Happy Holidays, everybody.

This last month has been a little on the eventful side, to say the least. And, to be honest, I was not confident that I’d be back to write another letter like this. There’s a lot of things to talk about between the two of us, Mr. Reader-Person, but before we start talking about the future, lets talk about how we got to today.

November 7th was a very scary day. Very abruptly both me and Linqx learned exactly where the faults in working the way we did were. The both of us had been Independent Contractors without proper employment contracts, even though this was on route to change with with me accepting the position of COO, we did not have any level of security with our jobs. This was proven with the what I’ll lovingly refer to as the ‘Letter of Dismissal’ that we received that day. What followed was a long sequence of learning experiences, for all of us involved internally, and even with the level of satire in my writing style I mean that completely earnestly. Through the duration of that next week a lot happened, letters were written, to some extent laundry was aired, and regrettably tensions within our group gradually increased. It very truly much felt like we were too-far-gone. But, presumably, with me writing to you all again, something had to have happened internally that shifted course for the group from there. I found it best to have Juix summarize it all in his own words, as its majorly a situation that revolved around his own self-growth:

“The past month’s events have been misguided. The changes to the team were not necessary, and I deeply regret doing so. We are working on establishing a better team structure, enabling us to communicate and work better. Regarding the update, it is still being worked on and the open beta is the next event towards that. We have assets and plans for a Christmas event, however, it can not be added without the update being out. The current goal is to have the open beta out at least before Christmas. I want to thank everyone for sticking through this past month’s craziness, and I hope we can fulfill your expectations with the update. See you in the Dominion, Juix”

It was the following Sunday that Juix reached out to me about amending the situation. I’ll spare you all the details as they’re majorly personal, yacht fleets were promised, but what I saw to be most important of the letter was just how truly raw it read. It wasn’t at all like the loosened-tie top-button undone eager responses from days past; it read like a close friend apologizing for saying things they wish they hadn’t, that they didn’t mean, wanting to make amends and to grow from the situation.

Even so, it would be understandable to ask even then why I was so quick to agree to return. I don’t have a proper refined response to that, but when we find ourselves in high tensions, it’s all too easy to find yourself fantasizing. We create these guesstimations of just what could happen, worst/best case-scenarios. For me, here, I definitely wrote off a good number of those into the category of ‘impossible’. I, as we all, have experienced my share of human emotions; holes dug this deep do not commonly find themselves escaped. But after all that happened, here was a person that entirely erased pride or ego on the chance to make things better; to do everything as it should have been in the first place. That to me is what growth looks like. I’d take the chance to grow with them, to be their friend when they need it, and to work on my passion with them, any day.

Now then, not my intention to write the whole of this letter on the past; there’s still a future to look forward to!

One more deep breath, alright?

Lets cover the game-plan: Juix will be gradually phasing out of the core development process for the time being. He will still be around, working on things here and there, guiding development where it’s needed; but his current priority needs to be finding what he wants both in life and work. Just as Juix begins to lighten his workload, Linqx will inversely be increasing his own with the goal of then becoming the Lead Developer. Juix is still going to be the major developer contributing towards the rewrite/PC update, it’s not til after that release changes will start to show. This is all subject to change, but that’s the general idea that we have right now. In addition, I’ll also officially be undertaking the role of Project Lead for Darza’s Dominion and COO of the company. And yes, contracts are signed.

We’ll also be looking into a company name-change in the near future. Although JuixGames has worked for us previously, we’d like to be able to scale the studio in the future should we be blessed with a future welcoming to it. Something about having ‘Games’ in your company title accompanied by its founding member’s name doesn’t really say what we want it to. Hopefully this name-change won’t cost us 2000 gold.

Thank you to all that have read through the letter, to all that had followed my journey outside of Darza’s, and to everyone that plays the game we created for you. It’s good to be home.

Typ.