Intel Depot

Who are you and where do you reside in our world?

My real name is Achim, and at the age of 44 I'm probably one of the dinosaurs in the community. I work and live in sunny southern Germany, just a few kilometers from the French border.

What do you do outside of the gaming community?

I work as IT technician in a small company, usually fixing or upgrading hardware all day long.

How do you describe your current role in the community?

I'm desperately trying to finish one of the biggest Mods around, which takes a lot of my free time. This probably is the most important role I play. Besides that, I love porting old missions from the Flashpoint area over to ArmA2. Yes, one could say I'm somewhat stuck in the past. ;-)

When and how were you introduced to BIS titles and what was you first impression of them?

As many 'dinosaurs' I started with the Flashpoint Demo. Back then and in the first years I had no interest in modding though. I just enjoyed playing the game, trying the many Mods and Missions released by many great and talented people. The first impression was: Wow, just wow. In all the years before Flashpoint when my brother and me playing War games and simulations we were dreaming about having a game where one of us would be a grunt on the ground, while the other rides in a tank or flying in a helicopter supporting him. And then came Flashpoint, making a dream come true.

You have released several varying resources over the years to the community; care to share information about any of them?

Most resources I released are missions from which I thought they could be fun for others as well or because someone asked me for a mission. That's maybe 5% of all missions I do,
the rest I play once and then store them on my drives because they are crappy in my opinion. The few addons I released were created cause I needed that particular stuff somewhere and also thought it could be useful, like the armed civilians for ArmA2 or JAM3 for VBS1 just to name some.

What is your favorite aspect of Arma2?

Nowadays, the editor. I used to play SP and also MP on LAN a lot until some years ago, but all chaps moved away and at some point it all broke apart. Today I still play some missions when I'm bored of the editor or run into one that sounds promising, like the Flashpoint SP Missions from thomsonb I play these days. Unfortunately, there's never enough time to try everything out there.

As a gamer, do you get more enjoyment out of SP or MP missions? Why?

If I play at all then SP, or MP with myself. I wouldn't call me a good player so I prefer to play with my AI comrades instead screwing up missions played with others online. :-)

As a moderator for the forums, I'm certain you've encountered some pretty nasty fans; what was your most frustrating experience(excluding usernames of course)?

People freaking out and calling you everything from the book for nothing just because you closed their thread or telling them what (not) to do. I actually laugh about such people and to some extent feel sorry for them not being able to communicate on a mature basis but it still sucks to see such simply minded, aggressive people and you just hope they are only like that on the internet.

How has the experience been, working with BIS developers and staff?

All the people at BIS/BISim I had the pleasure to meet or work with are true professionals. Highly skilled and very helpful even when they are busy with their own work.
I want to use the chance to thank Ivan Buchta for always having time to help us with CWR² and Peter Morrison aka snypir for giving me the chance to do some work @ BISim some time ago.

What sort of mission would be considered a dream come true to you?

SaOk made that dream come true already with his "Dynamic Whole Map Missions". That's something I really like to play, completely random missions where you never know what happens next. I played TacRod's Counter-Insurgency Missions for OFP quite a lot. At some point I considered porting that to ArmA but the required scripting is just too much for me. Something like DayZ - just without the Zombies would be a cool thing too.

How did you become a part of the Cold War Rearmed team?

I joined the team back in 2007 as I became Forum Moderator and thus had access to their forum. Shortly after I started working on some missions (after failing at terrains) and at some point started 'organizing' models and stuff from other community members.

Has the mod received attention like you thought it would?

Well not really. After Demo³ released I expected to get more attention. However one must keep in mind that most of todays players never played the original OFP and thus
are either not interested in playing something from the past or the Cold War theme is just not the area they are interested in.

What is your role on the CWR2 team?

As the Project lead I'm trying to keep the team motivated. I organize things that are required like new models and hire people who could help us out. I'm also porting the SP, Coop and CWC campaign missions. When necessary I also do small model, terrain and config work. Doing so I usually break stuff others fixed before.

Have you received any help from BIS on the project?

Yes, actually a lot of help. They support the Mod since the early days and in all the years we received a lot of models we then modified, like the vehicles, vegetation models and some weapons. Ivan recently also spent a lot of time trying to analyze one of our screwed up terrains and sharing his great knowledge with us. They also quickly fixed the AI driving behaviour in one patch to fix a problem we encountered. Without their great support, we probably wouldn't be where we are now.

