Azure
Trust the recursion...
I bought my GP32 June of '03 as the "item of the summer," and I just fell in love with it. I spent at least 3-4 hours a day playing on it every summer. I remember staying up till the wee hours playing NesterGP with FF loaded. At that time I also became heavily interested in GP32 forums. First with GP32 Emu, though that kind of went downhill pretty fast because it wasn't broad enough (4 very small forums, one being a dev forum). Then I left for GP32x, which seemed like the perfect place to set up my tent.
In the first several months of owning my GP32, I would constantly look for something new to put on it. Whenever something was released, I always quickly grabbed it and tossed it onto my SMC to take it out for a test drive. I would also become a regular on these forums, posting frequently every day helping n00bs with their questions, and even having others helping me with my n00b questions. I would visit GP32x every day for as much time as I can, reading every thread that popped up. I'd always look forward to reading the forums every day to find out local gossip about SNES9xGP and find out what everybody was talking about. Though things slowed down a bit.
My first year of school with my GP was my Freshman year in High School. Although I feared that I would be overwhelmed with work, thus causing me to forget about the GP, I actually had at least an hour every day to play some good old Doom. However, I did start to slow down getting the latest GP32 apps. Sure, if there was a new version of Snes9xGP or something else huge released I would quickly throw it on my SMC, but I started to neglect A LOT of other GP programs. I'd read about them, think they were pretty cool, but never actually end up putting them on my SMC. However, I was still pretty lively on the forums. But then the summer came, and I had a new interest in mind, Beatmania IIDX.
During the Summer, I found myself spending more time reading other forums, such as bemanistyle.com. I also realized that I wouldn't touch my GP for weeks at a time, proving that I might be losing interest. Of course, after I got it modded I continued playing for a little while, but that slowly faded away. My time spent on the forums also diminshed quite intensely. Instead of spending 5+ hours a day on GP32x, I would just spend an hour every day, and I would only make a few posts here and there. However, there was some hope, C++.
Around the middle of July, I picked up C++, obviously to program for the beloved GP. And if you hung around the GP32 Dev forums, you'd notice that I posted there frequently. C++ relieved my fear of losing interest in my GP because I would continue to spend those 5+ hours on GP32x and #gp32. Posting frequently everyday in the dev boards, I soon realized that that was the only thing that I was doing. I wouldn't touch my GP at all, I would hardly visit the other forums, I would just concentrate on learning C++. I would only skim through news posts, only actually taking the time to read articles if something caught my eye. Something was wrong, I definetly was losing interest, and this became even more apparant when this school year started just last week.
Ever since school started last week, I've been swamped with work, so much work that I would hardly do anything on the computer anymore, except visit forums, but those forums wouldn't include GP32x. I haven't touched my GP in over a month, I haven't put something on my SMC since OS9XGP 0.3, my daily post count is practically non-existant. If I'm lucky, I'll actually post on these boards. All of this can only lead me to the frightening hypothesis that I might be losing interest in the GP32.
I might actually still be interested, I don't really know anymore. Maybe it's just because I have more more this school year, maybe it's just because I just got into IIDX and I've been preoccupied with that, maybe it's just that the community has changed so much that it doesn't appeal to me anymore...or maybe I've changed. The latter is a definite possibility, but I think I'd have to go with the community change.
When I first joined, the GP32 community was relatively small, and so were the boards. Everybody knew each other pretty well and we were all very close to each other like a big, yet small, happy family (Not to say that the current community isn't like this, it's just, in my eyes, not as close). The GP32 seemed to be like our own personal gem that nobody else was aware of but us. But, since then, the GP32 has gotten mass publicity (Okay, maybe not mass like the Big N, but it has gotten a lot of it), thus making the word GamePark almost seem as common as Nintendo (Okay, maybe not, but GamePark has been recognized by others a lot more than when it first debuted). This familiarity brought onto the community hoards of new fans, which obviously is a good thing, but it's starting to slowly abate the closeness that was apparant when I first joined, which I'm starting to miss.
