Hey all, I know it's been a hot minute since most of you have heard from me! I wanted to post this announcement as an update to what's going on in mine & the other staff's lives, as well as what upcoming plans are.
An update on the staff team
For me, life has been REALLY busy lately - in a lot of really great ways with some difficult happenings scattered in there too.
I've been periodically keeping in touch with Lull too. Life has certainly kept her busy but I'm very proud to see her pursuing something she loves in life with dog training ♥
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get in touch with Sprow for over 2 months now (which, being truthful, was part of the reason this announcement has been delayed as I was really hoping for their input/opinion) - so I can't provide an update on how they are doing, though I hope all is well.
Difficulties we have run into - from a staff perspective
Novus has always been a fairly large site with a lot of manual staff duties. In good times, this is easily manageable by having various active staff on our team. There is a balance needed: enough staff to accommodate when one needs off time, while not too large of a team so that there are too few duties spread among too many people. In most respects, a team of three to four has proved sufficient for the average level of duties.
However, since ~September 2021, I've been doing staff duties primarily on my own. The circumstances of why are mostly irrelevant as I'm not pointing fingers - just merely stating a fact that Lull and Sprow have both needed to step away from duties. I have, and will continue, to support both of them in choosing what is the best path forward for them personally, even if that path takes them away from the staff team.
The ramifications of this are that I myself am left with a hard-to-navigate decision. No matter how much I want Novus to thrive, the bottom line is that I cannot continue to run Novus on my own. To remedy this, I would need to bring replacements onto the staff team.
But here lies another problem: Likewise to how I cannot run the site on my own, I also cannot train an entire new staff team on my own either, particularly with all the RL things currently going on in my life. Unfortunately, this leaves me stuck between a rock and a hard place.. with no other real way around it.
My personal, truthful perspective
I love the community that we have created here at Novus - and I've loved it since its inception. I've learned and enjoyed and read and laughed SO much with every single one of you, that Novus has come to feel like a home to me. These past five years have been wonderful in so many ways ♥ And five years, holy shit! It feels like yesterday that Novus opened, it's honestly surreal. And I couldn't be prouder of this little corner of the internet we've created ♥
But despite all of these positives - for years, I've subconsciously put Novus before myself in almost every aspect. This is no one's doing except my own, really... Even during all the good times, I have never been able to shake the feeling of guilt with taking any semblance of time to myself with there being outstanding staff duties. And there was never a time where there wasn't something on the staff's to-do list - either applications, maintenance requests, announcements, events, updates, or a slew of other things.
This coupled with me primarily being the only active staff for almost a year, has as of late made me feel Novus is an obligation I cannot get away from. Oftentimes it feels like I leave one job, just to come home to another and there's no longer a light at the end of the tunnel. And it hurts to feel so burdened by something I still love SO very much regardless.
The bottom line: I feel it is time for Novus' chapter to come to a close
Novus' legacy will wrap up on 10/31/2022, after which the site will close and go into read-only mode.
More on OOC / IC aftermath and important notes are listed below, so please keep reading!
My inability to be able to train an entire new staff team on my own with my RL circumstances, coupled with the increasing burden of actively running a site solo, sadly led me to this. This was a hard decision that still hurts to think about, and unfortunately one I had to make primarily on my own. I can't tell you how many times I've typed this announcement (I lost track at 35, I think?) and each time, it's sat like a stone in my stomach.
Even now, it's still so difficult to write this because it feels like I'm giving up... and those who know me, know I don't like giving up. I don't want to let people down, and I know doing this will. But I'm so very tired. I still want Novus to exist and yet, just as much... I want to feel like I can afford myself the time to write and roleplay and have fun, too. I have so much guilt in making this decision because it feels selfish in many ways.
I know this will illicit a lot of responses and feelings, so please know that I am completely open to listening to everyone, both privately and publicly. You can post here in response to this thread, contact me via site PM or Discord DM or post in the Discord #ask-staff (for questions) or #discussion (just to talk about the decision). If you want to discuss, talk, vent, or share opinions: I will listen to any.
Where will I be after Novus' closure?
I won't be quitting roleplaying, and definitely won't be leaving the community! Instead, I'm going to take this time to have fun, enjoy developing my characters, and actually get back into roleplaying/writing again. It's something I've missed very much!
