1. When did you hear about FOnline for first time?
It was after OBT2 ended or something like that, so about half of 2009 i think? Admin of some shitty polish *chan sticked some post with screenshots of it. After it ended, yes, so i
just missed it. Just my luck.
I've since then visited that *chan only to get info when next OBT gonna be. When finally there was another did, i landed on original TLA server, in some shithole part of the WM, and for some reason i just
*had* to go to VC. Nobody to help/advice, no "how do git gud", just me - total noob, and a harsh wasteland. Anyone who remembers 2009 TLA - it's that time when you can feel sorry for me.
After finally reaching VC some nice russian fella not only flooded me with top tier stuff, lot of advices and understable english, but - most importantly - gave a link to 2238 board on NMA and hinted that it may be more in my style. Heck, it was. Never had chance to thank a guy later, don't remember either his or mine char name, but he still remains as my favourite russian in FOnline world
Funny fact: exactly same *chan admin who posted FOnline screenshots was banned on #rotators for some reason until late 2014? 2015? when one of ForestNet failures finally cleared ban list, so i was being reminded how it all started over all these years.
2. How did you get access to FOnline source which you used for creating 2238?
I know it's about how Rotators got access to FOnline, but i got a funny one how i got access to 2238 itself.
After Rusty
kidnapped my sorry ass and made me GM, i was given access to some FTP which was earlier used to distribute client among CBT players (mind you, it was long before SDK release). There wasn't much use for it honestly, except one thing. Full backup of TLA server, together with all scripts, tools, maps, .client files (with plaintext passwords, sic!), well everything to run and dev your own TLA at home.
It was later called 'leak of the year' among Rotators.
I toyed with it for a few days, tried some very first scripts, started asking Atom/Ghosthack how things works, until they realized that i know a bit too much about server/client than i should
After cvet took backup out of FTP, i continued to write some shitty scripts which i sent to them and - after review - was put into 2238 or not. Fast forward, they got tired of such extra work and i got an access to 2238 repository.
Funny fact: Some of scripts from send-review-include era are still, nearly untouched, in 2238, as i get eye cancer and hearth attack, at same time, every time i try to read them (... weather*.fos ...)
4. Did you have any secret ideas which you wanted to introduce but never told about that?
Ha, todays IRC talk reminded me of one of them, and made me post this very wall of text.
So, there was such thing as
FOnline: Battleground back in a days. One map, pewpew, team combat. Simple stuff. My
secret stupid idea was to use Hinkley to allow different combat settings - one with TLA rules, one with 2238 rules, one with some custom rules, etc. That should go together with items availability, perks, traits, burst mechanics and whatnot...
Yeah.
6. Were you playing the game in your spare time when you don't develop the game? If yes write how and when, if not tell why you weren't playing.
Yeah, for me it was mostly play or dev; or rather - dev a thing and then dev+play it out to catch bugs, annoying things, and a general "feel" of given thing. After feature was settled i either continued to play only or went back to dev another thing. In retrospection, with FOnline i always had more fun from making stuff happen [dev], than using it [play]. Good example for that would be GM commands, which was always high, or medium-high on my priority list, to counter "old" devs which had it
bit lower - after all i started as only GM with repo access (until Jovanka took over expanding GM things). It was weirdly rewarding to see events organized by someone else which used stuff i wrote, sometimes in totally different ways than i had in mind.
Would you like to still develop or contribute in some fonline projects?
If only there would be one which would give me such a kick as 2238 did back then, heh.
I kinda still contribute to some of them [read: english ones which are still alive], if they need. Less in writing code, more in digging out source how to make thing happen/not happen, tracking FOnline quirks, and collecting some gems about a whole thing. More one know about FOnline, more chance to get my attention (as question have more chance to be interesting one
) as i left teaching FOnline basics to people who have more patience than i do. Some of them i learned what i know back in a days, it's their time to shine
Anyway. I'd be more interested in taking some older SDK and tune it to devs needs without drastic changes (so completely different way than where cvet is going), than making game itself. But. That's a story for a different time and different dimension~