Meeka was born on Final Fantasy XI many years ago and had the dubious distinction of being one of the few truly female mithra in the game. Meeka has been resurrected in many mmo’s since then [see Gaming below] and remains my favourite ‘toon’ [avatar to the rest of you]. But Meeka has always had a dark side – she writes when no-one is looking. The Writer is called acflory and her main claim to fame is that she is opinionated, verbose and has published a strange little sci-fi/fantasy novel about aliens.
I was recently told to write 7 things about myself. For better or worse here they are :
1. I’m opinionated but I think everyone knows that already
2. I’m a pollyanna who always sees the silverlining in every cloud except for hatred, that just makes me mad. [see 3.]
3. I’m fiercely protective of children and animals because they can’t fight back for themselves.
4. I love wild emotional music be it Deep Purple, Puccini’s Turandot or Archangel/Two Steps From Hell, which is what I’m listening to now.
5. I read until my eyes cross over because, well just because there are millions of books and millions of ideas out there and I can’t stand the thought that I may miss some of them
6. I play mmo’s because they give me the freedom to play in the worlds I normally just read about.
7. And I’m a passionate aussie although I’ve only lived in Australia since I was 4. This country is both very old and very young and nothing is impossible.
-thinks- there must be some job out there that I’m suited to… Wait! There is. I can be a writer, or something.
You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus
Tuesday May 21st, 2013
I have a few too many pages and things are getting messy. In an effort to rationalize my blog I’m combining the About, Gaming and Writing pages. Sorry for the confusion.
Gaming
I’m rather old to be a gamer but I guess addictions can start at any age. Mine started about twenty years ago when I found a funny little platform game at a garage sale. It was called Crystal Caves and I bought it for my daughter who was about four at the time. Naturally I had to get involved so I could show her how to play the game …
Crystal Caves lead to Twinsen’s Odyssey, then to Snake Rattle n Roll on the Nintendo, then the Nintendo gave way to the Playstation One and suddenly we were playing Final Fantasy 8. Up until that moment I can honestly say I was not addicted but after FF 8 I was the one desperately looking for another rpg to play. I found it in Vagrant Story which we have played through at least eight times. FF 7, 9, 10, 12 and 13 followed but by then I had given up pretending I was only playing to keep my daughter company.
The turning point for me was Final Fantasy Tactics. I played it solo on an emulator and from that moment onwards there was no going back. Not only was FF Tactics my second most favourite game after Vagrant Story, it was also the game that lead inexorably to mmorpgs. I loved the freedom of being able to play when I felt like it and I loved the fact that I could indulge myself in the privacy of my own office. When FFXI online came out I just had to try it.
Even now, I love FFXI the best of all the mmorpgs I have played [and I have played a lot] but it became too addictive and after about a year I just had to walk away. Leaving hurt on so many levels. I missed my online friends, I missed the music and I missed the world but I had a life to reclaim so I deleted everything off my pc and began playing this ugly game called World of Warcraft online [hereafter just called WoW].
It has become very fashionable to denigrate WoW but at the time it was a very good game and, like it or not, it set the standard for the mmo’s that came after. For me, WoW was never as addictive as FFXI but I still ended up playing it through two expansions and about three years. I finally left when the never-ending quest to get better gear became too boring. By the end I had three toons at level 70 and all three had flying mounts and nice gear from the crafts I’d also maxed. I could have continued, or rolled another toon but what was the point? Besides, I was starting to see mmo’s with very nice graphics coming along and I have always been a graphics whore.
I tried Guild Wars and moved on. I tried Runes of Magic and moved on. I tried Horizons and almost stayed because the crafting was great but in the end the game just wasn’t balanced enough for me [and the graphics were ho hum]. I tried Ryzom and it folded. I tried Tabula Rasa and hated it. Then I stumbled on Perfect World [International]. That kept me going for a while until I realised I was spending more in the game shop than I would have spent playing a subscription game. Time to move on again. Tried a couple of promising mmo’s that ended up being eminently forgettable and was a bit lost until I bit the bullet and decided to give Aion a go.
For those who have never played Aion it is a beautiful game, quite literally. I have never had such fun customizing a character [or five] as I did with that game. Game play, battling and crafting were pretty good too but eventually I soloed my way to a level where I could not avoid pvp any longer. And that was when I began to fall out of love with Aion.
