Exclusive Interview with NCsoft Austin's CaptSturm

This interview with CaptSturm was originally started back in December but it's publish was delayed due to Capt's very busy schedule. I'd like to thank Kyzah, as always, for her efforts with beatin' Capt' up over getting back to us!

As for the rest of the Lineage 1 team back at NC Austin... Watch out folks... Roo's a-gonna get ya! ;-)

Rooella	Hey there! great to catch you... are you looking forward to Januarys HoC?
CaptSturm	Well, getting to this late, I'll say that I always look forward to the change of chatting with the Lineage fans. With our new schedule of HoCs (rotating among the other fine NC products) it seems long overdue. I enjoyed this past one as always.
Rooella	It's been a tough few months for Lineage huh? I'm dying to know tho... what did you think of the player of the year contest we ran?
CaptSturm	I gotta tell you--I have enormous appreciation and respect for the fan site operators. Just the sheer fact that you put all the extra effort into creating the site is incredible, but the contests are way above and beyond. I think its obvious the Lineage players really appreciate the work you all do, but let me state it loudly for the record...YOU ROCK!
Rooella	Umm... blush Any suggestions for next years? :)
CaptSturm	Preferably something that involves elephants and snowboards.
Rooella	Elephants? Umm O.o I'll bear that in mind... Okay... i know you're gonna hate me but i just have to ask the question... How have the "Water cooler" talks about bringing us all together on one server been going? Any action there at the moment? There are all kinds of roumers floating about right now... I think we're all very excited and anxious to hear what you have come up with!
CaptSturm	Well, we get together and start scribbling on the white board. We talk about all the collisions, such as character and pet names, we talk about pledge houses and castles and storage concerns. We talk about the mechanics of how a transfer request would work, such as emailing support or building a web page to do that. And who would do it. And does it need art, who does that? And the database hooks, how is that implemented.
Rooella	Oh go on... Throw me a bone here! plureaaaaaaaaaase?
CaptSturm	Well, suffice it to say it wouldn't be a piece of cake even if it was decided that we actually wanted to do it. It would be a significant change in operational philosophy that I couldn't make on my own. The main thing is that we be careful not to get ahead of ourselves. We'll consider everything that could make the service better, but we can't ignore the daily tasks of running the service either.
Rooella	notes the hoards NC Lawyers making notes on clipboards sniff sooo not what I was hoping for... A lot of network problems in the last few months... are these now put to bed?
CaptSturm	A lot of those were unrelated and unexpected-as much as I'd like to promise we won't see any further issues, I'm afraid that'll be a concern with any internet game for the near future. Currently, many ISPs are doing network maintenance that is completely out of our domain and control. However, I think that the network situation will show improvement outside of these anomalies.
Rooella	Well that has to be good news! What do you have to say to all of our players who ran off to play another game this month? Do you think Lineage will win them back?
CaptSturm	There's no doubt that some fantastic games have been released lately. I also firmly believe that no other game does a better job of providing a "hook" than Lineage. Some may do equally well, but none does it better. I think the vast majority of the Lineage players, and I mean like 98%, are TRUE Lineage fans and have it in their blood. While they may stray, an awful lot will come back.
Rooella	How are the other ventures going? CoH, Lin2 etc? Are they as fun and demanding for you as Lineage has been?
CaptSturm	You know, I can't imagine anything more fun than the times I've had working on Lineage. It was a great opportunity to communicate with the fans and actually implement many great suggestions and drive towards a vision of delivering an environment where players can participate in the process. Lineage 2 is always interesting because it's the sequel and, of course, is incredibly detailed and beautiful. CoH is a great team, the dev guys are incredibly professional and have such a passion about the quality of their work. We also coordinate the PlayNC website publishes, which is less glamorous but crucial to operations. Looking forward, the Auto Assault team is a blast to work with and they're in the process of creating a game that'll "blow your doors off!" (Sorry, bad pun!).
Rooella	What about the eagerly awaited Episode 3? It seems like just yesterday Ep2 went live... Are you still activley involved with this, or is scout now taking care of the bulk of it?
CaptSturm	Aww, you know, it is mainly Scout on this. I poke around to see what's going on and fix things when she breaks them. :^)
Rooella	Yeah... you gotta watch that one... She's trouble i tell ya! What's your Tip for 2005 for our Lineage fans?
CaptSturm	Well, I'd suggest a couple. One, keep providing the great feedback. That stuff gets forwarded on the core dev team in Seoul and is considered for implementation on the LoA server. Second, get a friend to try it. I want to see an increase in numbers over the upcoming year. We'll try and crank out some good events and updates for ya' if you'll do that for me.
Rooella	So what's it like working with Kyzah AND Scout? I mean.. they're pretty nutty galz... how do you stay sane?
CaptSturm	Who say's I'm sane?
Rooella	Ya... we love 'em too! What ya got Roo for Christmas?
CaptSturm	Hmm, we don't do presents at my house. It's all about the true reason for the season. :^) However, how 'bout that event that Scout whipped up? Huh? Yeah, I played a bit myself!
Rooella	Yeah - it was a hoot! Scout gave us pies! mmmmm exceedingly good pie... Well it's time i got on with smackin' those evil mops! Thanks for taking the time out of your day to talk to us... u rule the roost! ;-) geddit? Roo... roost? ooh nvm.