Blogger Initiative Butchering Twofer: Creative Blogger and Liebster Awards

I have never been good at being all "personal" when it comes to this blog, and that mainly comes down to who I am; I'm not at all that sociable, as I'm fairly sure people who have followed me on Twitter have probably come to realise.

This in itself has led to one of my biggest regrets when running this blog; my inability to follow-up on my Liebster Award nomination - coming up with an unspecified amount of random facts and then answering 11 questions before then setting your own - by Zernebog of the appropriately titled Zerneblog. This fell apart mainly because I got in a minor panic about not "being proper" when it came to nominating individuals in the follow-on (for reasons explained below), let alone the fact that I just could not come up with an adequate amount of my own questions to ask or random facts at the time. However, with my recent tagging by Shintar of Going Commando in the Creative Blogger Award - similar, but only requiring 5 facts and no questions - I decided that I cannot 'hide' from this any longer.

In reality, though, I'm still 'hiding' from my biggest perceived problem in this context: nominating people. Although I will be ostensibly tackling elements of both Awards' objectives in this post - coming up with the 5 CBA (not the slang version!) facts and then answering Zerne's Liebster questions - I will also be carefully steering around the issue of tagging people. This is for two reasons; the first is that the people I would have tagged have been tagged previously, and the second is that I am only on friendly terms with only two other bloggers whilst I have made no real effort to ingratiate myself with anyone else.

This is purely due to who I am as a person, so I do hope that my 'standoffishness' hasn't been taken personally by anyone.



~~~

Creative Blogger Award

The CBA has a fair set of rules, which are as follows:

• 
  
  Thank the person that nominated you and share a link back to their blog


• 
  
  Post 5 facts about yourself


• 
  
  Nominate 15-20 people for this award


• 
  
  Let the people you nominated know, that you have nominated them


• 
  
  Post the rules so everyone will understand what to do

Thanks to Shintar for the nomination; it's something of an 'honour' considering that I was inspired mainly by your own blog to start this particular monstrosity..!

So, the 5 facts. I was in two minds about how to start these; do all-gaming facts, all-personal facts, or a mixture of the two? Eventually, I realised that the majority of points I came up with relating to gaming (notably immersion in game-environments and 'identifying' with characters) could in fact have entire blog posts dedicated to them as they all in some ways have direct ties to the years spent in The Old Republic, so that's something to watch out for. Thus, I decided to go fully-personal with these facts; after all, I've got the rest of this blog's lifespan to focus on the gaming aspects, and only one opportunity to express myself properly for a change!

1.

I have an absolutely fantastic long-term photographic memory and imagination. Quite honestly, I can 'paint' a complete picture of any story or event with which I am in any way familiar in my mind in a matter of seconds, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because I can just refer to these 'paintings' and get a sense of what goes on where at specific points - it was really useful for history examinations! - but it's also a curse since I just can't ever forget them once they're committed; in the case of games, this often impedes me from replaying various stories unless I do something drastically different to trick my mind into thinking that it's something new.

2.

I have an enormous passion for instrumental music, particularly Classical music and Film scores. It's one reason why the Star Wars saga has stuck with me for so long, as the music is absolutely phenomenal. Indeed, when it comes to films and video games in general, one of the things I tend to judge before the actual story is the music itself. However, as much as I may want to, music in this game is one thing that I have decided never to touch on in its own right in a blog post, as in my mind I don't have enough 'credibility' to justify my opinions. Whilst this hasn't been a problem in the past with some other subjects, I'd honestly believe that I would be committing an injustice, if that makes sense.

It probably doesn't.

3.

As much as I claim to have a great passion for Star Wars, I don't have a great amount of 'nerdy' paraphernalia to back that up. Outside of my vast LEGO collection (a love carried over from my childhood) and my growing soundtrack collection, both of which expand over other interests beyond Star Wars, I don't feel the 'need' to collect nerdy things. I don't 'do' T-Shirts, I don't really have the body type (or head shape/size..!) to focus on many costume ideas - well, okay, I do have an Obi-Wan Kenobi costume... - and at present I just don't have the space to display things, even small models. I blame the LEGO.

4.

Blogging isn't my first time on the scene of making a small name for myself on the internet. I used to make several small series of WebComic (and no, you can't see them), to which I owe my general experience with graphical programs such as PhotoShop which I am attempting to use more in my reinvigorated running of the blog.

5.

I am an aspiring photographer, focusing particularly on wildlife such as birds of prey. Birds in general are another passion of mine; I consider myself a 'small-scale' amateur ornithologist. Unlike the WebComics, I have no issues whatsoever with posting the photographs of which I am most proud.



Long-Eared Owl ("Jonathan Edwards")



Tawny Owl ("Troy")



Boobok Owl ("Oscar")



Griffon Vulture (Unnamed)



Fischer's Turaco (Unnamed)