In WoW and many other games pvp is a choice. On Aion pvp was open world and ugly. I discovered what terms like ganking really mean and I realised that :
a) I did not have the reflexes for pvp,
b) did not have a fast enough connection for pvp and
c) did not enjoy killing other players on the rare occasions when I actually managed to win a fight.
I continued to play, avoiding pvp as much as possible but I was just marking time until Final Fantasy XIV came out.
Prior to September 2010 I’d read every snippet of information I could find about this new mmorpg and I knew I had to try it. Nostalgia did play a big part in that decision but it was the solo content that was the big draw card. If I could quietly solo my way through the game then I could play as a ‘hardcore casual’ and still have a life.
I need not have worried. FFXIV has improved a hell of a lot since its rocky launch but it lacks the magic of FFXI so it is very easy to play for an hour or two and then log. It suits me for the moment because the Writer is in the ascendant but like a faithless lover I’m already reading reviews on up and coming mmo’s.
I sometimes think I should just give up mmo’s altogether but the truth is that I’d rather spend my leisure time gaming than watching the crud that passes for tv. Besides, I used to joke that I would be the first 90 year old gamer in the world and you can’t give up on an ambition like that…
Happy gaming!
Update 2013 : Since FF XIV, I’ve played a fair bit of Star Wars the Old Republic [SWTOR to its friends]. I also have the dubious distinction of having soloed two characters to lvl 80 in Guild Wars 2. I’m still playing GW2 but I am thinking about playing The Secret World until Wildstar comes out. -sigh- I wonder if this is what a serial monogamy looks like?
Writing
I began writing ‘Vokhtah’ about ten years ago. It was meant to be a simple little story that I could finish quickly before I went back to the behemoth I’d started writing the year before. The behemoth is still languishing unfinished while the simple little story has morphed into a rather large trilogy. Book One is published and book 2 is on its way. I have also written some short stories, and the beginning of a more human-centric sci-fi novel tentatively titled Innerscape.
Busy, busy, busy. 🙂
Update : July 2013
Those short stories I mentioned are about to be turned into a short ebook – working title Postcards from Tomorrow.
November 25th, 2020 at 6:52 pm
[…] You can find out more about A.C. Flory on her lovely blog here: https://acflory.wordpress.com/about/ […]
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 7th, 2019 at 5:32 pm
Two steps from hell is my major inspiration piece. It rips out my soul, mends it and puts it back in…
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 8th, 2019 at 12:58 pm
Yes!!!!!! -huge hugs-
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 4th, 2019 at 1:11 pm
I am please to meet you! Now that I Know you live in Australia I get why it’s winter there now 😉. Can’t wait to read more of your posts even if I don’t know anything about the game your are talking about… silvia
LikeLiked by 2 people
August 5th, 2019 at 8:08 am
Hi Silvia! Welcome. I write about all my passions, and games are one of them. I was born in Hungary and sometimes post recipes I learned from my mother. I hope you find something of interest. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 5th, 2019 at 8:34 am
Sure! I will keep an eye on those! I am always looking for new inspirations!
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 5th, 2019 at 11:09 pm
I tried my hand at croquettes tonight, using a very old Italian cook book [1953?]. They were delicious. Will post the recipe tomorrow. I’d love to know what you think of it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 5th, 2019 at 11:10 pm
Sure! Can’t wait to read it!
LikeLike
August 8th, 2019 at 1:27 pm
Life intruded, but I’ll post soon. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 8th, 2019 at 1:28 pm
Take your time… i totally get it 😉
LikeLike
August 8th, 2019 at 9:02 pm
Thanks. Grazie?
LikeLiked by 1 person
November 27th, 2018 at 8:22 pm
My main game is chess. Used to play it competitively, but that was a long time ago. Now, my little grandson in Sydney wants to play with me.
