Instead, I turn your attention to the following (which I promise has a point):

For the last 3 years I have been the lead world designer, head writer, and editor for a game project that's died, come back under new management, nearly died, then finally risen up and is staying up. I used to just be a dialogue writer, but I moved up in the world of geekery after the 1st overthrow.

I don't know if any of you played role-playing games back in the day, but one of the most and beloved popular series was one called
Ultima. It was a series that spanned 9 main games, and 4 off-shoot games that are considered kosher. It was THE computer fantasy franchise. It had ports over to the NES, the SNES, systems I've never even heard of.

Like most franchises, though, it was bought out. And, arguably, it was sold out. The final game of the series, you see, was a buggy, financially unsuccessful mess that was commonly seen as a major disappoint. In particular, long-time fans almost universally hated the game. And ever since people have wanted an alternative to the ending of the series.

And in steps us.

In essence, we are a team of 15 or so people that are working on an entirely new game to end the series. It's not for profit, but none of us care.

And at around 400 unique IP addresses a day, it's not measly traffic either. We've been featured in gaming magazines over in Europe and Australia, though strangely nothing in the states.

Why mention all that now?

I was bored and decided to tally my total word count for this project. Every character, every line of dialogue.

I estimate that I've written around 65,000 words for this game. For comparison purposes, the standard modern American novel is 60,000 words.

So I have the damndest time finishing short stories, but no qualms with inadvertently writing the equivalent of a novel.

Some might say that I've thrown at least a good 150 hours or more away. Some may even go so far as to laugh. I say let them. Between the game and this journal, I write all the time. It's not always pulitzer material--especially here--but I have continually gotten better over the last several years.

And y'know, it's fun. It's a hell of a lot of fun melding your own world onto a well-developed one, and reshaping it how you see fit. It's fun to write a main plot and about 250-300 inhabitants from scratch. And I get a kick out of the idea of putting some of my suitable photographs in-game as framed paintings.

But the bottom line is basically: fuck, I've come a long way since I first landed the gig back in 2002.

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