Can Play By Mail Gaming Survive the Devouring Hand of Time?

[JonO]

Rimworlds is going great guns, we've added another member to the braintrust team of pre-alpha testers. However, I do not spend a whole lot of time here now, because I do not feel welcome.

OK, so I needed a title for a new editorial, since I haven't authored one in quite a while, now, and this one seemed as good as any.

Time always seems to be of the essence, particularly of late. I also get side-tracked, occasionally, and find myself meandering down paths of thought largely unrelated to play by mail gaming. Work interferes with my pursuit of the PBM hobby, of course, as do seemingly countless other distractions of all shapes and sizes.

Right now, as I sit here at my computer desk and write this editorial for the site, here, I am tired. Yet, I am long overdue for posting, and so I intend to hammer this article out, tonight. Is anyone out there still listening?

A few are. A few more than are posting, themselves, it seems. There has been much silence, of late, from our cadre of site regulars. All busy elsewhere with their own pursuits, I suspect. Such is life in both the fast and slow lanes of PBM gaming.

I have interviews to do. For some reason, my heart hasn't been in interviewing, of late. No excuses. It just hasn't. I have a birthday coming up, soon, so maybe I can get caught up on the interviewing aspect of things, before then, sort of as a present to myself.

Today, I found myself pondering things ranging from plate tectonics to a PBM game scenario where Earth-orbiting satellites continued to work millions of years into the future, allowing a future species to glimpse back at the world as it changed over that vast span of time - except with the benefit of satellite images to form a photo-visual history of how the future Earth that they now live on came to be, how it evolved from what our own word of the present day is like, to the world that they eventually inhabited.

With Far Horizons: The Awakening currently in a state of Casey-induced slumber, my on-site activity, here on PlayByMail.Net, has declined even further. I really do continue to have mixed feelings about that game, and had even pondered crafting a new review for it, just as Casey slaps the game into a state of suspended animation.

Man, I can't really express in words how very much that I want to immerse myself into PBM design. My fingers itch at the prospect of it. The rest of my body, however, craves more rest. Clearly, I am at war with myself over it.

The decision to discontinue e-mail notifications of PBM News Blurbs has noticeably impacted site visits in a negative way. I am going to have to come up with a solution to that.

The PBM News Blurbs tend to be a rather time-consuming thing, due primarily to my slow dial-up Internet Connection. It takes forever for sites to load, and I get tired, just waiting for them to load.

The PBM Wiki site needs updating, too, in order to finish that list of add-ons that Nazareth sent to me, previously. No, I haven't forgotten it. I simply have not been sufficiently motivated to undertake resuming it, as of yet.

Gad Games' embrace of a generic gaming engine approach to delivery of their new game, Ilkor: Dark Rising, is something that set my PBM ashes to smoldering. I really wish that Rick McDowell had went this route with Fall of Rome and Kingdoms of Arcania. I think that Sean Cleworth and company have latched onto a mammoth of a good idea. I send big kudos South Africa way for their foresight and vision to move in this direction!

I wish that I could program. I can't, of course. On this site, there have been days when I have been surrounded by programmers of skill and technical savvy, but none of it has rubbed off on me, yet. Bastards!!

As we continue to proceed further into the year, my current hunger-driven and sleep-deprived gut instinct tells me that the focus of my efforts with this site are going to change. Now, what does that mean, you ask me? The Hell if I know! Maybe I'll transition to writing more articles, and worry less about the PBM News Blurbs, even though I think that they play an important role for the majority of our body of site users that gather here. Maybe I will combine the two. I'm not so sure that I like that idea, though.

Hatch, over at the Project Libertine Development Blog may think that he's got off Scot free, of late, what with me slacking off on all things PBM related, but he couldn't be more wrong. Oh, I'm still watching, all right. I'm not the only one slacking off, it seems.

Jon of Rimworlds fame is another one who seems to be slacking off a bit. Am I wrong, Jon? Oh, please tell me that it isn't so! He hasn't been posting much in the Rimworlds forum, of late. At least Jon has posted some new screen shots, recently, and he is moving forward with a dedicated forum for his game (in addition to the forum that Rimworlds has here on our site. Good things all, these are.

I'm also distracted from Briny en Garde!, which I wanted to get into. My apologies go out to Terry! Too much competition for my time, it seems. I am approaching overload. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Oops! That was no PBM game, though. Was it?

Also, where's Walter, with his promised updates? Don't make me track you down, Walter. I've got my eye on you.

And what about the rest of you? Do you have any PBM tales to share?