Some time ago I have decided to archive the games I ran online. I didn't want to lose them to sudden crashes or other strange things. Some of the games I ran required a lot of time and effort on my part and the thought of losing them started to scare me. I think of games like creating stories with friends whilst having a lot of fun. Just thinking about scenes and reading them again brings joy to my black bleeding heart. It is partly because of what Scribe Drizz is trying to achieve and partly because of my memories of running an Exalted game called United We Stand. It was a game about a group of Solars and their allies preparing a kingdom for war in the Hundred Kingdoms that were threatened by the machinations of a Deathlord. The game spanned about three years of my life when every evening I updated threads and talked with the players about what they want from it.
It was one of the games that I have been most proud of. Just like all good things it too came to an end without a finish. I have ran it on RPoL and they do not allow archiving games. So when the game was marked for deletion due to inactivity, I have began the process of copying and pasting all the threads to a doc file. With thousands upon thousands of words, I had a whole lot of copy/pasting to do. Then events in my offline life took a turn that required my attention. As it is with me, I do not consider gaming a big priority so I put off completing the copy/pasting for later. Life went on, I got on with the problems I was having and it all started to calm down.
I have to note that my life was so hectic lately that one of my good players started to honestly doubt I would ever start the game that I'm currently working at. I consider it a great fall from my former glory days.
Today I decided to pick up when I left on and I noticed that the game has been completely deleted. I know full well that I have no one to blame other than myself for this. I was really torn when I noticed this because on one side, it's just a game, on the other it's a game using my favourite system, played with a really great group of players and a game that taught me a lot about running games. Not to mention it actually let me say I have ran a game for three years when people say online games can only last for a few weeks before they die. It was proof of my Awesome.
and now it's gone...
I was contemplating what to do with this fact. If I want to continue archiving or just deleting what I had... and all things considered, I think I'll just use what I have and simply write out all I can remember that happened (and didn't happen) after I stopped archiving the game. It won't be as great as I had hoped.
In the end, after my rage and self-loathing subsided, I think all things considered I have made the right choice of focusing on issues that were gnawing at my life rather than on a game.
A lesson is learned for the future. I will have to archive the games that I'm currently running as they go. So I will have to find the time to start archiving The Emergence and Silverkeep now... and yes, Silverkeep will start, I do not want to be known for empty words...
