Return of the Mack
Posted: 29th of December, 2023 @ 05:15 UTC
Category:
It has been a long time...
I can't believe how long ago I started this blog, I had to be about 15 years old. That was almost half my life ago! Getting old is scary, the passage of time creeps up on you, and it just feels like it gets faster and faster. First it seems like a month goes by, then you realize it's six, then one day a whole ten years can go by, and it almost truly feels like it happened in a blink of an eye.
On top of it all, a lot has changed since this blog started. Microblogging services like Twitter/Mastodon and social sites like Facebook/Reddit took over the internet. The games industry itself has changed, with id Software and many others now being owned by Microsoft, entire franchises like the New Order Wolf games came and went, and even the unforeseeable holy grail leak of Duke Nukem Forever 2001 all happened since my last two posts (early 2014 and 2016).
I finally became an indie developer, starting a real company with life long friends and co-developers, and releasing a real game. Went to parties / hangouts, met new people, reconnected with old amazing friends, moved across states, travel when I can...
Unfortunately, there was a lot of negative change, political turmoils that have continued or gotten worse, the wars that have erupted, a global pandemic that killed millions.
If it wasn't already tough these last few years, I was unable to see or work with in my co-worker and best friend for over two years, whose flight was literally canceled one week before the pandemic lockdowns began. My grandmother died. And worst of all, my closest and childhood friend took his own life shortly before I was able to visit him due to the virus.
I normally don't ever type something this personal on public record, but I think it's important to document this period of time, and reflect on what went wrong and what we need to do better the next time any of these challenges arrive in our lifetime.
Just try to be there for those you love, whether it's a call or in person. And try to remember you are probably more loved than you may ever know.
Sorry for all this depressing subject matter, but it's important from time to time. And I hope it gives an insight into why I haven't been at my best
these last few years. I will now devolve into site details and some video game stuff for those who are hopefully still interested in anything I have to say (if those people ever did exisit).
While working on our own games has been rewarding, we have had a lot of internal development getting our SDK at a worthwhile state, coupled with all these global and personal life events constantly happening. I've been trying to get out of bad ruts, trying to change more routines, and getting inspired again. We have some amazing game ideas, and I'm finally feeling motivated more to try something different while finishing our previous commitments.
So yes, something I did the last couple of weeks to shake up my routine and knock
something off my ever growing TODO list:
I have relaunched my site with the help of eukara and Theuaredead.
Woo!
It's been a wild ride getting these domains back.
To give some explanation, I use to cover the costs and host these under DreamHost. One day after getting a new bank card, I updated my payment info, sent off the payment, and didn't check back for quite sometime due to life events. Unfortunately, during that time, DreamHost decided my card was actually invalid after all despite initially telling me otherwise, then of course I lost the domain by the time I had realized what was going on.
Pouring salt further on the wounds, one of those domain squatters bought our "hot" domain, and tried to charge a ridiculous price for it. I gave up hope of ever getting bloodbathsoftworks.com back, and the founder of Bloodbath, Megan, wanted to go back to our old name anyways. So we got bloodbathsoftware.com earlier last year. However, after many years of never making squatter money (hopefully), Theuaredead being the eagle eye he is noticed our old domain was going up for sale, and snatched it for us as soon as he could. Thanks to him, we now have bloodbathsoftworks.com back! And, thanks to eukara the webmaster guru, bloodbathsoftworks.com and bloodbathsoftware.com will point to the same page, allowing us to make most, if not all old links work as they use to! Try it out.
Speaking of Bloodbath, I will finally push out the website for Bloodbath Software. A real, full blown, usable site this time. No more stupid April Fools jokes or 90s construction GIFs. It may have a section or two still (e.g. Overturn) in development, but I will be updating it overtime.
Hopefully I will motivate myself to write some more. I must say, after all these years of Microblogging, the OG Blog still scratches an itch I can't quite put into words. And I will still try to write some of the articles I mentioned over the years in my old posts. Which, I have converted and rehosted them all here. Sadly, I am missing one, a 20th anniversary retrospective of Quake. A shame, would have been fun to read with the big 25 happening two years ago. Maybe I will do a 30th retrospective...
I hope if you browsed this site in past, that you enjoy the new slight redesign (many under the hood changes, oh that was a pain). If you instead are a new reader, than thanks for reading, hope you stay for more.
I need to put some fancy RSS button somewhere, but I have a URL you can sub to right here. I also have a mastodon here if you are interested (these get preview posted there).
Please also check my About page for some quality sites from my talented friends.
Till next time.
P.S.
I think I should start including music I was listening to here, similar to JWZ, because why not.
