Rest in Peace, Odainsaker

[EldarMark 10]

Hello everyone, sorry for the out of the blue post from a complete newbie.

I have a Google news alert for Asheron's Call, an older MMORPG that is now defunct (although it lives on in player ran servers).  Today I got an odd hit on it... an Obituary.

Lee Sojot, who I believe is Odainsaker on this website and known to the SimCity community, passed away earlier this month after a year long battle with... some form of illness.

His IRL name is mentioned over here in a reply to Odainsaker, and he created a thread about AC after the game was shut down here.

His obituary is available here:  https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sanantonio/name/lee-sojot-obituary?id=57356776

I do not have any additional information than this, but since he was very active in the community over here I felt I should let you all know.

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

5 minutes ago, EldarMark said:

Hello everyone, sorry for the out of the blue post from a complete newbie.

We appreciate your letting us know. (I've moved the topic to Simtropolis Related.)

 

I do remember @Odainsaker and they were always helpful with their posts.

[brancra 1,060]

The BATs of Odainsaker/Lee Sojot were the gold standard for SimCity 4 in the 2000s. He was one of the best if not the best of his era, personally well-liked, approachable and greatly appreciated, and continued to pop in over the years. His passing is a true loss to our community.

[gutterclub 2,729]

This is truly sad news, he was always so kind and insightful with all his posts. I use all his BATs and was a leader in quality BATs back in the 2000's. Way too young to go, very sad.

[Cyclone Boom 16,852]

Although I didn't know @Odainsaker personally, this news hits me hard with sadness and shock.

Lee made a big difference here in the SC4 community, notably with his map making and architectural expertise. I get the impression he was fond of nature, and enjoyed the challenge of replicating landscapes in the virtual world. I was always impressed by his detailed replies, often going the extra mile to explain things in significant depth. I also see he had a prominent presence in the SC3000 era with his own GeoCities hosted site, long before ST even existed.

I hope you have peace in knowing your contributions were and still are appreciated. Your legacy will live on.

Our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

[ohdude 2,353]

An inspiration when I started to discover BATS for SimCity 4 in simtropolis surfing in a cybercafé because I had no internet at home for my slow compaq presario 5000, about 15 years ago more or less. Many things have changed until now. Bon voyage to the afterlife!

[thecitiescenter 3,025]

Thanks @EldarMark for sharing and letting us all know.  This is very sad news.  It hits me personally a little harder because I recently also unexpectedly lost my mother and reading Lee’s obituary, it seems both passed on the same exact date.  

I will sincerely miss Lee @Odainsaker and while I never met him in person, we communicated frequently on this site and through PM’s.  I considered him a friend and a mentor.

As others have already pointed out Lee did so much for the SimCity community, I remember long ago downloading his work for SC3K, esp his awesome buildings, and reading his contributions on various forums.  

Decades later we’d connect over our shared love of SC4 and map making.  I was still a novice at mapping at that time and was awed by his detailed map creations.  He had a real attention to detail, not just to geographic features but would share long and detailed histories of the cities we would discuss about and map for SC4.  He seemed to know or would seek out information on everything about everywhere, from Beijing to Munich to Louisiana, whatever, where ever.  He would go on about why certain cities were laid out a certain way, or why a map should be rotated by x degrees, all because of a series of historical events he’d share that occurred in that city.  It was always so interesting and I learned ton from Lee.

And on top of that he always took the time to walk me through the technical mapping problems I would encounter as I was learning how to make them and would give me all sorts of tutorials along the way.  I couldn’t have done any of the mapping that I do now without his help.  

He will truly be missed, but I hope his memory and all he’s contributed lives on here for a very, very long time.

[ilikehotdogsalot 307]

I appreciate you letting us know. This is sad to hear. Odainsaker was the kindest member. All his posts were always so thoughtful and helpful, and his skills for BAT were the best I've ever seen. He will be sorely missed. 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,046]

@Odainsaker...! Wow, I remember seeing numerous of his posts around here. Posts or some other materials, I don't remember precisely but gee... Hopefully he's in a better place now. That's sad.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

If I remember correctly his wonderful Alexander Column was one of the first bats I downloaded here at the Exchange. And it is still in my download folder.

 

His creations will stay with us and so memory.

 

 

[Dreadnought 8,226]

I was, to say the least, deeply shocked to learn from @matias93 of the passing of Odainsaker......

On more than one occasion, he has rescued me with insight, information, and above all -- inspiration.

His comments were always upbeat and scintillating -- and I took great pleasure from his witty and urbane observations.

I feel a great sadness -- and my life is considerably diminished with his passing.

Someone once wrote......"A man is never so rich in friends that he can afford to lose a single one".

"Hail and Farewell" old friend......