Hello, everyone.

I wish I could say it's nice to be back. But I won't waste my time or yours with empty platitudes. It's not nice to be back. In fact, I'm wondering how sane I am to even post.

I finished reading the vast majority of the posts I have missed about two days ago. My first reaction was to strangle the whole lot of you. Second was to ask Zoha for a change of responsibilities. Third, I wanted to just ignore the entire board and go on with my life.

I've spent the past two days writing and deleting various posts. I've spent the past two days trying to decide if staying on as Warrior Mage guru is worth it to me, to you, and to the game. I've spent the past two days wishing some of you would quit the guild, the game, or even the planet.

My knee-jerk reaction was to get angry, foist the blame onto others, and leave. It's the easy thing to do, and in many ways the most satisfying. There are probably many of you who think that would be a good idea.

Well, I've had two days to calm down and do my best to think logically about this. I'm not going anywhere. There are still too many things I want to do for this Guild. And I still think there is something worth working for here.

Althought my first reaction was to place the blame for this situation on you, and on others, I know that that is not true. I am as much to blame as you are.

It is very hard for me to understand the player point of view these days. From your point of view, I bet it really does look like nothing has happened to the guild but downtweaks, broken everything and disappointments. None of the plans I have mean anything to you, because that's all they are. Just plans. You care about the reality, not ways I hope to change it... in the future... down the road.

From what you can see, it's been nothing but a year of disappointments and broken promises from me. You deserve better than that, and I am sorry that I didn't deliver.

I started out last year with every intention of getting the Societies of Magic up and rolling. Of getting a horde of new spells implemented. Of making sure all the current systems worked correctly, and made sense. You know the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"? It looks like I laid some good pavement.

Would it make a difference if you knew that I honestly wanted to complete all of those things for you? Probably not. Would it make a difference if you knew that my time in DragonRealms was limited by another full-time job, as well as returning to school full-time? Probably not. For whatever reasons on my part, I got very little positive accomplished for the Guild last year.

I am sorry.

It was not entirely my choice, but I put development on the Quest and Qi'Reshalia ahead of the Warrior Mage Guild. I really wish I could say that this year would be different. But if you had told me last summer that I would spend 6 months or more working on projects that had nothing to do with the Guild, I would have said you were crazy. And yet, it happened.

The only thing I can promise you is that this year I will do everything I can to prevent being swamped with other projects. As long as the requests don't become "mandatory", as they did last year, I should be able to pull it off.

Originally, I was going to ask everyone to remember how to be civil to each other, and to me. Then I remembered: I've asked that before. It didn't do any good then, and I doubt it will do any good now. So I'm going to start ignoring the posts from people who can't maintain a small amount of civility. And if that means that your concerns don't get addressed, tough. Change your posting style, and perhaps I'll respond.

I'm going to start posting once a week. No more. Fridays, I'll let you know what I've accomplished for the Guild, and what I'm working on. They won't be long posts. They probably won't be incredibly informative. But they're all I'm willing to commit to for now.

I'll briefly address some of the major concerns I've seen from my reading:

Second Weapon Req/WM Req Changes:

The second weapon req still isn't done. As I've said before, it's not something I can do, or I would have done it last summer. I've asked, I've reminded, I've nagged. We'll all just have to wait until it's done. I don't plan on modifying the existing reqs. I will not raise the Lore req until Lore skills are more worthwhile. If this doesn't fit in with your personal idea of what a "mage" should be, my only response is that nothing prevents you from gaining more ranks than required.

Evasion penalty for Prepping/Targeting a spell:

I had absolutely no idea Zoha was planning this. I logged in one day to find it was a reality, and that I was being given partial blame for it. I spent a week arguing with him to try and have it removed. And when that didn't work, I tried what I could to have the penalty modified. I'm glad that he gave Shalnhh and I control of the penalty, which will end up giving us more freedom with spells.

Societies of Magic:

They'll be released when they're done. And not a second before. For those of you stressing out about being able to enchant when weapon & armor forging is released, here's your answer: they won't be released at the same time. Not even close. However, the enchantment that Belcor has mentioned is not the major form of enchantment I have planned for Warrior Mages. In fact, it's only a minor ability.

Familiars:

I still have no control over familiars, or how they have been or will be implemented. The only advice I can offer is that if you don't feel they are worth it, don't get them.

-Atrathien

Just wanted to do a quick update. :)

I just got word today that Brandewynne is having some serious ISP problems, and hasn't been around because of them. I'm going to try to be more present on the boards until she gets back. :)

Warrior Mage assistant -

GameMaster Nadrien is my assistant-in-training. Right now he's responsible for working on several projects for the Guild, all of which I'm sure you'll enjoy. :)

Spells -

Once I get the other Guild teams trained in how to create spells, I'll be able to focus on developing more WM spells. I'm going to start with the ones already planned, then expand the spell list from there. The first one I plan on completing is Fortress of Ice. It's been planned for long enough. ;P

Aetheral Pathway & hidden targets -

I like the idea of AP allowing you to target/cast at critters after they hide. :) I'll see about making that an addition to the spell.

Rising Mists conducting an electrical charge -

Another idea I like in conjunction with GZ. :) It wouldn't be a very powerful charge, but it might cause a minor shock. Most likely not a stun, but some minor nerve damage. <ponders> I'll consider it some more.

Some changes to existing spells -

Thunderclap: You might notice a change to the duration of the stuns caused by this spell against creatures. I <cough> made a dumb mistake in a previous change. When I checked to see if a stun length was too long, I <cough> doubled the length instead of lowered it. Slight "whoops!" there on my part. :/

Arc light: I'm going to change Arc Light so that, if cast on a creature too soon after a previous cast, it has no effect. This is after extensive "research" at Simucon. It seems some of the other GM's thought it would be fun to hold cameras 2 inches from my face and take a picture. Of course, I was blinded. ;P One thing I noticed is that, when they did this several times in rapid succession, I didn't notice anything after the first flash, since I was already blind. In case you're wondering, those GM's have all died many times since we returned to the game. ;P

Targeted Magic system discussed at Simucon -

Please read my post in the Strategies & Tactics folder for info on what was discussed at Simucon.

Second weapon req -

It's complete, tested, debugged, and working. It'll go live as soon as Brigdha has some things which support it Quality Checked. In other words, it's a hell of a lot closer than it ever has been. ;P

-Atrathien

Just wanted to let you know I was home safe and back here on the board. Moonshadow was going to post a note here telling you folks where I was, when I realized that in the frenzy of last minute packing and prep I'd forgotten, but I don't see anything. I'm wondering if he posted it over in Talk To Simu or something.... <flail> Anyway, I was at the Game Developer's Conference for the last week, plus an extra day because I missed my plane home and had to scramble to find a place to sleep that night and rearrange my plane and shuttle reservations. :/ Anyway, it all worked out and I'm home again. :)

On board status, the Replies to Announcements topic is still backed up because of all the data you folks dumped into it. That's not a complaint of any kind, but I have to manually copy it onto a note pad and then manually type it into the Excel sheet I'm using to tabulate all this stuff. I think what I'm going to do is work on that for a while, then go on to another topic or three so you can see me reading and posting, then go back to Replies for a while, etc. I should get completely caught up that way without either going bonkers from data entry or making you feel ignored. :D

Oh, I saw Nova at the conference and she says Hi! and that she hears more good things about our guild than any of the others. So give yourselves a pat on the back. <cheer!>

Hugz,

Brandewynne