Greetings MIzahar! December's Featured Contributor was an easy selection due to his dedication, verve, and hard work poured into the site since reinstatement as a Storyteller. Perplexity has put in the bells bringing back the spirit of Zeltiva in which it was originally created and helping everywhere from chat to grading on his PC. I hope you'll all join me in congratulating him for this very well deserved accomplishment as he joins the rank of featured contributors! |
1. So for most people this is 'what brought you to Miz,' but to change it up a bit, can you tell us what brought you back to try out STing a second time? How could I not? To put it simply, I love storytelling. It brings me a great deal of enjoyment to be able to contribute to the stories that players tell here on Mizahar. As a storyteller I can offer something to the players that they cannot do themselves. I can pop into a thread and throw a wrench in the mix to give them a bit of excitement, or I can give them a bit of information they might not otherwise have been able to retrieve, I can provide for them an avenue of adventure beyond the norm. When I departed storytelling the first time I can’t say it was on the best terms and I returned to it with a bit of trepidation to be entirely honest. At the heart of the matter, I could not in good conscience continue to be a player on Mizahar without contributing SOMETHING to the website. So I started small. I picked up being a Grader then I began doing multiple Guest Storytelling threads for several other players. It was only after being active for a good two seasons that I worked up the nerve to apply to be an ST again. The support and constructive feedback I received from not just the Help Desk but from players and other staffers was overwhelming and only cemented my determination to do better this time around. 2. You are an avid grader both on your ST account and on your PC account, spearheading the wonderful and informative Global Grading Status. With all the work you do on both PC and ST accounts, how and when do you find time to just write? Oh my! It can be tricky sometimes. More often than not my poor thread partners end up waiting up to two weeks before I can get a reply to them! I feel horribly guilty for doing that. However, most of the time I manage to find a balance by remembering that if I rob myself of the opportunity to enjoy Mizahar as just a PLAYER then I am not taking full advantage of Mizahar’s purpose, which is to be fun and enjoyable for everyone. Even the website’s volunteers. 3. You have been working quite hard in Zeltiva to take it back to its roots, stripping and re-doing a lot of aspects about the city. It has obviously been quite the challenging process, what would you say has been the most and least fun about the process so far? I’ll start with the least fun, what’s least fun is piecing together what should and shouldn’t make sense. It can be rather mindboggling to reconsider many aspects of the city so that they all line up to mesh cohesively. There are NPC’s that need to be rewritten (or just plain written), the layout of the city needs to be redone so that it’s easier to follow, there entire aspects of the city that presently stand that just don’t make sense. As I write or rewrite all of this I have to remember that each piece is part of a greater picture and that picture, as I see it is rather inspiring and beautiful. The most fun though? Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s getting to know the city. Zeltiva is incredible. To me, it is unique in being a city whose touch can be felt even to the furthest corners of the world. By making the re-visitation to the city’s roots as I am, I am getting to discover just how much of wonderful of a city it truly is. Think on it for a moment, wouldn’t you enjoy learning about a city that was quite literally responsible for rediscovering so much of the world? 4. What do you do to kick back and relax, in and outside of Mizahar? I am an avid fan of live performance theatre. Some of my favorite plays are Voice of the Prairie by John Oliver, The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, The Scottish Play by The Bard, and the Broadway musical Wicked. 5. Can you give us any sneak peaks or tidbits about things you're planning on bringing to Zeltiva, whether they be plots, locations, etc? Certainly! Zeltiva is going to see a change in how politics are conducted. The influential powers in the city aren’t going to change but there is going to be much more depth and explanation as to why. The City of Sails and Scholars is one of the elder cities in Mizahar with strong ties to Old Alahea. I imagine some of that beuracracy survived through the Valterrian. Soon, I will be unveiling a very in-depth look at how the city is run. Players will, with time and effort, even be able to make an impact on how the city is governed. It’s touch and go right now and I’m having to think through a lot of things carefully. But look for political shenanigans soon! Something else you’ll notice is the closure of the College of Djed. The College of Djed as of Winter 514 AV no longer exists as a formal institution. While there are still mages working and studying at the University I’m shifting the focus away from magic. Players will see a revitalization in areas such as philosophy, literature, archaeology, astronomy, and various crafts to include painting, architecture, sculpture, and even smithing. 6. If you could choose a time period of Mizahar to live in, when and where would you live? Oh my goodness, hands down I would go back to Pre-Valterrian times. While I understand that the focus of the game is to emphasize the reemergence of civilization, I would love, love,love to just visit the Old Era. I have so many questions! Who founded Suva? What actually started the war between the two mighty empires? I find it hard to believe it was simple land disputes. How did the Isur discover some of their smithing techniques!? What were the Proto-Humans like? I could go on for hours. No. Really. I could. I guess my fascination with Mizahar’s past stems from my belief that in order for the world to progress as a whole there must be sound understanding of events that came before. How can a society step forward if they make the same steps that set them back in the first place? 7. As a person who volunteers on a few different levels, what would your advice be to folks looking to help the site out in some way? Find your niche. There are many methods of giving back to the website. If you find that being a Storyteller is not your cup of tea the join the Graders. If that isn’t what suits you, become a Mentor. If even still that doesn’t quite suit your fancy but you want a change in just writing your own characters, do some Guest Storytelling, petition to write a lore article, a city location, an NPC. The opportunities are many. One of the biggest things I have to encourage is persistence and the ability to accept criticism. Just because you’re told “no” right now doesn’t mean you can’t learn and grow and be told “yes” in the future. 8. What do you feel your biggest accomplishment on Mizahar has been to date? I gave Zeltiva its first official boat. I am so completely, thoroughly happy about this fact. I marked my calendar and everything. I gave the city of sailors, shipbuilders and navigators its first actual ship. I was thrilled. I still am. Can you tell? 9. On the flip side of this we praise our wonderful volunteers for everything they give Mizahar, but most anyone who volunteers as an ST, Grader, or what have you will also talk about what they gain out of the experience. What do you feel you have learned or gained from being an ST thus far? Being a volunteer on Mizahar definitely gives you a sense of time management skills. It also puts you into the role of a mediator. You learn how to deal with people on many different levels and while these interactions aren’t always smooth, we all learn and grow as a result. There are many different personalities, many different perspectives, many different people in general that you end up dealing with on a daily basis you learn to adapt to it all. It takes time and it takes effort but it’s worth it. 10. If there were no holds barred on development, what topic would you snatch up to work on? Relic Monsters. Umm…yes please? There don’t need to be many of them but I think there needs to be a smidge more about them. Are you kidding me? Excuse me while I go grab my fan-girl meme… 11. As always this is your own spot to say what you will. Have at it! Thank you for this honor. I am continually amazed by everyone I meet here on Mizahar. With every passing day I am presented with new challenges and with new solutions on how to meet those challenges. They can be daunting sometimes but then I remember how happy players can get when they see the work staffers do and that makes me all fuzzy inside. To the players, you never cease to surprise me. There are so many different plots that go on at any given time it’s incredible! To the staffers, thank you for your support. Thank you for your guidance and most importantly, thank you for all that you do. Happy Writing, Perplexity |