Moderator interviews/ÜberJumper
From RelicWiki
- This interview is transcribed from the original thread.
Hello CoH Tech Support, and anyone else who might have wandered past, and welcome to the eighth in the series of The Moderator Interviews. These interviews, the remainder of which can be found in my forum signature at the bottom of the post, are designed to help the members of this fine forum get to know the staff that help run the place just that little bit better.
Today we're interviewing ÜberJumper, whose yearbook entry can be found at the following location:
I'm sure the interview is littered with mistakes, grammatical or otherwise, so if you could drop me a PM with any corrections I'd appreciate it
And so, to the interview itself...
Contents |
The Bio
Obtuse: Obligitary short bio, if you please
ÜberJumper: My name's Tyler Higgs, born in North Vancouver BC, raised in North Van and Pitt Meadows. Married to a semi-gamer wife (7 years this march), with 2 daughters, one 3 years one going on 1. Served in the Canadian Army Reserve as an Infantryman. Was a Rifleman, Section 2IC (*note that's 2 EYE CEE - 2nd In Command), platoon and company signaller. A section is the smallest tactical unit in the Canadian Infantry, 8-10 men. Joined in 1990, got out in 1998. Currently, I work as a Product Support Specialist at Eclipsys (www.eclipsys.com), a medical software company (Think electronic patient chart), previously for 9 years at LISA Technologies, software for the building products industry. I'm a gamer, obviously, but I really love troubleshooting technical issues.
Über and the military
Obtuse: I've heard that the ÜberJumper name came from you time in the military, is there a story behind that?
ÜberJumper: Yup... well... Jumper's the nickname for Paratroopers. It's a common saying, and pretty generic. "Have a good Jump, Jumper!" stuff like that. I picked it as when I'd gotten my first Windows PC I was in my Airborne phase (my regiment was tasked to provide a jump platoon for Two Commando of the Canadian Airborne Regiment). So anywyay, was using Jumper, and soon found there were lots of other Jumpers around. Signed up to play AvP on Mplayer, and Jumper was in use. Until then if I ran into trouble picking my nickname, I'd just use Jumper, but the Über thing was starting to get popular at the time, so I just stuck that in front of my nickname. When I signed up for the Relic forums, Jumper was in use as well, so that's when I really started using UberJumper/ÜberJumper. Originally it was UberJumper on the forums, but Dyntheos updated the nick one day way back when.
I like how Über (German for Over or Above, sometimes translated as Super) works with "Jumper" as well. Hehe OverJumper. I've run into another ÜberJumper online as well. I think they managed to get the LIVE! account, and the BF2 UberJumper account, so I've started switching to InactiveJumper, which is quite fitting as I'm a non-current paratrooper now.
Obtuse: Do you still keep in touch with the people you served with?
ÜberJumper: Yup actually, I play BF2 and CoH with some of them regularly. We sometimes get together for LAN gaming sessions, although the quality of Internet service and good voice comms have made those rare. I hung out with a bunch of guys from my unit (and some other friends) over Christmas. I regularly see them on Remembrance day and such as well.
Obtuse: What prompted you to leave the military?
ÜberJumper: Bad back, essentially. The Infantry's a young man's job really, and I've had a history of back problems. One of my knees is a bit gimpy as well, but nothing serious. I always figured I could sign up again when I had settled into my job, got married, had kids... now I think I won't be able to join up after my episode of Cancer :-/
Obtuse: Yeah, I was glad to read that was in full remission. The stomach photo was... interesting. How long did you do the whole pot-roast thang?
ÜberJumper: Was in the hospital for a month, home for a month, then back to work. Almost 3 years cancer free now. Best Diet Ever! Lost 55+ pounds. Man, was I skinny, but I've gained back like 35 :-(
Obtuse: Hopping back to the military for a moment, have you ever considered going back in a non-combat role?
ÜberJumper: That's exactly what I had hoped to do, maybe work in CQ (company quartermaster) or in Transport or some such, but with no spleen, no gallbladder, 5-10% of my pancreas and a digestive system that's finicy, I doubt I'd pass the physical. I might try in a couple of years. I've got a good friend heading to Afghanistan on a peacekeeping rotation coming up soon.
Oh noes, politics.
Obtuse: To get political, as a person who's served in the armed forces, what's your view on Afghanistan and the regions around it at the moment?
