With Biglen’s post and Admin’s promises of updates – and the responses those have inspired – I’ve been thinking a bit about the ‘sim fatigue’ so many of us seem to be feeling. Let me first say I agree, updates are long overdue and very necessary. However, having said that, I think that some of the sentiments expressed, while not disingenuous, are at least partially missing the mark.
Let’s say that the Sim was absolutely perfect, you could not imagine it being any better (I know, that’s impossible, if only because we all have different views of what perfection would be – just go with me on this). If that were the case, then there would never be any more updates, ever. All those who maintain that the lack of updates is what is making them contemplate leaving would then leave at some point, as there would be no more updates.
Now, let me reiterate that I agree we need updates; they are long overdue; and boredom with the current and long-extant cookie set is a major factor in people wanting to leave. Agreed. But when I think of the heyday of the Sim (at least to me), what made me want to log on the second I got home wasn’t the games – unless I was in the championship hunt – but the people. It was great having johngpf’s in-depth analysis (REALLY helped me early in my Sim career), but even more important to the enjoyment of the site were the characters – those who would goad you and call out your foibles like bosoxbill and mudbone; whackos like Caracarn and big_kahuna; pontificators like tombarrister; and flat-out arrogant (but could back it up) players like lemayripper. And scores of others. These were the people who made it interesting to me. We don’t have those characters any more. It’s not the game that’s stale, it’s the site.
Maybe I’m arguing chicken-and-egg: it’s not that the site is stale because the characters left, the characters left because the site is stale. I don’t know. But I do know in the old days I spent a lot more time in the forums than I did managing teams, and I had upwards of 20 teams pretty regularly; whereas now I check my teams, glance at the forums, and move on.
So, while it may be too late, I want to ask Santa to bring me some characters. Leave Caracarn’s ‘Hand out!’ under my tree, put Lemay’s Challenge in my stocking, bring me one more error-prone but beautifully argued post from tombarrister in my company gift exchange. Oh, and an update, don’t want to forget about that.