Participants: Fallen Angel, Baudchaser Description: Baudchaser Interview Created On: Thursday, December 27, 2001 Q: How, why, and when did you get involved with Subspace? Baudchaser: A Rainy day in Georgia? Where I met Subspace? ... Actually I think I played it first back in ... hm... 1995 first... a friend of mine had discovered it, and handed the link to me. I tried it a few days, didn't really see the point of playing it - and forgot about it.. until a rainy day in 1996, when I was incredibly bored. And somehow I managed to find the game again... It had changed some, and for some reason it appealed to me this rainy day, and I kept uh... playing it for the next few years to come. Q: What was your name & the zones you flew. Baudchaser: I signed up as Baudchaser, as that has been my nickname ever since before Internet started to reach out to us mortals... And I tried most zones, most types available back then. SVS zones was the only thing available, super zones was something invented later. So while my Jurassic ass flew around in the SVS zones, I soon figured that Chaos Nevada was my place to be. I remember clearly I asked around how to make a squad. Help files was never my strong side, and once somebody managed to tell me how this squad could be made, I started to go around recruiting people who was hard to beat. I mean, in battle. I was pretty bad back then, but still I couldn't recruit anyone worse than me. So I ended up with some players on my squad, some of which I would use terms as "legendary" as of today... Skysweeper, Black Bart Smurf... Together we shaped up the squad Langoleers (misspelled name for Langoliers - after a Stephen King book with same title), who rocked Chaos Nevada for some time.... peaked at around 100 members... Fallen Angel: Whoa! That's a few members to manage! Baudchaser: We tried War Zone and King of the Hill too, but it never appealed to our talents as Cowboys... We never herded very well, so back to Nevada we went ;) 100 members isn't too much, if you have structure and discipline... We didn't... Fallen Angel: LoL. Cool sounds like you owned Chaos Nevada for a long time. =) Baudchaser: We owned it totally for some time yes... Though, it all went boring after some time. The reason we made this squad was to bash the other "tough" squads, those who could pose some threat to our lives as cowboys... Let me see... Smurfs, Ministers... But we all became their friends after a while, no more fun ;) Q: What initially inspired you to start doing work for the Subspace community? Baudchaser: I really didn't want to get myself into the community, I just wanted to setup a nice server for us people in the squad. A server where we could fight without any assholes around, where we could get rid of lame ass tricks as minerepping. So that's what I did, I setup a server and me, Skysweeper and a few of the squaddies designed a war-type of zone where there was no specials... only bullets and bombs. A special small type of map ensured there was a lot of action all the time, and before I even knew it - we had 70 people playing simultaneously in rush hours, choking the bandwidth of my host back then... And a big coincidence wanted more things to happen, it proved that Telecom Finland (now Sonera) wanted to setup a Scandinavian Subspace server, which they had more or less given up the idea of now when I had a successful server in Norway. So I just happened to start talking to these guys at Sonera, and we agreed they'd provide me hardware and bandwidth, I'd build the server/zone concepts and get things rolling. And at the very same time, VIE US started to tremble, rumors of buyouts and what not started to shake our community pretty hard... Poor old Blackie did whatever he could to keep the community alive and kicking as long as he could, and for what he dared to do without putting himself in a bad position, but all in vain... the VIE US servers were shut down at some point, and suddenly the servers I hosted with Sonera was the only serious set of high performance servers left around... So all of a sudden I had like thousands of people looking in my direction, "Yo, what now?" ... I didn't really like this, because Subspace was already taking up too much time. And having a big expansion plan emerging in the horizon, wasn't what I really wanted to spend my spare time with over the next foreseeable future months. But oh well, I had started it - so I just had to keep it up. It was fun after all, even if my personal and business life suffered from this time consuming "hobby"... Fallen Angel: That must have been scary to realize that you had the whole future of Subspace in your hands at that point. It sounds like Subspace might actually have died without your contributions during this time? Baudchaser: I wasn't really scared about it, except that it already took too much time... And I slowly realized that the fun of playing, the magic, disappeared as days went by... Before, I always saw people taking tremendous amounts of hits without dying, but I always thought there was a reason for it... that this reason was part of the magic in the game. Now when I suddenly started to spend more time as sysop for the zones, I slowly realized that these things were merely a result of aged and partly bad written code. I realized that lag was, at this point, more a matter of the routing in between people playing, than the speed of your connection, and the ping you had in between those players. Some people had a distinct advantage all the time while playing, while others had a distinct disadvantage. And my own perception of the game as "magic" where people could build their skills by practice and hard work, disintegrated into a "build skills and get a lucky set of routers"... lag never bothered me before, until the day I started to realize this factor. So while I slowly lost interest in the game, it took more and more time off my hands and I had less and less interest in maintaining the servers, listening to the always-bitchy community, who never had anything but complaining, and whining to do come up with... apart from the regular percentage of ass-kissers who is present in ever aspect of every community you can find, digital or analog. There are people who say that the game would have died if it weren't because of me.... I beg to differ, I don't think the game would have died, but I believe it would have continued in a bit more decentralized form and shape, a bit more disorganized - and definitely without proper backing for the centralized billing server. The strength and fundament of Sonera I believe was partly the reason people gained confidence in the servers I set up, hence they dared to spend their valuable spare time playing... Q: What was the toughest job for you regarding your role in subspace and what was your most rewarding accomplishment? Baudchaser: The toughest job was indeed to keep my own motivation up, as I saw the commercial backbone of Subspace disintegrated in front of my eyes the day VIE US was bought up, and the purchaser didn't have any idea or strategy of continuing the game. My own motivation was partly money and partly the game play itself, but as there was no money - and the fun of game play itself ceased to exist, I needed to find other sources of motivation. (Which I didn't find.) The most rewarding accomplishment, I'm not sure as of today. I guess some of the people I learned to know through this game, some of them quite unique. People I would probably never have met if it weren't for Subspace. And my experience in maintaining a community also triggered the start of GameAddicts Network, which I started with my co-responsible for the Sonera Subspace servers, SuperFly... This website and the network concept also triggered a career boost for me, so I guess all in all these factors seen as one would be the most rewarding accomplishment... Q: I understand that you were the creator of the first Subspace Council. Tell me about how the Subspace council was built? What area(s) of Subspace did you support within the council? As one of the first leaders of this community, what was your vision for the future of Subspace when you created the council? Baudchaser: I realized that my role in the community was quite unique, and that I was left alone with more or less all the responsibilities and power. I've never believed in having the sole power of something that affects this many people, even if it's "just a game." So I tried, at an early point, to delegate this responsibility to more people, people which I could cooperate and talk to, and people who could, so to speak, control me whenever and if I did something I shouldn't have done. I'm quite temperamental by nature, and since I spent all this time and resources for, with no commercial interests, limiting my temper, I decided that having other people around would help to make sure the community always saw the better parts of the game. Fallen Angel: That sounds like an intelligent way of balancing everyone's contributions so that not just one person dictates the future of the game. It takes a mature and wise person to know how to temper their own strengths and build on their own weaknesses to the benefit of the community. Not many people are willing to sacrifice their needs/egos for the better of the whole community. I think that separates the true "leaders" from the rest. Baudchaser: So the SS Council was initiated and established by me, with a few of the valuable people who already had a role in the community. It was basically meant to be only a few people, I think originally we had 6 onboard... representatives from the most important zones. Later on somebody else took over the council idea, and stuffed it full with all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons, at one point I had the idea there was more people on the council than actually playing the game. ;) Q: That's interesting. I don't believe anyone really knows much about the original council. What was your vision for the future of Subspace when you created the council? Baudchaser: The council's main role was to give the game some sort of power balance, making sure no people (like me) could go on an Ego trip making things go bad, a collection of people who could easily re-establish zones incase hosts went down, or sysops went sour... My allover vision of Subspace was just as primitive, let people play and have fun, but keep a democratic-dictatorship type of government ... don't ask, I cant really explain what I mean about a "democratic dictatorship", but I know it works. ;) I always wanted to keep up the development of the game. I still believe, even today, that this game could be the greatest multiplayer game ever. I am also sure, even if today's community would resist heavily, that the game could go pay-for-play and get a commercial backbone sporting servers worldwide, gaining a community and a population bigger than we ever saw before. That was my vision back then, and that's the only thing which could ever tempt me to go back to the game as an active part again... Q: Did your visions come true, did they fail, or exceed your expectations? Baudchaser: My visions didn't come true, both because I gave those visions