Defeat in Detail 2
Starship Troopers : Rival Species
- Could you, for the new members here, briefly introduce yourself (age, location...) and tell us when you were most active in the Q1 community?
Sure. I'm Barny "MauveBib" Skinner, formerly known as Skinski. I'm a 24 year old from the UK of GB and NI, and I'm a Leo. I was heavily active in the community between 1998 and 2005, though with some year long gaps in places.
- How did you get involved in the community?
I first played Quake on my school network. My IT teacher was a big FPS fan, and we'd been playing Doom on it for years. Quake was a real wake up call; the true 3d nature of it totally blew me away.
Then, one day in around '97 I got a cover disc from PC Something-or-other magazine, which contained 3 quake mods; Air Quake, QRally and Quess. I was shocked when playing these mods to realise just how much could be done with the quake engine, and I guess that led to my obsession with making games that were nothing like Quake, but using the Quake engine.
I then started messing around in QC, making a multi-weapons mod, and my brother Harb starting making maps, and things spiraled from there, and the Electronic Liberation Front was born, initially with several of my school friends who were also interested in Quake at the time.
- What Q1 contributions are you best-known for?
Defeat in Detail is probably my most famous work, though it's one of the mods I'm least happy with, as I left it far from complete. Still, it was released circa 98, making it one of the first ever fully 3d RTS games. I'm still pretty proud of that.
My other two RTS games, Starship Troopers: Rival Species and DiD2, got a little less attention despite being much more finished in form.
- Do you still have a website/links where we could check out/rediscover your stuff?
Sure. My website, the embarrassingly named Electronic Liberation Front, is still up at http://elf.planetquake.gamespy.com
- 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!
Oh, so many! From the TF bots Frika and I chatted about, to Malefic, the epic cross-genre game that never got beyond the planning phase, my Quake career has been filled with unfinished projects.
I have so many techdemos, half baked ideas and fully fledged mods one step from completion that I couldn't even begin to list them.
Having said that, many of the ideas from Malefic may well make their way into a game I'm currently planning, though probably not on the Quake engine.
- What are you best memories about this community?
Running the Qexpo in '05 was just the pinnacle of my Quake experience, and also led directly to my exhaustion and semi-retirement from modding.
Apart from that, the huge number of silly chats I've had with people over the years, the friends I've made and the fun I've had makes it impossible to pick a single moment.
- When and why did you decide to slow down your contribution to the community (if you did)?
As I previously mentioned, running the '05 Qexpo, while simultaniously struggling to get DiD2 into a playable state drained me. After the Qexpo I decided to take some time off, and I've only drifted back occasionally since then. I have occasional bouts of Quake based energy, where I log back in here, log on to #qc and get programming, but they rarely last more than a week.
- How has Real Life © treated you so far?
Pretty mixed. I'm between careers right now (it's far more epic than being between jobs), and I haven't been as successful professionally as I'd like, but I'm also a very relaxed and happy person. I may not be earning huge money, but I'm enjoying myself and my freedom, and taking the opportunity to travel and broaden my horizons.
I'm actually writing this from Philadelphia. I'm spending 3 months traveling around the states, just chilling and enjoying myself, and that's really the kind of lifestyle I love.
P.S. If any US based Quakers fancy meeting up and can offer me a couch for the night I'd be delighted to stop by
- Are you still playing Quake? Are you still trying out mods, maps and engines?
As I said before, I go through Quake spells. Every couple of months I go crazy, downloading and trying everything in sight, and working on my various projects. Then I get distracted by something else and forget all about it for a while.
- Has there been other games you have been playing a lot since you left the community (if you did)?
Not really. I'm actually not that big of a gamer, I always got more of a rush from modding than playing mods. I have been hitting the Guitar Hero a bit too hard of late, and I definately need to cut back on that. I don't let myself play RPGs, epecially online ones, or I won't see the light of day for months.
I'm kind of enjoying making a balance between gaming and real life fun.
- How would you describe the Q1 community right now? Is there any contribution that really impressed you in the last couple of years?
To be honest, I'd say the Quake community is struggling. I'm not going to sugar coat the pill, I think it's on the way out. Most modders have retired, even if they still hang out and chat, and serious releases are pretty rare these days, and tend to get ignored for some reason anyway.
I still love Quake as a platform to express myself, but beyond that there's not much left except a great bunch of guys I still enjoy spending time with. Maybe that's enough, I don't know.
- 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 think one or two people will probably still be modding, sure, but I doubt if there'll be much of a community left. With so little modding going on I'm not sure the community will be able to hold together.
- 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?
Absolutely, I don't consider myself to have left the community, just taken a sideline. I still check in from time to time, and even put out the occasional release. Qexpo wise, I'm going to have to pass on this one due to my travels. It's a shame, since I do have a great release nearly ready, but it's 3000 miles away, and not uploaded. It'll just have to wait until I get back in September, but I promise I'll release it as soon as it's done.
- 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?
I'd love to see Qexpo become sort of a Quake Facebook, with the ability to add comments to booths, and so forth. As I said, I'm not going to be around much during Qexpo, but I will check in from time to time and will definately check up on all the releases when I return.
- 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 would like to have been asked my eye colour (green), but I'll let you off......
.....this time.
