Back to a Grindstone?

I have the strangest temptation to resub to ATITD for another month. I don't really know why. By now, someone has probably laid claim to all my stuff, so I'll probably be starting out from scratch - with the connections of a very big guild (I can always claim RL problems for my months-long disappearance) to rebuild.

What would be slightly scary is if NO ONE has laid claim to my stuff. Which then means that no one gave a fart, and that the world in that region is pretty much deserted with no one around.

On the other hand, it'll be easier to continue where I left off, so to speak.

Then again, I don't really know what I want to achieve in ATITD any longer. I do miss the sensation of working towards a big goal, of accumulating resources with a little number next to it steadily increasing. Maybe it's tickling a progress quest part of my brain, but there's something really 'fun' about seeing Cabbages 1500 go up to 2500.

However, it's no longer fun when the required goal for Cabbages is somewhere around the 50,000 mark. Which seems to be the problem with long-term ATITD. The numbers are way too big for one person to generate - unless that person is really OCD and grinds 5000 cabbages every day for two weeks.

Group up then, say some people. Go talk to and con people into joining thy mad project. That's all very well if you actually live in a timezone that allows you to SEE other people. I never do. Even my Left 4 Dead games have been played with a lot of Japanese, Hong Kongers, Koreans, and if I'm really lucky, Australians or English-speaking Malaysians and Singaporeans.

The waiting game in ATITD is a killer. I'm all for long term goals, as long as there's something to keep me amused in the short term too. And it's all too easy to either finish the short term goals, or end up in organisations that solve the short term problem just like that *snap* and eh... there's nothing to do again.

I'd like to help an organisation out with something. The accumulation of some resource or other. But it seems most stalwart ATITDers are focused on chasing their level ladder.

And the number of resources it takes to build a rung on that level ladder makes me faint. Pfft.

The temptation is to poke my head in and see what's changed. I don't know that I can play catch up, or even want to. But it's just tempting to log in and say hello. Weird, huh? There's only one other game that has brought this sort of nostalgia on, and that's RoD. Speaks of what social networks do to a person, eh?