I had a friend when I was young who got High Distinction in Dungeons and Dragons but failed the academic subjects, so that was a warning to me…
LikeLiked by 2 people
November 27th, 2018 at 8:51 pm
lol – I know the moves of the various chess pieces but that’s about it. I think I’ll stick to MMO’s. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 20th, 2018 at 11:06 am
We recently visited Australia and loved it. Wonderful:)
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 20th, 2018 at 8:10 pm
-hugs- So glad you had a good time!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 21st, 2018 at 1:36 am
Thanks. We had fabulous time. Have a nice day.:)
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 21st, 2018 at 9:00 am
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 7th, 2018 at 10:04 pm
[…] awards to http://5readsblog.wordpress.com/about “The Angel Award” Don Charisma awards to https://acflory.wordpress.com/about “The Angel Award” Don Charisma awards to http://annkoplow.wordpress.com/about “The Angel […]
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 29th, 2017 at 3:55 pm
[…] A.C. Flory is a guest on The Story Reading Ape, where she refers to the rhythm and flow in our writing as the […]
LikeLiked by 2 people
January 8th, 2017 at 2:13 pm
[…] Source: About Meeka […]
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 24th, 2016 at 3:56 pm
Thanks for following my blog!
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 24th, 2016 at 9:00 pm
Welcome 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
January 6th, 2016 at 10:44 pm
May I enquire, what is the subject matter of The Behemoth?
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 6th, 2016 at 11:17 pm
It’s sci-fi and set in roughly the same world as Innerscape but most of the story takes place in a domed prison known as The Hive. I have a filing cabinet full of all the stuff I researched for the background. Maybe one day I’ll get around to revamping the ‘foreground’ and publish the damn thing. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 17th, 2015 at 1:26 am
Hi Meeka, thanks for following me and the storyhounds. We’ve had a sniff around your blog and decided to follow you back! 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 17th, 2015 at 9:06 am
lol – thank you! Kindred spirits always welcome. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
October 12th, 2015 at 6:16 am
It’s a pleasure to meet another truly female gamer! I never played any of the FF MMOs, but have been an avid gamer for quite some time – and have the notable distinction of appearing somewhere in Half-Life 2!
Very nice to meet you…have a great day!
🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 12th, 2015 at 10:14 am
Hah! Welcome sepultura13! We are out there but we’re still out-numbered. My Daughter is a gamer too but her addiction of choice is Guild Wars 2. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 11th, 2015 at 8:10 pm
Given your interest in gaming, I thought you might enjoy the following poem which appeared on my blog on 1 September 2015. It is entitled Gaming.
“She dances with ghosts in the machine,
Flickering images pervade her dreams.
She has no need of romance it seems,
Just friends who flicker then die on screen.
Ghost-like she games through the night,
The thrill of playing does her excite.
She avoids love’s sting,
Gaming is her thing!”
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 11th, 2015 at 10:36 pm
lmao – yes! I do like it. Thanks. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
October 12th, 2015 at 12:48 am
Glad you enjoyed it and I look forward to following your blog. Kevin
LikeLiked by 2 people
October 12th, 2015 at 10:23 am
Thanks, Kevin. I love meeting new people. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 26th, 2015 at 6:18 pm
Aw yay a final fantasy fan! My little pup’s nickname is Meeka! (Her full name is Myoki!)
LikeLiked by 2 people
August 27th, 2015 at 10:12 am
Really???? OMG! lol Hail kindred spirit. 😀
LikeLiked by 2 people
May 9th, 2015 at 7:21 pm
It’s a pleasure to meet you.
LikeLiked by 2 people
May 9th, 2015 at 10:17 pm
Thank you. Nice to meet you too. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
September 26th, 2014 at 7:31 am
Thanks for the follow. I hope you enjoy my future posts. You are never too old to start gaming. I’m not into video/computer games, but am an active D&D/GURPS player.
LikeLiked by 2 people
September 26th, 2014 at 10:41 am
D&D as in Dungeons and Dragons? I’ve never played but I imagine it pretty much fathered the whole genre. 🙂
LikeLike
May 22nd, 2014 at 6:03 am
[…] “The Most Influential Blogger Award” Don Charisma awards to https://acflory.wordpress.com/about “The Most Influential Blogger Award” Don Charisma awards to […]
LikeLiked by 2 people
May 8th, 2014 at 11:26 am
I’m happy to make your acquaintance, Meeka. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
May 10th, 2014 at 8:49 am
Hey! Welcome Cary 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 11th, 2014 at 7:10 pm
[…] Inner Peace Award” Don Charisma awards to https://acflory.wordpress.com/about “The Inner Peace Award” Don Charisma awards to […]
LikeLike
April 10th, 2014 at 4:24 pm
[…] “The Butterfly Light Award” Don Charisma awards to https://acflory.wordpress.com/about “The Butterfly Light Award” Don Charisma awards to http://annkoplow.wordpress.com/about […]
LikeLike