Hello!
As some of you might have noticed, there's been a lack of new content lately, and in general things have slowed down around here. The main reason is this:
Wolfie and I are tired.
Specifically, in my case, I've been struggling to stay engaged in the server for quite some time. I've got a growing family to take care of, a full-time job to work at, a 2-hour daily commute to endure, an elderly parent to care for, and a house to maintain, not to mention any number of other things that demand my time. More than that though, after a few weeks of dealing with some acute anxiety issues, I've finally admitted to myself that my desire to continue pushing things forward is now gone. I don't know exactly when it left me, but it's not coming back.
As for Wolfie, he's been dealing with his own issues as well, the largest of which is the fact that he's now in college and needs to focus on his studies. He may be able to help out again at some unspecified point a few years down the line, but has told me that he's unable to continue at the current time.
So where does that leave the server? Obviously, there's still a number of people still around and on the staff team, and the server itself is stable and has a pile of donated funds as well as some other assets. We on the staff team talked things over, and decided that the following were the options available:
When I talked to the staff team, it seemed like the ones willing to carry on were in favor of either option 1 or 2. One of our developers, Pixellius, has even said he would be willing to take up the mantle of leadership, though he too is busy. Alternatively, we would have to pull from whoever of the players are left and are interested. If nobody is found, we would likely default to option 4, since all of us were of the opinion that option 3 is pointless.
In this thread, I'd like to solicit opinions from you, the remaining players. What do you think of the four options above? Do you have a preference? And do you know anyone who would be willing to take on the large responsibility of leading the team and getting the server moving again? Does anyone even still care, or should BlackoutRO be laid to rest for good? Is it worth continuing to run a Ragnarok Online server in 2019? Please let us know your thoughts.
Thank you for everything, and I'm sorry Wolfie and I were unable to do more. We're glad we were at least able to let people have fun again here, for a time.
-redcar
As some of you might have noticed, there's been a lack of new content lately, and in general things have slowed down around here. The main reason is this:
Wolfie and I are tired.
Specifically, in my case, I've been struggling to stay engaged in the server for quite some time. I've got a growing family to take care of, a full-time job to work at, a 2-hour daily commute to endure, an elderly parent to care for, and a house to maintain, not to mention any number of other things that demand my time. More than that though, after a few weeks of dealing with some acute anxiety issues, I've finally admitted to myself that my desire to continue pushing things forward is now gone. I don't know exactly when it left me, but it's not coming back.
As for Wolfie, he's been dealing with his own issues as well, the largest of which is the fact that he's now in college and needs to focus on his studies. He may be able to help out again at some unspecified point a few years down the line, but has told me that he's unable to continue at the current time.
So where does that leave the server? Obviously, there's still a number of people still around and on the staff team, and the server itself is stable and has a pile of donated funds as well as some other assets. We on the staff team talked things over, and decided that the following were the options available:
For options 1 and 2, it was pointed out that a new owner may not be willing to let us continue managing the funds. In this case, we would set aside some seed money for the new owner to use and donate the rest to charity. When we first set out on the rebuild effort, it was with the understanding that any and all funds would be used either a) for server development/maintenance or b) donated to charity. To this day, I have honored that commitment by not taking any funds for myself (except as necessary to pay US taxes on the server income). I am not willing to turn over the entirety of the funds to a new owner since there's no guarantee that they would put the funds to their original purpose; I feel like it would be a betrayal of all those who donated to risk someone new simply walking off with them.
When I talked to the staff team, it seemed like the ones willing to carry on were in favor of either option 1 or 2. One of our developers, Pixellius, has even said he would be willing to take up the mantle of leadership, though he too is busy. Alternatively, we would have to pull from whoever of the players are left and are interested. If nobody is found, we would likely default to option 4, since all of us were of the opinion that option 3 is pointless.
In this thread, I'd like to solicit opinions from you, the remaining players. What do you think of the four options above? Do you have a preference? And do you know anyone who would be willing to take on the large responsibility of leading the team and getting the server moving again? Does anyone even still care, or should BlackoutRO be laid to rest for good? Is it worth continuing to run a Ragnarok Online server in 2019? Please let us know your thoughts.
Thank you for everything, and I'm sorry Wolfie and I were unable to do more. We're glad we were at least able to let people have fun again here, for a time.
-redcar