up, and I realized there was other communities where I could spend my time, and where I could build my own business more successfully. I do believe people like Priitk has a fair chance of taking the(ir) game into a commercial stage, thus bringing my visions to where I wanted it to go back then. However, it wouldn't really be "my" visions, it would be theirs... Q: Do you have anything to tell us regarding the council today? Your over- view of it's function? Baudchaser: I really don't know much about today's council. But I believe the people who has the real power and the real influence, aren't active on the council's premises. It's quite simple. There is a small bunch of people who owns Continuum, I believe it's two or three of them, while the council is represented by probably 20-30 people (if not more, I honestly don't know). I believe that the "true" council as of today, is not the ones who calls themselves the SS Council, but PriitK and his group of people, doing the actual work to keep the game alive... Lets take an example, how many people in the council would be able to actually stop PriitK if he decides to get the game going commercial wise? I don't think there is such a person, hence the council and its role is more a collection of people who have bandwidth and zone concepts, but no real power to affect anything but choosing whether or not their bandwidth should go to hosting pr0n movies, or a subspace zone. Bandwidth and hardware can easily be replaced, the program code, graphics and so forth can not. Fallen Angel: The council has stated they are nothing but an e-mail group. Baudchaser: If the SS Council states they are an e-mail group, then I guess that's close as you get to the truth... Fallen Angel: I see. That's quite an insight that I believe needs to be said by a person who was so integral in this game. Q: You mentioned GameAddicts earlier in our interview. I visited the site recently and notice a great new look. =) Tell us more about your site and where you are heading with it. Baudchaser: I've always been quite interested in online communities... digital communities. I started back in 1993 with phone-to-phone connection community systems, permitting people to be online, exchanging messages, mail and chat with each other. They could just as well play games, with high scores etc. As I realized internet came around to stay, I started to develop my own competence for bigger communities, in particular the ones revolving games. I always felt that the web part of Subspace were neglected, and I did not back then have the competence, time, or resources to develop this on my own. So I decided to start a little test project, www.gamehacker.com, which I registered just for the hell of it. The name was just too good to let go. I started some community message boards for Subspace, the "Subspace Gazette" news site, and a infantry site too. Just to see if I could make the web part of these games better for the players. As time went by, we decided to make this site a more generic one, and the Subspace / Infantry look and feel were slowly abandoned, and we started to recruit people who didn't really have a clue of what those two games were. And even if we do host parts of the Subspace community forums now, we have no plans of getting further involved with Subspace, unless somebody comes up with a clear business strategy for doing such. Fallen Angel: I really like the new look at GameAddicts. It is very well put together and the schematics are pleasing. Baudchaser: Our plan with GameAddicts for the future, is to remain independent, provide news, articles, and journalistic material involving all kinds of games, and eventually participate in developing our own games, or parts/modules of such, where we can have direct influence on the final results. I've seen by far too many promising games go down under simply because too many people without competence and know how have been sticking their fingers into areas they shouldn't. Q: I know from continued contact with a lot of old-school players that they are concerned with the lack of respect within the community today. The council supports their own interests and is not interested in giving any guidelines as to bans, etc. Quite a few of these old players asked me to inquire as to your opinions of then versus now and what you think might help this concern. Baudchaser: I seem to recall from way back that a few persons I obviously do not wish to name at this point, got onboard the council for the wrong reasons. I also happen to know that quite a few of the people on the council have far better copycat skills than creative skills, a factor which seen alone is not very important, but seen as a part of a person's development into a position as he has today, on the council, might clear up a few things. Some people are more concerned of getting a well known name, becoming famous so to speak, somewhere. Preferably in a game they like and spend time in. Some people do things for commercial profit (I'm one of them), some people do things to gain fame and glory - either way, you might call it a reward. I've experienced the fame and glory in Subspace, although I never really cared much for it... actually this fame and glory -effect was affecting my will and ability to play a good game in a negative way, since I could no longer use my beloved nickname to play. And, of course, the Billy The Kid effect, just imagine how many kids came to gun-duel me. It was quite boring. But I believe some of the people who are on the council today, are there more for the title "Member of Subspace Council" - than