November 10th – January 19th. That’s a long hiatus, to the power of nth, and sadly, it might not be the last. Studies and real life concerns has caught up with the digital shennanigans, and my interests has long been unrelated to World of Warcraft. Once the next expansion hits, my old addiction may be renewed, but then again, it’s too early to tell. What I have been spending time on, however, is writing. That is, apart from the exam preparations intertwined with general holiday stress. Hopefully, to those interested, I will be able to divulge more information about the various writing projects sometime this year.

I like telling stories. And while Arena – Inside has been a joyful medium to share stories in, it has also been a time-consuming process. Each update can easily claim an hour or two, sometimes three, and in that time span, I still can’t manage to properly convey the story I wish to tell. The updates have been erratic (which is not the same thing as erotic) and the communication on my part has been less than stellar. As a reader, new or returning, having to keep track of a long, convoluted plot unfolding every other week is neither fun, nor pratical. And in the long run, this hurts the story. And while not the main reason, it is one of the reasons why I prefer telling stories in the written medium, over the drawn copy-pasted-and-edited-in-photoshop medium. Don’t get me wrong, I like comics, and I absolutely love web-comics, but I’m not fond of my own update ratio. And sadly, I cannot find the time or the desire to change this.

So what does this mean for Arena-Inside and the current story arc? First of all, I am still going to finish this story and resolve the plot. It should have been over last year, but perhaps it dragged on to the point of few reedeming qualities. Nevertheless, there was always a conclusion in mind, and there was always a joke waiting to be told. It will be finished, hopefully, eventually, and the various hints and eastereggs dropped in prior updates will hopefully make sense.

So what does this mean for Arena-Inside? Well, it also means that this story arc may, or may not, be the last before a long hiatus. There are lots of stories I want to tell, but they are unrelated to World of Warcraft and belong to a museum different format.

The website itself is not going to disappear, not yet, but perhaps I will be shamelessly promoting other products at one point. It will remain advertisement-free (the comics probably take enough time to load as it is) and although the website might change slightly, it is not going to disappear.