What is this blog?
You can learn more about Ilko's Hall on About page.
Why you introduced yourself there with two different nicknames?
I've used both Ilko and (mostly) Kvaygonn as my online nickname for many years now. Both of them are names of my main World of Warcraft characters from Russian servers in Europe region. Despite quitting the game and becoming mostly disinterested in the franchise, it's still a major part of my life. I've chosen to embrace all of those names.
While I prefer to be called Ilko, I won't really mind if you refer to me as Kvaygonn instead. Confusion can be fun. If anything, I might end up using Dragrok (yet another main WoW character) in specific situations.
Why this blog looks so basic and outdated?
There're a couple of reasons for it. Firstly, I have next to none first-hand experience with web design. I would need to have some basic knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) & Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to at least have a general idea of what's possible with Blogger and being able to experiment with that. At the end, I never really tried.
Besides, to me it's "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" situation. I enjoy the simple and perhaps slightly outdated look of Awesome Inc. theme. It just works for me.
What is the meaning of this blog's labels or Categories?
They're utilized to organize every post that was published on Ilko's Hall. Currently used classification is pretty vague and minimalistic by design, which has its ups and downs. Categories/labels could be revised in the future, but their current definition are as follows:
- Hall Tales — "main course" of Ilko's Hall that covers certain subjects with multiple links to other resources, often in extended format.
- Thoughts Aloud — filler-ish "articles" written in more relaxed state in comparison to Hall Tales where I simply channel my nonsense with next to none of my amateurish researching.
- Just an Idea — an excuse to take on a role of an idea guy and clear my head off certain silly ideas that heavily clogged my mind.
- A Little Chat — rarest Category of this blog, where I get extremely lucky to talk with some awesome folks. Perhaps one day there would be more of them.
- Events — offering my "interesting and insightful" perspective on recent gaming live events when I have something to say about them.
- Personal — used for any posts of personal nature and major blog updates.
Is this blog closed?
Technically, that is currently the case. I've decided to finally put an official end to Ilko's Hall since not only my writing output has slowed down significantly for various reasons, but also since I reached the point of my life where (in spite of some struggles and typical nonsense) the blog has simply outlived its original purpose.
However, that doesn't mean that there would be no new "articles" moving towards. The door remains open for them in case I end up with sudden burst of inspiration and motivation to write something down.
Did Ilko's Hall had a release schedule?
There was no stable schedule for writing posts, except for monthly updates on 15th of each month. I wrote something when I had the time and an idea for an "article". However, usually I leaned towards releasing posts in Thursday or, in case of Events, shortly after event ends.
Can I suggest a topic for your future posts?
If you really want to, I will appreciate it. Even nowadays! However, you should keep in mind that I might not end up sharing your enthusiasm on proposed topic even if it might look like something I could be interested in at first.
Why you wasted your time on this instead of anything else?
There were many directions I considered before creating Ilko's Hall, particularly video creation and livestreaming. Results of my initial trials perfectly demonstrated the technical limitations I had with my hardware at the time. On top of that, my English wasn't nearly as good when it comes to speaking in comparison to typing and understanding.
There're many things I'm interested in trying out at some point in the future. Perhaps one day I will stop stalling and give them a fair chance or revisit things I gave up on before for technical or some other reasons.
What's your current setup?
It is ASUS TUF FA507RC A15 Gaming Laptop with used Corsair Gaming HARPOON RGB mouse & Corsair HS50 PRO Stereo headset. First two are gifts from very good and generous friends, the latter was bought from stranger online.
Can I support you?
If you liked my "articles" so much that you think more people should waste their time on them, nothing stops you from sharing them. I ran Ilko's Hall mainly for myself, but seeing other enjoying some of its posts is amazing and unbelievable.
There were no donation options and advertising revenue since that wasn't the goal of this project and I'm nowhere near being worthy of this stuff. I just didn't saw it as an option, especially considering that it did seem like one hell of a hassle to set up when things were not as complicated as they are in current times.
There's no answer to my question. How can I reach out to you?
Just leave a comment on corresponding post. I'm still lurking here from time to time.