| TM Interview Project - eyebo | 11 Oct, 2013 |
| wormi | (16 comments, 3325 views) |
This time we have someone who is said to be one of the friendliest faces over TM - and especially TMX/MX. Let's keep this intro short – it's eyebo! You can find more infomation about the project here. Now, let's begin! -- 1. Could you tell us something about yourself? My given name is Rollins. I'm 32 years old. I grew up in Colorado, and have lived in Kansas for the past 17 years. I love it here. I have many interests outside of TrackMania. I love the outdoors, cycling, camping, hiking, reading, listening to music, and I'm trying to make time to learn piano. I'm also an avid videographer and photographer, a student of the Bible, and I'm proud to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm also a very curious person by nature, so I often find myself investigating new subjects, reading a book about it or researching it online. 2. How and when did you find Trackmania? In 2006 a friend of mine was looking for a free racing game we could play together over LAN. He discovered TM Nations ESWC. We played the campaign tracks together quite a few times and had a lot of good laughs. I played off and on for the rest of 2006, but never online. I didn't know TMX existed, and I never opened the editor. In late 2007 I bought a copy of TM United. Shortly before the Forever update was released in 2008 I discovered TMX. I mention TMX because I doubt I would have kept playing if it hadn't been for my discovery of the site. 3. Is there anything in Trackmania you haven't been into yet? I've never been into the coding side of things, building controllers and plugins, manialinks, etc. I've also never been into 2D skinning or 3D modeling. Of the aforementioned things, 2D skinning is probably the only thing I'm likely to try in the future. 4. Valley is still such a new environment. What do you think about it? I love it! It's beautiful, which lends itself well to video making. It's also fun to drive and build in. The blocks would be somewhat interesting by themselves, but with the inclusion of objects it makes it one of the best environments to build in! 5. What is your favorite environment, if you need to pick one? Why? Island. It's the environment where I've had the most adrenaline filled moments in TM. And Island has seen some of the most incredible tracks over the years. To me Island embodies what TrackMania is all about: Crazy tracks, incredible creativity, and speeeeed. 6. Which maps are your favorite, name max one per environment. Desert - does size still matter? by tmjonas I'm a huge fan of so-called endurance tracks. Desert is one of the best environments for endurance tracks, and this track is foremost among them. Very creative and very fun to drive. tmjonas is one of my favorite builders, in any environment. But his Desert tracks are really something special. Rally - Bushido by KiWiNiNjA It's like a jigsaw puzzle of blocks, perfectly fitted together. I've driven it for years and still never tire of it. Mistral World Selection regulars will know it well as it was a favorite among many players. Snow - Nemesis² by Rax There's dozens of amazing transitional tracks in Snow that could easily top my list. But the simplicity and edge of your seat madness of this old Snow track from 2004 is hard to beat. Coast - Believe it by Medina One of the most unique Coast tracks I've driven. Bay - Paradoxe by DidyZ There's been so many incredible Bay tracks, it's hard to pick just one. DidyZ is a master of tight techy Bay tracks, and this track is one of my favorites. Island - NeverStopMeForever by NitroGuY This environment is literally saturated with incredible tracks by authors with mindblowing skills. To pick a single track is extremely hard. This track is up there with the best of them though. Stadium - The Labyrinth III by eie It's possibly the easiest RPG in Stadium. I've driven it more than just about any other Stadium track, so I guess it must be my favorite! Canyon - FunFiction by s'habba.hu Awesome transitions and a great flow. And a great scenery style. I just love s'habba's maps. And this is one of my favorites. Valley - Bat Fight! by pfm The first track in a long time that had me literally laughing out loud. It's very well made, and the theme is great! 7. Which is the best map of your own maps ever? My last track, Carpathia. I spent a lot of time on it and I'm very happy with the diversity I managed to pull off. 8. Trackmania has some people who have had more influence to it than others. Who is the most important community member to you? I'd say MrA is the most important community member, in that he's been a key person to keep TMX and MX going all these years. As far as influence goes, I think the entire team who has worked on Dedimania deserves huge credit, especially Xymph and slig, who continue to work to maintain the service and keep it free from cheaters. I can't imagine TM without Dedimania, and I doubt most people realize just how important it has become to TM. If they haven't done it lately, I encourage your readers to donate to show their appreciation, and to keep Dedimania going into the future. It's of course important to donate to MX too, but I'm guessing that most people probably do that already. 