You might need already heard, however the day is right here: at the moment is Alec’s final day at RPS. Come say farewell within the feedback beneath, whereas I decide by means of my emotions.
Before I labored at RPS, I used to be a reader of RPS. I knew the entire unique founders from their work at PC Gamer and different Future Publishing magazines – and knew them personally from varied pub haunts round Bath – and so I additionally knew what to anticipate from a web site coalesced by their powers mixed. In these first couple of years although, it was Alec’s work I used to be most excited by.
Within a couple of months of the positioning beginning, there was Go Team!, the founders’ collection of affection letters to every of Team Fortress 2’s courses. This was the second I switched from my-friends-are-doing-a-thing curious to a-proper-regular-reader, and it was because of Alec’s part one on The Heavy. There was additionally his Aliens Versus Predator retrospective, and the “Worst Ninja” Ultima Online diary. (There was additionally the actual fact Alec was designing/coding the early variations of the positioning.)
A few years later, there was Locked Doors, a rant in opposition to a videogame enemy so universally derided that the publish was RPS’s most visited that 12 months. And for numerous years thereafter. I didn’t know that on the time, I simply appreciated its poetic sentences:
Locked door, I hate you.
I hate the way in which you might be proof against knives, to weapons, to sledgehammers, to rocket-propelled grenades, to weapons that rewrite the very legal guidelines of physics, to darkish unearthly magic, to punches that may knock a person’s head clear off.
When writing these leaving posts, I at all times repeat the identical line: RPS takes the form of the individuals who work there at any given second. That’s clearly by no means extra true than when speaking in regards to the founders. RPS will completely include an Alec-shape inside it, like a snug divot in an outdated mattress.
I’m assured that the values Alec and the opposite founders established are embedded in the remainder of the crew right here, and will not be misplaced when anybody departs, however nonetheless I’ve discovered myself pondering quite a bit about Alec’s work and what we’ll have to work to switch in his stead. Most clearly, we’re dropping a variety of expertise; there’s not too many games journalists with double-digit numbers of years below their belt, and even fewer which can be nearer to twenty than to 10. This expertise means Alec holds a deep data of PC gaming historical past that isn’t simply discovered elsewhere, significantly round RPGs, technique games, and genres that usually sit on the very coronary heart of what RPS is about. On prime of that, there aren’t many games writers round today that share his willingness to tinker with mods, ini recordsdata and graphics playing cards alike, and to intensify his games protection by digging into their guts.
(Also, who will toss out XCOM 2 turns like this – and make considered one of our YouTube channels most enduringly widespread movies within the course of?)
(Also additionally – I may do that for some time – who will we send on trucking sorties in American Truck Simulator now? Who else will write a touching and relatable autobiography-through-games like Raised By Screens?)
I’ve to cease now. Suffice to say: for Alec, our doorways will at all times be unlocked. Hopefully we are able to entice him again inside now and again.
Don’t let that cease the grieving and the wailing and the rending of clothes. Take to the feedback, sing your farewells, and in case you’ve acquired a favorite Alec article (Alecle), share a hyperlink.