What can people who download the mod, expect to see?

The mother of all ArmA games from 2001, using todays technology and graphics. In the final release of course two legendary campaigns with a great storyline. :-)
We also may have some interesting bonus things in both the upcoming Beta³ patch and the final release.

Are there any areas that the team could use some help in? If so, who should they contact?

We surely need help with models and textures, that was always our weakest point. The tasks here range from recreating complete vehicles to retexturing a simple chair or crate.
Anyone interested can contact me anytime. Either by email (cwrmod@gmail.com) or Private Message at the BI Forums, armaholic.com or arma2base.de
Just one thing I would like to mention: If you're just interested in joining to get all the models as many people before: Forget it, that lesson we learnt by now. ;-)

It's certainly a tremendous effort to achieve such a mod, any efforts to bring it to Arma3? If so, how difficult do you feel the process would be?

I don't plan that far ahead. For now there is CWR² which surely keeps us busy for some time. When that is done we'll see comes next. However at this point I'm not sure if I will do the same thing for the 3rd time, only to be finished when the next game comes out. And with ArmA3 things surely don't get easier.

From a moderators stand point, how much has the community changed since Operation Flashpoint?

Compared to the 'early years' users are more aggressive and impatient. They want solutions for their problems without even trying to solve them on their own. I would go even so far saying that with todays community back in 2001, OFP and ArmA would have never been that successful. Of course there are a lot of exceptions as well. :-)

Care to name a few of your favorite user made missions through the years?

All the Mapfact Missions for OFP. Operation Lojack; The Swordfish Trilogy; Abandoned Armies; Black Gap and Facile Ground by Sui.
For ArmA2: Black Forest and Balota Highway by SaOk; The Flashpoint missions by Thomsonb; zipper5's excellent Blood on the Sand campaign

Do you play multiplayer in any of the titles? If so, any particular clans or servers that you frequent?

Not really and if then only LAN. Most of the time I spend in the editor creating problems others then solve. :-)

How do you think the community could best come together at this point in time?

By working together instead against each other and on your own. There is no need that 3 Teams create the same vehicles or weapons. That was maybe alright in OFP where addon creation was rather simple (aka "Every good Mod must have his own M4"). Today even creating a simple Weapon means a lot of work, so: Stick and work together with other interested people. This way we could have way more things to play with.

With Arma3 on the horizon, what published features are you looking forward to the most?

The terrains for sure. The underwater part and ragdolls - finally no more dead bodies sticking outta a building.

Would you prefer an improved SP experience in ArmA3 or MP improvements?

Personally, SP. But MP improvements surely are more important as this is what the majority plays these days.

With Iron Front and Dayz arriving on scene, how do you feel mods turning standalone will affect the future of our community?

It surely is a great chance for people to turn their hobby into a business. But I also really hope we don't end up one day like the Flightsim community where you have to pay for literally every little thing.

Are there any words of advice or comments that you would like to share with the readers?

To OFPEC, thank you for the interview and being there all the years for people like me seeking help. I also want to thank all the many content creators out there working hard for giving us new things to play with. And to the players and new people, don't give up that fast when you run into problems, and stop comparing ArmA with your other shooters you played before - it's a complete different thing. And please, support the content creators by reporting problems you run into instead just trashing the addon or mission. And if there are none, then maybe just say thanks for the time they spent creating something you enjoyed. It doesn't hurt after all.

PICK 3

What was the last game you bought?

Minecraft

What does Arma:CWA have that you wish the later titles would bring back?

The two Campaigns, but we're on that already. :-)

Do your family and friends support your Arma addiction? Care to elaborate?

Yes of course, the best Redhead on this planet really supports my addiction. Like serving food at my desk after calling me 5 times with no reaction from my side. Or calling me on the phone 10 times waiting to be picked up while I disabled all notifications so I can work on my stuff. And testing my fancy missions with me in MP when there's time. Good girl for sure!

 Many Thanks for those who sent in questions for Wolle. Our spotlighted community member for October will be Cobra5000, the winner of the MEC 2012 Invisible Killers contest. Please send in your questions for Cobra5000 by September 15th. Thank you.