Liebster Award x2

About a month ago, I was already nominated for The Mystical Mesmer and almost forgot about it. However, I now received another nomination from Rakuno of Shards of Imagination. That’s 22 questions in total. Of course, I feel honored that they thought of me in their blog posts and I’m happy to participate now. :)

First, an introduction of the Liebster award: As the icon suggests, it’s a way to discover new blogs for the readers of your own blog, but this isn’t simply done by saying: Go read their stuff! If they accept the award, they agree to give 11 random facts about themselves, answer 11 questions that you give them and they will give out 11 questions to 5 people they nominate themselves. In other words, you can get to know them a little bit better this way.

11 random facts about me

1. I’m a psychologist, and work in the field of special education needs.
2. My first computer was a Commodore 64 and the seonc one had Windows 2000.
3. I cannot choose a favourite colour, because there are so many great ones (though orange and green hues are on top right now. Red is great, too, but a rather boring colour at the same time, if you ask me).
4. I used to be obsessed with rabbits when I was a kid. I had about 30 or 40 rabbit plushies – and yes, two real rabbits as well at some point.
5. My favourite ice-cream flavour is “Straciatella”.
6. I have one brother who is 5 years older than me.
7. My brain tends to give me really bad nightmares whenever it finds something it can use to scare me which is why I tend to avoid watching horror movies.
8. I find seafood disgusting (except for some kinds of fish).
9. I’m afraid of heights, but bought two annual tickets for myself and bookahnerk for a ropes course in a forest nearby.
10. I used to draw comic snails when I was a kid.
11. If I’d been a boy, my parents would have named me “Matthias”. One of my younger cousins got that name then.

The 11 questions I got from The Mystical Mesmer

1. What are the three major elements of your ideal video game?

I’m not sure what exactly “elements” refers to. So, I’m just going to say what comes to my mind here. :p It definitely has to have open world PvP areas (without PvP being 100 % optional and not required for the game at all if you don’t want to PvP). Then it has to have housing. And it has to have interesting classes that are more than the standard ones warrior, mage, ranger etc.

2. Big city, suburb, or countryside?

Neither. Near the city centre in a medium-sized town (around 100k inhabitants). Basically, exactly where we are living now. :) Or Hamburg which is a city with 1.7 million inhabitants but it doesn’t feel this huge or even crowded with lots of green areas, a lake and more than 2400 bridges. :p

3. What’s the origin of your blogging name?

I chose “Paeroka” when I started writing about games. It just fit. Back when I’d written a story for Nanowrimo, one of the characters in that story was named “Paeroka”. I liked the sound of it, so I used it for my first character on Horde side in World of Warcraft. When I started blogging about games, I did not know which name I could use, so I chose my character’s name. So, I basically named myself after a character that is named after a character I created back in 2005.

4. Aeris lives and you’re hired to retell Final Fantasy 7. What role does she play?

I’m sorry. My knowledge of Final Fantasy ends right with that name “Final Fantasy”. No idea who Aeris is. I did try out the MMO once for an hour or two, but that’s really all I know about this IP. Oh, and chocobos.

5. What’s your favorite biome?

I can give you examples from games, because I always love the same kind of area.

Vanilla: Booty Bay

I want such an oasis in my club world corner!

You can see the shadow-stones in the distance.

6. Write a haiku love poem to this morning’s breakfast.

Three mugs of coffee
With a hot bagel to go
Not much time for food.

So this isn’t exactly a love poem. But my breakfast, even though it was yummy, was more a necessity, because I’d needed to take a painkiller and that thing also kills my stomach if I don’t eat something first. :p Still, coffee is a must. I should have maybe written a haiku on coffee.

7. What’s your preferred device for reading blogs?

My PC most of the time. It used to be my mobile phone on my way to work when I had a commute of 1.5 to 2 hours every day. But now that I don’t have that anymore, I prefer my PC with its large monitor and fast internet connection.

8. If you were to start up a video game company, what would you name it?

Erm… sorry, I’m totally unimaginative when it comes to naming things. I’d probably ask bookahnerk to think of something.

