Here's My Problem (An Emotionally-Pointed Post Illustrated Using The Skyrim World Map and Quest Markers) (Patreon)

if you've somehow lived under more of a rock than i have, here's an example of the skyrim world map:

this is only part of the screen. those silver arrows occasionally pointing to doors are quest markers. they tell you where you have unfinished business, and they scroll around the map and tend to stack up at the edges if you accept a bunch of quests at once and don't turn them off.

due to years of conditioning by old school jRPGs, i'm still very much a completionist in default when i play games. i want to explore every corner of every map in case there's some stupid hidden chest there, and i want to do every quest and meet every character and get my unflinching fill of the game.

western RPGs break me of this habit because they're full of empty nothingness, corners that actually have nothing in them, and quests that range from 'critical story element' to MMO daily-esque 'go fetch me ten of these herbs'

but all those markers look the same.
especially in skyrim.
and they stack up.
i want to clear them. 

back to game development. 

if development is a world map, each of those quests is something i'm aware i could do to improve the game.

in an ideal world, when i get to the end of the project, i would have Completed it. I would be Done.
It would look like this:

clean.
pure.
complete.

but a more realistic view, where i've been working on this for ten years, i figure i might be walking away with a few annoying things unfinished. i thought, maybe reborn ends up feeling like this:

that's fine.
i could walk away from that.

here's my problem.

instead, after ten years, reborn feels more like this:

some reasons for this-- 

• my personal standards keep going up, 
• we just like added 60 hours pf new and updated content which needs to be polished
• cass's continued improvement of the scripts means it's increasingly feasible to make large changes
• we're getting swaths more concrete feedback now more than ever
• as i gain skill and experience i see more opportunities for improvement for the game itself
• i also gain skill in multiple different disciplines, art music programming, etc and see opportunities for improvement in all of those too

...and despite all of that,
i'm walking away from this.

i hate leaving things unfinished.

but i also really need to move on for my own sake.

...and on the horizon, Starlight?

Starlight feels like this right now:

.....and that's with a project that already has a demo and i announced seven years ago at this point.
it's not like i've stopped having project ideas.
there are so many other games i want to make too.

and even aside from games-- sometimes i want to just draw, or make music, or write stories
or just chill and play video games
or explore other hobbies
or spend time with friends
or even spend the time to actually invest in, look after and do something to help the people i care about
(especially in a time where the world refuses to stop letting us live through major historical events)
and i care about a lot of people

i am drowning all of the quest markers in my life

skyrim gives you an option to turn them off. and especially where we start looking at starlight, other hobbies, other games, caring for people, i have to take that option.
but also i still know they're there even if they're hidden from the HUD.
i still care.
i still want to do all this.
and i know i never can.

and neither can anyone
i feel that my complaining about this is an act of entitlement, like a whiny child crying that they can't have everything exactly their way
it's the same for everyone else, and i'm sure many people feel the same way in their lives too

so, in the end, i think the point of this post, is just to say,
fuck.