So, what's this mean? Am I leaving the scene? Well, not really. I still have to dev something for the GP, why else would I take up C++. It just means that I won't be "around" as often as I used to be. I'll pretty much just become a lurker, making a few posts a week, and just sitting in the background of the community.
In the first several months of owning my GP32, I would constantly look for something new to put on it. Whenever something was released, I always quickly grabbed it and tossed it onto my SMC to take it out for a test drive. I would also become a regular on these forums, posting frequently every day helping n00bs with their questions, and even having others helping me with my n00b questions. I would visit GP32x every day for as much time as I can, reading every thread that popped up. I'd always look forward to reading the forums every day to find out local gossip about SNES9xGP and find out what everybody was talking about. Though things slowed down a bit.
My first year of school with my GP was my Freshman year in High School. Although I feared that I would be overwhelmed with work, thus causing me to forget about the GP, I actually had at least an hour every day to play some good old Doom. However, I did start to slow down getting the latest GP32 apps. Sure, if there was a new version of Snes9xGP or something else huge released I would quickly throw it on my SMC, but I started to neglect A LOT of other GP programs. I'd read about them, think they were pretty cool, but never actually end up putting them on my SMC. However, I was still pretty lively on the forums. But then the summer came, and I had a new interest in mind, Beatmania IIDX.
During the Summer, I found myself spending more time reading other forums, such as bemanistyle.com. I also realized that I wouldn't touch my GP for weeks at a time, proving that I might be losing interest. Of course, after I got it modded I continued playing for a little while, but that slowly faded away. My time spent on the forums also diminshed quite intensely. Instead of spending 5+ hours a day on GP32x, I would just spend an hour every day, and I would only make a few posts here and there. However, there was some hope, C++.
Around the middle of July, I picked up C++, obviously to program for the beloved GP. And if you hung around the GP32 Dev forums, you'd notice that I posted there frequently. C++ relieved my fear of losing interest in my GP because I would continue to spend those 5+ hours on GP32x and #gp32. Posting frequently everyday in the dev boards, I soon realized that that was the only thing that I was doing. I wouldn't touch my GP at all, I would hardly visit the other forums, I would just concentrate on learning C++. I would only skim through news posts, only actually taking the time to read articles if something caught my eye. Something was wrong, I definetly was losing interest, and this became even more apparant when this school year started just last week.
Ever since school started last week, I've been swamped with work, so much work that I would hardly do anything on the computer anymore, except visit forums, but those forums wouldn't include GP32x. I haven't touched my GP in over a month, I haven't put something on my SMC since OS9XGP 0.3, my daily post count is practically non-existant. If I'm lucky, I'll actually post on these boards. All of this can only lead me to the frightening hypothesis that I might be losing interest in the GP32.
I might actually still be interested, I don't really know anymore. Maybe it's just because I have more more this school year, maybe it's just because I just got into IIDX and I've been preoccupied with that, maybe it's just that the community has changed so much that it doesn't appeal to me anymore...or maybe I've changed. The latter is a definite possibility, but I think I'd have to go with the community change.
When I first joined, the GP32 community was relatively small, and so were the boards. Everybody knew each other pretty well and we were all very close to each other like a big, yet small, happy family (Not to say that the current community isn't like this, it's just, in my eyes, not as close). The GP32 seemed to be like our own personal gem that nobody else was aware of but us. But, since then, the GP32 has gotten mass publicity (Okay, maybe not mass like the Big N, but it has gotten a lot of it), thus making the word GamePark almost seem as common as Nintendo (Okay, maybe not, but GamePark has been recognized by others a lot more than when it first debuted). This familiarity brought onto the community hoards of new fans, which obviously is a good thing, but it's starting to slowly abate the closeness that was apparant when I first joined, which I'm starting to miss.
So, what's this mean? Am I leaving the scene? Well, not really. I still have to dev something for the GP, why else would I take up C++. It just means that I won't be "around" as often as I used to be. I'll pretty much just become a lurker, making a few posts a week, and just sitting in the background of the community.
