I started playing BM on December 22nd 2007 when Brigdha, a bookish noblewoman in command of a small company of Archers, took service with CE. Within days I was hooked and by the start of January 2008 I had this nightmare persona Moira demanding her place in the sun, whilst their younger brother Cathal was running away to the Colonies in search of wild adventure and strange religions.
In late 2009 I stopped playing. I had a young son who'd just reached the crawling stage and a work project which left me no time to play. I didn't expect that to change so I deleted my account. A year later I was back. Normally when people return they start a new family with little connection to the old and at first I considered doing that, but the more I thought about it the more I realised there were still stories I wanted to tell with the Dubhaines, not just on one island but as part of a wider story arc.
As Cathal the prophet returned from his sojourn with the Gods, the shadows lifted from the Dubhaine family in exile.
In the five years since then I've missed perhaps a dozen turns due to foreign trips, and worked hard in all of the realms I play in to help keep them successful with mixed success (Fontan:dead; Alowca: dead; Sirion: dying; Minas Thalion: expanding; Taselak: wtf?
. I've not had the time to RP that often, but when I have it's been a pleasure to share story themes with other players and see how generous most can be. The recent Wedding of Garas and Catherine was a reminder of BM at its best and I'm glad I was able to record most of that in the Wiki.
This game's been a big part of my life and I've loved every minute of it. But the character changes mean I'm no longer going to be able to tell the stories I want to tell, or play the game the way which makes most sense to me.
This is not about power, wealth, influence or point scoring. I've had as much of all of those as I've wanted during my time in BM and I doubt the changes will make any difference on that front. In general players with high activity prosper because they can be relied upon to act in a timely fashion and that's never going to change. Just look at SI, a place where despite the overall number of players power seems to concentrate into perhaps a dozen hands - and all players who are prominent on other islands.
The character changes aren't going to alter that.
To be honest right now I don't know whether or not I'll stay when they come into force. I've invested a lot of creativity in BM and I feel an obligation to other players I've helped create shared IC assets with, but I'm not sure playing a game because I feel I
should is the right reason to actually do so. Sounds a bit too much like the sunk cost fallacy at play!
Anyway, if I've learned anything from nearly 8 years of BM it's that individual players are rarely missed when they leave unless a large number leave at the same time. And I don't think this change will cause such a huge exodus, just another little uptick in the decline which it's supposedly trying to address.