You can keep in touch with me (please do!!) via:
All of my characters are stored on my TH and I'm quite active there. Likewise my DA is still active, though I spend less time daily on DA. I definitely want to keep in touch with everyone and I hope others would want to keep in touch with me too, so I'd love it if yall would add me as a Discord friend ♥
And to those who have privately reached out to me over the past month or so to check on me... sincerely, thank you so much. Your concern and friendship means the world to me, that you would think of me even amid my silence.
OOC Aftermath
The site will remain open in a limited capacity for the next two months (until 10/31/2022) to allow everyone time to wrap up anything necessary, post to the IC Closure Thread if they wish (not required, of course!) as well as grab all of their profile, code, character information, etc.
IC Boards will remain open until the close date, but all staff duties have been suspended effective immediately:
After closure:
IC Aftermath
The end of Novus, in character, will not be traumatic. Instead, I want to focus on a closure that revolves around peace and the need for regenerative healing. I also want to leave it intentionally open-ended because who knows, maybe Novus will come back sometime in the future? Perhaps one day I will be in a good enough place to dedicate the time Novus needs & deserves and be able to rebuild the team ♥
The 'Gentle Exodus' IC Closure thread is NOW UP in the Portals board
It will be pinned as a global announcement (across all forums to ensure visibility) in the coming days while I wrap up remaining staff items.
Disclaimers
Closing note
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I am SO PROUD of our wonderful little community, even with all its ups and downs!
I highly encourage others to check out our affiliate sites (at the bottom of every page), as well as @c.widow's Equine RPG Directory.
An update on the staff team
For me, life has been REALLY busy lately - in a lot of really great ways with some difficult happenings scattered in there too.
- On the good side:
I just started at my new job; I got an awesome opportunity to work for a more stable (and larger!) team, with better pay and the opportunity to be 100% remote.
After almost two full months of house shopping (screw this market, holy shit)... my husband and I finally signed contract on our brand new house that's being built! It will be ready in October and we're just waiting for closing, so cross fingers for us!
- On the bad side:
Yall know my precious 15-almost-16 y/o senior dachshund Mango - she's unfortunately been having a lot of health issues. In February she was diagnosed with DCM & as of late, has been having a lot of eye health issues too. Stressful vet visits with not a lot of improvement, sleepless nights worrying about her, and overall we're seeing her slow down. She's still good ol' Mango, but her age is showing and that's a hard pill for me to swallow. I can't put into words how thankful I am for the new job that will allow me to remain remote and keep an eye on her, take her to appointments - and most importantly, just spend time with her.
I've been periodically keeping in touch with Lull too. Life has certainly kept her busy but I'm very proud to see her pursuing something she loves in life with dog training ♥
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get in touch with Sprow for over 2 months now (which, being truthful, was part of the reason this announcement has been delayed as I was really hoping for their input/opinion) - so I can't provide an update on how they are doing, though I hope all is well.
Difficulties we have run into - from a staff perspective
Novus has always been a fairly large site with a lot of manual staff duties. In good times, this is easily manageable by having various active staff on our team. There is a balance needed: enough staff to accommodate when one needs off time, while not too large of a team so that there are too few duties spread among too many people. In most respects, a team of three to four has proved sufficient for the average level of duties.
However, since ~September 2021, I've been doing staff duties primarily on my own. The circumstances of why are mostly irrelevant as I'm not pointing fingers - just merely stating a fact that Lull and Sprow have both needed to step away from duties. I have, and will continue, to support both of them in choosing what is the best path forward for them personally, even if that path takes them away from the staff team.
The ramifications of this are that I myself am left with a hard-to-navigate decision. No matter how much I want Novus to thrive, the bottom line is that I cannot continue to run Novus on my own. To remedy this, I would need to bring replacements onto the staff team.
But here lies another problem: Likewise to how I cannot run the site on my own, I also cannot train an entire new staff team on my own either, particularly with all the RL things currently going on in my life. Unfortunately, this leaves me stuck between a rock and a hard place.. with no other real way around it.
My personal, truthful perspective
I love the community that we have created here at Novus - and I've loved it since its inception. I've learned and enjoyed and read and laughed SO much with every single one of you, that Novus has come to feel like a home to me. These past five years have been wonderful in so many ways ♥ And five years, holy shit! It feels like yesterday that Novus opened, it's honestly surreal. And I couldn't be prouder of this little corner of the internet we've created ♥
But despite all of these positives - for years, I've subconsciously put Novus before myself in almost every aspect. This is no one's doing except my own, really... Even during all the good times, I have never been able to shake the feeling of guilt with taking any semblance of time to myself with there being outstanding staff duties. And there was never a time where there wasn't something on the staff's to-do list - either applications, maintenance requests, announcements, events, updates, or a slew of other things.
