It's Probably Time To Re-Roll

Sindome is a deep investment game and is kind of the mother of all sunk costs when it comes to character progression, but it is not an infinite well of gameplay and roleplay engagement that can last forever for everyone. You can, and eventually will, do everything you could reasonably do on one character, and the one thing time and resources and ue advancement cannot give you on any character is the experience of a different character and a new story to tell. There is no amount of wealth or power that can replicate a change of scenery, and I really think players get trapped in this purgatory of Did I Achieve Enough and Starting Over Wouldn't Matter Anyway where they will stop having fun and just stagnate trying to thread a needle that doesn't exist and will never exist.

Some players can get very hung up on the speedbump of having to go through UE advancement again but this is in my view a non-factor in these situations, anxiety about 'starting over' in UE terms is vastly more relevant with players who are still in the midst of their progression and fairly non-relevant to players who are years deep already at Max UE. At these points two years of development is much less relevant against the idea of the story of all those years coming to a final end. In this denial state players may spend years articulating all the arguments for why there should be shorter progression while playing careers that could have contained two or three max UE characters in their breadth. These discussions will be for some, essentially, procrastination.

The game cannot save you. Sometimes the story is just over. I would urge players who are struggling to find purpose or interest or fun in things to not be so precious about the page and kill their darlings.

It is more a matter of when players are really, really genuinely unhappy and wall themselves off from solutions because it can be really hard to end things. Ending the story of a character can be as difficult as ending a relationship. And this sort of difficulty is not unique to anyone, this happens to every player including me. There is a reason there is the cliche of the aspiring writer with a novel in a drawer they can never bring themselves to finish and publish, the finality of an ending on creative expression can be really difficult to confront. It is not a personal or moral failing and it's not something that effects any one person and not others.

I have characters I miss pieces of because they are all me in a sense, but I've reconciled this to myself by having pieces of them show up across all the stories like secret (or not so secret) references or cameos in a novel. I don't think this is an easy thing to deal with or an easy thing to get over exactly, but I've talked to enough unhappy players over the years, and seen enough players at the start of their stories and the end, to know that new beginnings are really powerful and effective means of change and growth and new perspectives can completely alter the game and the immersion and the total experience for a player in ways that few other things can do.

I recognize how hard it can be to let go of a long time character. One thing that might be an intermediate step for some, is taking a character vacation. The character isn't dead. You can come back to them later. It's a fresh start, but if you want to return to the character later, you can!

Sometimes, a vacation is a good way to get a different perspective on the game, and then return to a character, when the game has somewhat at least, moved on from that character, leaving a lot of opportunity to claw back to where they were, or interact with their replacement in whatever role they filled in the game.

Either way, like I said, some really good points made, especially in the initial post.

I do think that it's okay to have IC expectations of characters. Within reason. This used to be the case and might still be now. I don't know. But if a character is in a limited slot I think it's fair that their bosses expect a certain level of results - especially in the more prestigious positions. That the player uses a reasonable amount of the time they do spend on line (even if it's not a ton) to push the role they are in. If not, I think it's okay for the character's IC bosses to cut them loose.

I also think that a creative, competent and eager player is better for pretty much any and all roles than a 'powerful' player in terms of UE and gear and wealth. I know that, in the past, some positions were reserved for high or max UE characters. I am not saying UE should be disregarded entirely but it shouldn't, in my opinion, be the primary concern. It's more icing on the cake if anything.

Many people have consistently made the claim that UE doesn't matter much. That UE is the least important aspect of play. I agree to some extent though not to the degree some others do. Regardless, if this is truly the case, maybe we don't need to wait for a PC to be at least 1.5 years old before even considering them for certain roles.

Further, if we are not limiting access to these fun and exciting roles to characters who have high UE (which can take years to get to), maybe players won't be so reluctant to start fresh since doing so wouldn't lock them out of some of the most exciting aspects of the game for another 1 year at the least.

All this said, maybe all this is already happening and the case!

I was hard up on the fence about saying goodbye to my last PC, but I did commit to the decision right around the time he hit max UE. It was a process of weeks spent thinking it over. It wasn't max UE that fueled the decision, but I did feel like his story was done. He had a fantastic story from start to finish, and there's various players and staff that helped bring life to that story. One of the biggest factors in feeling ultimately ok with it is that I had a super important personal goal for him that he picked up along the way. When he accomplished that goal is when I started thinking about sunsetting him. It was, as far as I knew when I made it a goal, an impossible task. I think that what he accomplished overall, in that and other RP over the years was the best he had to offer. His story led him to do both terrible things and great things and anything he did going forward would have only served to lessen that story in my eyes. I do miss that PC now and then, and I look fondly back on old notes when I'm feeling nostalgic.

I remember my hangups about it very well. I'd never rerolled before. I was worried he wouldn't be remembered or mentioned if he disappeared. That was something I had to push through despite the worry. I was worried about having to break ties with other PCs that he'd grown close to or did regular biz with. That was hard to accept, especially when some asked him to stay. <<< This right here btw made me realize how much of an impact that character had on the people around him. It softened the fear of not being remembered. Anyway, I cherished the connections that PC had made. I knew I might never interact with some of those characters again. I was worried about losing the UE I had accumulated. Worried about starting at the bottom again. About learning new skill sets when I'd become so accustomed to the ones I already knew. Worried about losing my support network. The list goes on.

But then I rerolled and it was all new. I got to be an immy again. I loved that. I hadn't been an immy in almost 4 years. I wrote a note every day for the first two weeks to record my new immy experience. The world was huge again. I knew my way around the mechanics and I knew how a lot of the world is laid out, but I'd been playing a high UE character for so long I'd forgotten what it was like to be afraid, unsure, inspired. I realize the game had become sort of rote in how I played it. The sky was suddenly the limit and I had a clean slate. My last character had gotten as close to the sky as he could. I had a reason climb again.

Breaking ties with old friends led to meeting new ones. In many cases, ones my old alt wouldn't have taken the time to talk to or would've sneered at the thought of talking to. Learning how other skillsets work and learning other parts of the game was exciting.

I guess all of that's to say that it's hard to let go, but letting go means we have a chance to live again. It's not all that much different from real life in that regard. If you're stuck or unsure about rerolling, my advice is to take a breath, close your eyes, and leap.