An interview with KOOLIO! :)

[CocoT]

On this second thread dedicated to one of our "veteran" modders, it's my great pleasure to (re)introduce you to KOOLIO! Koolio is one of the very first people I bumped into when I entered the community and, as such, holds a particular place in my modding memories.
As Koolio indicates in his answers, all of his personal sites are gone and his mods are therefore difficult to find. If you know of places where some of his works have been uploaded or if you're willing to upload some of his creations to known quake mods depositaries, make sure to make yourself known!



Counter-Attack!


- Could you, for the new members here, briefly introduce yourself (age, location...) and tell us when you were most active in the Q1 community?
I'm a 24 year old single white male from the Netherlands, currently seeking a female to cyber with. Or, well, actually, never mind that.
Anyway, I was most active in the community from about 1998 'till 2004, I think. I have a bad memory for this sort of thing.

- How did you get involved in the community?
I got my first proper computer when I was about 14 years old, and a friend of mine gave me one of those CD's with lots of games on it. Among these games was Quake, and a library of mods. Some of these were very basic, like being able to have a chasecam and multiple skins, but I thought this was the coolest thing ever. Then, later on, I discovered this very site and it's tutorials and started working on my own stuff.

- What Q1 contributions are you best-known for?
Good question, I never really released anything impressive. People might remember the Kooliobot, based on Coffee's Tutorbot or the KoolGL engine. Apart from that I worked on stuff that never saw release. Things like Hurried Descent 2, an upgrade to Slide called Re-slide and a Counter-Strike clone.

- Do you still have a website/links where we could check out/rediscover your stuff?
Sadly, no. I used to have my own domain, called Planetkoolio.com, but that site's gone now. As far as I can remember there's nowhere else to see my stuff.

- Is there any unfinished (secret?) Q1 project in which you were involved and which you now wish you had completed? Describe it to us and tell us why!
Mostly Hurried Descent 2. This has always been a community favorite, as well as a personal favorite of mine. I actually have a Q2 version somewhere that's 90% done, with new maps and everything. I still intend on polishing it up sometime and releasing it, but I keep postponing it because I'm a massive slacker.

- What are you best memories about this community?
Mostly the friendship we all shared. I used to log onto the irc channel to hang with the guys, and spent many a happy summer just modding and chatting with the legends. I had a pretty good friendship with Akuma, who I sadly lost contact with. We used to have this in-joke that we were twins because we used to think exactly the same thing at the same time. Then there was Deej, Squirt, RenegadeC, FrikaC, scar3crow, Electro, CocoT, Coffee and many, many others that I used to chat with almost daily, be it on forums, icq or irc.

- When and why did you decide to slow down your contribution to the community (if you did)?
I initially took a break from coding for reasons I forgot, think I just got a bit tired from it. After a while I got back into it, worked on Hurried Descent 2 for the Q2 engine and even planned on releasing it for the QExpo. But then World of Warcraft came out, and I became so addicted that I've not done any more modding since. Which I regret in a way.

- How has Real Life © treated you so far?
It's been alright, though I've not done so well for myself as I had hoped. I'm hoping to get back to school soon though, I plan to become a graphics designer which is a bit of a stretch from modding but something I enjoy doing.

- Are you still playing Quake? Are you still trying out mods, maps and engines?
I've not checked out mods or engines for the past, what's it been, four years or so. Only recently did I download some stuff, transfer Q1 from my laptop to my normal PC and download Darkplaces to check some new stuff out. There's been lots of releases over the years that I've missed so I got quite some catching up to do.

- Has there been other games you have been playing a lot since you left the community (if you did)?
Mostly World of Warcraft. I played some other stuff, I enjoy co-op games on the Playstation 3 with a mate but otherwise I don't really play anything besides WoW.

- How would you describe the Q1 community right now? Is there any contribution that really impressed you in the last couple of years?
I'm really happy the community is still going strong, although I never expected anything less. It's cool to see old friends still working on new and exciting stuff, as well as seeing new faces. It's quite impressive how a game as old as this still has such a strong community behind it.
I can't really name any release that really impressed me, because as I've said, I've not been keeping a close eye on the community untill recently.

- How do you picture the future of the community? Do you (objectively) think that people will still be modding/mapping for it in, say, 10 years from now?
I honestly don't know. People have been predicting the end of this community ever since I joined it, almost ten years ago. I suspect some die hards will still be here in ten years time, but only time will tell.

- Is there the slightest chance you would consider be an active part of the community again? Or/and put up a booth for the next QExpo?
I don't think I'll ever be an active part of the community again as a modder. Maybe I'll get around to finishing HD2 for this year's QExpo, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

- Are you excited about QExpo 2008? Are there features (of any kind) that haven’t been part of former QExpo’s and which you would like to see in this one?
Of course! I'm excited to see what people have in store this time. I checked the last Expo out briefly, and there was some awesome stuff on there. Can't wait to see what this year has in store for us.

- What is the question you would have like to be asked (but weren’t), how would you have answered it and how pissed are you for me not thinking about it?
I think you got pretty much everything covered. At least I can't think of anything else you should have asked and should burn in hell for all eternity for forgetting to ask. So I think you're safe.

[CocoT]

...and don't forget Aqua Quake, too!

[Urre]

Also an interesting read, cool stuff!

Finish HD2 man! Descending kicks ass, especially in hurried form.

[Electro]

planetkoolio!

Ah the memories, another great interview causing me to have a stroll down memory lane.

Someone PLEASE upload all koolio's stuff to an archive