RoKtheReaper.com — April 2017 Website Update

RoKtheReaper.com has been inactive for quite a while now.  You guys have not gotten to see any new editorials, trailers, reviews, or even news.  That has to do with a lot of outside factors, but they are currently being addressed in order to try and come back in a way that allows me to stay doing what I love permanently.

For those of you who are interested in reading the rather long-winded April 2017 update for RoKtheReaper.com, feel free to go ahead and hit the jump to catch the full article!

Writing is a passion of mine, I did not go to college for it and I have no “formal” training in it beyond high school education.  Everything I do is done out of me perfecting my craft through my own mediums; such as writing on the internet, text-based role-playing, and pseudo-intellectual discussions over various topics.  While this was fine when this was just a minor blog starting out, once it crossed the realm of me just having an outlet for my passions, I began to wonder what makes me qualified to be telling people the positives and negatives of any particular purchase they were thinking about making.  This thought alone pretty much mentally crippled me and I was unable to really overcome my anxiety from that point forward; too many thoughts of “what makes me able to ask these big companies for review assets”?

Alas, I have come to the conclusion that whether-or-not you are formally educated from a renowned professor or self-taught, it all really comes down to how well you know your craft.  How you learn it does not mean as much as how you perform in the field when given the opportunity; we all have to start from somewhere and just because you do not have the credentials does not mean you do not possess the knowledge or ability to be one of the best.  This comes to my mind when I think about how I tend to do things versus the others in my field who only care about getting things for free; those who do not care about the integrity of the industry and would rather give favorable reviews in order to earn the favoritism of companies to constantly get expense-free assets.

Looking at everything that is available right now, I figure that I need to add in my two cents so that those who want an unbiased opinion can have one.  A place where I can look back and take pride that I have did something to outline my passions and give me a place to truly vent how much of a gamer, otaku, and general geek I am when it comes to my passions.  I do not need to be college-educated or have a writing degree in order to be on the same pedigree with professionals.  To be perfectly honest, I am a professional within a sense that I have been trusted with reviews from big companies without having the money, website design, or outreach of online media platforms like Kotaku, IGN, and Gamestop.

Something else that is impacting me working on my website is gaming, particularly when it comes to Gears of War 4.  I really do have trouble ripping away from my Xbox One and Playstation 4 long enough to really do anything else, that includes keeping up on the latest happening in eSports and watching anime or reading manga.  While I love gaming, I need to make it less of an actual priority if I am going to be able to get anything else accomplished that I would consider “productive”.

Going forward, I am going to make sure I take more time out of my day to properly tend to this website and everyone who has taken their time to visit it.  While I do not have as many features on this website as I would want (archive, numbered page navigation, etc.), I am going to do my best with what I have in hopes that one day I get to where I need to be.  Even when making this post, I had to system restore my computer in order to get Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended to work properly because of a windows update; obstacles will always be present, but I am just going to have to rise above them to do what is necessary to be successful.