Stepping Down from the Shire Lead

I don’t like awful resignation posts from MCME, so I’ll try to keep this short.

After the Marish, I am stepping down from leader of the Shire revamp.
I will also stop my simping campaign for Overseer. I truly don’t have enough time to even lead the Marish anymore, but I will commit to spending my time off to wrapping it up. Luckily, Bag End and Hobbiton; Bywater, and locations along the lore path are mostly done to a standard now that is beyond anything I could have imagined when taking on this roll. The Marish was a huge concern of mine as for quality–so its the last area that needs MAJOR revamps.

I’m not entirely decided on if I want to leave the project as a whole, as I still find my time here very important and I do love this project–as much as it pains me to admit it–I do love it. I wouldn’t be here going back and forth between being hated and loved by Kingorrik, switching every 3 months like the abusive relationship it is if I didn’t like this project.

But I have found myself at a cross-roads where I’m starting to see this project harmfully effect me. I should enjoy my time spent outside the game–but because I feel so obliged to continually push for progress here–I’m unable to.

I can’t keep that up, its not right by me or anyone I know and certainly not right for the Shire/This Project. I want someone who is genuinely able to commit to the project to continue lead our builders to do wonderful things.

I’m 27 years old. The most I can give my attention to, between my wife giving me sponge baths and taking my pills, is a village or small hamlet at this point.

For whoever takes over Shire Leadership:

I do believe that outright replacing the current homes is the best method–it was long debated if we needed to just touch up the houses or build new ones. It takes an entire day to completely touch up a village, fixings roofs and furniture. No doubt, that’s quick–but extremely frustrating. Whoever leads projects in the future–know that just rebuilding a village from scratch takes less than 3 days as we’ve proven time and time again and the results are far better.

Scary has a new layout and designs for how North Farthing homes can look, so that shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out. The rest of the Shire is cut and dry, you can have enough variations in village/region styles to make them unique–but they don’t have to be terribly different from what’s been made. There is a 2nd version of Tuckborough on FB as well, if that’s decided upon.

Thanks to Fornad for believing in me despite going behind is back like a filthy heathen. The Shire is in a far better place now than it was. Huge thanks to Sunwing and Ixert especially and Kemce and Wheellee at the beginning in helping me with the build guide and style.

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All the best Hearth. I can totally understand where you’re coming from and your decision to step down for a bit. I found the same thing leading the Folde a year ago, perhaps not the same IRL circumstances, but it’s true that the projects can be mentally draining if you’ve got other things that need/deserve your attention as well.

Hope you get better. I’m confident you’ve made the right choice on this one.

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Just a quick message from the high seas - Hearth, you’ve done a fantastic job with this revamp. It would be too much to expect any one person to lead the whole thing on their own and the results so far have exceeded anything that I could have expected.

As Eaglz has said, despite being committed to AC, we all go through periods of burning out and taking time away. I think it’s a natural and normal part of the creative process, and continually forcing yourself to work on something is anathema to quality. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and we all have real lives to attend to.

All the best.

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