LibraryMailanka/AboutMe
About Mailanka
My real name is Daniel Dover, and I'm 24 years old. My history is... different. My father was in the military, and so I had the chance to meander the globe, going from base to base. I've lived all across the states, and as from Okinawa (Japan) to England. My parents eventually retired to Kansas, and I lived there for seven years before moving in with my Dutch girlfriend (met by roleplaying on the 'net. Awesome) a year ago.
Roleplaying has really always been a part of my life, at least on some level. I've always loved stories, both hearing them and telling them. My first game was when I was ten, and it was a stupid ass game I made myself, but I enjoyed it. I graduated from there to:
- Traveller (the original)
- Traveller the New Era
- Marvel 2nd
- Rifts (shudder)
- Middle Earth Roleplaying (Yeah, the ICE version)
- GURPS (still love it, baby!)
- White-wolf
- (And a vast variety of others)
Werewolf was my first White-wolf love, and I still hold a special place for it in my heart. Also a big fan of Changeling and the Aeon Continuum.
I really came to Exalted, though, through D&D. Yeah, I know, I hate D&D as well, but 3rd Ed had just come out, so I thought I'd give it a look. I was pretty impressed with what I saw in the Players Guide (it wasn't great, but it was good), and the DMs guide was of SURPRISINGLY good quality, especially considering what I was used to. The Monster's Manual, however, broke the little spell, and I realized that, yeah, this was still, really, just a dungeoun crawling game.
I was determined at that point to run a fantasy game, but I figured anything I could do in D&D, I could do in GURPS better. But I had heard that White-wolf was coming out with a new fantasy game. I had kinda lost interest in White-wolf at that point, but thought I'd give it a look, and the rest, as they say, is history.
So I've been running Exalted since it came out. A year long Solar chronicle, a short Lunar one shot, a still running Dragon Blooded chronicle, and I'm prepping for six months of Abyssals.
So, if anyone has any questions or comments about roleplaying, I'm most certainly a guy you can talk to ;)
My other interests lie in books, music (big fan of Linkin Park and Evanescence), computer games (Particularly fighting: DoA2: Hardcore, Killer Instinct, Marvel Superheroes, and Guilty Gear XX), Anime (BIG time) and programming. UNLIKE our founder, I DO like C++! But that probably comes from the fact that I actually HAD a working C++ compiler to work with when I was learning it, and I didn't have a Java compiler.
I hope someday to become a computer programmer, but I've been toying with RPG writer. The feedback I've been getting suggests I might just have a shot, so maybe I should go for it :)
About the nick: It always interests me to know where a nickname come from, so I'll tell you where mine is from.
I LOVE Changeling, and the Eshu in particular. The idea of a character who LOVES stories, even could be said to be living one, appealed greatly to me. One Eshu detailed in the flavor text of Dreams and Nightmares was named Mailanka. Loved the name. Of course, on the web, if you don't want to be "JustAnotherRoleplayer259" You need a rather unique name, and I've never seen ANYone else take Mailanka.
Note: I pronounce it My-LAN-kah
Mailanka, do you actually like C++, or were you just playing with me? C++ is like stinky cheese, it has no real redeeming qualities, but some people seem to like it anyways. Why are you such a fan? -- DaveFayram
My history with programming is a rather unusual one (though probably not as unusual as I think). I started with BASIC back in the day. Ran programs on my Tandy :) I think, anyway. My first REAL programs, though, were on a TI 85-90 in highschool.
Regardless, both have very sequential style programming methods. This is what I got used to.
By the time I got to college, I had a real good handle on this style of programming (though I was already using gosub rather than goto). Pascal was OK. Not great, but ok. Java I had a problem with. C++ I liked much better. I dunno. Just made sense to me. Seemed simple and workable. I could appreciate the logic behind it.
It COULD be that my C++ book came with a compiler, and so I could really get a hands on approach. I find that the easiest way to learn. My Java book didn't, so I had to pick up my own compiler, and half the stuff that worked in the compiler didn't work in the book and vica versa, so I found it really frustrating.
In any case, I get that from alot of people. It works for me. Maybe eventually, when I'm REALLY comfortable with programming, I'll "matuer" to a new language. Who knows. I'd LIKE to like Java. But I can never get through the book. C++, on the other hand, I've managed to get from cover to cover twice. It gave me a real good grasp for what object orientation MEANS, and why its so damn useful.
It takes all kinds, I guess :)
So yeah, I like C++
