(un)determined

I’ve been fairly well nonexistent in the Myst Community these days. It’s not entirely because I want to be. I miss some people I used to talk to regularly. But without anything happening to draw my attention that way, I have to quietly celebrate all things Myst while doing other things. I am generally quite busy these days. I think about it at work, oddly enough…

When not at work, I’m either reading a book (I have a stack I need to get to) or I’m checking on ATitD, which I am currently paying for. At this point, paid vs non-paid must hold my attention. I’m still updating the journal for that as I go along.

The community for this game is a harsh one. They fight with all claws out. They are fiercely protective of what they view is right. And they have some of the most extremely helpful people I have ever seen in a game. There are few griefers, although it happens.

The game is small, the people who run it work hard, and there are few of them. But every one of us knows things aren’t as well planned out as they should be. This is truly an “I thought this was cool so I’ll throw it in” type game. That attitude will never win over the masses. Especially masses paying for the opportunity. There are frequently bugs in everything, and they don’t always get fixed in a timely fashion. Some bugs have never been fixed. It’s annoying, but you can’t expect a small team to be perfect.

Events usually begin as “I feel like starting this now, so let’s see if it works” type events. If it works, it will get put in as a scheduled event at some point down the road (if they remember). Usually this first event is a test event to see just how many bugs will need fixed before the real thing happens. It’s short, sweet, and I usually can’t participate as I’m either not on for the duration of the “we’re going to do this, okay here it comes, event time, prizes” that tends to be there and gone within the hour, or I don’t have time to get there and actually make a difference in whatever score I would get to recieve a prize because I live in the boonies.

This is probably among the bottom five things that annoy me in this game…

Some people, however, take it too far and complain about everything. Boy that sounds familiar. I find it hard to take things in that light in a game. Not everybody is going to be on for everything. That’s the way it works. Those complaining about an event being held in their wee hours of the morning would have complained because they weren’t given enough time to get a good score if they’d been there. They would have complained because it was just thrown together with no real instruction on how the event would happen. There was no structure. It was a small test. That was made perfectly clear beforehand. And if a developer is going to test something, you can bet it’s going to be WHEN THEY ARE ON. Guess what? Pretty much everybody involved, and the guy running the show, is American. So yeah, its’ going to be on our time. Wow, imagine that.

But hey, it just gives them something else to complain about right? I’ll say it again. It’s. A. Game. I’ve complained about one thing in this game, and it is a rather obvious problem. It still hasn’t been fixed. It probably won’t be fixed. So I had to find another way to pass the test. No I’m not happy about it, but they are busy people. They aren’t even halfway done coding the rest of the game to come. I can live with it. It’s a shame others can’t.