I didn’t reply to the (kind) words Raph wrote or the (kind) forum thread on Q23 because I decided to not read anything for a few days. If you see me writing now it’s not because I changed my decision but only because I want to make some precisations as everyone that commented was wondering what I was trying to achieve with this site or the real reason why I decided to stop.

So I’ll try to explain as clearly and succinctly as I can:

The purpose of this site: The purpose of this site was to be a “surrogate”. A ladder to watch the stars. I didn’t expect to get a job in the game industry by writing here (come ooon). I was writing here because I KNEW I wouldn’t have an occasion to get a job in the game industry. Writing was a way to get as close as possible to what I liked and that was out of reach. Confrontate and all the rest.

This site didn’t have a “goal” to reach. I didn’t “quit” because I didn’t get as many readers as I originally hoped or because I wasn’t influencing game design enough. Nor because I wanted to replicate what Lum did. I don’t pretend to be on the same league. This site was a playground and an archive. A memory. It was simply a bag where I put thoughts. As a bag, it was just a container and didn’t have another goal or purpose. Just that.

The reason why I’m done: the reason why I’m done isn’t because this site had a goal that I wasn’t able to reach, nor because I cannot pay the hosting fees. The reason is entirely external to the site and is about myself. Writing about mmorpgs completely absorbed me and I loved it. I wasn’t bored doing that, I wanted to do it MORE. Dedicating it more time without feeling bad.

I simply reached a point where I wanted to justify what I’m doing. Is that odd? Justify that dedication. Find a sense so that I didn’t feel like wasting time. Find a legitimation. But I knew that I didn’t have an option, so I felt like being pulled into two opposite directions, and I broke there.

I’m broken.

So. Thanks everyone for the comments.

There’s a (now old) thread on Q23 where I wrote some more. The thread is also interesting for the discussion beside my specific case.

I think that within five years, Abalieno will be able to make his dream come true. By himself, mostly.

That’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare. My dream is to work with other people where I’m just one of many and make games for other people. Not doing a game on my own and where I’m going to be the only player.

So. This is supposed to be my last post. It’s not the first time I decide to “quit” but I think this time it won’t be undone.

My ticket expired. I had originally planned to run this site for about a year, then close the chapter, draw my own conclusions and figure out what I had left in my hands. Then some situations changed and I gave myself another one. The year is over and I’m already beyond that limit, because I was planning to close the site before the end of July, so that I had the rest of the summer to think more about it.

It’s not even the first time I put everything to waste.

Today is my birthday and I thought it was a good occasion to end my biggest dream with it. My birthdays have never felt particularly joyful or positive as I always felt more the weight of what I haven’t done than what I have done. And what I have to do and that I’m not able to. Now I’m not as young and the gap and the weight can just increase exponentially from year to year, so I didn’t mind to add a reason to that bad feel that I was expecting anyway.

What I don’t want to do with this site is the rare update, the slow down, the two-months leave. No, I prefer to put a definite end and don’t turn back to see. When I do something I dedicate myself as much as I can to it, without compromises. Moreover, I didn’t have another possibility since I would have never slowed down without a definitive choice. The more I get into things, the more I get absorbed. And I love it. As long as I can afford it. But I was an anomaly.

I did this as long as I could afford it. Probably even more than I could afford. So I knew that I was running out of time, I know that I was running already PAST of what I should have done. It was a stretch because I was chasing what I wanted instead of accepting to have my feet nailed on the ground.

Yes, I chase dreams and I’m proud of it.

See, the things I expect aren’t the things I wish. Systematically the things I expect happen, while the things I wish don’t. That’s also the margin between this site (I’m a designer!) and the real world (I’m a jerk!). This site existed on that gap. On air.

Like a walk in the countryside. “Let’s pretend that things aren’t as they really are.” Let’s believe that, at least for a while. This site was just that: a “at least for a while”. And then: “Just another minute, please…”

A midsummer night’s dream.

Now I’m done, whohoo! I’m so addicted that I’ll continue to write and take notes, even if it has no purpose. At least to mitigate the sense of loss. I don’t know how I’ll react because that’s really what I want to do. Get absorbed. Now I have to tell my brain “it’s over”. Don’t think about it. Don’t go that way. Dead end.

