[melopene]

He played XiN. He was a friend. I told him I didn't like the idea of him joining the military; he did anyway. He ended up stationed about 45 minutes from me, and eventually we met up. It was one of those sickeningly cute romances, we both stuck to eachother like (insert inappropriate simile here). We dated. He got orders. We married in order to stay together. I became the most miserable military wife known to man. He used me to gain staff status on XiN, and then to manipulate the game to become more suitable for him and his friends. After another year or so, I told him that we both had to leave, in no uncertain terms. After a tremendous fight, we did. After that, he persuaded me to assist a hapless IMP with a bunch of crash bugs, and I ended up inheriting his code after spending weeks and months making it into something workable and playable. We divorced not long thereafter - it had become apparent to me that his only interest was how my existence would benefit his gaming, and he wasn't going to stay around for a tinker toy.

A year later, a friend whom I'd MUDed with decided to move into the area, and I rented my spare room to her. Neither of us played a game anymore, but we wanted to see a great concept finished. We worked on the concept day and night. She did more artwork than anyone could imagine. Then she disappeared, along with one of my computers. That was great. I gave up on the MUD thing.

Two years later, I passed my PhD comprehensive exams, but had lost funding for graduate school. I had to move home, lose -everything-, and MUDs were the least of my concern. I had nothing more to give to the community, and it didn't have anything to give me. I tried Second Life, it sucked. I tried playing PS2 and PS3 games, they all sucked. I gave up for a while. After all, I had a real life to tend to.

I did real life things. I got drunk a lot. Worked for a company that wanted to suck every evil penny from its customers. Became miserable. Wrote grants for said company, and got them close to $40M for the stimulus package, in order to get people from the most rural areas to be able to do something OTHER than mud. They got the money, they used it inappropriately, so I reported them to the feds and quit. It was time to finish the PhD, anyway.

Nearly two months ago, I turned in my dissertation proposal. It took me a month to even get a telephone appointment with my advisor. That time had already driven me insane, so it was time to MUD again, and I'd found that XiN was back in business, so I decided to play there.

It was traumatic. The things I had spent the most of my time on were gone. I had spent so much time making my mark on the place, only for it to be erased, for all intents and purposes. I realized my precise value to the game, and it made me sad, because its value was practically zero. I asked questions, and was frequently turned away. I asked to be flagged as someone to help newbies, and was told that they're better off asking staff who may or may not be present instead of ever answering an actual question from a new player. This, after having been an admin for some time, and never having turned away a single player despite their twink potential. Oh, but I should go vote for them, because they gecho it around 9 or 10PM every night. Right?

Sigh.

---

I've grown a lot over the years, and I'm sure that's evidenced by my posting. But I never thought that I would somehow become old or useless. I still do things for my own inherited tinker toy, but I don't see why, as no player would ever consider a less than completed game these days. I doubt that I will ever see it finished myself, but I must admit that my tinkerings pose far more of an intellectual challenge than building ever did.

I'm starting to think that it's time to give up. I'm getting old, and our player pool wanes. There are so many lessons to be learned from my story, and I hope that at least one of you learns from a single one of those tales.

Good luck. Much love.

-melly