So for the last three years, my whole life basically revolved around Battle Pirates. Things continued to go sour as time went on, with new features added to the game that detracted from the original gaming experience that had sucked me in originally. In particular, they added an alliance feature that was designed to completely destroy the type of community I was in. Which it did. We lasted about a year, which was longer than the two neighboring sectors lasted, but the end was inevitable. I didn't know how it would end, I just knew there would be one, and that it wouldn't be a happy one. No matter what I or any of us did to prolong things, ultimately the parameters of the world were not in our favor.

How did things end? Basically, the other foundational member of the community went batshit insane, defected to one of our worst enemies in as epically dramatic way as possible, and then spent six months working hard to tear the place apart. All because (as far as I can tell) she's mad at me.

There will probably be more I will want to say about all this at some point. But it's still too soon to articulate anything, and I think in some ways I'm still grieving all the losses and will for some time.

I don't know what's going on in the community now. I think there still is one, and she's still playing the game and regularly visiting the sector, but when I left, everyone stopped talking to me. And I stopped wanting to look. I'm barely on Facebook anymore. If the whole point of all that was to hurt me, well, it did.

So why did I leave?

Two ways to answer that.

As I saw it, the only way to keep things going was to once again start playing full time so I could run the community full time. Be there for everyone and see everything, like how things were before the alliance feature. But really, I'd come to detest the whole game. It had turned into a non-stop relentless march of daily and weekly chores, and all of the actual play is themed by anger and arrogance, which does not do good things to one's psyche in the long term. It's a game about beating up other people, but as time went on, it was much less about skill and much more about wallet size - and I just don't have that kind of wallet size, nor would I spend it on BP if I did. By definition I was always going to be the loser. People who hate me can always just walk up anytime they want or send the super-spenders to hit me for them, and there was nothing I could do about it short of hacking.

In order for me to do what I did during those first two years: the game has to be worth it, and the people have to be worth it. The people still were. But the game was not. I couldn't do it for a game that I don't enjoy and that would ultimately wind up destroying me.

So instead of arguing with Batshit Insane Woman over the future of the sector, I declared myself the loser and left. It was the simplest, least dramatic thing I could do, for the good of the community. I moved all of my bases to another sector, near a longtime friend who used to run one of the neighboring sectors. I figured I would do some travel, maybe change my game name, and try to come up with something else to do with my BP life.

Then a major event happened to a family member that I'm not at liberty to talk about in public.

By the time the "emergency" part of the proceedings was over, my brain had rebooted itself for what counted as a priority in life.

And when I started thinking about checking on BP: there was just nothing, literally nothing at all, in the plus column for that action. The game was gone. The community was no longer mine and everything about all that was endless drama. Getting back onto the treadmill of chores was just not something I wanted to do anymore.

That was back in May. I haven't looked at BP since. During the pitched battle over the future of the sector between everyone else, the FB groups I was responsible for got deleted (or in one case, they intended to delete it and only couldn't because of a paperwork issue). I decided to let that action stand, and force them to make their own new groups, start from scratch. After that, there were a few defriendings and nearly everyone stopped talking to me, and I stopped looking much at Facebook. I wound up getting heavily engrossed in Bloons Tower Defense games at Ninjakiwi for the last couple months, especially Bloons Monkey City. It's a game where skill matters and money doesn't, and was exactly what I needed to transition out of gaming.

I also signed up for July's Camp Nanowrimo, picked the Revision category, and started working on the second draft to Fortress Launne. I'm making good progress so far. A three-year break from writing was actually exactly what I needed. Now I just need to find a writing community. Or start one; Alcar from SFFMuse is still around, I don't think anyone else from before still is. There are also a couple offline people here in Mobile who seem pretty gung-ho about fiction writing. Will have to see what pans out next.