The Metaphorical Towel

Here's a fun little tidbit - did you know that Ilusia was originally created back in the autumn of 2007? The 11th of November, to be exact. I created the first version there and it had a decent run of a few months. Back then, that's all a lot of boards lasted for. In a world of interests changing and members drifting, it's hard for any board to last long.

There are some key issues with role playing for a lot of people. For one, almost everyone loves the romantic aspect of it. This itself is not the issue at all - it is what comes next. For a lot of people, that is when things become hard and interest starts to slow down. After the thrill of the chase has ended, coming up with new plots is difficult for a lot of people, because there are not a lot of connections besides the romantic interest.

This has happened here on A Future Without You this time around more than any other. People stick to playing with the same two~four people over and over instead of branching out to try new things. Or, even worse, people join and things get started, and suddenly an important character goes missing, and the plot (not to mention multiple threads) suddenly die because of this absence.

A Future Without You is my baby. It's been my baby for years now and I love it dearly, and I have the special honor of knowing that there are many others who love it dearly as well. This time around, the story was altered to try something new, with familiar faces in different roles. I loved seeing that develop and progress, and I loved the story that would happen in the long term.

The issue is... it feels like there are maybe three or four truly active people on the site right now. These are the people who check the forum often to see if anything has been posted in and patiently wait for responses, who try to keep it going. I really appreciate those people who do.

Maybe the error was having things so spread out from the beginning. Maybe it was just bad timing with everything else.

Original fantasy is something that, quite honestly, I feel is doomed to fail unless you are able to collect a large, active user base quickly, and keep things moving constantly. A Future Without You has never had that - nor has it really needed it - but it does need more than it has now, and to sit here watching it slowly die breaks my heart.

There are the usual excuses people can come up with. "I'm busy with school right now" or "I'm busy with work" or "My muse isn't working" or "Life is being a pain." I'm not saying these are invalid excuses - I completely understand them - but I'm also saying that it does not take that much effort to pop on, say 'hi' in the cbox, and take five ~ twenty minutes to toss up a short post. Just a short, two ~ three paragraph post, to keep things going.

That is one of the big issues. I'm not pointing fingers. The other big issue is character interaction. People just really aren't playing with each other that much. It might be because of the distance or it might just be because there are not a lot of ideas. Whatever the case is, it is something that is just not working out.

And that, as much as it breaks my heart even more, is the simple truth of it all - it's just not working out.

It's 9:38 a.m. on my twenty fifth birthday, a day I'm already taking pretty hard, and I'm sitting here trying not to cry as I write this up. AFWY is my baby - it's something more important to me than a lot of people realize. It's never going to really be over or gone, you know? So, this time didn't work out. That's okay. In the future, I'm 100% sure it will be polished and retuned, and given another chance.

So, to the members who do have a place for Ilusia in their heart, thank you for being a part of it, and holding it so favorably.

This is not the last site you'll see from the three of us on the staff team. We're already working on another one with fingers crossed hoping beyond hope that it will work and keep people interested, and keep people playing together. If you are interested in learning about that site, please toss me a PM. The cbox will be removed from the sidebar and the forums locked, but the board will not go into maintenance mode just yet.