Save_Game for a rainy day...

Today is another rainy one. There was work to do outside, but I am sitting, waiting out a storm.

My modding experience so far has taught me many valuable lessons, and greatly deepened my appreciation for gaming, along with the entirety of everyone who has ever made an impact on what it is today. Thank you all!

Great works of art are always left unfinished. Perfectly incomplete, a masterpiece stands the test of time and can be interpreted uniquely by everyone who experiences it. Though I have only the most basic knowledge of code, I am still able to see how powerful and ground-breaking Dungeon Siege was/is, and I'm in awe of the potential still untapped in software almost two decades old. I can also attest to the broad range of real life applications for lessons learned modding. For example:

At the start of this day, twenty-third of July, I was up very early and discovered I'd been wrong about some key assumptions in my modding. I was forced to reset my changes and start completely over. When I said I wasn't discouraged, I meant that I had learned more about mods by breaking them than by building them. I meant that I may not even know my mistake, but I know how to get it working again (hopefully). Besides even if (when) I fail again, there is still a community and a decade plus worth of reference material to learn from.

I guess that's true for every game that modders mod, but Dungeon Siege is the one I love and want to understand the most intimately. So, if my study and practice is about loving Dungeon Siege, then I suspect it's time I met the requirements of that verb, Love.

Love, is when you work for the betterment and prosperity of something. Love is the act of giving and receiving, not just favors, but truly beneficial and appreciable thought and action. Someone once told me that L.O.V.E. is an acronym for Labors Of Verifiable Excellence. So, to truly express my LOVE for this game and it's community, I often feel like modding. I feel like the game's creators even loved me, as a gamer, by crafting DS and opening it up to anyone for modding. They loved me enough to let me play with their tools, Masters of their craft inviting any willing apprentice. What a beautiful creation, a true Labor Of Verifiable Excellence that I treasure so highly even after all this time.

Well, back to my rainy day... The work I have waiting outside is a labor of necessity, but getting it done right and timely is a matter of love. I love where I live, and I L.O.V.E. it all over the place when I can, I hope... I see the changes that I want to make, and I do the work that I'm able. But sometimes, because it's real life, something has to be started over, which requires work and the motivation to get it done right. Without Love, I'd be done with nearly everything on my to-do list, because I would've settled for less and worked half as hard. I may not even have had the courage to believe I was capable of living in the wilderness. But I am, and I do, and I L.O.V.E. every moment of it!

Also, anyone who read this is frickin amazing too, f'real tho;
:spider: