Patres, it's hard for me to speak after the words of my Patrons. It's hard for two reasons mainly: first one is because they honestly said all I did, second one, because no one better than a friend can speak of you sometimes, this means that what one can add is no more important. They said what I did and I will say how and why.
I was a long time player-visitor of this forum. Just before to write a word (first post I wrote was replied by a Swiss welcome some years ago). I simply read a lot many threads, breaking down my diffidence about these mysterious mods. I started with learning the "Language" of this forum, the particular terms and phrases to define current stuffs and practices. I did this basically "read more and write less"; in an humble way I say this should be an unwritten rule for many of us because often all we search here is already written by a lot of good mates, teaching us with patience and passion. Well, passion, this I noticed immediately. Full of enthusiasm for the works of some mates. Radious mod for Shogun 2 was my big overhaul; I only played it. AUM by Swiss was my first unit pack. If Medieval II was a complete experience as vanilla; Empire, the bugged one, forced me to swim through the phantoms of this forum and find what I was searching to get the best experience also in terms of performances. I started to love the work of modders because this was a huge effort given by people like me without asking nothing: no money, no honours, no adoration. "Give and enjoy". So I felt the need to write and deal with some of them to show my enthusiasm. This made me close to Radious and Swiss. It was an honour for me to spread pics for them in the early stage. It was a pleasure to enter the UPC project: helping the community also helped me for my purposes because I get the power to enter the secret of the words around these games (names and descriptions of many units released past year were created by me). So I invite you to imagine a "player" entering the first stage... the first halls of the modding palace. Then Swiss was a while away because of a modding pause and I was encouraged by Radious and by our needs to start to manage the UPC in a long first stage with Champloo. Swiss well teached me when we started to collaborate so the processes to do were clear to me. At last, Swiss was very satisfied of my job and this is the best word I can reach about the time I use for this language project. Meanwhile my friendship was growing with Radious and we arrived to speak together in a very clear manner, polite and ironical also when we didn't completely agree in all things. Last stage: In summer 2014 we joined Wolfman and Champloo to make two big unit packs. The first one released was mainly created by them. I only took care of the names and descriptions for the UPC (watching maps and reading some sources to create something if not real, almost reliable in terms of words and contents). They completely included me as fourth member with full credits (you can see the promo videos below).
Well I felt myself incomplete. I felt my contribute in this mod was not enough to justify this and so I said to myself this was a sort of trustful act of them to include all my past help. I was also speaking since months about "how to make certain units" but I reached the point that as everyone of them, I had to test myself in doing what I want following my principles. So I started to open GIMP (recommended by Swiss) and watched the Zaskar70 and Magnar tutorials. I started to make my first armours. After one month Radious offered me the challenge: 15 units for Syracuse. I accepted starting to work hard, inspired by the great work of Total War Hellas Team and remembering the great Hero of Napoleon total war: PdGuru (I collaborated with him as historical researcher to create a pair of his great units, he also used my face to create skins for his
Armee - as you can see in my avatar). Then Radious said to me that there was a big plan for tons of units; pack after pack, month after month and we did it. Radious had his units. I had realized my ideas. Coleridge said: "don't break the pact with your reader; be always reliable also when you're using your imagination". This was my principle. -- Radious put the bones, I added the flesh -- this is our motto. Then Swiss came back and we collaborated for the "final rush" for the updates of his previous AUM packs (as he said, pics for all his previous units and testing work). I asked him to balance the already perfect db work made by Radious for my units for the vanilla version of the game. He accepted and did it in a great way with the same enthusiasm he put into his AUM works. Then we released my units in a separate "DramaBelli Unit Pack for vanilla" on TWC and Steam. So, some days ago thanks to these two friends and veterans who made my textures more than pointless puppets I had my debut on the Steam workshop... but I should and almost would say: OUR debut even if for them, this old field, is the path of the veterans; the path of my friends.
Am I an Artifex? I don't know. I still consider myself a simple enthusiast and not as a professional worker. I have my little experience but the last word must be given to the ones with more experience than mine. I can only tell my story and continue to march.
"curate, ut valeatis"
Vale
DramaBelli
Profile page applicant DramaBelli
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[Artifex] DramaBelli (Patron: Swiss Halberdier) [PASSED]
A simple yes from me.
