State of Down the Rabbit Hole

With the release of the new Down the Rabbit Hole about the Battle of May Island, I thought that now would be a good time to speak to all of you about the state of the show, how the development process has changed over the past few videos, and the plans for me and my team going forward.

The first order of business is to reiterate what I announced just yesterday on Twitter: the topic of the next Down the Rabbit Hole is EVE Online, the now-18-year-old MMO game responsible for some of the greatest stories in gaming history. I already had reached out to Andrew Groen, author of Empires of EVE, who has agreed to help me with the scripting and research process. Since my announcement just yesterday, I've had people reach out to me to offer assistance, including an employee of CCP Games (the company that publishes and develops EVE Online), old guard players with incredible stories to tell, content creators, and academics, and I'll be reaching out to many more. Suffice it to say, I will be in good company while creating this video, and while I can't tell every single story, I aim to make this a holistic experience.

The reason I wanted to announce it early is primarily because this video may take some time. I doubt it will be any shorter than three hours long, and it's impossible to tell how much production time such an endeavor will take. It could easily take longer than the May Island video, but I wanted to reassure all of you that while it may be some time coming, that time is an investment. I'll be keeping you all posted with more regular progress updates than I have in the past.

But this also raises the question of what took so long for the May Island video to release. By all accounts, while it was an ambitious video, it didn't warrant the seven month production time, and some of the inaccuracies should have been caught with that time.  Arc only needed about an extra month to finish his work, and the music was all completed before Arc's work was finished, since he needed the proper timings. I'm grateful that people have been saying that it was worth the wait, but I'm not happy with making this ratio of production-time-to-content the new norm.

The fault for this lies with me alone. Over the past five years, I've had a rather unhealthy work schedule, and while it did help me launch my channel while I was starting, it proved unsustainable and I fell victim to burnout, which is a cliché by this point. Focus is something that my work demands; there are no days where I can go on "autopilot," and so husbanding my energy is something that I must take care to do.

A significant portion of the production time for the Battle of May Island was spent recuperating. This burnout came at a horrible time because, as some of you might have divined from the ending of the Deep Blue video, I suffered a personal loss last year (about which I'm still reticent to speak, though I'm working on a project that will likely be made public to express it) and didn't allow myself the time to grieve, instead trying to power through it to keep working. This proved counterproductive. Now, some months later, I find myself much more able to focus on work, but I'm setting up a proper work schedule, with weekends included, in order to maintain this focus in the long-term; sacrificing my health in the name of work isn't something that I can continue to do if I want to keep making Down the Rabbit Hole.

As for how I'm doing so, I'm structuring my days more strictly. First, I'm experimenting with four 10-hour days per week, putting aside some time each day for catch-up on housekeeping, such as finishing audiobooks and Q&A videos, as well as making time for side projects such as The Warrens and fiction writing, which I've been meaning to do for some time. If need be, I can spend some time on Friday to catch up on hours I might have missed. I suspect that some regularity in my work hours might prove beneficial, unlike the chaotic and endless method I've been utilizing up until now. I also plan on experimenting with regular tea streams on Twitch, though this may prove short-lived depending on my energy.

One thing that many people noticed was the stronger focus on production quality for the most recent Down the Rabbit Hole. My team (Ryan, Arcaxon, and myself) worked much closer than in videos prior, and we want to use the pipeline that we've developed to create videos much more efficiently than before. This means that Ryan is already conceiving new music for the video before I've even started writing the script, and if Arc and other artists I bring on board need more time to complete their work, I can begin research on the video that will succeed that one. I am already over a month into research on EVE Online using this pipeline.

However, I want to be certain that spectacle doesn't override what makes Down the Rabbit Hole enjoyable: the focus on information and storytelling. This is a complicated process, but we've learned a lot from the Battle of May Island, and I'm confident that we can create something special for EVE Online. Prepare for diagrams. Lots of them.

As for what's next more immediately, I'll be continuing my research while also working on the next (severely overdue) Mistakes video. I'm still trying to decide whether to post it on the main channel for maximum visibility, or on the Other Channel to avoid incurring the wrath of the algorithm, which may harm the channel in the long term. I'm personally leaning toward the first option, but I'll be discussing with my team first. Either way, this is something that desperately needs to be done.

Thank you to all of you who have continued to support me and my team. Even through the burnout, I knew that Down the Rabbit Hole was what I wanted to continue to do into the foreseeable future, and you all have made it possible. It's not easy work, and it's often stressful, but it's fulfilling and something I'm proud to say that I do. Thank you as well to Ryan and Arcaxon for being patient with me and looking after me. The show wouldn't be what it is without them.

I'll see you all very soon.