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The Dobbs Interview |
contributed by "Mr. Ska" and "Black Raven" |
Hello! trying to loven up a seemingly dead section, I've decided to add to the interviews page; bringing the grand total to 2! With the new "Asxhun" beta on all of the servers, I thought it would be fitting to do an interview with the man in charge of [GENO]; Dobbs. He's in close contact with the coders, and they are obviously planning something very special with their mod.
In case you don't know, Axshun is the future of Action Quake. The A-Team had moved on to Action Half-Life, and [GENO], a popular Action Quake clan, decided to take matters into their own hands. Fireblade and Zucchini, the two coders at the helm of Axshun, took and modified the Quake2 server .dll, starting from the ground-up. They fixed all of the bugs in version 1.1b2, and is now playing on 3 beta servers. The A-team was a bit perterbed when they first found out, but a peace summit between the two coding factions quickly boiled down to a resolution; [GENO] gets the code, and the A-Team gets veto rights.
So as of now, [GENO] are the folks in charge of the changes. They will be giving much more power to the server ops, releasing more server variables for the ops' to control. This new versions ensure the future of our beloved mod, and all without the annoyance of a long download.
Note: Zucchini proof-read this interview and added a few comments later. I apologize for any inconvienience.
Why don't you tell us who you are, how old you are, where
you live, and what you do for a living.
I'm 22 years old and I live in New Hampshire. I, of course, work in the computer arena, doing consulting and testing for a local company.
When did you and [GENO] think up Axshun, and who's idea was it?
Well, basically the idea for Axshun was conceived I think around the September/October months. We were tired of AQ's constant crashing, bugginess, and the like. So Fireblade and Zucchini thought it would be cool to code their own mod, using the AQ graphics and models. The idea was to have it be essentially the same as AQ, but since it was coded from the ground up, minus the bugs.
Zucchini: I believe I started Axshun in October. I was tired of the
crash bugs that plagued actionquake and I wanted to learn about the Quake2
architecture. I decided to begin implementing the actionquake weapons and
items. At about the time I'd completed implementing most of the weapons
and core features of actionquake, Fireblade offered to help me by doing
the teamplay code. This was right after he proposed on the actionquake
messageboard that the actionquake source be released. He got a strong
rejection to that idea from the A-Team so he was enthusiastic about
working on what would become Axshun.
Do you foresee any further tinkering with the weapons, or do you see .95 as being the final edition of the weapons changing?
It is possible that certain things may change, in the interest of game balance. However, as things stand right now, Fireblade and Zucchini have modified the weapon/damage and spreads to the exact Action Quake specifications. There are a couple notable exceptions: The shotgun is approximately 10-15% more powerful. We felt that was needed in order to make it a viable weapon. Spreads are the same.
Zucchini: Unlikely, other than the aforementioned change to the shotgun
On the subject of grenades, do you feel that their addition to teamplay is a positive step in gameplay?
I personally feel that grenades in teamplay are bad. I know that Zucchini also feels the same way. I'm not sure what Fireblade thinks. However, we decided that we should leave it up to the server ops and their players to decide what THEY want, not for us to dictate our terms and conditions to them. I feel that grenades in teamplay take away some of the skill of the game; I want people to have to WORK in order to kill me, not just nab me with a grenade.
Zucchini: Since the code is going to be released we have to acknowledge
the fact that anything we don't like and refuse to do can be done by
someone else. In that light I think it is in the best interest of the
community for us to do the modification in a standard way that makes them
easy to filter for with a server browser. At least for simple features,
like grenades in teamplay, multiple weapon/item usage, and weapon banning.
What about irvision?
Heh. The irvision is Zucchini's doing. Basically it was coded as a direct response to Cail saying that infra-vision in AQ was "impossible to do". I think it is good for teamplay and gives the bandolier a much needed boost, but I don't use it myself.
