Zen and the Art of Game Maintenance

Once in awhile, the graceful action is to give up. Step back, acknowledge defeat, evaluate the battle field, and think twice about your own capabilities.

This is where I am now. At about 3am, some action of some unscrupulous individual or process knocked the DNS offline, followed after a few hours by the game server. It's difficult to work on the internet when the internet ain't there, folks. I should have slept then. I didn't.

Prior to this heinous act, game balancing was making great dark strides toward the path of right and might. Our attendance has tanked, naturally - nobody likes change, even the folks doing the changes. That was to be expected, and I'd already steeled myself for a thin crowd and the dull roar of apathy over our frantic efforts. Things were looking good, however, and the surfaces of the game were starting to take on a shine where before they had been pitted and oil-stained.

They still are, as a matter of fact. The hack-action or whatever it was which took us down was more of a wake-up call. It's the same blink-back-to-reality one experiences when awakening from deep sleep or deep meditation.

For those few minutes, the game vanished. In its absence was a great void, which began to fill itself with clarity. By not looking directly at the game itself, I was able to see it more clearly.

By the time the server came back up, incredible inspiration-filled scrawls had filled my whiteboard, two spreadsheets, the abilities database in which I store proposed changes, and the left ear of my cat, who managed to traipse away with a bright pink Post-it note containing cost adjustments for weaponry. I found it later suspended from the tail of one of her toy mice. The note still made sense, despite kitty-toothmarks and commentary.

Moral of the story: Standing back from a work of art reveals the work of art instead of the individual brush strokes. The brush strokes by themselves, while quite interesting to look at, do not accurately portray the body of work.

Time for more coffee and notes, as soon as I turn off the game again. This time I'll use the off-switch on my computer instead of the merry chaos of a rogue system process.