User:Rabble

I quit playing ATiTD because I wasn't having fun anymore. I stopped having fun about 2-3 months ago when the pace of the game slowed to crawl.

During the last few months, I talked to veteran players and they told me the slower pace was normal. In fact, when I compared the T4 tech tree to the T3 tech tree, I noticed there wasn't much left to research, discover or build. Everything is almost done. That just left the tests and those were frustrating.

I worked on beetles a little and enjoyed slowly coaxing patterns from the beetles. I could have kept at it the rest of the tale except they eat too damn much cabbage. Even with thermos in a terrarium they eat too much cabbage and I didn't want to spend hours and hours growing cabbage for mere moments of beetle fun.

I thought about building some thought puzzles but the costs are so high. Shouldn't the challenge be a well designed puzzle instead of amassing expensive items just to build the puzzle?

I worked on pyro a little and enjoyed refining my designs. But there's never any pyro shows and the costs of making even one shell are astronomical.

I tried darkest night since I used to love mushroom hunting and love body tests too -- but beehives mushrooms are so horribly rare they just sucked the life out of that test for me.

I tried funerary temple but just couldn't hack roaming Egypt and standing at oven after oven while they slowly baked tiles. Id' rather sit on my porch and watch the grass grow.

I tried to grow silk for research and coming tests but waiting weeks for the right voids and then growing the thistles five per garden was irritating. Why don't thistle gardens have a batch mode? Or maybe silk farms can just ask for 3-vitamin thistles so there's less delay waiting for voids.

And so on and so on. Everything had too much pain for too little gain.

Ten years ago I wouldn't have minded the horrible grind. Ten years ago most MMORGs required dozens or hundreds of hours of repetitive, boring leveling to get to the end game where you could have fun. But games have improved and many now minimize or eliminate that grind. Despite its many charms, ATiTD just doesn't hold up against the competition. Or at least it doesn't for me.

I spent the last few months keeping busy by doing trades and hosting public events. Those were enjoyable and kept me involved in the game. Even if I logged in and found I didn't want to do anything for myself, some other player would usually chat me and ask me for alloys or marbles or mirrors or about the next dig or acro line. On the July 4th weekend, though, I couldn't host any events and didn't have time for many trades. And once I stopped the busywork I realized just how much I had come to despise the daily grind of feeding animals, amassing materials for tests, waiting for voids, mining, or searching for non-existent mushrooms. So I wrapped up things and then quit.

My compounds, quarries, mines, warehouses and deep well were owned by a small guild. Before I quit, I invited some friends into the guild and told them to have at it. Hopefully they've salvaged the camp and divided up the items in the warehouses. If they need the mines, they should keep them. Otherwise, maybe they'll set the remaining ones to public use. Many mines and the deep well already were public.

I will not be back this tale. I might try the game again in T5 or T6 but I'm not sure. It depends on whether I get distracted by anything modern and shiny.

Comments

• Rabble - you are a great asset to Egypt, and it is a completely sad thing to see you go. May you be happy and blessed in whatever you do. - Korrin
• Although we've met only a few times, I think it's realy sad, that you left the game. You've been one of the constant and encouraging characters in game with all your event organizing for other players. I can understand why you left the game though and I hope you find fun in whatever you chose to do now. - Antigona
• Peace be with you, and will miss you most days. Injoy life and don't get held up anywhere, you deserve the best. -Hilly
• He is right. - Zeus
• You don't have to hide the truth Rabble! I'm proud of you because you wrote that. - Zeus