I was one of those who play games almost exclusively to analyze things, figure out what works, why it works, find sources of inspiration. I love that, it’s all I love. I’m going to close the site because I have to cut away all that to not lose myself into it. It’s poison. Go away.

It will be harder for me than you can imagine.

I’m sure that there will be better games, and that there would so much to talk about. People will do that in my place. Just don’t expect me to agree with them :)

At the end that’s what I wanted more. That we were “there” and all contributed to the same thing. The sense of participation, instead of each one doing his own thing, closed in his own house. I always tried to go out and “reach”. It’s also not something that I can do well as I’m not the charismatic type, but I tried.

I also see myself as quite miserable. I’m not proud of anything at all. If it’s an end, it’s an end in shame for me. In one of my notes I wrote: “I won’t be able to explain my parents what games are, because I just wasted time. And when people will ask me what I did, I’ll just sit there and stare at them blankly”. I do feel a sense of failure.

I chased a dream, but a dream that cannot be told. In James Joyce’s “Dubliners” there’s a story called “Two Gallants”. My hands are empty.

The reason why I decided to stop writing completely is because this site was feeding that interest. And it grew, and then grew more. And now I have to choke it. Forget about it. Off limits. What are the alternatives? I resisted till I could, fought my small, pointless battle. With no redemption at the end.

My biggest dream was to be part of things. Not because I thought of myself as the indispensable, unique genius, but just because I love those things and I wanted to be “there”. Ready for anything. No matter what the conditions were. I tried to adapt myself the best I could, do everything the best I could. And then more, because it is never enough. Not even close to being enough. But at the end I was here writing on a blog, it was the best possibility I had to get as close I could to what I loved (the ladder to see the stars). I somewhat achieved much more than what I originally thought. But this is of no use, nor satisfaction. It lead to a good amount of frustration, but that was expected, so I was prepared.

I’m quite the anomaly if you think that I had to go even against the language barrier and everything. I needed a fair amount of “arrogance” even to pretend to do what I did. Trying to find a space among people that I absolutely didn’t belong to. Raising my hand knowing that I didn’t have any right to speak and noone would care about what I had to say. I think noone could have been more out of place than me, but I just felt too much that push. Finding my own way, and then continue from there. Try to not delude. Try to get better, dedication. Vocation.

But it only works after you find a breach. I cannot cultivate something if I just cannot be part of it. It just too frustrating. Sometimes I used “we”. But there’s no “we”. There’s all of you, and me. I’m out.

At the end I could stay suspended on air only for so long, like Wile E. Coyote, no matter how much I want something. Or I was able to cross the line, or I should have gone back. A matter of “opportunities”. Real life is only a matter of opportunities, not dreams. The two rarely meet each other, and in general people put their dreams close to the opportunities.

So good luck to everyone who has that “privilege” of being there. I will always look at you with envy ;p

I have a HUGE respect and esteem for you, in particular for those few who participated in the “circulation of ideas”. You know who you are. It didn’t appear so just because I needed that arrogance to get the right to speak and not feel intimidated. And when I criticized it was because I knew you had big shoulders.

“The ladder to see the stars”. That’s an appropriate way to describe how I felt this site. It is just absurd. If you climb a ladder you don’t see the stars any better. But it was my only opportunity to be there.

I’m not going to open another site, I’m not going to write for someone else and I’m not going to vanish only to reappear under a new identity. You can get a sigh of relief :) No more bitching from me, no more dev-bashing, no more accuses, no more problems. No more broken english. I’m packing up my things and leaving you alone, at last.

This site should remain online, if things don’t change. So everything should continue to work, just without me posting what I write. It’s time for me to shut up, I don’t think I have anymore the right to say anything. I don’t feel anymore that right. The anomaly is resolved.

I’ll leave again as I arrived, with no friends nor merit.

One promise: I’ll remember all of you for much longer than you’ll remember me and this site.

“At three we run into opposite directions!”

“One!… Two!…”

—
Post Scriptum

I didn’t reply to the (kind) words Raph wrote or the (kind) forum thread on Q23 because I decided to not read anything for a few days. If you see me writing now it’s not because I changed my decision but only because I want to make some precisations as everyone that commented was wondering what I was trying to achieve with this site or the real reason why I decided to stop.

