Bold Advancements

Improvised "Hall Update" Thumbnail.

I had a lot to think about over the course of this Summer. These three months were rather "interesting" for me as I went through mental breakdown, temporary loss of electricity and constant string of personal failures. It's been very hard to be active in any way or really figure out how and what should be done. However, with the help and support from my amazing friends, I managed to sort of get through it and things are slightly better for now. I received some encouragement and I don't want to waste it.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about my activities and Ilko's Hall specifically. There's been a lot of ideas, hesitance and uncertainty in my planning as I just couldn't understand what and how something should be done. In a way, I still have no idea or confidence in most of my actions, and I'm willing to admit that. So that's what I'm going to talk about here: ongoing changes to the blog and my plans for the foreseeable future.

Blog Comprehension.

Since the beginning, I wanted to keep things here very basic and simple. This blog was born from a desire to have an actual hobby: do something I'm actually enjoying, be more productive and improve through that process. My focus was primarily on writing posts, not on a specific goal or direction for this blog, its features and simple advertisement. It worked out well (and still does, actually), but many questions started to circle through my head.

Ilko's Hall is a fine blog, but I think it leaves much to be desired. I began to notice how the lack of used options and organization make it feel pretty barebones. Posts themselves seem to be all over the place in terms of theme and categories, which doesn't seem quite right. Maybe its just me, but, if an author struggles to identity what kind of text he had written, he might have a problem or two. I'm trying to look for something, but I don't know what and that on itself is likely an issue on its own. Where I'm going with this?

Looking back, I realized that the answer to all my questions were right under my nose. All I have to do is actually embrace previously mentioned reasons that led to Ilko's Hall creation in the first place. It should be a form of my self-expression and self-knowledge. A place to share my passion with others, open up to the world and realize myself through this process.

Updates & Changes.

Alright, so how I'm going to do that? I've started small with a simple change of fonts that are utilized here. Originally I used Verdana (main text), Trebuchet (Header) and a lot of Arial (anything else) since I haven't really paid too much attention to customization of blog's theme, which is pretty embarrassing due to how simple it actually is. Thus, I switched to Open Sans (main text), Oswald (post title) and PT Sans (anything else). It might not seem like much, but I think it makes quite a bit of difference and I enjoy it.

While I would prefer to keep a certain freedom in terms of topics for this blog, I still think there's a need for at least some abstract organization within posts. Problem comes with the fact that I need to sort out already existing material and that appears to be difficult for me. I'm really uncertain about using a specific game or subject as that could potentially get pretty messy. Coming up with vague classification could work while also keeping the amount of tags at bay. I'll see how and if it actually works though, so nothing is final here.

Not a lot of blogs seem to have dedicated pages for Frequently Asked Questions and About segments, but I think these are a fine addition: at least it wouldn't hurt to have them. Decision to make these are simply: I'm doing them for myself as a means to iron down the vision of Ilko's Hall. Meanwhile, they should also provide potentially useful information to those who need it and proper introduction into the blog itself and my boring persona.

Communication is an essential part of the Internet and it's fair to say that I failed in that regard. Mainly, I'm talking about the fact that initially I turned out the comments from Ilko's Hall. This decision was made after some simple observations of various gaming sites and such. I felt like people just don't comment as much on sites themselves as they've used to, and I didn't want to have something just for the sake of it. Part of me thought that Twitter would work as an alternative to comments and I do acknowledge the stupidity of these words. So I decided to change my mind, even if it may be kind of too late.

That's pretty much it in terms of more general stuff within Ilko's Hall, but there're a few more specific things I would like to mention right now. Other ideas and changes might appear as times goes on, plus I'm open to hear some feedback from you.

Planned Projects.

In terms of content, there're two "big projects" within Ilko's Hall I'm planning to take on in foreseeable future. One of them involves going back to Warcraft 3 and tying up loose ends. In preparation for this extensive material, I'll also work on smaller scale "prelude series" that would go over each main time period of the game, starting with its "RPS" version. If everything goes according to plan, those are going to be a monthly releases with "the big thing" coming out during Reforged's Anniversary: just the right time for it.

Besides that, there's also Trial of Runes. Concept for this Quake Mission Pack never really left me, even after I was done with Just an Idea post about it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I should just try and do it. Make it a reality, at least as far as I could. As one of my friends noted, I should search for myself and enjoy the ride. Try different things if I can. First of all, I need to write some kind of "design document" for myself to just have everything laid out in much more refined form than before. Which is something I started doing previously, but it's better to start from scratch due to Quake's re-release. That was honestly a good timing for ToR and one of its goals. Then I would need as much feedback as possible. Some technical information can be difficult to find, so having a lot of discussions would be pretty valuable. After all, if I manage to pull this off, I want others to enjoy playing Trial of Runes as much (if not more) as I making it come to life.

Other than that, I would like to focus more on positive and interesting topics as opposed to something negative. I think that posts like "A Tale of Warcraft Remasters that Almost Happened" are the exact kind of posts I want to write: whenever it's about stories like that or specific aspect of a game. That was one of the driving forces for this short series of Warcraft 3 posts as a return to basics and re-emphasize the general direction of Ilko's Hall. Meanwhile, I would also love to try out something different once in a while. For example, I think it would've awesome and interesting to somehow do an interview.

Tip Jar.

And that leaves as with the most arrogant portion of this post. Lately I've been somewhat more open about my current situation and struggles in real life. Even though it still doesn't feel right to "brag" about something like that in current times, keeping things to myself wouldn't help me either. "Low Spec Breakdown" was a result of me basically losing it and I don't want to end up in similar position again. While it is great to get help and support from others when you need it, I want to succeed on my own. I don't want (and can't) rely on that.

Still, I've been giving this subject a lot of thought lately. Going back to the early days of YouTube and Twitch, it didn't begin with people asking for donations and working with sponsors. That did come in later, but really it all started with passion and creativity first and foremost. I have a hard time believing that I would ever reach a point where someone would deem me worthy of their support, you never know before you try it.

Meanwhile, I will still look around for any opportunity I could find to help out my family as much as I can, I think it wouldn't hurt to have an option for donations. One thing that was immediately obvious to me and I wanted to follow is that there would be no perks of any kind. I don't like the idea of hiding something behind a paywall, nor I think that I'm at the level where I could provide an exclusive content worthy of a price tag. I don't want to sell my content, but provide it to everyone interested for free and not pressure them to donate.

In other words, Patreon is definitely not an option for me. Not with my current approach and the amount of options I have right now. I need to start somewhere else. That's how I ended up stumbling across Ko-fi, and it seems to be fitting my current position. Current plan is to update its goal on 15th each month with the possibility of changing the goal on something else whenever it becomes feasible. For now, its target is to (first of all) cover family's monthly expenses, such as our beautiful cats, food and Internet access. After that it gets more greedy as I get to keep money to myself for my monthly expenses and save up for a new phone and whole PC setup... if it ever comes to that, of course.