We're right back at it again, folks. With the MOTM Interviews now fully up and operational we're back in a new month with a new pair of members to shed some light on their dark and mysterious past. Please welcome your June 2016 Members of the Month : Criporc and Paragon.
How and when did you find the site?
Criporc: I found the site back in September of 2008 while looking up my stats on Halocharts. I think there was a link on one of the pages that said something aboot a warthog, so I clicked it. I had been playing halo with Eurofox, running hogs in BTB, thinking we were pros. Then I signed up on the site, got into games with Wakka and Cruelsirmike, and proceeded to learn what the pros actually drive like...
Paragon: First off I think I need to apologize in advanced for writing a lot. I liek words. I actually knew about the wheelmen back in the halo 3 days and was unfortunate to get ripped apart by you guys in both halo 3 and reach several as a wee lad so the HWM more or less remained somewhat of a celebrity group to my brothers and I. However, once halo 5 started becoming hyped up, I became somewhat of a regular on the waypoint forums.
A few month after H5's release, I stumbled onto a forum post that was essentially a hogging guide by you guys and my brother and I started putting the hogging tips to practice. Not more than a week or so later, I stumbled into a random game with HWM Guardian and proceeded to core the enemy team with he, my brother, and I by essentially playing assault. After that game I messaged Guardian, he pointed me to the site, and the rest is history.
What got you into Halo?
Criporc: My brother won a contest in which the prize was to tour the EA headquarters here in Vancouver. He got to playtest some new games, and at the end of the tour he got to pick a game for free. We didn't have any console at the time, so he asked them which they recommend. They told him to go for the xbox, and so he picked an xbox game. Then since we had an xbox game, we put our money together and bought one, which also came with Halo CE. And so it beganded. Random chance.
Paragon: When my brothers and I were little we had a babysitter named Tina and one day we were at her house and it just so happened that her older brother had a xbox with a copy of Halo 1 in it. I had never even seen an xbox before, but as soon as I played the first level of the campaign I immediately fell in love with the console and franchise and have been a massive halo fan ever since. At this point I'm pretty much an enthusiast PC gamer, but I don't I can ever truly let go of halo so I bought an XB1 simply for Halo MCC and H5 alone.
What's your preferred playstyle?
Criporc: I usually go for one of the strongest positions on a map and try to hold it. I'm more comfortable when the enemy is coming to me. Butt since I've started playing halo 5, I'm becoming more comfortable with leading pushes. Since often I see a bunch of you just hanging around not pushing, so I just go in there to get things stared. I also prefer to fight long to medium range. Close quarters stuff is like my biggest weakness, so I try to avoid it. As far as vehicles go, I really like both driving and gunning warthogs of all types, and I fancy myself to be pretty good a both. I've still got things to learn about driving in this game, though, since apparently I'm a little too aggressive and it gets my gunner killed against teams with good shots.
Paragon: Generally I used to play wherever since I became somewhat of a floater playing throughout my random days. I was dubbed the "jack of some trades" by one of my friends who has since moved on from halo but I always felt compelled to keep the title because it kinda fits me. However, since joining the wheelmen, I have more or less consistently been playing and performing decently in offensive roles because of my somewhat decent slaying ability, so I guess I'm an offensive player now?
Where did your gamertag come from?
Criporc: Cri has been my nick name for as long as I can remember, and I like piggies. So one day in grade 5 or 6, I came home from school and as soon as I walked into the house I said "Criporc". I also had a last name which was "Porkith". Which turned into a mini cult. Eurofox became a member and my second in command. He went by the name of Alafox. That's where he got the fox from, eh? Other members included my brother and cousin, and other random kids that we knew back then. We had enemies for some raisin, and fought them with sticks. It was fun!
Paragon: This is usually a question I shrug off with "I thought it was cool when I was little" or something like that, but I guess you guys deserve to know. When I was little I had somewhat of a difficult childhood which exposed me to a variety of moderately painful adult concepts, which in turn, forced me to age mentally much faster than the rest of my peers. As a result, I had a very difficult time socializing and relating with kids my age and essentially was just that weird kid who had only one real friend in middle school. Going into high school, what was left of my few friends quickly turned to drugs and my newfound desire to always take the high road left me alone again, all while I was continuing to mentally mature due to ongoing issues in my home life. Struggling with my personal identity for so long eventually started to harden me, and after several drunken "world is your oyster" speeches from my father in combination with being introduced to the concept of a "paragon" from through the mass effect series, I eventually realized that instead of chasing the shadows of children I should just forge my own path and find strength in the issues I had overcome. After a year of just doing my own thing I started to realize that some of my peers were actually looking up to me instead, and were trying to emulate my own more rigid personality.
As much as being "Paragon" in game is my virtual identity, it is equally the size of the shoes I try to fill in real life. I know I will never be perfect and I drink way too much for a 19 year old and all of that jazz, but I strive to be the best person that I can possibly be, a paragon of humanity, if you will. I know that I may never achieve the level of integrity that I strive for, but the pursuit has put me on a path that I hope I never stray from as it has turned me into one of the men that I could only dream of being as a kid. And the sniper bit was just a carryover from my edgy teenage gamertag "DaedricSniper."
Any favorite Halo memories?
Criporc: I'm gonna answer this by game.
Halo CE: A 2 hour long 2 vs 2 CTF game on blood gulch that ended 1-0 during a lan thingy.
Halo 2: Playing 4 player split screen with my brotherp, eurofox, and another friend. We always got outslayed, but we won objective games because of neat teamwork.
Halo 3: Matching up against other teams in BTB, where we would have games on standoff end 87-70 and stuff, and avalanche games that would drag on forever because no one could get kills. Holding BR rock and Keyhole against strong teams was my favourite. Also this one game on standoff where it was just chocolat and I, with a bunch of randoms. We got matched up against Team 5 star, they got laser off the start, but I still managed to get chocolat an untouchable before they took us down.
Halo 4: Hogging with Hel Monkey. We were the top rocket hog pair, and we were gunning hard for number 1 chain hog as well before hel monkey had to do more life stuff. After that, I really enjoyed using the Mantis. I think the Halo 4 mantis is the thing across all halo games that I was best at. I'm gonna toot my own horn and say that I think I may have been the best in the world with it.
Halo 5: The games where we are losing by a lot, but using teamwork and fun tactics we fight tooth and nail to triple cap and destroy the core to win. Also, playing infection with Witney
Paragon: Back when halo 1 was a thing and I was a wee lad, I used to play the co-op campgain on normal with my dad and then eventually we got to the level 343 Guilty Spark which is where the flood get introduced. As a little kid, the atmosphere they set in that swamp spooked the crap out of me and made me really tense and jumpy. After the recording in hat of Jenkins was done, I was really frightened but I was too immersed to stop playing.
Then the really tense flood combat music started playing.
I was horrified, so when we cleared the first door's worth of infection flood we hid in one of those rooms and tried to pick off everything that came in. I practically crapped myself when the combat forms got introduced so my dad and I would just teamshoot them as they came in, with the velocity the flood were running at tossing their corpses behind us as we killed them one by one. Suddenly, outta nowhere I got backwhacked by a flood that had gotten up back up after we "killed" it and I literally lost my pineapples and had to stop playing. I had flood based nightmares for probably a whole week and couldn't sleep at all. Which is funny now that 343 Guilty Spark is now my favorite halo level of all time and I always enjoy blitzing through it on legendary as fast as possible.
What are your other favorite gaming series?
Criporc: I like the Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creed, and Mass Effect series. I started Elder Scrolls with Oblivion, and remember sinking hundreds of hours into it after school. At that time I shared and xbox with my brotherp, so I also spent a lot of time watching him play. Assassin's Creed combines climbing things with parkour and swordfighting, which are some of my favourite things. During the ship combat parts in AC3 and then Black Flag, I went a little crazy because they added tall ships and sailing, which are more of my favourite things. I spent hours just sailing around the Caribbean in that game. Don't know what I can say aboot Mass Effect... It's just awesome.
Paragon: Other than Halo, my two favorites have to be Dead Space and the Mass Effect franchises. I very quickly fell in love with the Dead Space franchise for a variety of reasons, one of them being the art, which is why I favor the venator helmet in the halo games, but the main reason is because of the main character Issac Clarke, an accomplished Engineer. I kinda liked the first game, but in the second, the subplot was Issac dealing with an internal struggle that he needs to overcome before he descends into madness in the same manner as one of his friends. For reasons I never understood until writing this, I was able to fall in love with the character because in a way, I could sorta relate to his struggle.
As far as mass effect is concerned, I think the series kinda speaks for itself if you've played it, and I implore everyone to play through the trilogy at least once in their gaming careers if you haven't already.
