Q. What is your first computer or video gaming memory? (Answer!)
A. Playing the original Commander Keen trilogy. Those were the days.
Q. In real life, are you male or female? (Answer!)
Q. How many hours a week do you play? (Answer!)
Q. Where did you get your gaming names from? (Answer!)
A. I make mine up myself, and try to keep a standard between games. What started as 'Sentinel' was changed to 'East Sentinel', then to 'eaSentinel', then to 'aeSentinel', and now to 'Auguste' or 'Auguste Sentinel', depending on whether the game I'm playing is an FPS or an RPG.
Q. How do you feel about playing characters of the opposite sex? (Answer!)
A. I try to avoid it in games where you make your own character, such as MMORPGs, but in other (especially older) games where you have to choose a premade character, such as Cool Boarders 2 on PSX, I'll choose whichever character works best for me, no matter the sex (in this case it was Cindy).
Q. How do you feel about selling virtual items for real money? (Do NOT advertise RMT services!) (Answer!)
A. It doesn't particularly bother me. Sometimes I'm willing to shell out some real-life cash for something I'm too lazy to earn in-game and I don't frown upon others doing the same, however, I do frown upon people that share and sell their accounts to people outside of their real-life family.
Q. Why do you join guilds or clans? (Answer!)
A. Usually I do it just to socialise, swap tactics and techniques and have something to do when I'm not out at the killing fields. I rarely join guilds or clans specifically for competitive gameplay in MMORPGs, but games like Counter-Strike and Fury where competition is a large part of the game, this changes.
Q. What do you love or hate about PVP? (Answer!)
A. The things I love most about PVP is the adrenaline rush you get when you try to dodge incoming attacks and the way it brings a clan/guild together. Good PVP can't exist without teamwork, and I believe that's why so many people frown upon it.</p><p >There isn't anything I universally hate about PVP, but in games such as Tibia, where the death penalty is very large and it's easy to earn a bad reputation, it's really hard to find a good reason to kill somebody without being able to justify it to his/her friends later on.
Q. Do you feel relationships within games are meaningful? (Answer!)
A. Love? Maybe. Friendships? Without a doubt.
Q. When do you play, including timezone? (Answer!)
A. Usually from 3-6pm. Timezone is GMT+10
Q. What is the most memorable flamewar you can remember? (Answer!)
A. The week I spent trying to convince moderators of a forum that when I was posting links to programming tutorials, I wasn't encouraging members to hack the website. I ended up leaving.
Q. If you could meet any game developer, who would it be? (Answer!)
A. Probably the CipSoft staff, creators of the MMORPG Tibia. It's most likely my favorite game, even if I'm never extremely active on it.
Q. What do your characters and avatars usually look like? (Answer!)
A. Where possible, they represent myself to some extent. In games where you can't choose your appearance, my characters and avatars look like whatever I think the best class/character is for my play style, even if it's a woman.
Q. What is the most overlooked or misunderstood game? (Answer!)
A. I would have answered just Tibia, but after buying Fury and a Meridian 59 subscription, I have to say all three equally.</p><p >Tibia is widely regarded as a kid's game with poor graphics and no sound, when in fact, I'd argue that it's very complex and has one of the best PVP systems I've ever seen. I could praise Tibia for hours, but I've got a limit to the amount of characters I can write.</p><p >Fury got insanely bad reviews - Gamespot even gave it an abysmal 4.5/10. Anybody who writes a poor Fury review doesn't know what they're talking about. Fury is a PVP game. People buy it expecting to kill monsters, gain levels, and get high-quality spells that do two billion damage in one hit. The box clearly says it's exclusively a PVP game, not a WoW clone.</p><p >Meridian 59 is unbelievably overlooked. The graphics are dated, but Meridian paved the way for most current MMOs. The community is very dedicated and friendly, and the game boasts in-game email, forums, guilds and factions. Simply amazing.
Q. Do your quiz results on GamerDNA reflect your personality, and if not, what did it get wrong? (Answer!)
A. I feel Bartle test was quite accurate. It correctly shows my personality and tastes in gaming.
Q. Beside GamerDNA, what are your favorite websites? (Answer!)
A. Tibia's official website, the Skulltag forums, Xfire, Slashdot, Google Groups and, of course, my own website, #c0ffee and code.
Q. What sort of players annoy you the most? (Answer!)
A. The pre-pubescent teenagers that populate games like World of Warcraft, Runescape and Counter-Strike. Some people like to be able to play a game without being called a 'noob' every time they level up in a skill or hearing a high-pitched voice scream "Hacker!" over VoIP every time they get a headshot.</p><p >Seriously, I have quit more games because of six-year-olds claiming they can kick my ass in real life if I'm willing to buy them a plane ticket than any other reason.
Q. What are the specs on your gaming rig? (Answer!)
A. CPU: Pentium 4, 3.20GHz<br>RAM: 1.5GB<br>Hard Drive: 80GB internal, 160GB external<br>Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, 128MB<br>Operating System: Windows XP Pro SP2</p><p >I don't believe in buying the latest and greatest game just because all the stupid kids are playing it. I prefer older, more mature games with good communities, so I don't need good specs, although my computer's have undeniably improved over the past few months. My reason for this is wanting more speed, not to be able to play Bioshock.
Q. What are your most memorable achievements in a game? (Answer!)
A. Completely decimating three of my friends, all of whom are quite skilled at FPS', in a Doom deathmatch (via ZDaemon) at a LAN. They claim I cheated and that Doom sucks.</p><p >I repeated this again in the Quake III mod, Tremulous. Now they don't trust me when I tell them about a new game.
Q. What are your thoughts on player-made mods/addons for games? (Answer!)
A. Absolutely love them. Player-made WADs (maps, weapons, skins, etc for those who don't play Doom) is what has kept Doom alive all these years. It's also arguably a strong source of of inspiration for id Software, seeing as all their FPS' engines are released as open-source after several years.
Q. What sort of tools (calculators, builders, spreadsheets, etc.) do you use to plan your characters? (Answer!)
A. Usually just a bit of advice from players, or fan websites for information on starting stats and classes, but that's about it.
Q. If you made your own game, what would it be like? (Answer!)
A. I wouldn't make my own game, I'd buy out Tibia, Meridian 59, Ultima Online and Space Cowboy Online and hire a crew of staff to continue development while I guide them. The reason for this is to ensure these great games continue to survive, continue to be patched, continue to have new content and most importantly, continue to be played and loved.
Q. What are your favorite tabletop (RPG, board, miniatures, etc.) games? (Answer!)
A. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer: 40,000 are both great tabletop games. The amount of strategy that goes into both is amazing.
Q. What are your thoughts on roleplaying in games? (Answer!)
A. It depends on the game. In most older, traditional MMORPGs such as Tibia, Meridian 59 and RuneScape, roleplaying barely exists at all, as it doesn't match the environment of the game.</p><p >But in other, more immersive games like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online and even Ultima Online, roleplaying is much easier, as it's easy to become fully immersed in those worlds.
