MOST, IF NOT ALL, GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END [Author: myschyf]

Well folks, its that time.

Last week Lum had asked us to come up with a new name for the site and register a new domain, in effect, turning what we do now-a-days into a successor site. At first, I thought I would continue to write for and manage this successor site. However, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it this weekend and after careful consideration I am not going to go forward with a new site.

There’s a lot of reasons for this. First and foremost is that I don’t have the time to give it that it deserves and needs. I am doing a lot with LARPing these days and want to devote my gaming energies towards that. I’ve found that I would much rather hang around communities of real people that I can touch and hug and such than communities of virtual people. The LARP I went to this weekend absolutely sucked for me and even so I came to this realization. Partially it sucked because I haven’t given my own involvment the time it deserves. Because I spend too much time on the site.

I want to spend some time on my career. I was recently given a new project at work and it will be a huge boost to my career. It will also be very challenging for me. I want to pursue a business degree. I won’t have time to do that and play online games. An online game sucks up, at the very least, 40 hours a month. More, if you want to stay on the top of the game.

Then there’s the fact that I’ve been gaming online for about 10 years now. I’ve said what I had to say about online gaming and I don’t have all that much more to say right now. I’ve found myself slowly becoming more of an editor for other people’s articles rather than writing my own and that’s not something I enjoy all that much. But I haven’t been inspired in quite some time.

I am also not excited about the genre right now. Online games have become rather stale and boring with most games out there copying the graphical Diku MUD model (ala EQ) rather than doing anything new and interesting. I don’t see this trend reversing itself any time soon. As a matter of fact, as Verant, Microsoft, and EA continue to gobble up the independent development studios out there (Verant, of course, just gobbles up the development teams of failed games), I see this trend continuing in a rather big way. These companies aren’t ones known for taking risks. As we begin to enter a world-wide recession, I feel that neither the large nor the smaller studios will want to take much of a risk. Leaving us without innovative products. I can’t find much excitement in myself for these cookie-cutter type of games. Furthermore, without innovation what is there to talk about? PVP? Cheating? Roleplaying? I’ve said what I had to say about these things. My position is clear.

LtM would have, at the very least, gone through a name/domain change. What will happen now is that on 9/30 we will take down the site. I know some of the other writers and people who work here are talking about creating a new site. They’ll be posting more about that here in the next couple of weeks. There’s an EZ Board around here somewhere that we used to use while we were looking for hosting. I’ll try to dig the URL for that up so that you folks have a way to stay in contact with each other.

We will take the money left over in the donation account and, after
paying for our surplus bandwidth usage for September, donate the rest to the victims of Tuesday’s attack on the WTC and the Pentagon. I had initially thought to give it to the United Way fund for the victims. However the United Way used to use about 80% of donations for ‘administrative costs.’ So before donating it there, I’d like to make sure most of it is actually going to the victims. The Red Cross has received over 5 million in the last week alone so I’d kind of like to funnel the money elsewhere, however I will funnel it to the Red Cross if a better option does not present itself.

Its been an honor and a pleasure to work with the individual writers and readers of this site. Thank you for your support over the last couple of years.

Its very sad to have to post this. However the time has come for me
to close this chapter of my life and move on.

Thanks for everything

Deb