It's another Sunday morning!
So do you know about the concept of
deus ex machina? It's a cheapo plot device whereby when the hero(es) are in Dire Straits (I mean, dire straits) something miraculous happens to save them. The cavalry comes riding up over the ridge or the freaking Red Sea parts (or closes) , the sun unexpectedly comes up and Edward (my new generic name for any vampire) goes back to being a bat (or whatever he is during the day), the knight on the white horse sweeps in to save the maiden in distress. It IS a cheap device and if you write, don't ever use it if you can avoid it. Unless your name is Stan Lee, in which case, have at it.
BUT it happens in real life too, and yesterday was a case in point. My office comp died (as you know) and I'm using a rather precarious borrowed comp (the borrowing isn't precarious, but the comp is) for the server, which now also has to double for the office comp. This is a bad, scary thing because we're one crash from being offline again.
And then Troqus bought us a new comp. You know, like, new (okay refurbished, but I consider that like reincarnation/transmigration/reanimation or like getting a new used car [not the kind you get on Craig's List but one that's actually been...why am I talking about this?]). Yes, new. In a standard cardboard container with styrofoam forms. With tags on it. And instructions. And an OS. From a legitimate computer dealership. Not from...you know...a thrift store. Or a garage sale. Or even freaking Wallyworld. Yes, I said Wallyworld.
I was actually moved to tears. Some of you know I'm a pretty emotional little toaster/robot/AI these days - and I find that I am moved by the generosity and kindness of some of you guys (youse guys). For instance, when, after literally months of messing with it and asking people if they knew how to get the .dir to turn into an .exe when it wouldn't work the way the instructions said, John walked me through the process, I was moved to tears. When Apoc spent LITERALLY all day one day assisting me undoing problems with the new server comp and getting the right OS and software installed, it was the same thing. I think I might be a little sleep deprived. But in all honesty, I've never known anyone irl who was as kind and generous as you guys have been. I've stood beside the road with a flat tire more than once and nobody stopped. That's the world we live in. And yet you guys give of your time, experience, expertise and money and ask precisely NOTHING in return. You know, that really gets to me.
I gave Apoc some crystals yesterday. He said, "You spoil me." I said, "You can spoil me, too!" and he did - he gave me advice about the (continuing) problems I'm having with some of these comp issues and especially about the possibility of data recovery from the old disk. I left the conversation persuaded that maybe all wasn't lost. This is extremely meaningful to me. I don't know a lot about these things, and having intelligent, competant, experienced, calm, patient people advise me is extremely reassuring. Sometimes knowing the right people are back is reassuring (like Revious, who started learning Director from the tutorials [like the pro he is] for the sole purpose of understanding how things work. I can't even imagine how many hours he's spent learning this so he can assist us with our little game and it's little problems).
I don't have any RIGHT to expect to be treated with this kind of kindness and generosity. The fact that you guys do these things for me is beyond what anyone could expect.
But back to Troqus. The future of this game lies in large measure in its online stability. I have often bemoaned the fact that on a cheap machine with a very limited life expectancy, it will be impossible to provide the kind of stability we need to encourage community growth.
And he did it.
Troqus has been a big part of this community for many, many years, of course. I don't really remember when he started playing (and all my RECORDS ARE [temporarily] GONE [I do have the older ones on CD backup - it's the last couple of months I lost]). I think he started in 2004, but the first record that still exists (for the time being) is from 2006. Some of you will remember that back many years ago he had a house in the Arthos High Class Housing section and a pet dragon hatchling named Flora. He also sent us some concept art for redoing hatchlings, and I had finished those up and they were in the new (now lost) client .dir. For some time (and I can't remember exactly when), he was a mapper.
So this is a little different than hot shots who would start playing and then within a couple of days say "Hey, little lady, I like your little game", drop a pile of money and then basically walk roughshod over everyone, including the admins. I still cringe at the memory of some of those debacles. I tend, in fact, to recoil from amounts larger than the price of a normal video game. In fact, I like small amounts more often. Back in what I consider the Golden Age of Asherah, guys would have a good time and send us a few dollars - kind of like tipping the barmaid. I loathe the idea of "pay to win".
But this is different because he's not doing it "to win" but because he's a genuine part of this community, and has been for almost, if not at least, ten years.
Anyway, Tro and I had been talking for several weeks about making him a mapper again - I was going to wait until the new client because I wanted redo the .dir so we would have a nice special spiffy mapper account that would make mapping much easier, but since the client isn't going to come out for a while, I went ahead and gave him the same awful account as before.
Meanwhile, the comp will be here in a week or so.
(I still need a monitor, though...)
(And an additional external harddrive...)
But you will all be happy to know that I did back up and send out my data and work from yesterday to outside storage (some of you knew my house got hit by a storm last week, also - I'm not the luckiest person in the world [or maybe I am]) so I CAN learn from my disasters.
Meanwhile, if you see Troq online (and you will) be sure to say howdy and thanks - he's done a lot for all of us .