ÜberJumper: It's quite a quagmire, isn't it? I will say (in regards to Afghanistan) that if my daughters were being repressed by a totalitarian/evil regime that made them wear burkas and didn't let them get an education, I'd sure as hell hope someone would come along and sort it out. As for Iraq? Saddam had to go, no doubt. I believed Colin Powell when he said that there were weapons of mass destruction, and I'm saddened that he lied (as it would appear). I was JUST joining the military in 1990 and was on my basic training when Saddam invaded Kuwait and I was JUST starting my infantry course when Desert Storm happened. I was pretty idealistic back then, I remember thinking "What the hell are these people taking about, it's not about the oil!" Now, I know it's about oil, but specifically that oil runs modern economies, and ... well... without oil, we have the dark ages. Without oil, people don't make money, and when rich people can't make money... that's a threat to their survival. Anyway, enough politics!
Überfamily
Obtuse: You're fairly well-known as a person whose family is very important to them, I was just wondering (if you wouldn't mind) if you could give a quick update as to how they're all doing.
ÜberJumper: Aside from the norwalk virus running rampant in our house? GREAT :-D Both kids and my wife have been hit by some norwalk-like virus in the last week. We think they got it from a public carousel thing we went to with all our friends last week. Aside from that spiffy, looking forward to 2007 and getting a jetpack and flying car (we were supposed to have those in 2000 right?)
Obtuse: That's what I was told :E Could you tell me about your avatar of you with your kids?
ÜberJumper: Haha, I loved that avatar. Riess did a caricature of the kids and I. I played BF2 a lot last year, and was quite good with the AT kit (200 best in the world! which was pretty good considering how little I played), and Linnae would often sit in my lap while I blew up tanks.
I also had an old avatar which was a picture of Linnae playing with one of the swag grenades (that THQ was handing out at E3 2005), and I taught her how to grenade a trench with it. I suspect that's where Riess got the inspiration for her playing with the grenades.
Obtuse: Are any of your family members gamers themselves?
ÜberJumper: Yup! My wife's a gamer. She likes Civ type games, Caesar IV and such. We played through Diablo 2 and its expansion together. She can't play FPS games as she gets motion sick really easily though :-( She plays console games, Katamari Damacy and we just got Viva Pinata for the family to play. My oldest daughter Linnae plays flash games on the Disney.com website, she's already finding 'ploits to win games on there :-( Yeah, raising a family of gamers, Kaylee's already fascinated by the computer. Linnae's actually got her own PC (my old 1.2 Athlon with a 17" LCD attached)
Obtuse: Wow, and she's 3? o.O
ÜberJumper: Yeah, she's got a lil notebook mouse that fits her hand perfectly.
Obtuse: Awesome Linnae and Kaylee seem quite unusual names, where do they come from?
ÜberJumper: My wife picked Linnae (Swedish for small blue flower apparently) and we both agreed on Kaylee (yes, named after the character in Firefly and yes my wife knows it). We're not huge firefly fans (not browncoats or anything) but since it was a movie my wife liked, she was ok with it :-D
Obtuse: What kind of things do you and your family do for fun outside of computing?
ÜberJumper: Watch TV, movies, play games (board and console), hang out with friends. My wife scrapbooks a lot, and I play PC games and troubleshoot on the Relic forums a lot. The usual stuff, I suppose.
Über, Relicnews and the forum
Obtuse: Okay, moving on to the forums and relicnews.com, how did you become involved? You're one of the earliest staff members, I've heard.
ÜberJumper: I was bored. I saw a link, I think on bluesnews.com, to the Homeworld demo when it was released. I figured "ah heck, it's only 60 MB, might as well download it", downloaded it and immediately fell in love. It reminded me of Battlestar Galactica (the original series), Starblazers, those types of shows (especially Robotech/Macross). Anyway, I was having some trouble with the Alt+tab in and out of the game to the desktop and what not, so I went to the forums to find a solution (that's when they were hosted on Relic.com) I couldn't find a solution, so I figured it out, and posted. I was still cruising the Relic.com site (the old cool layout with the office map with people's desks on it) and I spotted a familiar name and realized that Relic was here in the Vancouver area!
I was pretty amazed, didn't realize that the game industry in Vancouver even existed back then, and thought I should support a local company. So I started helping out on the forums, keeping track of issues. Eventually Sorak made note of me and offered to let me mod the Tech forums. Pike also invited me to post news on Relicnews.com proper. I wasn't as funny as Pax, or as technically inclined as Overflow, or a web designer like PenPen, but by god could I find and post Homeworld and Relic related news before anyone else :-D Anyway, that's how it started, joined in September-ish of 1999, I think I was on staff at RN by December/January.
