[Artifex] Kaziel "Octavian21" (Patron: Noif de Bodemloze) [PASSED]

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Kaziel's "Octavian21" citizenship
application

By Patron, Noif

Greetings citizens!

I am humble to take a step in front of you at first time as patron, dear citizen fellows. After long journey in TWC, I finally got a talented modder to my hands. He is one famous modder in Rome 2 with his beautiful Romans. He is Kaziel "Octavian21"!

Me and Kaziel have worked with Rome 2 mods in Rome 2 modding section and still we both are working on Rome 2 mods and share our experiences. Earlier since rome 2 release, when I was working on my mods and looking Rome 2 mod section. I saw one of the best and maybe beautiful remade roman skin units. His mod was outstanding in my eyes and I believe that many people liked his work on that day and now days. He is one friendliest member in TWC, who I know and he have good modding skill to make beautiful mods. He have done very good works past days when he has released his new mod about Roman early and late uniforms . As one of veteran modder, I can see that this guy has potential to be another great talent modder in this forum.
Citizens! I beg to use some time on this application, take a good seat and read this application.

Best regard by veteran Artifex and Game staff member:


Noif de Bodemloze

Kaziel "Octavian21" paragraph

Greetings everyone!
While in the middle of creating new shields for my latest mod called Kaziel's Romans: Late Republic, I suddenly thought how nice it would be to have my name in a different colors and have a special tag attached to it. Then I remembered one of my old conversations with Noif, and that he brought up something about being Artifex. That conversation was late 2013 if I remember correctly and for some reason I didn't want my name in a different colour back then. Maybe it's because I just turned 30 in August this year? Mid-life crisis perhaps?

Over a decade ago now, I started modding some old games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (I), TES: Morrowind etc. Then a friend introduced me to Medieval Total War (I) and I loved it. Was as addicted to it as I was with the old CIV games. The first TW game I modded was Rome (I). I remember clearly how bothered I was with the bright Green and Blue Romans, that it was my personal mission to turn that green into a more subtle and dirty Olive Green and the Blue... I don't remember. Then came the Hoplons, other Shields, then armour, then something else, then another. This is how I get with other games I've modded (TES: Oblivion, KOTOR (II), TES: Skyrim etc.). Anyways, I wanted to find a place to upload my mods for Rome (I) and found this website and joined Oct 2004.

These are some old screenshots of my Rome (I) skins (Imageshack, thanks for keeping them for me... for over 10 years). Unfortunately I can't find these old mods as this website has changed alot since then and I'm not sure where they are stored (if they haven't been trashed):

Old Screenshots

I didn't mod MTW(II) as I felt, graphically and their art direction, was the most perfect that CA ever conjured. Rome (II) came along, and I decided to get back into modding again after many years of not touching Photoshop or 3ds Max. I started with a simple General Reskin (scroll all the way down and look for the old stuff):
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ently-BUGGED-*

The positive reaction sucked me into this whole modding scene (again), that now it has grown into a full faction pack (Above/Dec 2013) and now further refinements in Era packs (Sep 2014):
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...2014)-*-LIVE-*

I haven't created any tutorials as I feel there are plenty out there, and that everything I know I have taught myself, so if I can do it, with effort I believe anyone can. I don't know how other modders feel about me stating the following, but Noif suggested I should;

Though I haven't created any public tutorials, many modders have asked for my advice and techniques, on how to achieve good texture work. A good example of this is Zaskar70. He came to me asking how to improve his Normal Maps (Oct 2013) and I explained my process to him. From then on his work has turned from average to one of the best texturing I have seen in years. This makes me immensely proud. We are now good friends. Others like KLA & Laurentis have asked for my advice and have freely given it when I have free time.

My work from Kaziel's Romans can also be found in so many mods out there: DeI, Toon's , Laurentis', Magnar's, Authentic Ancient World, Lines of Battle and others I can't remember at the moment. Honestly, it makes me proud to see that everywhere I look, I see a shield, helmet, cuirass etc. that I created. It means that my work is of good quality and is at a level that I strive for. It also brings me joy to know that many people appreciate the time and effort I have put into trying to perfect what is on their screens with the tools I have available.
So that's my history with this website. This post is getting way too long and I would be surprised if anyone is up to this part. If you are, well, thanks for reading

Recommend letters

I would like to recommend Kaziel for citizenship; he is one of the nicest guys out there and will go out of his way to provide whatever assistance he can to those who ask.

I first came in contact with Kaziel while researching ways to create better normal files for my textures in Rome 2; he was very kind and offered many helpful suggestions. His work speaks for itself, as a fellow texture artist I can assure you that it doesn’t get much better than what he can do.

