Why don’t I PBEM anymore? And a PBEM history of sorts.
by Rob on Apr.22, 2010, under Robs Musings
I get asked the question on and off along with the occasional invite to join a group from people I used to PBEM with a long time ago. I’ll start by saying that PBEM these days bores me, it can and often does tend to be one person posting a decent amount (by decent i mean more then two sentances or even a paragraph) which really spoils a story.
Then there is the whole thing that 99% you have to watch what you type. I tend to type rather openly my characters tend to be fairly deep they will swear and yell abuse etc. Which well isn’t exactly allowed that often in PBEM saddly.
Lastly lets look at what i’ve helped with and what’s bitten me in the ass, for over a year I was one of the oh so high and mighty admiralty board members of BF then of course the Obsidian Fleet Split occured and because I gave them the majority of the back end story (as it was originally written) and the name etc I got bitten on the ass there my name got dragged through the mud more then once. After that certain people in OF started to takewhat was to me some actions both with the original story and more on the admin side i didn’t like so i left there..
That in turn left some hard feelings of course with certain people.. I then went back and played with BF for a while helped out with the Admin side for a short time and got very very bored after those I simmed with on the Endeavour stopped simming.
Add to this the fact I’m a 3D artist I know most of the people making the trek meshes and I get soo very sick of hearing about who on a PBEM or the like has stolen which image today.. and you get to the point you just don’t want to do it anymore.
Remember though that several things people take for granted came out of work some of us old timers did.. the origins of the Task Force Management system (and some of the first ever CMS systems for PBEM), The Ship Personnel Management System or SPMS has some of my code and it’s name was my idea given I swore at one stage is was PMS’n 
, All those things had their origins with Smythe, Mouring, Nate and myself…
In the end though this site is the one thing that lives on a resource to those who I once gamed with in certain sections.
-Rob