9. Which of the Seven Dwarves would you be and why?

I had to look them up now, I admit. ;) Probably “Grumpy” from that list. I do get grumpy fast when things don’t go my way.

10. What form of exercise do you find to be the most effective?

Jogging. I can’t do it at the moment because I’m still having issues with my skin and it starts itching like crazy when I start to sweat. So, for the time being, it’s my elliptical trainer. Probably not the most effective, but I can watch a TV series while exercising and that’s really motivating (and entertaining) for me… and everything that gets you to exercise and is fun is effective, right?

11. How long is a piece of string?

Huh? I don’t get that question. ;)

The 11 questions from Rakuno

1. Why did you decide to blog about your chosen topic (for instance, why MMOs or why your chosen game)?

I started blogging a long time ago. On Deadjournal, actually, and then Livejournal when I’d gotten an invite code from an acquaintance. Over there on Livejournal, somebody started a German community journal for World of Warcraft. I joined it, because I knew the person who had started the community and because bookahnerk had just started playing that game. I’d wanted to know more about his hobby and I also liked the world that the game is set in (from what bookahnerk had told me about it, at least). So, it wasn’t that I woke up one day knowing I want to blog about gaming. I kind of slowly shifted into it. I had written posts on that German WoW community after I had started playing myself and then wanted to have a blog on my own because it gives me more freedom. It took a bit longer until I decided to start a blog, though. I also like WordPress and Blogspot more than Livejournal as a platform to write about games which is why I came here, to WordPress. As for why gaming? Because I like gaming and I like writing. Additionally, I wanted to practice my English more and I needed something to write about.

2. What do you feel is the hardest part about blogging?

The constant self-doubt and inner critic. That voice inside of me saying: “Nobody wants to read that.” or “You should really rewrite this paragraph… no, better that whole post! It sounds like a little kid wrote that.”

3. What is your favorite part about blogging?

Having people approach me and start a conversation because of something that I wrote (either here in the blog or somewhere else). I also admit, it was awesome to have people approach us in real life to tell me and bookahnerk that they like our blog. That’s not our “favourite” part, but it’s at least a nice bonus.

4. How did you get into MMOs?

Bookahnerk. ;) Well, kind of. I’ve always loved fantasy worlds (in books mostly), enjoyed science fiction (Star Trek more than anything else) and I already played a text-based dungeon-crawling game that you play online with others. Then bookahnerk started playing World of Warcraft and he sometimes, slowly told me about that game (that was at the beginning of our relationship). It took a while until I asked him if I could try WoW. I was a bit anxious because I was just about to start preparing for an important exam and did not want to get sucked into this game. Two days after trying WoW, I got a call from him telling me the serial code of my own WoW copy. :D I also used it as an incentive after a full day of studying (same as with Rift and my final exams later).

5. Sandbox or Themepark? Why?

Sandbox with a bit of themepark. If the game is only sandbox with no direction, I can easily feel lost. But if it’s only themepark without giving me any freedom, it’s not good either. For example, Rift is a very themepark game in that it has quests, dungeons, raids, set classes which doesn’t give you much freedom in choosing which weapons to use, for example. But it does, at least, have housing which lets you freely build structures and so on. It’s definitely more than just placing a table here and a bed there. It’s still a themepark game, so some more freedom would be nice.

6. When you are starting on a new game what makes you choose a certain race/class?

Race is rather easy: The one I like the most visually. I usually do not create a human. For me, it’s the boring choice. Here we are, in a fantasy world where everything is possible – hey, let’s make a human because that’s what I am, too. ;) I tend to go with smaller races because they’re usually quirkier and funnier to watch. Also, dwarves. When a game has dwarves, I’m really happy. As for class, it used to be spellcasters as my first choice, usually one with a few tricks up their sleeve (frost mage or warlock in WoW, mesmer in GW2). But depending on the combat system, I actually prefer heavy-armored melee classes, mostly with a sword and a shield or dual-wielding weapons. I don’t like two-handed weapons unless it’s a staff. So this limits my choices down pretty well most of the time.

