Interview with Ben(Element)

 I took questions from everyone who wanted to ask them and asked Ben. Here is what he has to say.

Profile
Name: Ben
Age: 24
Location: Wellington, NZ

In my spare time I spend it working/building my car and hitting the gym as of late.

I live with my partner and dog (Charlie) in the suburbs.

I work an average full time job just like everyone else, I don't own my own home and I am not rich despite what everyone will tell you.

The reason this game is & continues to run is because I have and always will love this project, the support of the donations past & present are the only reason it can continue.


Q. What car are you building?
I am building a Nissan Sil80 (180sx with an S13 front).
Runs an S15 SR20DET motor, it does go but the motor has a leak so I am pulling it back out.



Q. How much can you bench?
Just over 80KG so not much unfortunately.
  

Q. Adam asks how your brother is?
My brother is good. We live in the same city now and play indoor cricket once a week.


Q. What's your favorite food/colour/hobby?
Authentic Asian, Green, My Car.


Q. How do you like your eggs in the morning?
Boiled or Poached on toast.

  
Q: A few people always complain that you don't do enough for the game, don't spend enough time/have enough admins. Most of us understand why but obviously their are people who don't know you, could you explain a little about yourself and maybe a little history of how this game came to be?
In my opinion after having worked on this project for 9 years is that you cannot please everyone, it has been a life lesson if you will because believe me over the years I have tried.

What people don't understand is how much time everything takes, people tend to complain about slow development which is what is needed to get things done properly. Yet they complain if they don't think things are moving quickly enough, it is a pretty fine line.

You have to remember not only do I have to worry about game development, looking after the game itself but there is also the server administration side of things which can be just as much of a challenge at time.

As for hiring staff, we have had some pretty bad luck with this over the past as some of you are well aware. I can understand it from both sides however, moderating is a very time internsive job and from it you basically just get player abuse because we cannot afford to pay anyone.

That being said we have had a handful of great staff members over the years and I have probably not ever thanked them enough for their support.


We started this project when I was about 15 years old, I am now 24.

I have a full time job aside from this, I have a partner, dog etc all which also need time so juggling life is probably the most difficult task.

Many people have this perception that I make a living from donations here and don't give back to the community. If I added up all the hours spent on this project in the last 10 years and gave myself a McDonald's wage out of the donations we would have been broke from the start.

That is not to say I am ungrateful for the support we have and will hopefully continue to receive as this is the only reason why the game can survive.

But to make people clear I don't live in a mansion playing games all day forgetting about this project (infact I don't even own a house at all).

When I am working hard to get something done my day can consist of 12 working hours easily. 8 Hours for my normal job and then 4 hours here (4 hours is nothing in terms of time it takes to get things done properly) and this doesn't even start on the full weekends worth of time it has received.

I remember in the past doing this for weeks and weeks on end to get new layouts rolled out etc only to get a pretty average response from the comunnity later (We can't always get things perfect).


In the end even if people believe me or not I love this project, at times it has consumed my life but the people I have met, friends made and just the general feedback I get occasionally from players is what keeps me going.


Q: Are you happy with the outcome of recent updates/is the game improving as you intend?
Yes personally I am happy with the outcome of the latest updates.

Development is never as fast as anyone would like it, when it has been rushed in the past that is where we have had most of our issues.

Am I happy with the number of players it has brought to the game? Not yet but it is working slowly at this stage.


Q: Do you have any updates that you are working on at the moment or that will be released in the near future?
I am always working on something! The next thing to cross off my list is to fix the stats bar panel/timers as well as adding a couple of timers to the bottom for travel & operations. The other thing I am working on is the ability to add ranks to operations requests, and the possibility of an MIA bot of sorts.


Q. What inspired you to create the game and why a war based game?
 I was playing another game similar at the time, Adrian and I were whitewater kayaking together at the time and it all just stemmed from there.
Why war? Simply because there was nothing else on the market at the time and everything else was Gangster based, which I loved but we had to be different.


Q. Are there any plans for a reset? How long will you keep the round going?
 No plans yet, I think this round will go longer than the last at this stage. I can't really put a timeframe on it.


Q. Have you ever played as a regular player? As you have the best view of the game in a sense, who do you think have been the greatest squads/players?
 Yes within reason, I have ranked a normal account in previous rounds to see how things go together. It has caused change of many features, I should do it more often for testing, things are always good as ideas but when you actually play and use the features sometimes they don't work as you intended.



Q. Are there any plans to make bar brawling a bigger part of the game, i.e getting normal XP from it?
 It has been considered, it would/does really need an overhaul. Is this something people want to see?


Q. How many hours did you spend getting the game back up this week?
This week 21 hours as a minimum. That is ontop of working 40+ hours for my actual job. I have probably spent 4 hours in the gym this week and other than working that is every minute of spare time.
What people don't realize is how long everything takes and the better you do something the longer it takes. I think in the 3 days of downtime I had roughly 12-13 hours of sleep.


Q. Is the game now what you pictured it would be when you started it all them years ago?
Yes and no. Did I ever think the project would take off like it did? No. Is the what I would like as a final stage? Absolutely not I have and always will have larger expectations.


Thank you for your time.