~~~

Liebster Award

Zerne's questions:

1:  I have to steal this one from Ravanel because I have always wondered the same thing.  If you would get to pick a lightsaber (or blaster for you tech weapons lovers), what color crystal would be in it?

2:  Do you prefer PC or Console gaming?  Why?

3:  What is your favorite game that you have played (board games, console games, mmo’s, table top rpg’s, miniatures, the world is your oyster)?  Why?

4:  Do you consider yourself a “hardcore gamer” or are you more “causual-core”?  Why do you consider yourself such?

5:  Okay, I’m not super original, I’m stealing another of Ravanel’s because it’s so wonderful.   In games, do you have a preference for creating a character of a specific race (dwarf, elf, asura, human etc.)? If you check your characters, which race is in the majority?

6:  If you could live in any fictional universe, which would it be?  Why?

7:  You may choose 3 people (living, dead, or fictional).  One is a dinner guest, one is a lover, and one is your arch enemy.  Who are they and why?

8:  What inspired you to start your blog in the first place?

9:  Do you play games for the story, the gameplay, or the social aspect?

10:  What is your greatest gaming achievement?

11:  What do you collect (either in the physical or the virtual world)?

Answers:

1.

Either royal purple or a very pale blue. I absolutely adore both of these colours.

2.

PC, as they've pretty much always been intended to do as many things as possible; Consoles nowadays have far too much kit and caboodle included that just utterly defeat the original purpose of them being a simple "Games" console.

3.

Various: Knights of the Old Republic and The Sith Lords for both being an incredible story experience (although the individual characters in the latter are far superior to the general overall story), the Mass Effect trilogy for making me actually care about the characters in a very short space of time (I played all three over the course of one week and actually found myself weeping at two very specific points of Mass Effect 3. That never happens to me), and Star Wars: Battlefront (the first one, not DICE's excuse for a 'game') for essentially getting me hooked on gaming as a whole. Before then, I wasn't truly interested in it; it was something I did, but not zealously, but Battlefront really started the ball rolling.

4.

Little bit of both. I have what I like to call a 'passive' competitive streak; I don't go out of my way to initiate a competition, but if something crosses my path, you can be guaranteed that I'll be raring to go, even if I'm not actually invited (I'm really rather annoyingly obtrusive).

5.

Majority: Human. Not that I'm against other races, but human is often just simple and straightforward. Provided the species can have hair (this does include eyebrows; sorry - not really - Zabrak and Togruta), I'll likely be willing to give it a shot at some point.

6.

I'd have to say the Lord of the Rings universe, probably to the surprise of a good number of people. The reason for this is primarily down to one thing: technology. I'm not at all technologically proficient, and I'd probably blow myself up by accident in either the Star Wars or the Mass Effect universes. By contrast, Tolkien's universe - whilst by no means truly peaceful - is an environment in which I can see myself settling down quite happily given my historical interests; I'd throw myself at the opportunity to learn how to wield a sword and string a bow, even if I wouldn't be able to transfer those skills across should I come back home.

7.

