|
Farewell Mates!
After much thought I feel it’s time that I hang up my cutlass, dock my ships and bid farewell to the world of POTCO.
I did not come to this decision easily. I’ve been playing this game since the beginning as a beta tester in phase 1 so leaving the game was not an easy choice. After awhile I started looking at the reasons I started playing compared to the reasons why I’m still here. I started playing for the same reason everyone else does, I wanted to have some fun. Phase one was a blast. Yes the game was even more bugged than it is now but it was new and different from other games I’d played. It was fun. I was pretty much a lone wolf style player in phase one and kept to myself with the exception of a couple of people I made friends with.
Then came phase 2 came along. I meet up with one of my friends from phase one and did something I told myself I would never do again in a MMO, I joined a guild. I had been in guilds before in other games, seen the ups and downs of them and they just weren’t my thing. But I joined in spite of that. The guild was small, had a good GM and some good people in it and despite my reservations towards guilds, it was fun.
When the game went live the GM and a few others from the beta test guild met up and Bad To The Bones was formed. Everyone was starting over, most everything was working to one degree or another and we were all having fun. Then the worst thing that can happen in a game happened, we ran out of things to do. People had gone as far as they could go with the Black Pearl quest and had nothing to do but level skills. Some had advanced fast enough to have completed the BP quest, most were stuck waiting for it to be fixed and brought back on line. The guild was still going ok, people were still coming on and it was still fun, just not as much.
Eventually the thing that was bound to happen did. People stopped coming on. They were bored with grinding skills waiting for something to do. I kept coming on; kept grinding away because I liked hanging out with the people I had met in the game. I told myself that when I max my pirate I’ll leave and find something else. Turned out not to be so easy to do. I mastered my pirate and was bored to death but I kept playing. I enjoyed the guild and people in it so I started a new pirate so I would at least have something to accomplish while being on. After awhile fewer and fewer people would be on. Most times it would be me and 1 or 2 others in the guild and a lot of the time just me. It was no longer fun.
Around this time we got the word that our GM was leaving the game. Not really a surprise, he had other things going on that was taking up a lot of his time and something had to be given up. Since Disney didn’t provide an option to transfer guild ownership, the officers that were still active decided to start a new guild. Somehow I ended up the GM, me, the person who didn’t want to be in a guild at the beginning of all this. I got a name approved as close to our original as possible and Bad To The Bonez was born. We started actively recruiting, the guild was growing and I was having fun again. I had a reason to sign on everyday again.
But soon enough history began repeating itself, members would get to a point where they could go no further and stop coming on. We would get new members, they would reach the same point and they’d be gone. It is a viscous cycle that never stops. But I was still coming on every day. With the help of a strong core of dedicated officers and members the guild stayed alive. After getting my second pirate to level 40 and with the constant ebb and flow of active members, it started taking its toll. I’m now on my third pirate, getting close to reaching 40 again. The majority of the friends I had in the early stages of the game don’t come on anymore. It’s reached the point that I’m coming on entirely for the sake of the guild and the people that are still active. I don’t have it in me to keep grinding anymore, it’s no longer fun.
I do apologize for the long winded soliloquy but I wanted this to answer as many of the forthcoming questions as possible. My account is paid up until May and the Robert Badbones pirate that holds the GM spot will remain. I leave the guild to the dedicated officers that remain both on the test server and in the live game. The guild site will remain up and running as well. If the need arises for a promotion to be given out or for a demotion you can send me a PM and I’ll take care of it. Grace Wildrage and Xel have full administrator privileges on the site and will hopefully be back in game soon. I’m going to promote some people who are still the most active and I may add one or two more people to the administrator list for the site.
It is my hope that the guild remains strong and keeps going forward. Maybe with some time away I may find the desire to play again one day. If so, I’ll see those that remain later on, if not, it has been my honor and pleasure to have played this game with you all. May fair winds fill your sails as you continue on your way. Farewell mates, long live BTTB.
|