Zucchini: Cail was essentially correct with the information that he had,
only with the release of Quake 3.20 was infra-vision possible. I just
took advantage of a new feature in the engine.
What about the multi-team support?? How is that going to work?
Well, basically its pretty simple. Instead of having the ability to join 2 teams, there will be 3 choices. Or 4. It all depends on what the server op sets. I don't imagine that many will deviate from the standard 2 team setup, but at least they'll have the option. For example, if there are is a lot of clan representation on a server, maybe they want to have a mini "clan war" or something. It's all about flexibility.
Is [GENO] playing any role in the coding of AHL or AQ3?
No. We will continue to support AQ as long as it remains viable and popular. Essentially, Zucchini and Fireblade have been handed the AQ source to maintain. The A-Team will retain creative control in some areas, though they haven't said much since they turned it over to us...
How many more versions until the official release, I know a lot of serverops are dying to get their hands on the .dll
As many as it takes, and as long as it takes. :) We realize that a lot of people are clamoring to finally crash-proof their servers, but we really have enough beta-test servers at the moment. You can usually find the latest code on Zucchini or Fireblade's server(s). They update and work on the code every day, which is a lot more frequent than it was being worked on before...
Zucchini: Fireblade and I are working as quickly as we can to fix critical
bugs in order to get 1.5 ready. Our goal is for there to be no bugs in
the game that significantly impact gameplay, in fact we have fixed every
bug we know about.
Will all of these releases be server-side only?
Yes, they will all be server side.
Any time frame we can be looking forward to?
If I had to estimate time, I would probably say you'd see the new AQ 1.5 within a month, perhaps a month in a half. But staggered new features will be released in each "update" of Axshun. For example, in .95, it is grenades in teamplay. Next up is weapons banning -- the ability to have an all handcannon or all knive match.
In the future, will Geno create another mod, in the same vein as axshun, but for Q3A or another FPS??
We have thought about doing something for Q3A, yes. And yes, if we do, it will kick ass. :) By that time, I should have some programming/modelling skills under my belt to actually help with the "real work". With Axshun, I just playtest and offer my opinions on what should/shouldn't be changed. We will never, on the other hand, make anything for Half Life. We believe its time in the sun is truly short lived.
Fireblade has expressed concerns that AHL is essentially a no-go, can you elaborate more on that?
Well, he and I are pretty much of the same mindset on that issue. I made a post before on the AQ board and got about 100+ followups on it, starting the whole bitter war between me/Bartender/Suislide. I basically thought the AHL had no future, what with TF2 and Q3A coming soon. Given the crappy net code of Half Life, and the current buggy state of AQ2, it just made no sense in my mind to begin work on another mod when their previous one was nowhere near complete. A complete product to me means that the bugs and play balance are at an acceptable level. IMO, they were not 2 months ago. People will give you the "you have no right to complain about a free mod" argument, but that doesn't really hold any water with me. I think that if you play a mod and enjoy it, it naturally follows that you would want it to be better and have it be the absolute best it could be.
Any very dramatic new changes in-store for us in the near future?
Dramatic new changes... lets see... Well the main things we're thinking about doing now are: 1) Weapons banning 2) Multi-team support 3) Improved scoring and statistics (kills, deaths, damage inflicted, damage taken, etc.) 4) Many MANY more server side options and variables
What about zbot protection as in BW-Admin??
As far as I know, Axshun is fully BW-Admin compatible. Fool Killer's Paradise runs BW-Admin and Axshun in conjunction with no problems. In my opinion, everyone should use BW-Admin.
What is the final goal for axshun (and no "to make it as good as we can" I want a vision here :)
I see Axshun essentially "balancing" everything out so we all have a fun, playable game. And adding some of the things that we have on the Genocide MUD (coded by Fireblade) into AQ.
Okay, thanks a lot Dobbs!
No problem. Thanks for having me. And uhh, where can i see this again? :)
So, that's it folks! Hope you enjoyed this addition to the Pro Shop; expect more changes soon!
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