Hi all! It's chwhite. Some of the old-timers might remember me.
So I was informed by a fellow Dominion fan at a real-life game meetup that Isotropic had finally shut down, and I realized that it was way past time to put up the valedictory introduction I meant to write here in January.
I wasn't around for when isotropic first went up, but I started playing it in early 2011. And I kept playing it. A
lot. A really unhealthy lot- something like 9,000 games over two years. In the process, I got pretty good at the game. Not quite as consistently good as the really top luminaries like jonts, -Stef-, and WanderingWinder, but good enough to eventually stay up in the 40s and hit the #1 rank once or twice on a fluke. Cornucopia was good to me, Hinterlands not as much (I tended to fall on the engine side of things, though I was far from the most extreme engine player). Through it all there were many, many great games played (WW and I alone played hundreds against each other), and many strategic depths plumbed, and I had a lot of fun. And I had a lot of fun on the forum too, of course, defending Transmute and slagging on Thief at every opportunity (among other things).
But it was also an addiction, an obsession, and was cutting into time that I should have spent being a productive member of society. And, well, at a certain point further strategic depths became harder and harder to come by, especially as Dark Ages wasn't on iso. I tried scaling back a few times, it didn't work. So, at the end of last year I decided to put down online Dominion for good, make it my New Year's resolution. This is the final game I ever played on isotropic:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20121231-120955-e9c956f3.htmlI figured that beating Stef with that powerhouse of a card, Counting House, was a good way to go out.
I was going to write up this post then, but I got lazy and distracted, and eventually stopped even remembering to visit to chime in on Qvist's lists (though I see that the $5 cards still haven't been listed, so maybe I'll remember to go there and be a lonely voice ragging on Duke). I'm sure many folks have stopped visiting entirely post-Iso. But to those of you who are still around, I'm still alive, and I'm still happy to play Dominion with the real cards. (I actually don't have anything against Goko- but I need to stay away from the online game, and not paying any $$ for it is a good way to prevent backsliding.)
...
So, a couple personal things before I go. My name's Chris. I'm in my late 20s, moved up to Brooklyn from Philadelphia a few months ago to live with my GF*. My non-boardgame interests include classical music, the environment, and useless trivia (back in my pre-Dominion days my main obsession was quizbowl), and one of the best things about living in NYC is not being surrounded by Eagles fans anymore. I have plenty of education and no job right now, which is something I'm trying to fix (and not being distracted by iso is hopefully helping, but not as much as I'd hoped). If you're in the NYC area (or Philly, I still visit there every once in a while), I'm always up for some good boardgaming, Dominion or otherwise. You can see my favorite games
here.
Anyway,
aloha. I'll keep checking in occasionally. I hope. Thanks for all the memories!
*She actually just played Dominion for the first time a couple months ago after being scared of it for so long, and has rapidly become addicted. And even beat me last week with Chapel-Treasure Map. I think that trading endless online hours for this is an obviously good development.
