11 questions!

Tagged by twomoonsdance​ 🙂

Rules:

1. Always post rules.


2. Write down questions you were asked.


3. Write 11 new questions.


4. Tag 11 people.

Questions:

1. Which gaming platform do you like the most? Why?

I’m 85% PC and 15% console…at heart, not in terms of playtime (probably more like 99/1 lifetime play). PC=mods!! 🙂 But I do also have Nintendo and Xbox consoles (not the latest gen of either) and did love playing games on those.

I will freely admit that playing on PC means being beholden to whatever specs I can afford/have time to mess with, though. So while I would never, ever, play a TES game on console, it does mean pushing my now 5-year-old computer to its limits…and not running everything on the prettiest settings.

2. If you had all the staff and resources necessary to make your own game, what would it be?

Ooh, this is a hard question.

Probably an open world game in a book universe I love, like Joan D. Vinge’s Snow Queen cycle. You could explore the different worlds looking for Old Empire technology, or wrangle the political and economic systems across the systems, or learn to become a sibyl…there’s so much in that world to play with that it would be fun to do like a KOTOR-style game (but less based on a D20 type system and more mechanics like Skyrim/Fallout.)

3. Do you have a favourite/favoured developer?

Haha. Bethesda, of course.

4. What was the last game you played? What did you think of it?

I played both ESO and Skyrim today. ESO crashed on me while I was trying to 1) go to the next Fighters’ Guild quest and 2) WALK SOMEWHERE, so…that was a bit frustrating.

I was seeing if I could make Benoit look prettier in Skyrim, and trying to decide what his character goals were. I don’t really have deeper thoughts about my gameplay there today 🙂

5. Use this space to talk at length about something you never get to talk about. Write for as long or as little as you like.

Huh. Well, there’s not really anything that I don’t get to talk about, only things that I choose not to talk about on here. I have lots of thoughts on yaoi that I don’t write about because I’m extremely nonconfrontational and disinterested in telling people They’re Wrong On The Internet because I did that for a while already in various fandoms over a decade ago. (I mean, there’s a lot of things that I think are Really Wrong On The Internet, but I reblog that shit on my personal sideblog.)

6. Best game soundtrack?

Anything Elder Scrolls. I listened to the ESO soundtrack on YouTube a lot before I bought it earlier this year.

7. What’s your take on the concept of ‘casual gamers’ and ‘true gamers’?

I freely identify as a gamer to my college students and no one ever dares contradict me because the game that I tell them I play is SKYRIM.

I also played The Sims obsessively from 2000-2002(?). I also played Farmville and a bunch of other Facebook games. I also play Bejeweled.

I was part of a serious Sims fandom back then that would probably fall under some variant of the making and tinkering movement that’s very popular today. My involvement was very much not casual in the slightest (nostalgia time: I was the Rug Queen on SimFreaks for a little while back in the day).

I don’t make mods for Skyrim, but just playing the game is enough to get me considered at least a serious gamer if not a hardcore one. (I don’t tell most of my students that I run this tumblr!)

So…basically, I think that it’s a false division perpetrated by people
who feel like Their Territory is being encroached upon by People Not
Like Them and thus not worthy of being considered True Gamers. 

8. Do you believe video games could be considered an art form?

Oh my, yes.

9. What’s your opinion on Let’s Players/streamers?

I watched a lot of ESO on Twitch right before I got the game. I think it’s a very interesting community and approach to professionalizing the player side of the industry. (Partial disclosure: I am super into communities of practice for the theoretical framework of my dissertation right now, so…I’m really interested in thinking about communities and what people do in them.)

Diversifying the ways in which people can make money off of the things they like to do is COOL.

10.  Talk about your first video game memories.

Haha. Playing Snake on the black & green screen of the Victor computer my dad brought home from work in…1991? Minesweeper on our second computer in 1993. Shooting sheep at my sister’s army of worms on the next computer in the mid-90s.

…I’m old.

11. Do you enjoy online multiplayer?

I do! I played Dungeons & Dragons Online for a couple years (still need to get back in there…I want to do more of the quests in House Cannith…) and now I play Elder Scrolls Online. A lot. I like the multiplayer aspect of the latter a lot better–the random assistance from others is really cool.

My questions:
1. If you could make one faction in Skyrim better (questline, characters, rewards, locations, whatever), which would it be, and why?

2. What’s your prediction/preferred location for TES:VI?

3. If you play Elder Scrolls Online, which alliance is your favorite?

4. Where in Tamriel would you go on a first date? (Breadsticks optional.)

5. Which character’s death would you prevent in Skyrim?

6. Have you purchased any real-world items related to The Elder Scrolls? (Pics and links would be awesome!)

7. Who would you want to cosplay as from any TES game?

8. Do you think the Great Houses are rebuilding on Vvardenfell or is the island lost for good and the Dunmer should probably stick to Solstheim and/or the mainland?

9. Have you ever gotten a friend or family member to play a TES game?

10. What do you think will happen between the Empire and the Thalmor in the coming years?

11. What race not currently playable in TES games would you most want to play? (Maormer, Tang-Mo, etc.)

Tagging:

meridok, estaraswanberg, wewillnotbow, nyessagaming, kynarreth, the-jarl-of-riften, beegnu, anybody else who wants to do this 🙂