I abandoned this blog (and X4) in January 2023. My memory isn't what it used to be, due to aging and to Covid. Back in the first wave of Covid, it hit our family hard. Those of us still here still have the side effects, over two years later. Not all of us are still here. Monique and I both still feel the brain fog, and noticed an extreme loss of memory and concentration. In my case, I've always loved to read, but after Covid, reading is a struggle. It used to be instant immersion. Picking up a book brought me to a new world. I've re-learned how to read, but it's a matter of paying close attention, and using mental tricks to "check my work." Otherwise, words don't look the same and I often read what I expect to read, rather than the words that are actually there. I still read a lot because I'm stubborn, but also because I hope with enough practice, it will become natural again.
It's made playing complex games difficult. The first month I felt well enough to go back to Guild Wars 2, I couldn't even watch the screen without getting vertigo. I also went, within a single month, from being pretty good at Elite: Dangerous, to being really bad. I look at all the controls that used to be autonomic, and they look completely unfamiliar. Beyond the most basic controls of steering and moving the ship, the rest is gone. I might re-learn some of it over an hour or two of practice, and the next day, it's all gone again. Practice and repetition, building and maintaining habits, it requires active effort to hold onto things any more. It's one reason I love eBay - my focus is on an extremely repeatable product, and I've done it enough to have a reliable routine. Plus copious notes, reminders, and templates. Each listing is similar enough I don't have the 'slow-down' of trying to remember what I need to do, or how it works. I do some more unique items each day also, which gives me a comparison between the very repeatable listings, versus thinking through what I need to do for the individual types of items. It's very obvious the ones that require individual attention are much more difficult than they should be.
I thought X-4 might be different from Elite, since it can be played solo, and it can be paused while I stop to look up how to do things along the way. But it turned out, different doesn't mean simple. Maybe if I had more time... and that brings me to the point of this post. I "retired" a couple of weeks ago. Doesn't mean I stopped working for a living, just that I took social security, which pays about 2/3 of our bills, and for the rest of our income, we sell on eBay. In itself, eBay is a full-time job. Maybe over time we'll get more stable, but for now, we really need eBay.
It occurred to me yesterday, this is the perfect time to look into X4 again. Not just because of my situation, but because yesterday, August 28, X4:Foundations Update 6.20 was released. Per Egosoft, they're already planning and working on 7.0, but it's a long-term project. What better time to start playing again? No need to worry about things being changed just as I'm learning how to do them. New guides should be coming out, which means I can filter out all the old guides by date and just focus on the new ones.
All in all, I'm looking forward to trying again. Wish me luck. :^)