What is your favorite food?
Criporc: I think I might have to say Spaghetti, because it's probably the food I eat the most. But I really like Indian food as well. I just don't know how to make it myself, so I don't have it very often. I don't really like cooking because I'm bad at it. So either I like to make things that are quick, or things with long wait times where I don't have to do anything. That way I can do other things like read or play piano while waiting for the food.
Paragon: My favorite food is definitely the New York Strip steak prepared by a restaurant called Houston's(a subsidiary of the Hillstone Group). It's a $53 steak, but it remains the best thing I've ever eaten in my life and I long for the days where I'll have the money to eat it semi-regularly.
Tell us something about yourself that we might not know!
Criporc: I will do a quick thing about my real life for the past few years, and my goals for the future. After high school I went to university, studying geology. I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself, so I just picked it because why not. Well, that was not very good motivation for me, so I didn't do very well in certain classes. (Calculus, chemistry, and classes that needed a lot of memorization or effort to succeed. So after 5 years, yes, 5, because I only took 6 classes per year, dabbling in other fields like computer science, archeology, econ, mythology,and every once in a while I had to repeat a class too, I got to the point where if I failed one more class, it would be impossible for me to graduate. So I was like "i'm kinda just wasting my time." So I took a few months to just think about stuff. I realized that I really like sailing, so I began thinking of things I could do that would make it easier for me to get a sailboat, and then to live on it as I travel around the world. I figured that I'd learn Joinery (woodworking), since it would let me buy a cheaper boat which I could then fix up myself. Another bonus is that as I travelled, I could potentially find work fixing other people's boats in random marinas I pass through, if I needed money. Plus, I've always wanted to know how to build things. So that leads me to where I am right now. I'm currently working for a Yacht Building company, where I help build the interiors. I'm learning lots and saving up money. The only thing I'm worried about is that I won't be able to play halo with all of you while in the middle of the ocean.
Maybe there will be really good internet in a few years...Paragon: At this point in my life, I'm trying to get into really good shape in an attempt to best one of my only remaining insecurities. I'm 6'00" and my starting weight when I began last year was close to 240lb and as of today I am at 202 and striving to be in the mid to low 190s before the summer is out.
Any advice for newer members of the community?
Criporc: Message HWM Dragon for the 343 emblem and weapon skins! His dad works for 343 so he might be able to get you free gold packs as well.
Paragon: As much as we hare [sic] a halo clan and want to refine our members into great halo players, it is more important to have good character. My biggest piece of advice is to just get into as many games with us as possible and just put yourself out there whenever you can so we can get to know you better. Regardless of your skill level or understanding of our squad system, the best way to both make friends here and become a better halo player is to simply put the hours in, even if you can only do one mastery lobby a week, do whatever you can to get there or even try hosting your own if our regular times don't work for you.
Shoutouts! Who do you guys want to shoutout?
Criporc: I'm gonna shoutout to Hel Monkey, Kobe (Syience), and Lars for playing Halo 4 with me. Those were dark days of quietness, and we helped HWM survive. Also more shoutouts to MC, Islandmonkey, and One Viz for keeping me company on Destiny until Halo 5 came out. Next, a shoutout to the Admins, Jon, and Ducke for putting in so much time and effort into building the site and reviving this community. And last, butt also least, everyone who visits this site regularly. I
all of you!Paragon: Aside from my lovely sponsor Criporc
who has shared this wall of text with me, I want to shoutout every single member of this community that saw it fit to let me in. I'm not saying this simply because I passed my voting stage and whatnot, it's because you guys really have something special going on here in this website that should be the norm everywhere instead of the poor manners and children performing sexual intercourse with the mothers of their enemies that seems to be the norm. This little pocket of halo playing people, in my opinion, is the ultimate exemplar of what a gaming community should be and I couldn't be happier that you saw me fit to become a member, let alone MOTM in my first month. Gamers like you all are the light shining in the dark that every gaming community should have more of and once again, I thank you for existing in the manner that you do and letting me be a part of you.Tims: And that's a wrap for this month's interviews. I'd like to thank Criporc and Paragon for sharing so much with us, and hopefully it'll encourage future members to be this open with us as well. As always, if you're a blue interested in getting yourself a personal interview from yours truly then step up and be somebody around here! This place doesn't run itself...
And on that note, we'll see you next month!
