Lonestar 11 Posted March 14, 2011 (edited) First in the series, an interview with Sickboy - Team Lead of ACE2 and involved in many other projects (DevHeaven, Six Updater, etc). Hi Sickboy, nice to have you here. Hi Lonestar, thanks for inviting me. So, tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm Sickboy and I'm from the Netherlands. I'm 27 years old and into IT since young age, quit school rather at young age, currently I am employed as a Systems & Network engineer, play games (obviously), and for the past years spent most of my time developing on ACE mod and my programming projects like the SIX Updater, Config Browser, etc. Why that nickname? I borrowed it from one of my favorite movies from my youth. Perhaps you've heard about it, 'Trainspotting'. He wasn't my favorite character, but I did love the sound of it and I felt it fitting, due to my - sometimes experienced as 'sick' - humour. When did it all start? What was your first project/creation? It started sometime in 2005, when a mate in our gaming community introduced me to OFP. It was a welcome refreshment after some time playing Vietcong. The fact that we could easily create missions, and use / combine addons for the ultimate mix that suited us (our gameplay), along with the freedom of the game, got me hooked immediately. My first projects were missions and scripts for our community, the first public projects were probably some ports and rewrites of existing community projects SIX Blood, Tracers, etc. I've also shortly worked on the WGL mod for OFP. Who inspired you and motivated you to work for the community? All the mods and their authors back in OFP and ArmA1. But if I had to name a few: kju, killswitch, terox, ecp team, coc team... I was always impressed and amazed by what people came up with, and the dedication of those people... great inspiration! What is your opinion about the ArmA 2 community today? The arma community hosts a whole scala of different people, with different requirements, wishes, gamestyles, specialities etc. It's kind of a miniature world, full of diversity. Some will say it isn't the (small) 'tight' community anymore as it was back in the beginning with OFP, and they are probably right, although you still have that in smaller groups. But that's part of life and evolution. I love being part of this community and I am proud to contribute to it at multiple levels. What project(s) are you currently working on? ACE mod and my SIX projects are basically always ongoing, my main focus currently is on the Six Updater - which brings ease and comfort to the mod-installation landscape, amongst other things like differential update transfers, saving bandwidth and time from hoster to downloader. I also maintain the dev-heaven.net website, server and services. Next big project is? Currently unknown, the projects I am involved in are long running. :) The ACE2 team has won the best mod award for 3 years in a row and you were the best community member for 2 years. How do you explain such a longevity? I think dedication and commitment are the main ingredients. Running things professionally and always improving technical workflow, I feel are key aspects of being successful. Delivering a broad set of unique features, fully multiplayer compatible, and working well together, plays another big role. Best thing you've seen happen in the community over the years? BIF switching to vBulletin? Just kidding. Hard question though! I think endeavours like dev-heaven.net, with Community Issue Tracker - actively used by BI, and www.armastack.info would be my candidates. Worst thing? Hard question, I am generally an optimist. If I had to point something out as the worst thing happening, I guess it is that some of the hardcore people left, probably during the arma1 era. ArmA1's release state was unfortunate, though I think that has been remedied in the months after, A2 and OA have shaped up nicely too. Honestly, is it your dream to work at BI? :) Not sure. Doing all this for free and fun is what makes it ... fun. Personally I see most of my work as personal investment, improving skills and knowledge. I am however not sure yet what the destination is. If you had one wish, what would you ask BI? Object Orientated scripting. Which programming languages do you master? Ruby, C# and php. SQF obviously ;) and I have some experience in C++, tcl, perl, python and powershell. But I really like working with Ruby, especially since IronRuby is in a usable state (Ruby on .NET). What advice would you give to a new addon-maker? Do what you want and like to do, learn from others, experiment... Which game type do you prefer? (coop/adversarial) I've always been a coop guy, but I believe that's mostly because my experiences with adverserial have been bad. I've heard great things about adverserial - perhaps one day I will experience them myself. :) If I play, we usually play on my Six Battle Center, which is basically a Sandbox, much like MCC and VTE, but with support for DAC by Silola. What other games do you play? I've found myself play less games over the years, focus shifting to development and management etc. But the games I do play are the Dragon Age series, some RTS, or some racing / fighting games with friends. Last movie/book you watched/read? Avatar, I guess. I'm more into scifi series etc. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Still hanging around the community? Probably still around, yep. No real long term plans, other than keep growing and improving, and perhaps eventually doing something professionally with it. Is there anything else you would like to add? Yeah. I would like to thank the ACE team, kju, and everyone else who spend their free time in this community for the enjoyment of themselves and others. Also thank you Lonestar, for this interview opportunity. Links: http://six.dev-heaven.net http://six.dev-heaven.net/wagn/Six_Updater http://six.dev-heaven.net/wagn/Six_Config_Browser http://ace.dev-heaven.net http://dev-heaven.net/ Stay tuned for another interview of our most dedicated community members soon. Edited March 16, 2011 by Lonestar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
soul_assassin 1750 Posted March 14, 2011 forgot one more link :P http://ace.armastack.info/ cool interview! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PuFu 4600 Posted March 14, 2011 (edited) nice initiative, although i am really missing the sahraniRadio audio type podcasts and interviews :) Sickboy, as always, very diplomatic answers :) Edited March 14, 2011 by PuFu Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tonci87 163 Posted March 14, 2011 Yep, nice interview. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vipermaul 246 Posted March 14, 2011 Bravo! Nice Interview! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AnimalMother92 10 Posted March 14, 2011 "sick" interview :p Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ProfTournesol 956 Posted March 15, 2011 Those interviews are great, thanks Lonestar. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pauliesss 2 Posted March 15, 2011 Nice interview, thanks Lonestar. :) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lonestar 11 Posted March 15, 2011 You should thank Sickboy for his trust in me. Without it, this interview would have never happened. :smile: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ginger mcale 11 Posted March 15, 2011 Thank you for this interview. Both of you. Nice and interesting read! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lao fei mao 21 Posted March 16, 2011 Hehe,now we know more about Sickboy! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
supergruntsb78 67 Posted March 16, 2011 i knew it , the dutch are in the lead again :P nice interview :) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Inkompetent 0 Posted March 16, 2011 Nice interview, and well worthy! As one of the key people in the ArmA community it's nice that he got some special attention :D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stk2008 14 Posted March 16, 2011 You rule ACE team keep up the bloody AWESOME work. Thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ben_s 11 Posted March 16, 2011 Nice interview, was a good read. :) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
