Insider Turned Outsider

I used to be an "insider".  I knew everything that was going on with Forge.  I knew all of the cards.  I knew why these specific cards were added and I knew the internals of Forge.  Being an insider was great because everything made sense.  I knew everything about Forge frontward and backward.

The Forge project has progressed without me for more than 2 years and I'm astonished at their progress although my lack of involvement has turned me into an "outsider".  I have no idea why the new cards were chosen.  I don't know which cards are buggy and which one's aren't.  I read about the changes but I don't feel like I really know what's going on.  I've changed from being an omnipotent programmer to a mere user. 

Way back in the day when I was the only programmer, people would ask me all types of questions.  One commonly asked question was, "Why did add card X?" because card X seemed to be a completely random card.  It was confusing to the user because they didn't understand my decision to add card X and even after I told them my reason, I could sense that they still didn't understand my decision. 

(The truth is that I added cards that were powerful or cards that I read about on dailymtg.com or cards that were expensive or cards that Forge could support.  These reasons also apply to the current developers and how they choose cards to add.)

Since I've morphed into a regular user I have to accept other people's choices.  I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm just saying that it is very different.  As a user I feel less involved, mostly because I am less involved.  As a programmer I was in the driver's seat but as a user I'm definitely a passenger. 

I created this blog so that user's could learn more about Forge.  Without this blog Forge would be some random program that was pretty cool but hardly anyone would download.  With this blog you get to see a little bit "behind the scenes". 

On a side note, Forge is the biggest project that I've ever worked on and I'm glad that it fills a niche.  (Not that I didn't make any mistakes.  I built Forge about 3 times before the program became too complicated and would fall apart.)  Hats off to the new developers who keep the dream alive. :+)

Keep on forging,

mtgrares

p.s. 

--I see myself as the PR (public relations) guy for Forge.

--I loving using Magic lingo like the word morph, "I've morphed into a regular user".

-- I really enjoyed the "feature" the let you use the activated abilities of the computer's creatures, I thought it was just the type of bug the Forge should have.  (This feature has been fixed so it doesn't work now.)