There and back again - a Topic's tale for BG'sCommunity

[Labradorit]

Hey there,

I will be away-ish around easter and the weekend following (From the 10th to the 15th definetly away).

Have fun

Labra

[Strago]

I haven't been around much lately as work and RL responsibilities are eating up most of my time. I hope to be back in game soon but apologies to anyone who had RP with Nyx that might be interrupted by my absence.

[Kiran]

Off to Canada/US for 14 days for a wedding/stag-do, see you guys soon! (Back on the 30th June)

[JustAnotherGuy]

Ashling and Emmanuel will be gone for a bit. (First family vacation since 2015!) We will be back around July 7th. We'll miss you all!

[DaloLorn]

... If I'd been smarter about this, I would have already had a post ready to go up after yesterday's festival... and if I'd been more laconic, I wouldn't feel the urge to use a spoiler box.

Hidden: show

Well, some of you have surely heard it by now: I'm gone. It has been almost exactly a year since I decided I would not be purchasing NWN2:EE, and imposed a moratorium on new characters (and if you know me at all, you know how hard it was to stick to that ) in the hope that I could wrap up my remaining characters before I lost either access to BG, or my poor pirated costumes. Surprisingly, it has been a few months since I first felt compelled to speed things along, and even more surprisingly, I feel that I still did a decent job of tying off loose ends (save one which never could have been) and had a good deal of luck getting some really memorable sendoffs for my last NWN characters. If all my time around here was as satisfying as these last few sessions, could I still have passed my Will save against a change of heart...?

It's weird to think it's been over seven years since I first wandered into the Eastern Farmlands, and even weirder to think I once thought my time here would be limited to a mere few months. A lot has changed: I was still in college; Baldur's Gate had 3 districts; and the Farmlands had not yet given way to the bustle of the Upper City. Many people - far too many of whom I called "friend" - are gone. Too many of them, for good; a few, even to the grave. Of those who remain, I find that I don't know half of them half as much I should like, and like less than half of them half as much as they deserve. (Or at least I hope they deserve, given their prominence in the BG of today!)

A lot has stayed the same, as well, and far too much of it despite my best efforts to the contrary. Some of these efforts are known to some of you, and those who know of my past deeds may find in one of them an unforgivable betrayal; others, perhaps a wasted martyrdom. The truth of that matter, I fear, lies in the middle: Unforgivable, yet utterly wasted; the worst of both worlds. Only time will tell if it may have been unnecessary, as well, though I do not dare wait to find out.

A rare few have already asked when I might return, or implied that I will indeed do so. I must disappoint them, and in the same breath refute any claims that my departure was solely prompted by OOC strife. The fact is, everyone who has contributed to my departure could leave forever, right now, and it would not bring me back. Everyone who could plausibly have repeated their choices could follow them, and the PW be reimagined to my every whim, and it would still not suffice. (Tempting though that mental image may be. ) Recurring OOC disputes and enduring design flaws may have been a weighty couple of straws, built up over the years, yet they are but two straws on this old camel's back.

Ultimately, for all those moments of joy and belonging I've found in this place and others, I have also found emptiness and maddening isolation in every PW and PW-esque setting I have visited. So much precious time simply lost, hollowing out my meagre existence in the often-vain hope of imbuing some facsimile of life into these virtual puppets. For all my enjoyment of storytelling - and my unfortunate propensity for channeling it into the most fleeting of experiences - it has become impossible to ignore how much time in these settings is wasted on simply waiting, or collecting a million bear hides. PnP might work, and focused RP experiences can be crafted in almost any game... but it is hardly reasonable to ask for a PW's DM team to oversee and respond to my every action. It is just as unreasonable to expect them to ignore me if I gather a party of like-minded individuals to design our own sandbox inside their sandbox, not beholden to their rules; or to demand they give me the power and authority to do so within their rules.

Simply put: I am done with PWs, with NWN, and with open-world RP in its entirety. I may log in again, someday, but don't get your hopes up: It is only to review my character sheets, my inventories, or my costumes. (After all, I've occasionally run BG-adjacent plots in Discord before, and now that I know my characters will never return anyway? My only limit is my ability to talk people into joining me, which is admittedly extremely limited.) Hopefully, I will channel my more creative side into modding and writing, instead, and start to feel a little less like a 111-year-old again while I'm at it.

As for my Discord/forum presence... it may be some time yet before I finally repress the habit of wandering in, especially on slow workdays when I'm bored out of my skull. But my main Discord account has muted all BG-related servers as of last night, so don't expect quick - or even any - responses to anything going forward, least of all in the unofficial/guild servers my secondary account never joined.

Once again, to all those who have enriched my years in this place: Thank you, farewell, and may the dice ever land in your favor.
Yes, that means you too, Yuri! Go give Beshaba a piece of your mind!