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Thread: Interview with TWMadman

  1. #1

    Default Interview with TWMadman



    Interview with TWMadman



    TWMadman is an important modder for the Sundering, he friendly accepted to offer us some time to interview him.



    Mundus Bellicus : First I have to thank you TWMadman for accepting our questions. Can you introduce yourselft and explain us how did you fall in Total War modding ?

    TWMadman : I'm 30, father and a older than a few years ago when the Total War sery began. I first looked at the sery ten or so years ago, when Rome Total War was released, having studied history and keen on the Ancient world I just wasn't able to resist buying such a game ! During a long time, I was a player like many others : making the most of the work done by modders. I particularly enjoyed Rome Total Realism (RTR), as well as Europa Barbarorum (EB) and Roma Surrectum (RS). Mods like Deus Lo Vult (DLV) or the must-have Stainless Steel (SS) and Third Age Total War (TATW) made a deep impression on me. Then I began to mod with Call of Warhammer (CoW). Being a fan of Warhammer background, mainly Dark Elves, I was not pleased with this faction, it was not totally finished : horrible musics, not many buildings, no descriptions nor custom event pictures... So I started here and there and I met Kolwen (Sundering team leader) who was just starting the project.


    MB : Can you introduce us with "The Sundering" ? In what way is this mod different from others ?

    TWMadman : The Sundering is a Warhammer Fantasy based mod. It counts the civil war between High Elves that launched their slow fall and in the mean time was the birth of Dark Elves aka the Druchii.
    I think that what is different here is the atmosphere and finition. The atmosphere is unique, indeed nothing from the original game is left, everything was changed in order to help immersion for players. Then estimating the new contents is easier, even for people not used to this background. The long descriptions of buildings, units, traits and magical features as well as the high number of events explaining the progress of the civil war are also an important point for our immersion work. Besides, we made a high quality finition : we've worked for almost two years to release this beta and the result is the one we expected : a well-kept work where nothing is left to the hazard, there is no feeling of playing a bungled mod.


    MB : Why did you choose this specific period of the Warhammer history, and with did you focus on Elven ?

    TWMadman : This historic period has never been a deal for officiel licences, the same for video games. It was a real challenge for us to do at the same time something unheard and not having an exemple to work on. We focused ourselves on the Elves because we like this faction on the tabletop game and they have a rich background for mythology, religion. It was also the reason why High Elves started declining. All the required elements for an epicness mod were here : treason, heresy, huge battles, magic and gigantic creatures. In short a greek tragedy with Warhammer universe.

    MB : As everyone knows, another big mod already exists for Warhammer : Call of Warhammer. Why did you choose to create your own mod rather than joining CoW team ?

    TWMadman : Thee Sundering was first designed to be a submod for CoW but one thing leading to another we gained experience and last but not least we changed so much than not even 1% of CoW features was remaining in our work. We decided to make a "stand alone". It is necessary to underline that the partnership with CoW team was null and even not friendly because we never received help or advices from them, most of our mails were unregarded. So we decided to continue on our own


    MB : Before joining Kolwen, you declared that your will was to retire from modding after Malus Darkblade expansion for CoW. What made you change your mind ?

    TWMadman : Tiredness, busy IRL were important matters when I decided to stop my modding activities. Anyway, I was still a gamer and following new at TWC, also I think the modding flu caught me again. When you start modding, you never really stop it. One day it was too big : I can't prevent myself from modding other mods for my personnal games. Thus going back to serious projects was the next step for me.

    MB : When you decided to develop the mod, did you think you had the required knowledge to accomplish it, and what have you learned with it ?

    TWMadman : Honestly, we were doubtful about our chance of succes, that's why our first aims were not too big. We were only 3 with little modding skills. I was not a coder but now i can handle with most of the coding situations (at the very beginning my task only concerned musics and background!). The most motivated was Kolwen, and finally the one who learned about everything : mapping, units, coding... He was really leading all the team.

    MB : You are now considered as a skilled moder. What would you advice to someone starting to mod ?

    TWMadman : I hadn't realized how much the modding is about determination and patience. It is also a question of who are you working with : because only few will continue for the whole developement period. Also, one shouldn't despair because TWC community is full of wonderful people like Gigantus, Ishan and many others who are the real wizards of the modding and who are sharing their time to help you when you need it. It's in a big way thanks to them that I and Kolwen are modders today.

    MB : Some people are wondering what is the motivation of a modder. What is your ?

    TWMadman : A modder works for himself first, because he doesn't work for money. If he isn't fascinated by his subject, his project will not succeed. First of all, a modder has in mind an idea. He has a certain idea of the fact what the game should be : Rome Total Realism and Europa Barbarorum wanted to be historically irreproachable mods and they reached there brilliantly ; Third Age Total War had for ambition to recreate a good Fantasy universe and it is THE reference now...
    Kolwen and i were Warhammer universe fans. We started to mod each on our side on Call of Warhammer, because we thought this project could be great but that its finish wasn't sufficient. We loved the Elves and wanted to create a mod about this gigantic conflict which was not approached by any playful platform (TATW and COW are just a new version of existing games : Battle For Middle Earth for the one, and Mark of Chaos for the other one.) and we knew our project would have never been had developped by an official license.
    However, when the project is launched, when certain elements are revealed and when people begin to appreciate our work, it is necessary to admit that we mod more and more for the community, to give people good time aswell as gaming memories. And this is nearly as good as money hehe


    MB : As everyone knows, create a mod is a long scale work. Could give us an idea of the time you spent to develop this mod ?

    TWMadman : As I said, we worked during two years to publish this beta. Maybe this work would have been able to set less time, but with Kolwen we wanted that everything is the most accomplished.