a sincere will to actually change things for the better. I also believe some of the people on the council are there for all the wrong reasons, and I'd like this to be taken as a general comment rather than criticism versus single individuals. I don't know in which form the council operates today, but as I see it, there is no need for a council, what is needed, is a few people surrounding PriitK and his small team, who can manage and control the community in a strict, but fair, way. Democracy does not really work in any aspect of a society, there is always 30% of the people who don't get what they want. ;) So how could it ever work in a game like Subspace? :P Fallen Angel: Understood. My thanks for your insight. Q: Give us your words of wisdom for the benefit of our younger members in the community that are interested in becoming staff and doing more for SS or their zones. (How do they get in on a ground level and climb the ladder? Qualifications, attributes you would look for in your staff, etc.) Baudchaser: There are no golden answers of how to get anywhere. The only viable option to get anywhere in today's Subspace, would be either to assist PriitK and his team in developing the game, and that means do things they haven't covered already. I believe they've got most things covered, but ... getting somewhere in the council shouldn't be very hard, I assume starting by kissing the right asses would give you a flying start. It also seems like most people (current sysops) think its enough to have high speed bandwidth and fast server hardware to start a server/zone, but I'd say the whole game has way too much of that already. Too few people think creative, and those who do - rarely succeed. Too many people are copying each others concepts, modifying it a slight bit, and then launch it as something brand new... keeps the players rotating between the zones, but rarely brings something new to the community. There is too few people trying to actually build new concepts, invent new zones that challenge other things than just a quick trigger finger and luck. There is an ocean of things to do, an ocean of concepts to be found, which not only could prove successful, but also help getting some new spirit and fresh blood back into the game. Once upon a time I created a concept named "Death Star Battle". That's a very long time ago. How many new and successful concepts have come online after this time? Maybe a few, but I still believe the ones doing good - but geeez so old - are Extreme Games, Death Star Battle and Trench Wars... add a few more, and then we have the whole list. If you want to get anywhere today, bring something new to the game rather than polishing and tweaking already existing concepts. Prove that you're better than the rest, don't talk about it - just do it. And your Subspace career should soon be on its way. ;) About attributes and what I look for? Well, I look for people that don't give a damn about kissing ass, who are mature enough to stand up and think for themselves, make their own decisions, and stake out their own path - as well as being interested in the bigger goals rather than just their own personal ones... Q: Where do you see the Subspace community in the future and What is the most important thing you would like to say about Subspace and the community at large? Baudchaser: I'd wish for PriitK to go commercial with the game, inevitably saying, some of the current players would drop the game simply because they don't want to pay a dime for their entertainment. But as I see it, social welfare is a government issue, and not something companies should worry about. And the future that opens up if the game could get some commercial backing, is by far more worth than a handful of freeloaders who believes it's their god given right to be entertained for free. I can count a few thousand hours I've spent keeping this game alive, and I can only imagine how much PriitK and his team have spent. I believe its time to get the game organized and commercialized in a way that can secure many new players, many new zone concepts, a lot of new spirit and somebody to take responsibility of keeping the game fair for all parts to play. Q: I have heard from members of the community that if Subspace/Continuum went commercial that they would be forced into hacker groups to obtain hacked versions of the commercial version. Is this something that happens more or less when a game goes commercial? Baudchaser: Nope... pay for play. People need valid accounts server side, as in all (or at least most) online games. You pay $xx to play per month, per year or something like that. You purchase or download a client, which will not have full functionality until you have a "full" and paid for account on the server. These hacker groups could hack all they wanted, it wouldn't help. ;) What's the point of a hacked client - when the server controls everything. ;) You will automatically get rid of most the whiners, you'll get first class servers/bandwidth for the game, and the people who runs the game/community will have other motivation than pure personal ones (which is indeed not anywhere near truth today)... The game is kept alive because its free, but at the same time that's what stops it's evolution, and inevitably what will kill it as time goes by. Fallen Angel: I really appreciate your time today in interviewing with me. Baudchaser: Hm... :P ... I did promise didn't I, although it took a lot too much time before I could actually get there. Fallen Angel: I think it is very important for our community to hear your insights. Thank you again.