[pp] You can't go home again, part N in a series

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When I first started playing Puzzle Pirates during the free beta, back in late July, the tutorial randomly dropped me off at Guava Island. This was to be my home through the entire beta period on the test (Azure) server. Within a few days I managed to more or less stumble into the crew which "owned" Guava, the Mad Mutineers. Most of my voyages began and ended on the usually crowded patch of sand that was Guava Beach, and I was well-acquainted with the island's sole non-human inhabitant, Sheepish Ryan. (At that time he was the only sheep in Azure, and his unique presence influenced the naming of many of the local shops.)

It was on Guava Beach that I said goodbye when the test server was taken down. When Midnight (the production server) came up, Guava was there, but changed: the too-small beach had been replaced with a paved plaza and proper docks, and there were new streets. The improvements were welcome... mostly. Ryan was gone too, to the distress of most inhabitants, replaced by Sheepish Rocky.

Still, I resolved to adjust ... until my reconstituted crew relocated to Alpha, the first and biggest island, after getting a shop there. I'd been to Alpha before, in Azure, and found it a bustling metropolis of an isle, a little crowded and overbuilt for my tastes; Guava suited me better, with all the comforts of civilization without so much of the cruft. But the crew said move, so I moved... though not before taking a last walk along what remained of the beach.

I went back there today for the first time in a while. Another crew and flag has laid claim to Guava, and I've heard from our leaders that we're not going to contest it merely for sentimental reasons, especially since our flag now includes crews that called other islands home. And although the sense of attachment has faded with absence, it was still distressing to walk into the palace and see people of this other flag holding court.

It's been a while since I've felt this sense of loss of a virtual home. When I still MUSHed regularly, every now and then someone would put up an old db and I'd wander the empty streets and chatrooms that were once familiar; but that was years ago now, so these feelings caught me a little by surprise. Also, Guava hasn't been abandoned - it's merely under new management. So there's also an element of jealousy toward the current lords, though I confess I'm not sure I'd really want to "live" there now anyway.

I suppose what I really want back is the Guava of my memories, with no more than one shop of each type and a certain black sheep greeting new arrivals on the beach. Yet even that marks me as a johnny-come-lately, a beta player rather than an alpha, who never knew Guava as uninhabited wilderness. And each day, new pirates enter the game and begin to form memories and put down virtual roots.

When we think of "home," we think of a location not only in space, but also in time. Change either, and it is no longer truly, exactly home.