Kaziel is a great guy and should definitely be considered for citizenship, his contributions to the modding community are unparalleled.

"Hello. I would recommend here the citizenship for Kaziel/Octavian21. Why he should deserve it is under the eyes of us all, I guess, it's in all our rigs everytime we launch rome II and play with romans. He created a "must have" mod and despite of his real life duties, he was back in recent time to adapt and upgrade his "labor of love" (to use a dear and very fitting definition of PdGuru). LAst but not least he shared friendly his work offering it as opensource. Kaziel paid to Roman Faction the necessary attetion related to the argument and the title of this total war game; and I cannot avoid to mark this and support his citizenship for this reasons. Thanks to Kaziel, Rome received an high quality attention too many times given to other factions during this year of fixes and modding heroism. that's all. DB

[m_1512]

Obvious yes. Kaziel is a consummate modders, and I think it would be accurate to say that his work's legacy can be seen in quite some larger mods.

[Adamat]

Question: Has the applicant only made this one Rome II mod he linked to, or did he do others as well? A clear list of contributions would have been nice.

[mishkin]

Considering its R2, for me is enough. Great work Kaziel.

A clear list of contributions would have been nice.

Yes, would have been nice. But reading the aplication I have the feeling that in the past he have worked in a slightly anarchic way (without giving much importance, if you know what I mean) which could make it more difficult

And form what I have seen in his subforum, friendly and polite.

[Sir Adrian]

Yes

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Question: Has the applicant only made this one Rome II mod he linked to, or did he do others as well? A clear list of contributions would have been nice.

There's kaziel's romans 3.0 + 4.0 + early republic etc... that's much more new material contributed to the community than most copy and paste mods. Each Romans has different new and new armour textures etc... a lot of works, so he don't count it as "one" mod. Even many other modders such as KLA and perhaps legionnaire are using kaziel's made chainmail and scalemail. Also it is important for Kaziel that his work is Quality, not quantity. Said Kaziel for me.

link to Kaziel's steam workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7...workshopfiles/

Also he had his rome 1 total war mod, but he lost his mod around 2004-2005. Only had this screenshot from his rome 1 total war. Also he is just now working on late republic, Auxiliary and generals packs.

[Adamat]

Thanks for clearing that up, Noif. I think this looks quite good.

[Robin de Bodemloze]

Yes.

[Ritter-Floh]

a short answer - yes

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Yup.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

A nephew? Not too sharp with my modding knowledge, so will research a bit more when I get some free time, but this looks promising. Definitely seems to have a spot-on attitude.

[Squid]

I haven't created any tutorials as I feel there are plenty out there, and that everything I know I have taught myself, so if I can do it, with effort I believe anyone can. I don't know how other modders feel about me stating the following, but Noif suggested I should;

Though I haven't created any public tutorials, many modders have asked for my advice and techniques, on how to achieve good texture work. A good example of this is Zaskar70. He came to me asking how to improve his Normal Maps (Oct 2013) and I explained my process to him. From then on his work has turned from average to one of the best texturing I have seen in years. This makes me immensely proud. We are now good friends. Others like KLA & Laurentis have asked for my advice and have freely given it when I have free time.

Normally I would make this an obvious yes, but in this case I have some problem with attitude, particularly as expressed by the tutorial comment I've quoted. If this had been the attitude of modders such as myself, Aradan, Mak, MoN, Hallie, ER and countless others who modded RTW or Gigantus and others from M2TW or the many other modders who have created tools and tutorials who's names I don't know or can't remember what would the landscape of modding be now? How many great mods would be not as good or even not exist at all if people said why should I create a tutorial because can learn just like I did.

[Dark Storm]

The fact that he is willing to help when others come to him is surely a mitigating factor though? Obviously tutorials are important and reflect well on the individual, but at the same time if this attitude of not doing tutorials extended to not helping others, I'd have a bigger problem with it. Looking at both Zaskar and Dramabelli's comments it seems that Kaziel is helpful when people come to him and not unwilling to share his experience and work

Leaning towards a yes at the moment I think

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

Normally I would make this an obvious yes, but in this case I have some problem with attitude, particularly as expressed by the tutorial comment I've quoted. If this had been the attitude of modders such as myself, Aradan, Mak, MoN, Hallie, ER and countless others who modded RTW or Gigantus and others from M2TW or the many other modders who have created tools and tutorials who's names I don't know or can't remember what would the landscape of modding be now? How many great mods would be not as good or even not exist at all if people said why should I create a tutorial because can learn just like I did.