So I’ll try to explain as clearly and succinctly as I can:

The purpose of this site: The purpose of this site was to be a “surrogate”. A ladder to watch the stars. I didn’t expect to get a job in the game industry by writing here (come ooon). I was writing here because I KNEW I wouldn’t have an occasion to get a job in the game industry. Writing was a way to get as close as possible to what I liked and that was out of reach. Confrontate and all the rest.

This site didn’t have a “goal” to reach. I didn’t “quit” because I didn’t get as many readers as I originally hoped or because I wasn’t influencing game design enough. Nor because I wanted to replicate what Lum did. I don’t pretend to be on the same league. This site was a playground and an archive. A memory. It was simply a bag where I put thoughts. As a bag, it was just a container and didn’t have another goal or purpose. Just that.

The reason why I’m done: the reason why I’m done isn’t because this site had a goal that I wasn’t able to reach, nor because I cannot pay the hosting fees. The reason is entirely external to the site and is about myself. Writing about mmorpgs completely absorbed me and I loved it. I wasn’t bored doing that, I wanted to do it MORE. Dedicating it more time without feeling bad, but legitimate.

I simply reached a point where I wanted to justify what I’m doing. Is that odd? Justify that dedication. Find a sense so that I didn’t feel like wasting time. Find a legitimation. But I knew that I didn’t have an option, so I felt like being pulled into two opposite directions, and I broke there.

I’m broken.

So. Thanks everyone for the comments, but they cannot help.

There’s a (now old) thread on Q23 where I wrote some more. The thread is also interesting for the discussion beside my specific case.

I think that within five years, Abalieno will be able to make his dream come true. By himself, mostly.

That’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare. My dream is to work with other people where I’m just one of many and make games for other people. Not doing a game on my own and where I’m going to be the only player.

All of you at the AGC, I envy you all.

(so I won’t go through this again, ok?)

Italy won the world cup!

People are going crazy since soccer is the most followed and practiced sport over here. Deeply rooted in the culture. The match was surreal, with Zidane losing his mind and everything. During the second half France was definitely prevailing, they kept the ball most of the time and continued to attack restlessly. But the reality is that Italy had the very best defence in the world. That’s undeniable. In the whole tourney they didn’t suffer any goal coming from a normal action, just the own goal in the harsh match with the USA and penalty kicks, nothing else. So they won by defending and with some luck occasions here and there.

I’m not really a sport enthusiast but I watched all the matches. For some reason I “felt” a lot more the semifinal with Germany, that was also a better match to see. This one I was more detached. But still glad.

Btw, how comes that the great majority of France’s players are black people?

(I guess it’s time to go back writing about games?)

Should be back next Sunday. Bah, had things written half-done…

Memo for next week:
– Comment Mark Jacobs interview on Gamespot (and Sanya on EA fiscal year and DAoC)
– Write critique/precisation about Raph’s design (puzzle-like games, mechanics/metaphor again)
– Join Moorgard and Nerfbat with the discussion on crafting
– Read FFXI census, comment maybe (subs: “over 500,000 players logging in”)

It’s too darn HOT to sit in front of the PC. Even if I’d have something to write.

If I try to play some graphic-intensive game I risk to crash just after a few minutes due to heat issues.

I’m in the mood for harsh rants and being mean. But luckily other things will keep me away from the pc.

Everything went to smooth on Monday, so I decided to make a new trip to the dentist. No, really.

The pain I didn’t feel that time I’m feeling now. No, really.

Fact is that I discovered that the hole that my wisdom tooth left was so deep that it went right to my fucking NOSE. Air goes through it. A goddamn hole between the mouth and the nose. I couldn’t even imagine it could be something possible. Then, you know, Google-fu answered me that what I felt was, indeed, true.

Back to the dentist when I thought I was good AT LEAST for two years. It lasted TWO DAYS instead.

Got more needles and basically she closed the gum, “extending” it. Now I have STITCHES in my mouth and I feel them. Hello painkillers.

We’ll see if this is enough or if the oddissey continues through more complications.

It was too easy, I had to go back for some more fun.

…I think I survived.

I had to visit the dentist to get one of my wisdom teeth pulled out. I have all four of the fuckers, but at least the other three seem healthy enough to stay there without problems. This one instead it’s about three years that loses pieces even if it never gave me pain. So it was about time that I had to take the decision to have it out before it decided to go bitchy.