This coupled with me primarily being the only active staff for almost a year, has as of late made me feel Novus is an obligation I cannot get away from. Oftentimes it feels like I leave one job, just to come home to another and there's no longer a light at the end of the tunnel. And it hurts to feel so burdened by something I still love SO very much regardless.
The bottom line: I feel it is time for Novus' chapter to come to a close
More on OOC / IC aftermath and important notes are listed below, so please keep reading!
My inability to be able to train an entire new staff team on my own with my RL circumstances, coupled with the increasing burden of actively running a site solo, sadly led me to this. This was a hard decision that still hurts to think about, and unfortunately one I had to make primarily on my own. I can't tell you how many times I've typed this announcement (I lost track at 35, I think?) and each time, it's sat like a stone in my stomach.
Even now, it's still so difficult to write this because it feels like I'm giving up... and those who know me, know I don't like giving up. I don't want to let people down, and I know doing this will. But I'm so very tired. I still want Novus to exist and yet, just as much... I want to feel like I can afford myself the time to write and roleplay and have fun, too. I have so much guilt in making this decision because it feels selfish in many ways.
I know this will illicit a lot of responses and feelings, so please know that I am completely open to listening to everyone, both privately and publicly. You can post here in response to this thread, contact me via site PM or Discord DM or post in the Discord #ask-staff (for questions) or #discussion (just to talk about the decision). If you want to discuss, talk, vent, or share opinions: I will listen to any.
Where will I be after Novus' closure?
I won't be quitting roleplaying, and definitely won't be leaving the community! Instead, I'm going to take this time to have fun, enjoy developing my characters, and actually get back into roleplaying/writing again. It's something I've missed very much!
You can keep in touch with me (please do!!) via:
All of my characters are stored on my TH and I'm quite active there. Likewise my DA is still active, though I spend less time daily on DA. I definitely want to keep in touch with everyone and I hope others would want to keep in touch with me too, so I'd love it if yall would add me as a Discord friend ♥
And to those who have privately reached out to me over the past month or so to check on me... sincerely, thank you so much. Your concern and friendship means the world to me, that you would think of me even amid my silence.
OOC Aftermath
The site will remain open in a limited capacity for the next two months (until 10/31/2022) to allow everyone time to wrap up anything necessary, post to the IC Closure Thread if they wish (not required, of course!) as well as grab all of their profile, code, character information, etc.
IC Boards will remain open until the close date, but all staff duties have been suspended effective immediately:
- No new accounts will be able to register.
- No new character or OOC account applications will be accepted or processed.
- The Maintenance forums will become read-only.
- All currently outstanding Maintenance requests (such as signos and item redemptions, etc) and any pending character applications will be archived.
After closure:
- The site itself will remain up as an archive of Novus' legacy. It will remain this way for an undetermined amount of time, so I cannot guarantee a timeframe that data within will be kept - thus please make sure you collect all of your information prior to close.
- The Discord will also remain up to allow others to stay connected with each other. The IC & Court channels will be archived (removed from view except to staff), and I will add a special section for Mementos etc.
IC Aftermath
The end of Novus, in character, will not be traumatic. Instead, I want to focus on a closure that revolves around peace and the need for regenerative healing. I also want to leave it intentionally open-ended because who knows, maybe Novus will come back sometime in the future? Perhaps one day I will be in a good enough place to dedicate the time Novus needs & deserves and be able to rebuild the team ♥
It will be pinned as a global announcement (across all forums to ensure visibility) in the coming days while I wrap up remaining staff items.
Disclaimers
- Existing characters are free to continue with any lore they were part of while here. Mentions of Novus & Novus-related happenings in character histories etc is perfectly fine! Anything a character did or was part of on Novus can absolutely follow them wherever.
- At this time, no one has permission to create any sort of Novus off-shoot sites. If this is something you would like to discuss, please contact me privately via DM!
- Likewise, no one has permission to reuse Novus OFFICIAL content (copying the guidebook, map, overall lore, flora & fauna, systems, etc) elsewhere without discussing with me first.
- All official Novus content will remain owned by me unless ownership is officially transferred.
- If you wish to use a Novus-specific mythical species, please also contact me first so I can keep a running list of who/what/where.
Closing note
I highly encourage others to check out our affiliate sites (at the bottom of every page), as well as @c.widow's Equine RPG Directory.
the novus crew
the someday crew
