Hi, I haven't posted much on my blog in a while and I figured that for all the people who do care I'd sort of let them know what I've been up to. I sort of ran out of time to play on BYOND, it is afterall a hobby but I know a lot of people were not too happy with me disapearing. Some people thought I would be able to come back eventually (or more often than not, didnt realize I was inactive and would send me youtube/e-mail/skype/msn etc messages asking to be unbanned or giving me suggestions please keep in mind I will not be unbanning you or anything like that.)

So why did I sort of relinquish control of GOA and as Anime guild moderator to become more or less inactive? In summary: school ended. It is an amazing thing how much free time comes with University and I had a blast during school and had lots and lots of free time. I quit BYOND the first time (and left Gekisen as well) when Highschool ended, after getting my bearings and realizing that university is not a huge time occupier I came back with a year of Computer Science and Business under my belt. I thought perhaps I could do something better than my first project (which I never intended to be more than a few gameplay tweaks) and make a new game. I made GOA because I was so disappointed by the lack of creative changes made between Dragonball Zeta and the NBOTLS flood, the game was supposed to demonstrate some proof of concepts to hopefully give some ideas to existing projects (WOTS mainly) Graphical HUDs instead of verbs, removal of input windows, targeting + angle based projectiles, use of skilltrees, etc. The game was a hobby and the graphics and programming were just made by me.

It wasnt supposed to be a big project but after a few days of hosting I had a volunteer army with a good server host, graphic artists, and eventually Kobata joined the team as a co-programmer/server manager. I just want everybody to understand how out of hand and out of scope GOA got. Anyway I decided to launch the sandbox demo into its own game, one that could stand up on its own (it was a one level PvP sandbox at this point). Originally I started this game during the summer, no school and I figured I couldnt work on BYOND games during school.. this turned out to only be partially true. I set a summer long (4 month) deadline to start and finish the game thinking that would be it. So understand that I don't really think I've ducked out on everybody prematurely as after the game was completed new update ideas and patches rolled out on a fairly consistent basis. Now though, I'm out in the world now working full time at a very challenging but fulfilling job, there are a lot of big challenges for me in the next few years (Designations require a lot of work.) and with that in mind I knew it was time and I silently handed over the management duties to Kobata.

I kind of left abruptly though.. I do apologize. Its amazing how much the community makes you feel like your canceling Christmas when you tell them that you've stopped working on a project. I have had a lot of fun though, I feel like I haven't squandered the opportunity I was given by Tom to make some big changes to the Anime guild, and I feel like the various people who I brought on-board to make those changes possible have really done a good job maintaining higher standards for BYOND. I remember when I took the position everybody was outraged and thought I would try and be king of Byond:Anime and etc. I absolutely understood why they would suspect that but I am glad that I was able instead to just make some abrupt and needed changes and leave the community accessible to be moderated by the actual people who participate in the community itself; a dictatorship never really did any good for BYOND Anime.

Anyway, for those who care I'm past the half year mark for my new job. Its a hard job, its stressful and during busy season it has really long hours.. but I'm actually really happy to be busy and to be learning new things. I will be around the community, I still have time to blog, I hope to hear about some new projects eventually too!

Also, as a general point, I would like to say that while there are quite a few trolls and lame people on BYOND, I've been very happy with the enthusiasm and high energy from the majority of people on BYOND. Sure most of the time its rage energy, but I've always been the sort who appreciates something that is interesting as opposed to stagnant, and BYOND you are always good for some drama and extreme excitement regarding new projects.

tl;dr: I'll be lurkin'.