My My.... Look at the Time!

This past Sunday, PC passed its fourth anniversary.

I knew that it was some time in September, because I'd only been playing a month when Deftig suggested that we start a blog, but I'd not realized our first post was at the end of September.

Deftig did a lot of the heavy lifting to get the site ready.  He'd selected Blogger over other options --my lone advice was to make it easy to modify-- and had prepped the site for publication.  We selected the name Parallel Context over the course of an afternoon whereas he and I would trade name ideas and he'd go out and see if it was available.  We ended up with Parallel Context simply because it was the first blog name that was free, not due to any clever desire to have our initials as PC.

Even though he hasn't posted in a while, the site still bears Deftig's fingerprints in layout and format.  I've done some mild tweaking over the years, but I've not felt the need to change things very much.*

Our first full year had a lot more posts than subsequent years.  Part of that was two --occasionally three-- people posting, but part of that was that I could post that much:  the kids were smaller and we weren't involved with (what often seems like) 50 million after school activities.  As time has gone on and my life has gotten busier, my posting has dropped to a more sustainable 1-2 times a week.

What has changed the most over the years, however, is the MMO blogging landscape.

When I read Righteous Orbs, the Pink Pigtail Inn, or Welcome to Spinksville!, I felt like I was at the watering hole for a lot of MMO bloggers.  All three posted often and engendered lively discussion, and the first two had enormous blogrolls.***  When Tam of Righteous Orbs dropped by and commented on a post of mine, it felt like a rock star saying hello.  And when Larisa of PPI added our blog to her blogroll, I felt that we'd finally arrived.

But the voices have gone silent.

Righteous Orbs and PPI closed up shop a few years ago, and Spinks has slowed her output tremendously over the past year.  (As of this writing, she hasn't posted in over two months.)  While the gigantic blogroll lives on with Rades' Orcish Army Knife, even the MMO Melting Pot is scaling back operations while Hugh takes a detour into his love of filmmaking.

***

Things have changed, yet people are still out there, writing away.  And so are we.

I don't see PC going away any time soon, and given my tendency to poke my nose into just about any MMO that strikes me as interesting, I'll have plenty of topics to write about.

Staying true to my Midwestern roots, I'm not going to turn PC into something it's not.  We're not exactly a backwater, but we're not trendy, either.  And that suits me fine.

/raises coffee

Here's to another four years!




*If I ever can get my WoW screenshot to work properly I'll get the title pic updated, however.  We're a bit behind the times.

**Yeah, like that never stopped me before.

***Spinks' blogroll is smaller, but for a former developer I find it very interesting reading.