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Anti-Aliased: End of line

Yeah, it's exactly what you think it is. It's one of those columns where the writer announces that she's packing up and moving out. It's a column where the writer talks about how she's been here for two years and 199 days, and has written over 1,018 posts that have included over 534,580 words. It's a column where the writer says goodbye, wishes that she wasn't moving on, but knows that she must.

Guys and gals, it's been an amazing two and a half years and it has been nothing but an honor to write for all of you. I know sometimes we all disagree, and I know I say some really insane stuff that leaves people going, "Wow, she really said that aloud?" But, I'm glad that all of you still come back to discuss gaming here on my column, despite some of our disagreements. Anti-Aliased has remained one of the most popular columns here on Massively throughout these two years and I am very grateful for your readership.

As I prepare to leave Massively and say goodbye, I'd like to take one final look at the MMO genre as a whole. Plus, I have a surprise announcement to make at the end! Yay surprises!


A long time ago, on a blog site just beginning to form...

I found Massively.com in November of 2007 by accident. I had been looking around the internet for MMO news and Massively popped up in my search engine. Curious to see if it was any better than MMORPG.com, (the layout of MMORPG is too convoluted for my eyes, but that's my personal opinion) I gave the site a whirl and found myself loving the content. I applied for a position as a once-a-week columnist in December of 2007, but I heard nothing back. Oh well, right?

In March of 2008, things had changed. Massively put up a call for more writers, and I hastily applied again. Soon enough, three weeks later, I got an email asking if I was still interested in a position on the staff. I quickly responded, only to find out that our then-boss, Elizabeth Harper, was looking at my December application. They wanted me on as a columnist, and I was too happy to oblige. "Finally," I thought, "a real position in the industry that wasn't GameStop."

Anti-Aliased debuted in April of 2008 with my first column on how grouping can improve your Final Fantasy XI experience. The column -- originally intended to be a look at how community and culture can improve your MMO experience -- quickly changed and evolved over the next few months. What was intended to be instructional soon became opinion, and Anti-Aliased's final and current format found its home here on Massively.

Everybody does dumb things, but it's no reason to lose sight of who we are and why we're here

If there's one topic I'd want my readers to take away from this column, it is simply this -- have fun.

Gaming is supposed to be fun. The one thing I've noticed during my last two years here is that sometimes all of us (yes, even me) get too caught up in everything that surrounds gaming. We've gotten angry when a set of patch notes comes out, we've over-analyzed MMO business models, we've nerd-raged over people's reviews of our favorite games, and we've certainly put the smack-down onto anyone who plays a game that's different than ours.

Sometimes I wonder if we're so busy analyzing and thinking about games that we forget what brought us to them in the first place. We play them to have fun.

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