At the same time, you can't demand every artifex applicant writes a tutorial surely? It's also clear he helps people on a more personal basis, so I don't see it as an issue. So long as he's going the extra mile to help, whether it's by tutorials or one-to-one assistance, I think that's fine.

[m_1512]

Normally I would make this an obvious yes, but in this case I have some problem with attitude, particularly as expressed by the tutorial comment I've quoted. If this had been the attitude of modders such as myself, Aradan, Mak, MoN, Hallie, ER and countless others who modded RTW or Gigantus and others from M2TW or the many other modders who have created tools and tutorials who's names I don't know or can't remember what would the landscape of modding be now? How many great mods would be not as good or even not exist at all if people said why should I create a tutorial because can learn just like I did.

I would not think of it a big issue, unless of course the person actually turned people away when asked for help. Writing tutorials is quite a daunting task, and not everyone is up to writing it. The major attitude flaw comes when a person just flaunts his work and capacity, but refuses to help anyone who approaches them.

[Aikanár]

I don't think that Squid expects all modders to write tutorials, but without tutorials we'd only have so many modders and next to none of the great total conversions at all.

I haven't created any tutorials as I feel there are plenty out there, and that everything I know I have taught myself, so if I can do it, with effort I believe anyone can.

Basically comes down to that the applicant never needed to use the workshop, never asked anybody any question and never used any tutorial whatsoever. This is a very bold statement to make to say the least.

When you're a modder yourself and been around in the community, you're perfectly aware that this is not true even for the most talented and most gifted modders out there. Nobody starts everywhere from scratch. There are, of course, people who do groundbreaking research and venture where nobody has ever been before, but even they don't start completely in the void.

Everybody depends on the findings and knowledge of others when it comes to modding and making that knowledge available is most probably the best and most noble thing one can do for the modding community.

To close the circle and come back to the applicant. His contributions I consider sufficient, but as Squid pointed out, his arrogant and self-serving attitude is piss poor.

I'm tending towards a no.

[Sir Adrian]

If you look at his mods you'll see that most of them are re-skins and graphical additions. As long as you have the talent, which he does, and previous experience working with Photoshop and Corel Draw/Gimp, which he does according to his application, it's not exactly hard to learn how to do those things by yourself if you're willing to go for a bit of trial and error.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Saying no just because he hasn't created tutorials is utterly ridiculous. Would you say no to a debating candidate if they hadn't taught anyone how to debate? Or a writing candidate who hasn't taught other people how to write? I can't find or think of any example where that has happened.

Just because he doesn't have the attitude of those modders who were/are willing to write tutorials for people doesn't mean he shouldn't be recognised for his contributions. Aik, you say it is the best and most noble thing one can do for the modding community (agreed) - but Citizenship isn't about doing the best and most noble thing, it is about contributing, which he has done.

Plus, he is still helping modders if they ask him for it, so it's not like he is being "self-serving" as you seem to suggest.

[Aikanár]

Saying no just because he hasn't created tutorials is utterly ridiculous. Would you say no to a debating candidate if they hadn't taught anyone how to debate? Or a writing candidate who hasn't taught other people how to write? I can't find or think of any example where that has happened.

Indeed that would be ridiculous, fortunately nobody has said so or asked him to create tutorials. Please kindly re-read the posts again.

What Suqid and me are referring to is the attitude displayed, not what he worked on.

Just because he doesn't have the attitude of those modders who were/are willing to write tutorials for people doesn't mean he shouldn't be recognised for his contributions. Aik, you say it is the best and most noble thing one can do for the modding community (agreed) - but Citizenship isn't about doing the best and most noble thing, it is about contributing, which he has done.

Just because you apparently condense citizenship to contribution only, doesn't mean everybody has to follow this minimalist point of view.

Plus, he is still helping modders if they ask him for it, so it's not like he is being "self-serving" as you seem to suggest.

I have already taken that into consideration, if he wasn't I wouldn't just tend towards a direction, but would be convinced of my vote already.

[m_1512]

To close the circle and come back to the applicant. His contributions I consider sufficient, but as Squid pointed out, his arrogant and self-serving attitude is piss poor.

I don't think that would be the exact problem. I have interacted with Kaziel, on behalf of DeI mod as well as News team, and I cannot really recollect where he had an attitude problem. It also could be a possibility of miscommunication with the English language, where a sentence meant something completely different than intended.

I haven't created any tutorials as I feel there are plenty out there, and that everything I know I have taught myself, so if I can do it, with effort I believe anyone can. I don't know how other modders feel about me stating the following, but Noif suggested I should;

In the above post, he simply mentions that he has not written any tutorials, because he feels there are good quality ones there already. And from what I gather of the second bit is that he has used trial and error to hone his skills with 3D Max and PS.