October Update

Howdy everyone! 

I apologize for being a little slow in writing this update. Whenever I fall behind schedule, I tend to get a bit nervous about updating people and letting them know what's going on. I think some part of my brain feels like if I just don't talk about it and work a little harder, I'll magically catch up. You'd think I would have figured out that it doesn't work like that by now. 

Anyway, here's where I'm at. Over the last month and a half, I've struggled to make a lot of progress with modding. My motivation tanked for reasons I can't fully explain, and IRL invents interrupted me multiple times. The good news is that I have successfully kicked this problem in the shins, and I've made very good progress in the last two weeks. The bad news is that those two weeks weren't enough to get me back on schedule. 

In early October, I asked the members of my Discord whether they'd prefer me to continue working on Artificer, or switch to Scion and Manbeast in order to try for a Halloween release. Just about everyone agreed that they'd rather see me switch to Scion and Manbeast, so that's what I did. Scion 2 is coming along quite nicely, and will be packed with some really great features. It does look like Scion 2 will be ready in time for Halloween (and Scion's second birthday!); however, Manbeast will probably not make it in time.

Last month, I told you that I wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. Since I wasn't able to finish Artificer in September, and it looks like I might need a little more time for Manbeast 2, I've decided to skip NaNoWriMo in favor of modding instead. That means that whenever I finish Scion 2, I'll switch right over to Manbeast 2 and work on that until it's finished. (My intuition says that Manbeast 2 will actually be a good bit faster than Scion 2, but sometimes I'm wrong about these things.) After that, I'll pick up Artificer again and continue working. My goal will be to finish everything on my to do list by late November or early December. That means Artificer, a modest Mysticism update, and (potentially, if there's time) a small addon for Adamant. Once those things are done, I'll take a small break for the winter holiday, and then it will be 2023! 

I mentioned a while back that I picked up a writing project that I was really enjoying. The second half of 2022 has basically been an extended in experiment in whether I can feasibly juggle modding and writing at the same time, and that experiment seems to have failed. I've scheduled three separate writing breaks and then skipped all three of them in favor of modding, and I think the leftover sense of dissatisfaction from this turn of events is a major cause of the motivational malaise that I experienced in September. So, like I said, my plan is to clear my plate completely by the end of 2023, and then take an extended break from modding to work on this writing project. I can't say just yet exactly what this will look like, but I'm tentatively planning on blocking off the months of January, February, and March, and using that time to finish the first draft of this project. 

(To be completely clear, I'm not going anywhere. I'll still be around in Discord, and I'll still be around to offer support and even release small bug fixes and other minor updates.)

Hopefully by March of 2023, we have a better idea about the release of Starfield, which will give me a better idea what the rest of 2023 will look like for me. My big modding priorities will be Stormcrown (Shouts) and Armorer (Smithing), which will be the last of the major player-facing systems that I haven't yet overhauled. 

As always, thanks for your patience and your support. I'll be around in Discord if you have questions, or if you just want to hang out. If everything goes according to plan, the next time you hear from me, I'll be announcing the release of Scion 2 :)