[Sodium_noir] Sodium Noir

[Liz Oleksyn]

Hi all,

This started out as a succinct “due to unforeseen
circumstances, etc, etc, I’ll be retiring from Sodium
Noir” announcement, but I thought it only fair to
share this news with the rest of Sodium's players. 

A few days ago, in what I expected to be another
futile attempt at communicating with Spikey, I sent
him a brief email - just asked how he was doing and
mentioned that his presence in SN was sorely missed.
It was quite a surprise to get a reply, since I
haven't heard from him in more than four months.

An excerpt from his email:

"I am not sure what I am going to do about SN at the
moment. When I came back to see 150+ e mails for a
game sposed to be on a break that sort of finished me 
off. Even if I do somehow rediscover my interest in
the game, its going to be quite a while before I can
set a whole two days or more aside to catch up on the
reading so won't be for a while." 

He also expressed frustration that the game is being
run without him and that it's getting out of hand.  

It was my understanding that Spikey has been copied in
on numerous emails regarding the  current state of
play in SN and that he was, at least, somewhat aware
of what was going on.  The storyline hasn’t been taken
past Saturday night (nor was anyone intending to take
it any further than that) and nothing has been
developed in such as way as to interfere with either
his NPCs or future plans for the game, so far as I
know.  The majority of the 150+ posts he refers to
were courtesy of me and Jennie, since, for quite
awhile, Christine and Jack's thread was the only one
still active.  I replied to his email, expressing my
confusion regarding the current state of SN and took
full responsibility for contributing to the 150+
posts.  As of today, he hasn't replied. 

Personally speaking, this is a really awkward
situation for me, especially in light of having gamed
with Spikey for the last five years and, at one point,
being given the responsibility of helping to keep
Sodium Noir going during his last prolonged absence. 
He's always been - and rightfully so - extremely
protective of this game.  It's reputation for being
one of the best PbEMs ever is certainly deserved.
However, I feel strongly that, if he's going to be
away from it for months at a time, he either has to
entrust its continuation to players who can maintain
his standards or shut it down completely until he
returns.  Had I known that I was going against
Spikey’s wishes for the game, I certainly would have
stopped posting immediately.

And that's what I'm going to do. I'm retiring from
Sodium Noir.  I've really loved posting in SN for the
last few months.  We were moving toward bringing a few
more characters together and I was especially happy
about the prospect of a Christine/Simone/John
Black/Sandra/Jack conversation.  Who knew a Ladies’
Restroom would be the perfect meeting place?  ;)

But that’s me being selfish. This ain’t my game. I’m
not the ST, not do I want to be.  If I interpret
Spikey’s email correctly, he didn’t expect us to
continue without him.  I hope his enthusiasm and love
for Sodium Noir is rekindled and he returns to it
soon.  I consider Spikey to be my friend and it would
break my heart to think I’d contributed to the demise
of something that meant so much to him.

I’ve loved gaming with all of you and have thoroughly
enjoyed reading your posts.  

Best wishes to all,
Liz O.


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