Problem is that I have some problems with anxiety in general and things like this one can easily put a bad strain on me. I lived the last weeks in apprehension, with many worries, in particular after the nightmare stories from Lum and Dundee about a year ago :) On the other side I’m a rather rational guy, so I usually try to fight the anxiety that way, and it really doesn’t work. I mean, *rationally* I’m okay. I’m not scared or anything. Sometimes I feel like there’s someone else in me that I cannot understand and who does *everything possible* to give me more troubles. While rationally I may be able to control my silly worries, the “emotional side” gives me all sort of knee jerk reactions. It’s so damn awful because it’s an irrational way my body reacts and I cannot do anything about it. Like sudden, very bad sensations, totally unexcused. I cannot control these and even if I’m “rationally” relaxed and determined to not give my anxiety too much importance, the body still decides to react his own way, and I can just stare like if I’m watching someone else. Leaving me the desire to punch this other guy right in the face, and start giving orders, “This body isn’t big enough for both.”

It’s so fucking irritarting, even more because it makes no sense. I really HATE the way my body gives me all sort of problems ADDED on top of something I need to do and that I’m worried about. For someone rational like I am this is totally unacceptable. I would need my body to follow *exactly* my orders so that everything can go in the best way possible. “Rise the left hand” and I rise the left hand, “don’t panic” and I don’t panic. Instead it’s exactly the opposite and the actual problem that I have to face becomes a much smaller issue that those problems rising from anxiety itself. It’s a goodamn, totally irrational and unexcused vicious circle that irritates me to no end. Why the fuck my body needs to be my biggest threat? And how’s this tolerable?

As I said I know no ways to fight all that effectively, so I just wait. I learnt to understand and expect these sort of rections so I know what is going to happen and if I don’t feel well I can just wait the situation to pass. I can just try to ignore all that, even if it’s not really possible. It’s an added burden that I could totally do without, but my body has another opinion and I still haven’t found a way to part ways, heh. So even this time I knew that despite the tension and the worries I just had to go through it and suffer it. And trying to control my thoughts rationally to ignore as much as possible the way I feel.

The whole thing about the tooth went smooth. Much better than I expected. I felt no pain at all and after the first moments I was also quite relaxed (at least as much relaxed as I could hope to be). I kept my eyes shut and my mouth open the whole time and I didn’t even notice when my tooth came out. I was worried that it could shatter since it was already crumbling on its own, instead it came out all at once and rather easily. I was expecting much more violence. I was somewhat relieved and glad to not have to suffer complications and such (if you are anxious you are overly worried about things going wrong, you know). So at the end all the worries were again unjustified and what I did felt really like a minor thing to not even consider. The dentist (a she) told me to lay down still for a minute and then go sit in the other room. I was feeling good enough, I thought it was everything okay. Relieved.

So I go sit in the other room but one minute later I’m on the doorway again, “Uhm… I’m not feeling good.” All at the sudden another knee jerk reaction, something I never felt before. I was sitting, glad that I went through the whole thing the best I could hope. I wasn’t expecting anything else. Instead all at the sudden I felt a very bad sensation in my stomach and then spreading to the chest and rising to the head. And I could only go, “What the hell. What the fuck is happening to me *now*?” See, this is the kind of total separation between the rational side and the emotinal side. I was feeling okay, relaxed finally. And then all at the sudden that very bad physical sensation, totally unjustified and that I just didn’t have an idea from where it came from and why. The dentist told me then to lay down again and stay there some more. She explained me that it’s the sensation you have when you are going to “faint” and she told me it’s not so rare. It happens when you go through something you feel emotionally troublesome and intense, no matter how you are convinced of the contrary or try to minimize (as I was trying to do) and then you relax all at once. Sugar in the blood goes down and the system reacts with a “shutdown”.

I finished to be much more scared about what happened to me afterwards than the extraction of the tooth. Since I’m an anxious type I knew what to expect and the way I feel “bad”. I don’t think this trip to the dentist was more troublesome than other episodes but I’ve never been on the point to “faint” before. It was something new, that I wasn’t expecting and pushing further that limit and lack of control over my body. I didn’t like this at all.

So next time I have to go to the dentist I will be as scared as I was today. With the difference that I will be scared *of myself* and my irrational reactions, instead of the dentist. I cannot trust me in any way. Now explain me how the hell this can make sense and how I can tolerate it.

God sucks as a designer. He really does suck.