Exclusive DarkUnderlord Interview

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Thu May 28, 2009 3:59 pm

[ Person -> Interview ] - News related to <a href="http://www.duckandcover.cx/archives.php ... ry=38">Top Story: DAC Super Exclusive</a>

I have interviewed DarkUnderlord (past caretaker of DAC) and he responded;1. How did you get started in the community?
I'd just finished this game called Fallout only not the way I
wanted to. I was playing a speech guy but couldn't get into that Glow
place so ended up just running and gunning the rest (epic battle with
the Gun Runners - me with crappy armour and a dodgey rifle taking on
all of them in full combat armour and lazers). I decided to see if
getting into the Glow was some kind of trick I was missing so I googled
it. Found this black and green website called NMA where someone
mentioned "the beam in the crater". For the life of me I swore I'd
moused over every inch of that mother-fucking beam, re-loaded my
Fallout game and AHAA! Then finished it again only this time with the
speech way I'd wanted. I thought that was all really cool having
finished the same game in two fairly different ways (The Glow opens up
the whole Brotherhood of Steel which was a massive chunk I'd missed
before and then the whole killing everyone vs talking to them was
nice).

After that I started posting at NMA (I think my first post was
something about wanting cars which is something I still disagree with
Saint over). Some-time later I got involved with Arcanum and after
writing the Arcanum Modding Tutorial, ended up on staff at
Terra-Arcanum. Around about then Killzig went nuts, Saint Proverbius
didn't like what Kreegle did in response (shutting the site down and
giving the content to NMA), the two of them got booted off and I got
asked onto staff at DAC. I then set about re-writing all the code that
runs the place. I mostly stuck to The Wasteland when it came to posting
at DAC though.

2. What do you do for a living?
That's a good question. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars if I were to rate it.

3. What do you think of FO3 and it's DLC content?
I've never played FO3. My intention is to pick it up in the GOTY
Edition with all the DLC bundled with it when it's out at about
half-price. That's what I did with Morrowind. It's what I should've
done for Oblivion. The track record of the studio in question didn't
really have me jumping up and down and wanting to play it anytime soon.
Oh yeah, there's also a bunch of info they released and reviews about
the place now which don't help, so I'm happy to wait.

4. Would you consider yourself the sole owner of DAC and Codex?
Yeah, that's a funny one. I only came onto DAC's staff as the code
guy, not to run the place. Teatime and KoC were supposed to take on
that role. I officially resigned a while back but I still do the odd
things here and there (because there's no-one else who can do them).
Actually, expect to see some lovely advertising text appear on DAC any
day now.

Pretty much the same thing happened at the Codex too. Things I get
involved in usually start off with me just being the technical support
guy and then morphing into running the place because everybody else
leaves. I'm happy to do it but you do need other people around to help
out. Ideally you'd have some kind of news and content tag team but it
never seems to work out right. One person ends up doing the bulk of it
and the other disappears.

5. What do you think of DAC versus NMA?
I actually have no idea how that all started or what it's even all
about. I figured it was something Khan kicks up from time to time
whenever he wants to see web stats.

6. What do you think of Mammas Gang, St. Toxic, and Megatron?
They're totally butthurt over how the Codex kicked their ass in the
recent military campaign. The Flying Cock Squadrons of the Codex are
ready at any time to serve and protect. They are not to be taken
lightly. :salute: Still, Smiley was supposed to surrender earlier. His
obstinance ultimately meant more extreme measures had to be taken. And
then zerotol hacked DAC which totally caught me off-guard but we
cleaned that up all right.

7. With having experience with the Arcanum editor and tools, why
did you decide to start making a mod for Fallout? The time you spent on
FMF could have been spent on much needed quality mods for Arcanum, what
is your response to that?
Arcanum's combat is shitty (I'm one of those few that actually
like Fallout's combat) and overall I like Fallout more (better
setting). The map editors for Fallout were released at a time when I
was thinking of starting a serious Arcanum mod. Given my preference for
Fallout, I decided to focus on that instead (notes still exist for that
Arcanum project in a drawer). 7 years later I think any project I'd
been working on ultimately would've failed due to time commitments and
the expectations of those involved. Being easier to mod and seeing how
people wanted all sorts of stuff added into FMF (originally there'd be
no new art, talking heads or sound but that all changed), I can tell
you that the scope of any Arcanum project would've expanded into some
horrible kind of monster and the same core issues would've beset the
project. Motivation, time availability and technical difficulties.

I think mod projects have a history of failing simply because the
only reason to do them is because "it's fun". When you start making
something bigger and involving more people, there comes a certain point
where it stops being fun. Then you're left wondering what the fuck the
point is and why you're wasting what little spare time you have on this
thing when you could be chilling by the pool.

8. What do you see for the future of DAC and the Codex?
I think they'll keep ticking along. A lot of people have talked
about shutting down DAC but as long some retard somewhere has lofty
ideas it'll stay around. If it does get shut-down, someone will just
set another forum up somewhere else anyway. I think DAC's focus on all
things post-apocalyptic would've been good (IE: as was discussed when I
initially came onboard) but it all boils down to time and motivation.
Most websites end up being run by a single person and it can become
quite time consuming to do it all.

