Pixies and mysticism.
Bounding back and forth between "Know Your Ninja" and "Average Joe" lands us squarely in Old Blighty for this week's interview. As always we asked some straight forward questions and got some pretty interesting answers in return. Quite the ROI if you ask me. Before you go off to google ROI, stick around and get to know a little bit about the poster formerly (and currently) known as xianoa.
Q. Who are you and what do you do?
A. My usual answer to such a question involves mystic undertones surrounding pixies. However, I feel this is far more appropriate: I am Airs.
What do I do? Music.
I write, perform, and record. I am currently studying music technology and intend on perusing a career in the recording of sound. I currently reside in merry ol' England with many others from the community. No, I don't like tea. Yes, crumpets own and i don't know the Queen nor have I fornicated with her as many lewd players online seem to suggest we Brits do.
My hobbies are gaming, music and socializing. But the latter part isn't why you're reading this. I play piano, guitar and I'm learning to play sitar and theremin. In fact, if you head on down to Marty's Army, you will find a thread where I've listed many of my instruments. If I ever get round to it, I intend to record my own variation of the Halo theme.
Q. How'd you get round to selecting your gamertag?
A. When I originally applied for a gamertag after deciding to purchase LIVE so I could "play System Link with the World" on Halo 2, the one I wanted was taken (as they always are). So, I just chose a random letter and built it from there. After a few mishaps I ended up with xianoa.
Q. Yeah, somebody's squatting urk. Wankers. Anyway, fast forward a bit. You're gametag is good to go, you're online and taking on the world in Halo 3 now, so where do you go to brag about your conquests?
A. Pretty much just the Halo 3 forum. I do lurk others and I frequent the groups I'm in such as Foto and Aberrant Designs, and I love reading some of the Whaaambulance material on the Waaahmbulance forums. It's a bit random but you'll always find me posting in user created content threads (wallpapers, machinima, etc.). They're my favourite topics. Always nice to see a well made wallpaper especially when it shows they've put effort and time into it.
Oh, I almost forgot about montage's (not the 15 minute "who the -blam!- would watch the whole thing" videos, just the short and sweet ones :] ) While on the subject of user-created stuff, you will find my work on my Googlepage and a whole thread full of user created backgrounds in CAUS7IC's User Created Background Thread.
Q. What compels you game, be creative, and get involved?
A. What compels me? THE POWER OF CHRI- nevermind. I'm not sure what it is that compels me. I really love being completely immersed in a good single player game. something that I'm finding harder to do (games not getting any better or my standards climbing higher?). Maybe just a feeling of content when I'm chillaxing with bro's in a party chat getting my ass whooped by Generals.
Nowadays I play and chat online with various members of the Bnet community I have added for individual reasons, be it because of support I was offering with a problem they posted about or just to aid someone on a Legendary playthrough. I think the most random reason I added someone was because they thought I could give them recon. If only. Before I leave the topic of strange PM's, anyone receive one from me? :P
Q. We have PM's here? First time I've ever heard of that feature. What was the first time you ever heard about one of Bungie's games?
A. My friend Callum constantly spoke of Halo: Combat Evolved when he got it, even based an English essay around it if I recall correctly. I was totally anti-Microsoft at this point, how childish of me. :P
Eventually he managed to convince me to play it round his house. A pivotal moment in my life! A game where not only could you shoot, melee and throw a grenade without switching weapons but there were so many weapons to choose from. BUT WAIT! It gets better.
Drum roll please...vehicles! I ended up getting a part time job for the summer just so I could buy an Xbox with Halo. I played it to death, finished the campaign on solo Legendary just before Halo 2 came out; commence system linkage almost daily. After getting online with Halo 2, I was hooked. Never been so addicted to anything.
Slowly I built up a collection of Halo stuff such as novels, posters and even a peaked Halo 2 cap. Most of this I had to obtain via a popular online market site *cough*eBay*cough* because the cost of shipping from Bungie's store to England was a tad crazy.
When I heard about the Legendary Edition of Halo 3 it was fairly obvious I had to have one. I still remember walking in the shop at midnight with about twelve people in the line behind me, walking out with my Legendary Edition five minutes later to see at least forty people lined up. I was paranoid some crazy Halo-goon was going to jump me for a plastic helmet fit only for your cat.*
*DISCLAIMER: I'm not condoning placing anything on your cat's head.
Q. Yeah, don't get your cat involved. What about your own level of involvement in the community? Are you ever surprised by it?
A. Yes I am actually. I'm not even sure why I'm so involved considering how much people whine about the strangest things (how far bullets spread on a weapon in a video game? Come on now your getting petty :P ).
The whole resizing/small edits on people's screenshots to make backgrounds is the largest involvement thus far with the community. It only came about because i made a few after reading some PM's asking me to and I just decided "why should I limit it to those who PM me?". I've not done much with that at the moment because of my work load (all the years work coming to an end, hectic!).
Q. Do you get involved with any other online communities when you're not loaded up with work?
A. Now I think about it, my loyal fandom is pretty much static on this site, I get my 5-star-thread-posting-thrillz from here, so why would I need to seek it else where? UKG of course! (More about that below.)
Q. Additions? Shout-outs? More on UKG now that we're below?
A. Before I give shout-outs, I have two things to say:
1. From the United Kingdom? Want a community of players who also strive for good connections? You need to sign up with United Kingdom Gamers. Why? Well I will let the website tell you: UKGamers.
2. Help find Tiffbech and win a prize.
To my bro, fo sho ubaninja (it's pronounced "uber-ninja," not urban). Were it not for you, I wouldn't be writing this right now. Second to my co-wallpaper maker C A U S 7 I C whom I miss very much. Damn you and your real life taking you away, come back!
Prepare for a long list of usernames: Shiska, your posts are 5's always, urk <3, ash55, RampageRiot, Avistel, Verachi, Caladolen, Duardo, Gmack674, jdars1804, Burrito Senior, Kalteran, Ninjaghostdog, PKF 647, Raynerboy!!, Sai Sama, Bifftech (stuck my grenade), Scruff, Waxy, Juno, Mazz and everyone else from UKG, Foto, Aberrant Designs, and the Halo 3 forum mafia.
FYI - Verachi bought his fifty (jokes).
Seems the Transatlantic connection has been broken and xianoa's time is now up. We want to say thanks for playing along. We hope you've learned something here today. Wait, no we don't. We just hope you were entertained and got to know a little bit about one of the posters you might spot should you decide to spend some time around this joint. As always, if you want to say hello to this week's interviewee, stop on into the discussion thread and say what's up (and play nice too).