Echoes from Blizzard's Past

Edited "Games" Page from Battle.net Launcher. Originally Made by Kacpa2.

Technically more than three years ago, Ilko's Hall got its proper start and it started with "Blast from Blizzard's Past" where I caught onto strange anomaly on Blizzard's website regarding its pre-Warcraft games. Originally I thought they were planning to hand them over to GOG, but a few days later Blizzard Arcade Collection was shadowdropped during BlizzConline. I still look back at this quirky "kind of prediction" fondly. Despite this, I guess I was hesitant to revisit this topic as time went on. To be fair, there wasn't much to cover and I'm not sure if I even mentioned anything new in some random post.

Anyway, that doesn't matter now! Because I'm about to pick things up right where I left them at that first "article". Since I completed the "main quest" of Ilko's Hall, it feels natural to complete this concluding circle by falling into sudden old school Blizzard rabbit hole yet again and there's quite a few things I have to cover. In order to let the proper atmosphere settle in, I also recommend you to check out both "A Tale of Warcraft Remasters that Almost Happened" & "Callback to Blizzard Classic 'Arcade'" before reading this one.

Main Quest Update

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You know, this post should've been written and released a long time ago. Too bad I ended up being weirdly sentimental about it to a point where I decided to drag it out up until blog's third anniversary. Despite a few events out of my control, I've managed to more-or-less keep some resemblance of investment into a niche hobby and hold myself roughly accountable to this odd commitment. Starting out with taking my shot at various types of texts before figuring out what kind of strangeness I enjoy the most. Not every post ended up in a way I hoped or initially thought, but at the end of a day I'm glad I spend time doing something and trying myself at writing different things within this large world of blogging or digital diary.

As time went on and things were changing in a way they did, it became apparent to me that Ilko's Hall needs to change too... Well, I think it needs too. Nothing stops me from just letting its current state speak for itself, but that's not how I want it to go. I want to bring the proper sense of closure to something that's been a part of my life for surprisingly long time. However, that doesn't mark a definitive end to it and I will explain it shortly. Just let me start with the usual conclusions and then some.

January 2024 Update

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My "scuffed curse" has been slowly catching up with me. As I'm still following my established daily routine against all odds, I've been stumbling into all sorts of wonders and oddities in my everyday life. My plate was full, which served as a great distraction from things that usually bother me... Well, for the most part. Silly overthinking was heavily suppressed (or rather muted), not gone completely. I guess that's just part of my identity, and it would be very difficult to get rid of.

Despite the lack of holiday spirit in my heart throughout the second half of December, I realized that ignoring New Year's Eve and doing nothing would be too depressing. Especially when I actually can do something about that. This trail of thoughts lead me to not only get myself pizza & Olivier salad (no homemade salads this time) for some kind of a treat. I also went ahead and paid up debts I owned to two of my friends, even though they didn't saw it that way. These generous folks were "happy to help" me at the time and didn't expect anything in return, but I argued it would be best if I return the favor (they didn't protest it) as that was simply the right thing for me to do.

I suppose this means I met 2024 as a free man of sorts. After facing some hard struggles and darkest moments, I was dragged up by great support from my friends. Not only I got myself an insanely good laptop and a new stable work that won't be possible without it, I've been reminded yet again how I'm surrounded by good people on Internet. No matter what happens next, I know they'll have my back and that's enough to achieve great things.

December 2023 Update

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I think I can confidently say that I've been very slowly getting back on track in these recent days. Everything has slowed down even further in comparison to November, so this Update will likely be even more barren as a result. At least this time around, there's more sense of peace in my mind. Still usual overthinking and all that stuff, but my latest reflections allowed me to further examine myself... and/or fool myself into believing that this stupidity actually provided some worthwhile results for once.

You can argue that such nonsense is natural for this time of the year, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Part of that is likely me refusing to give myself a break because I just got to be this way even if I don't always want to be: force of habit and all that type of thing. None of it is actually interesting, so I'm not going to fixate too much on that in order to not overly annoy myself. This time I'm not even going to pretend that someone else is reading this.

November 2023 Update

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There should be a lesser amount of nervous rumbling since I'm not quite anxious this time around. Not only that's relieving, but somewhat amusing since a month ago I was really panicking due to typical overthinking. Will this odd episode occur again? Most likely. Will I be ready and process it better? I'm not so sure. At least things seem kind of calm now, so it's best if I just enjoy that moment instead of worrying about when these sweet moments end. Even if it's actually more tricky and things like that shouldn't really be ignored, you get the idea. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

You know, I should just get straight to the point as there's... still not much to talk about. Despite feeling like these last 15-16 days were more eventful in comparison to late September and first half of October, but right now I'm really struggling to think of anything substantial to mention here. Part of that definitely comes from my continuous dissatisfaction with some things I'm about to repeat down below.

October 2023 Update

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Well, the silence of my current routine has started to get disturbed by unpleasant kind of noise. I suppose part of that is me falling back into my bad overthinking habit, but hearing any kind of knock into door can induce some "good old" anxiety. Unfortunately, this is just the reality of current times: you want to simply get by and avoid any trouble, especially if your current real life position is far from being pretty or even just okay. However, this is not a tale about the hope of seeing the light at the end of a tunnel sooner rather than later.

This post that would be lost in infinite void of the Internet is about what I did and didn't do in the last month or so. Not much would be lost, as you can rightfully guess, so I'm not worrying too much about the lack of worthwhile things to share. Doesn't mean I can't waste my time writing about nothing for a bit to prolong an illusion of doing dedicating my time something kind of productive and not just a waste of time and/or another form of procrastination.

Late Thoughts about Realms Deep 2023

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Another year, another rare Events "article" about some silly gaming event. This time I encouraged by scuffed sleeping schedule by watching Realms Deep 2023 from start to finish. Similarly to the previous one, I was tuning in with moderate curiosity. After all, it's best to avoid rising up your own expectations to a point where they just can't be fully met and instead get pleasantly surprised when or once you start getting some surprises. Thankfully, the latter is excited what happened this time around.

Each Realms Deep took different approach and this year was no exception. We had a very packed 3,5 hour livestream full of announcements and reveals with occasional "storyline" breaks, so sometimes things were getting a bit weird. To be fair, what else you can expect from a bromance drama starring Ty Brannan & Mike J? Let's just hope that Jared CatMilk would be able to help these two overcome their conflict and embrace their true feelings.