At the end of the day, the websites are just more forums on an
internet already filled with them. Whether they last or not all depends
on whether the people posting news and content want to keep posting
news and content. Even if that stops, a website can be kept alive for a
long time simply by having people active in its forums. It just depends
on whether you're willing to keep it online or not and keep paying for
the domain name, regardless of how many people are visiting.

9. What games are you looking forward to and what games have you been playing lately?
Plants vs Zombies has been pretty fun. It's replaced Chess as my
time-killer. Finished Far Cry 2 before that after GamersGate had it out
for $20.00. That game was utter shit but bearable in 30 minute slices.
Otherwise it's X-Com. There's really nothing I'm looking forward to
other than finishing two of my own projects which I'm reluctant to talk
about given past failures referenced above. I'm a creative guy and part
of me seems to need to be playing around desigining some shit or
another.

10. In retrospect, do you consider your retaliation to the attack on the codex over board?
DAC was supposed to surrender after the Flying Cock Squadrons made
it clear they had no hope. Then we'd have had a victory parade. People
are stubborn though. DAC was simply out-gunned from the beginning and
didn't know it. Like the Japs in World War II, they clearly needed two
atomic bombs dropped on them before they realised that. The word filter
was pretty fun though. Especially because I could simply put in a bit
of code that handled the French accents automatically for all of my
posts.

It was either that or DAC would've been spammed up to buggery by
about 20 Codexers... and then I would've had to clean it up anyway
because your mods aren't very cluey about cleaning up any of that stuff
and your admins were mostly AWOL or not interested.

11. If DAC had not given in, what would have happened?
Zerotol's Playground looked like it would've been fun. I think
Ausir wanted to re-direct it to The Vault though and Taluntain wanted
to shut it down. The problem is no-one's really sure what DAC is and
who's in charge any more. Websites tend to revolve around their
technical and content guys and DAC pretty much has neither. It's a
little sheep that's lost its mother and can't figure out where to go or
what to do with itself. As I said, the post-apoc focus would've been
nice but no-one really did anything about it. The content system is
there for it though.

12. What is your favorite movie and book?
Leon The Professional - International Uncut Director's Edition
(whatever the one is with all the extra shit). Don't know much about
favourite books though. Most of the shit I read is either Government
reports or really boring long shit that may as well be a Government
report. At the moment I'm trawling through what has to be the most
boring book in the world about climate change.

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Thu May 28, 2009 4:51 pm

Still telling lies to your children? DAC didn't lose, fuckshit.

Kashluk · Post by **Kashluk** » Thu May 28, 2009 7:49 pm

Nice interview. I personally couldn't really give a shit about the whole Codex wars -issue as long as we're back to status quo :conservatism:

Stainless · Post by **Stainless** » Fri May 29, 2009 2:05 am

No wonder he was so quick to lash out, with origins of NMA, he was tainted from the start!

The hardest part about general post-apoc news was that most post apoc news is rehashes of previous things, and other post apoc things tend to be horrible or boring or a combination of the two. If you look back to when we actually did have a bit of consistent news, we did cover random post apoc stuff. Lets face it, we can only write about someone riding a bike through Chernobyl so many times before everyone's heard about it.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Fri May 29, 2009 2:08 am

Interview yourself poop

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Fri May 29, 2009 4:18 am

S4ur0n27 wrote:Interview yourself poop

Agreed. Or interview someone interviewing someone else.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Fri May 29, 2009 5:24 am

S4ur0n27 wrote:Interview yourself poop

I might after I get a few other people out of the way. Who should I interview NEXT?

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Fri May 29, 2009 5:46 am

Kilzig, Kreegle, or SaintP.

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Fri May 29, 2009 3:16 pm

Charles "Chuck" Cuevas.

MR Snake · Post by **MR Snake** » Fri May 29, 2009 4:38 pm

The one, the only.. MR SNAKE!

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Fri May 29, 2009 4:40 pm

Do a follow-up on Dreadnought. How's the bastard doing?

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Fri May 29, 2009 10:08 pm

email odin or roshambo, they are fun guys.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Fri May 29, 2009 11:02 pm

Gosh, I thought you guys were going to mention easy people to interview like Smiley or something. I will have to use all of my powers to find these people.

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Sat May 30, 2009 12:35 am

You'd be welcome, although I don't think the answers would be very pleasing. I'm mostly what I've said already, somewhat amused having mod powers and trying to maintain... my version of a bit of order.

If drama occurs, so much the better.

Stalagmite · Post by **Stalagmite** » Sat May 30, 2009 2:08 am

DU is a buttplug.

Post by **Retlaw83** » Sat May 30, 2009 3:01 am

Interview Blargh

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Sat May 30, 2009 4:02 am

Blargh has refused to be interviewed.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Sat May 30, 2009 4:39 am

I think a Smiley interview wouldn't interest anyone but himself. Don't do it.

Interview 4too maybe.

popscythe · Post by **popscythe** » Sat May 30, 2009 8:02 am

1. Fucking garbage
2. Every time DU talks about the situation it's fucking super clear to me that he fucked us over. Nobody "hacked" DAC. Someone with access dicked us around.

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Sat May 30, 2009 12:52 pm

The story changes everytime as well. Before it was because DU had given him the info. Not to mention that he admitted it on the codex.