7. If you had unlimited resources and time what game would you make? This can be an original idea of yours or based on an existing IP.

I would make a game around the fantasy world I had started to create around the Nanowrimo stories I have written, with dwarves, boring humans who are always at war with each other and the nimari – a race that explaining would take too long here since I’d have to go into the whole background of how that world was created. :p It would definitely be a mix of themepark and sandbox MMO with housing, crafting (best items in the game would come from crafting only), PvE as well as PvP with the latter being optional (a bit like the RvR areas in Warhammer Online, I think). Sadly, I don’t think I ever will have unlimited resources, so I will just stick with writing the stories instead. ;)

8. What is your favorite book?

The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie. During a particularly boring vacation with my parents, I had finished reading the three books I had brought with me within less than two days. It had been raining constantly, so we had basically been stuck in the house. We went shopping and I was looking for a book with lots of pages that would last longer than the ones I had brought, with a maybe interesting plot. I went for this one because it is about people from a Germanic tribe and Romans and it seemed like an interesting combination to read about. I couldn’t put it down until I was finished. I had to, my parents forced me to, but I really didn’t want to! I also got the original version (I had only read the German translation at first) from bookahnerk back when we had been “just friends”, but this very present first showed me that he is a very special person that I want and need in my life. So, this book isn’t only my favourite, it’s also connected with quite a bit of nostalgia by now.

9. What, in your opinion, is the best game of all time?

Hmm… A lot come to my mind for very different reasons. For example, Tetris, for being the game that connected me and my family back when we bought two gameboys. One just wasn’t enough for 4 people. ;) So we had two gameboys, two of us were playing Tetris, the other two were watching and cheering. World of Warcraft for getting MMORPGs out of their niche and into a broader market, maybe. For me personally, Cultures 1, because it brought me so many hours of entertainment. But best game of all time… probably not one of them. It always depends on what you interpret as “best” – best for what? :)

10. Someone challenged you to a duel at dawn. Since you are the one being challenged you are given the choice of weapons. What would be your choice? Keep in mind the challenger will be able to use the same weapons.

We’re talking about a gaming environment, right? Then a staff to go with my frost mage’s abilities. :p In reality: Nothing. I doubt there’s anything I could use as a weapon which would make me come out the winner.

11. The robot uprising happened at the same time of the zombie apocalypse. The robots see the zombies as a threat and the zombies react to the robots hostile actions instinctively. Who would win, the robots or the zombies and which one would be worse for the last surviving humans?

Another tough question. I find zombies annoying and overdone lately. So, I would vote for robots. On the other hand are robots scarier because they can probably hurt you more, seeing how they’re made of metal and with the latest technology, I assume. ;)

My 11 questions for the people I am going to nominate:

1. What was your first gaming rig?
2. Do you prefer games based on existing IPs (e.g., Star Wars, or that infamous probably never-to-be Harry Potter MMO) or new IPs?
3. If you could resurrect any online game that is no longer (officially) available, which one would it be?
4. Let’s imagine you’re put into a higher-up developer position of your favourite MMO with enough power to decide: Which one thing would you want to change about the game immediately?
5. Is there a blog post you really would have wished you had written but haven’t (yet)?
6. If you feel a writer’s block approaching, what do you do to overcome it?
7. Blogging and gaming – how do you balance those two?
8. What one advice would you give a new blogger?
9. Other than gaming and blogging, what is your favourite pastime?
10. How much time do you spend in the character creation screen for one character?
11. If you could actually live in your favourite MMO, which place / town / area would you choose?

And now it’s probably time to actually nominate some people, right? I’m actually supposed to name 5, but eh, I was already nominated by two people. Jaedia, whom I would have liked to nominate as well, has just done this, too. All of this kind of narrows down my own choices. :p So, I will just say that I nominate a) the guys from Dragon Season (mostly TheValliant and Tilion, but all the other writers on there are welcome to join as well!) and bookahnerk – yes, from my own blog. So what? ;)