1. As one of our newest contributors, can you explain to us the draw of volunteering on staff and making a significant time commitment to Mizahar? I decided to make the commitment because it seemed like something both enjoyable and challenging. Ever since day one on this site, I’ve had nothing but respect for the staff. They put in so much work and effort in making Mizahar a fantastic site, and I wanted to contribute with what I could as well.
2. Curious people are wondering why you picked Zeltiva as your Storyteller volunteer efforts and makes Zeltiva unique from other cities? Zeltiva is awesome. Period! Haha. I picked Zeltiva for several reasons. One is because I love the city’s concept... it's a port city (inviting all kinds of diversity) and it also holds the University, which in my opinion is one of the more unique locations in the whole game. For me, the city has a classy theme, which I liked. Also, before I applied as an AS, Zeltiva had ongoing quests with city-wide plots. Basically, I saw that every day Zeltiva grows even more as a city and as a community, which made me drawn to it.
3. We definitely picked you, Cascade, for your amazing attitude and your friendliness to everyone you come in contact with. What’s your secret of keeping positive and vibrant in the wake of what all storytellers have to do? ...I honestly never knew I was giving off such a vibe. T-thank you, reading that made me feel giddy. Truth be told, I don’t have any secrets about how I approach being an AS. It’s an enjoyable job, and I’ve always liked it when people come to me for help and I can actually do something for them. Paragon has told me a few times to take a step back if the job becomes overwhelming, but I’ve never actually felt that way about it... yet. Hopefully, the time where it becomes overwhelming never arrives. One thing I have been told before though is that I have more patience than most people, so I’m sure that helps as well.
4. Tell us what your favorite aspect of Mizahar is… why are you here and what keeps you coming back? What, I only get to pick one? Aww, okay... for now, my answer will be the community. The site has such an active and diverse community of talented writers. Writing is enjoyable, yes, but building storylines with other people gives you experiences that you wouldn’t be able to do alone. Also, everyone’s so friendly and helpful... for example, when a newbie pops in on chat, there’s almost always someone who steps up to help them start.
5. Please describe what you think the perfect quest group would be… who would be in it (you don’t have to name names but you can name concepts, drives, etc)… what would the quest be about? Ack, this is a difficult question! I guess the perfect quest group would be one that gets contribution from every single person. I love it when each PC in a group is able to give a piece of himself to the quest. For that reason, I wouldn’t be able to know what the quest would be like unless I know which characters are involved. The quests that I enjoy the most though are those with adventure, good character development, conflicts, and twists. Actually, that’s what most people look for in a good quest, isn’t it?
6. Each person has a ‘habit’ when it comes to Mziahar. Some people schedule time to post, others post on whim and yet a third type of person may gather a steaming cup of coffee, go out onto their deck, and spend the morning posting. What is your Mizahar habit? How and when and why do you spend time on the site? I post on whim! I check on the site sporadically throughout the day and I try to sneak in a post when I can. Since I live on the other side of the world from most of you, there are usually a lot of threads to reply to when I get up in the morning, and that keeps me occupied throughout my day. Basically, it goes... do something (a task like school work), take a break and post, then the cycle repeats itself.
7. What is your greatest strength and weakness as a moderator? They’re the same strengths and weaknesses that I have as a regular person, haha. I guess that as much as possible, I want to be seen as an approachable person, because I like taking the time to do favors for those who ask (as long as I have the ability to do so). My main weakness though is that I can be a bit of a pushover at times. That means when someone comes to me asking for something, I have a difficult time turning them down even if their request is just not going to happen. I’m getting over this though, so please don’t come to me to bully me!
8. How has it been working with the Zeltiva staff? Please give us some insight on how you all function together and why you think Zeltiva ‘works’. Paragon and Echelon are great. They’ve definitely made the AS experience more fun, and... most of the time, silly, hahaha! Paragon is compassionate about his job of being a DS and has a strong hold on many things – there’s a reason we call him ‘papa’! He knows how to get things done and he does just that. On the other hand, Echelon is like the wacky older brother. He likes helping people improve (he’s done so much for me and for other players) and he’s constantly brimming with ideas. I think we work well as a group because we can communicate and there’s no bad air between us (that I know of, anyway)! Also, as Echelon has told me, we each have our own strengths, and I think that’s why it’s not difficult to get something done.
9. What do you see or would like to see in Zeltiva’s future? Any spoilers for the Zeltivian crowd out there? Is there anything the city needs at the moment to help flesh it out better? Or is it perfect just the way it is? In fear of getting scolded, I can’t really say much! All I can say is that there’s going to be some
massive changes soon. If you don’t have any PCs in Zeltiva, then this is probably the time to get one there. As for making the city even better, I suggest that PCs get more involved in city-plots and with the city itself. For those who don’t know, we recently cooked up [url=http://www.mizahar.com/forums/topic20798.html]Status Points[url], which basically gives the actions of PCs more impact when it comes to Zeltiva as a whole.
10. Has being a storyteller changed your outlook on Mizahar or how you play your characters at all? Please be specific! Well, uhm... unfortunately, I’ve had no great epiphanies, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ll get back to you when I do, haha. However, grading has given me more insight about how XP points are given, so I altered my writing to be more descriptive when it comes to using my PC’s skills.
11. Why the name Cascade? What significance does it have to you? Do you find that following a theme within your city seems to help unite the mod/storyteller staff? Oh my, the reason is really lame. First of all, one thing you have to know about me – I have absolutely NO creativity when it comes to names, or even thread titles. My thread titles are usually whatever’s playing on iTunes... yes, that’s right. So, this name was a result of working with Cascading Style Sheets when Gossamer asked me to register an account.
As for theme, if anyone has noticed, we Zeltiva STs have matching avatars. I can’t think of anything deep to say about it, but I do believe the uniformed pictures makes us seem more united... right? The avatars give us an air of organization that you wouldn’t even imagine how crazy and violent my fellow Zeltiva STs can get.
12. Is there anything else you’d like to add?Yeah! I just want to thank everyone. It’s an honor to be this month’s featured contributor, especially when I’m so new. As pointed out to me in chat, today is actually my one month mark as an AS, and this just makes it more significant.
So... thank you!
by Eridanus on May 1st, 2012, 6:10 pm 