    MB : What is your best memory about creating this mod, and what do you feel about the release ?

    TWMadman : My best memory is when Kolwen and me had fun times on Skype when we modded during long nights ! To mod, you need to have good sense of humor, because modding is sometimes difficult. I met nice people during all the development process as Turambar, Kahvipannu, Pyrosh...Finally the best memories are the laughing moments on our private forum or on Skype.
    The day when the release was announced was also a very good memory. we were so very exciting about sharing our two years work that we could not wait to have the feedbacks. I remember i was watching the number of downloads during an entire afternoon !


    MB : Some modding teams meet cohesion problems. What about you ?

    TWMadman : We had a strong team around Kolwen, Turambar and Death, Pyrosh and myself. Kahvipannu has also been a temporarly member (several months) who brang us a lot of work with amazing quality. But the biggest part of people who joined at some point usually stayed less than two weeks and produced very little tasks or even left without doing anything at the end. This was actually really painful because we think we can count on people who finally doesn't care about us. But this is also an aspect of making a mod, we all have obligations in the real life. Offently the mod had to slow down because we were lacking a graphist or a 2D artist. I'am sure we could have released the mod one year earlier with an even better quality if we had one or two strong and reliable skinners/2d artists. Yes, this is sad hehe.

    MB : "The Sundering" is still in 0.7 version, and some people are already asking where will the mod go then. The most asked questions seems to be : will there be many scripts like CoW did ?

    TWMadman : The idea with the beta is to encourage a quality strategic approach and a visual comfort while still improving the immersion in the game. I tell you right now : it is out of the question for us to make an extremely campaign like CoW. We like letting to the player all freedom to change the destiny of the High Elves while keeping the historic line by the texts. However we include all the battles and sieges mentioned in the campaign. The aim is not to have a “pop” with an army that appears “out of nowhere” and besieges your capital in a flash, but always to leave some rounds for the player who can prepare for an invasion he had heard.

    MB : Magic has been an important strategic point during the civil war, do you plan something about it ?


    TWMadman : Magic is still in the balancing work, but yes indeed it's an important part of our work and we also want to introduce special powers to heroes and faction leaders.

    MB : People blame on the AI because it is reputed to be too much passive. Will you improve it ?


    TWMadman : The last version tested really offers a relatively good AI but things still need to be improved. We are especially going to make so that the AI recruits less militia for the next version by offering more hard tasks during the fighting.

    MB : You are still in the beta of this mod. According to you, what are the points that remain to improve and which among those will be ready at the launch of the 1.0 version ?


    TWMadman :On the whole, I think we are quite satisfied by the result. However as we are lacking of “2d artists” and “texturers”, we can bring only limited finishes to our units in particular to provide more variety in graphics. It is necessary to understand that we really lack workforce for these things and of course, progress is rather slow. For the moment the aim is mainly to improve the dynamism of the campaign by bringing more scripts in order to the historic events of the current campaign are coherent, such as the battles mentioned in the texts. The interface was also improved, some bugs were fixed and all the banners are ready !

    MB : Did you plan to create some real customized cities after having reworked the texture of buildings ?


    TWMadman : Only the fortifications of our cities and castles are already customized. It is possible to go further and to work on the buildings. That could be done with the help of Kahvipannu but he works currently for other projects. Though the addition of new buildings is not expected, Kolwen decided to create new textures :


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 





    MB :Can you introduce a little bit this new campaign entitled Struggle For The Old World ?


    TWMadman :Our fans may have noticed that we published previews of two new factions : the Orcs and the Dwarfs. These innovations do not fit in the campaign entitled The Sundering but into the quite new projects on which we work for about 3 months and it is very ambitious. Thanks to our experience, we want to propose a campaign that will take place in the land of the Old World and will include 13 factions :

    - Araby
    - Beasts of Chaos (beastmen + chaos)
    - Bretonnia
    - Dark Elves
    - Dwarfs
    - Empire
    - Estalia
    - High Elves
    - Orcs and Goblins
    - Skaven
    - Tilea
    - Tomb Kings (undead)
    - Wood Elves

    here is the campaign map :




    Thanks to our know-how, we did in three months what we had done for The Sundering in one year. Several factions are completely finished and the mod progresses. Moreover that is for this reason that we worked relatively little on The Sundering since the 0.62 version because we were totally committed to this new project.
    And believe me, you will love !

    Here are some of the new units in battle :

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 




















    This interview was made before the preview of the 0.7 version, so it can look outdated.

    The original interview is in french. Click here to read it.

    This interview is the property of MundusBellicus forum, and any copy has to be made with our accord.

    Thanks to Sinople for the translation, and Angus Young for the idea
    Last edited by Arandir Tur-Anion de Bodemloze; February 20, 2013 at 05:37 AM.

  2. #2
    Kolwen's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Interview with TWMadman

    Due to several translation errors in many parts of the interview it may sound disrespectful. It was not our intention. We deeply apologise for the inconvenience.
    I have fixed some points but since I am not native speaker I may have slipped something so sorry again if it is the case.
    Thanks for your understanding.

  3. #3
    paradamed's Avatar Praepositus
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    Default Re: Interview with TWMadman

    Interesting read. Good to know more about the real people behind the avatar. I wish good luck to you guys. This is an amazing new project!

  4. #4

    Default Re: Interview with TWMadman

    Empire looks bad ass!

  5. #5

    Default Re: Interview with TWMadman

    Oh man, can't wait. I never really liked CoW because of its... structuredness. I just want to take the Dwarves and own all the things.
    May your road lead you to warm sands.

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