9. You also have a server or two in TM. Tell us about them. I used to have a Canyon server called "eyebo's LowFat Track Cafe". I hosted tracks with an AT between 35secs and 1:20. I was extremely critical about the quality of tracks that were allowed on the server. I also ran a Valley server during the first few weeks after the release. It was called "eyebo's Hidden Valley Ranch". At first I was adding every new Valley track that came out. Later, I spent several days revamping the track list to include only tracks that I really loved, regardless of difficulty level. Both servers are down until further notice. I just don't have a lot of time to maintain them anymore. Some years ago I also ran several servers in TMUF. Most famous of these was "eyebo's TestZone". Many fun times were had there. It was a place I could try out new tracks by other authors. I'd often load up several thousand tracks from TMX at a time and work my way through them. Authors would join and ask me try out their tracks. It became sort of a backup server for TMX PlayPal Online. Many of the same people would play on both. At one point I was hosting over 15 TMUF servers from my home PC. Half the USA servers in TMUF were mine. Most were of course hosted for other people, for free. One of the most popular was probably "BOF Freeroam". 10. You're a moderator and admin on TMX sites. What is your work as a TMX moderator? It feels like I've done a little of everything. Admin on TMX PlayPal Online, hosting TMX Knockout competitions, taking care of PMs to the moderators, resolving account issues, warning cheaters, moving forum topics, selecting tracks for front page showcases, hosting the MTCs, judging BASCO, approving track packs, selecting new tracks for Classic Leaderboard, and generally helping wherever something needed to be done. And as Site Leader on TMX I've added new moderators to the team. 11. Since TM2 released, there has been a lot talk about Nadeo splitting the community and so on. What do you think, is the community more split than before? I would say the attention of players is more split than in the past. Truth is, we used to all play TMF. There was some separation between the Nations and United sides of TMF, but generally we were all together in virtually the same game. Shared environment, shared servers. Yeah, there was TMO, TMS, and TMN before. Were players split between those and TMUF? No, because TMUF more or less obsoleted them, since it contained the environments of those old games. But TM2 did not obsolete TMUF. So people still want to play TMUF. I think if there were more players in every game, no one would even be focusing on this split of the player base. But the diminishing player counts has to be blamed on something, and so it's partially blamed on this. I think there's many other factors at play though. I still have faith that Nadeo will work things out in the end. And we have to keep a positive attitude too. No matter how you look at it, these are still some of the most fun games in existence. 12. Have you built maps for leagues or tournaments or driven in them? I've built maps for MK3, TMX KOs, GEEX 2011, Zotac Cup, PMC, and TGC2. Building tracks for competitions is one of the most rewarding endeavours for a track builder, because you know your track will be played a lot, and by some of the best drivers in the game. I've driven in PMC, CMC, Zotac Cup, TGC1, SL6, UL6, UL7, TMX KOs, and some other competitions. 13. Your top 3 websites, games, songs & movies. Websites: 1. jw.org 2. wikipedia.org 3. youtube.com Games: 1. TrackMania United Forever 2. Descent 3. Need For Speed Porsche Unleashed Songs: 1. Julian Kruse - These Roads 2. BT - Skylarking 3. Hiatus - Still Movies: 1. Lonesome Dove 2. Dances With Wolves 3. Sneakers 14. What is your favorite drink? Strawberry Lemonade 15. Describe yourself with four words. Curious Amiable Perceptive Steadfast 16. Are you that much in the community in other games? No. 17. What skins do you use while playing? TM2 Canyon: MX Canyon by MrMim TM2 Valley: MX Valley by MrMim (manialink: unc-crew) TM2 Stadium: StadiumCar 2.0B MP by xrayjay Desert: DesertHD Yuke's by boom. Rally: Alpine GT 1973 by peper Snow: Hdsnow Volcom by boom. Island: Mirror's Edge by Rayden Coast: Shelby GT500 Red Stripe by kev717 Stadium: Carbon Blue v2 by |AcE| Bay: I alternate between: Quiksilver Blue HD by boom. and BeatTheTown by :PeecTur: 18. If you have something else to say, please write it here. Thanks for the interview! And keep up the good work! Thanks for your answers eyebo, I'll try! Cya next time! 
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| Superal.nc writes ... | 11, Oct, 2013 |
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Such a great interview, the first one I read and certainly not the last one!
Keep up the good work, both you wormi and eyebo! 
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