I honestly couldn't choose anyone as my arch-enemy, but that's due to who I am as a person. As for lover, well, I don't 'do' romance. At all. Dinner guests, on the other hand, I could converse with without anything more 'significant' riding on the conversations, so I'll alter your parameters and only focus there. Additionally, I'll also alter your parameters such that I can have one figure from each 'contingent' present.

Living: David Attenborough. Whilst I can only hope to aspire to gaining anything close to his understanding and appreciation of the natural world, it would be just so fascinating to probe his vast intellect on a one-to-one basis. Somewhat related; I had the enormous privilege of being able to attend a lecture delivered by him in January of this year whilst still at University relating to what animals find 'beautiful' in the natural world, which was incredibly fascinating.

Deceased: Charlemagne. This man is all but responsible for shaping Europe into what it has eventually become today. Whilst I would obviously try to skirt around the contentious political issue regarding Europe today, it would still be fascinating to learn what he thinks of the history of conquerors and regimes since his time, particularly the Holy Roman Empire under Charles V, France under Napoleon, and - given his connection to Offa of Mercia - the British Empire.

Fictional: Oh, who to choose... I'll take Obi-Wan Kenobi (big surprise) during his time as "Ben". It would be fascinating to discuss his insights into the Force following his years of solitude, given that his perspective would have shifted drastically from his 'prime' time as a Jedi Master, particularly as we still don't know for sure yet where his newfound "certain point of view" deviates from the entirety of his prior teachings. I'm a sucker for learning how a character develops their understanding.

8.

As mentioned above, it was initially through reading other SWtOR blogs, notably Going Commando. Otherwise, I have managed to accrue a vast wealth of knowledge pertaining to this game, and I like being able to demonstrate it (even if not in any helpful manner), and starting a blog seemed like a natural path to accomplishing this.

9.

I come for the story and stay for the social aspects. The social environment in The Old Republic is what has caused me to stick around ever since I was brought along by my first guild - very awesome people who sadly have mostly all left the game since - to heal my very first EV HM (in Recruit PvP gear...!), even if I did end up "quagmiring" myself by accident by being on completely the wrong continent's server list for four-and-a-half years.

That's no longer an issue, of course!

10.

I haven't been doing gaming long enough to really have a concrete answer to this, but when it comes to SWTOR, my answer would have to be killing Revan in Hard Mode Temple of Sacrifice in July last year.

11.

Real world: LEGO.

Virtual world: Pets. So - many - pets.

~~~

So there we are, then. I can only apologise to Zerne for delaying answering his questions for so long (what is this, over 10 months?), and admit that I am butchering the 'sanctioned' practices of the blogging environment by combining these two individual 'awards' into one in a shameless attempt to avoid engaging in the practice of nominating.

The Liebster Award, of course, entails the nominee to come up with their own specific set of questions for their own nominees. Whilst I am not nominating anyone, I will be following through and posting my own questions for people to have a go at in the comments if they would like.

1. Why is gaming so important to you?


2. You can choose one weapon (and associated proficiency) from any game you've played with which you have to defeat a generic army of evil. Which do you choose, and why?


3. Which game character(s) would you like to meet in real life?


4. If you could travel to any one place from any game environment, where would it be, and why?


5. If you could create your own game around any one particular franchise - regardless of whether or not such a game exists - what would you base it on and create, and why?


6. If you have been playing the same game(s) for multiple years, what keeps you there?


7. Which individual means of in-game transportation that your characters have utilised (example: the Normandy, the Raven's Claw, or the horse Shadowmere) has been your favourite?


8. For games where you can take a moral path (Dark/Light, Paragon/Renegade), which would you say is more representative of yourself?


9. If your characters are voiced, which particular portrayal has been your favourite?


10. Which games' soundtracks have you found particularly memorable, and why?


11. In cases where your character can be a completely different interpretation to another person's, do you construct your own personal little stories for your characters, or do you adhere mainly to the game's versions of events?