the Final. <shudder>