Obtuse: As someone who's seen a lot of people pass through the forums, how has it changed over the years? Have you been involved in that change at all?
ÜberJumper: Well, the forum staff have gotten a LOT more organized, but then there's about ... wow... I think on a good day in 99, maybe TOPS 75 or so people online at a time on the forums? We're easily 10 times that now. So yeah, a lot more organized, a lot more staff. I kinda break the forums down into eras. There was Sorak, which was on UBB - he was the one and only administrator. Then the great crash, haha, then the new sets of forum software. Dyntheos has done a great job of leading the forum staff, and collectively, we've picked good admins and moderators I think over the years. It's fairly democratic, really. Sometimes I think I'm a bit of a troublemaker for folks, I'm pretty passionate about stuff, but yeah, the forums have had a gradual change from a simple bunch of folks hanging out, to a well organized machine. I'm pretty impressed with how a bunch of folks held together by a love for one game (Homeworld) found friendship and comradeship and continue to work together to build this corner of the Relic community
Obtuse: It's good that general discussion has allowed people as fans of the different games to cross over and get to know one another, but how have your experiences varied with the different groups of fans for Homeworld, Dow and now Company of Heroes?
ÜberJumper: Well, for Homeworld, it's really a bunch of Sci-fi geeks. Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, etc. For DoW, it's interesting, I expected a LOT more table top players, and we got a lot. They're VERY passionate about the source material, and it's got a rich background. The Homeworld and DoW fans have a lot of similarities with the sci-fi backgrounds and what not. Now for Company of Heroes, it's lots of WW2 Grognards (which I'm a bit of one myself, dad had the entire Time Life History of WW2 series). Of course we're all RTS gamers, so there's lots of cross play. DoW's currently the biggest hit on the forums, load-wise I think, and modding-wise, HW2's pretty huge (and DoW) and CoH is coming into it's own.
Obtuse: So what game sections would an inquisitive stranger be most likely to find you in?
ÜberJumper: The technical support sections :-D Right now, CoH is the Relic game for me, so mostly there. It and Dawn of War need the bulk of the technical support. I think probably 20,000 of my 28,000 posts come from technical support
Obtuse: One thing I have noticed about the forums is how tight a lot of the staff seem to be, can you give any explanation as to why this might be the case?
ÜberJumper: Well, we've been around together for a long time, a lot like family. We've spent 7+ years together some of us, so a lot of good friends. Hanging out on IRC and playing other games (like EvE and BF2 and such) together on TeamSpeak's a great bonding experience
Obtuse: Forum Issues is something that interests a lot of the members, is that something that you involve yourself in at all? What's your view on it?
ÜberJumper: The forum issues sub forum? Absolutely needed. If we don't know it's broken, we can't fix it. Doesn't mean we WILL fix it, but the users need a way to talk to the staff and have everyone able to participate. If you think about it, we've got several thousand members. We're as big as a small city. Forum Issues is like city hall, and Reki's the receptionist :-D
Errr... Reki's the town clerk
Obtuse: Reki does good work. Do you see the sub-forum changing at all in the future? Are there any areas for improvement, perhaps?
ÜberJumper: It's changed a bit in the last year, junior moderators can't post in it for instance. Like everything on the forums, it'll undergo changes if needed. The big changes happen in the hidden staff forums, there's like 15 sub-forums in there, lots of stuff going on.
Obtuse: Are there any aspects of the board you see changing in the near or distant future, or perhaps you'd like to have changed?
ÜberJumper: Well, there's a slow burn on to change some of the technical support forum organization, and then there's squiddy's spike pits, but seriously, if it's not broken it won't get fixed. Might take a while for us to spot something that needs addressing, or a new tidbit of info from Relic might change things, but I think they're ok right now. I should, of course, mention that if a user has a problem with something, they should bring it up in Forum issues.
Relic stalker, Relic worker
Obtuse: Could you tell me about the reason you have been known as the "Relic stalker"?
ÜberJumper: Haha. Jay Wilson, one of Relic's devs (Former lead designer on Dawn of War, now at Blizzard working on, I hope, Starcraft 2), labelled me that. I think it was something like "You're like our very own stalker" or somesuch. It's essentially because I've been down to Relic a bunch of times and seemed to know what was going on at Relic, went to E3 and such, so yeah, kinda stalker-like. Doesn't help that I've got a pretty good memory, so I can pull correct (usually) info out of my head a lot of the time, so while someone else might have to go look something up, I'm like "Well it's because of that!" and they're all like "How do you know that... nevermind, WHY do you know that?" So yeah I think I got that nickname before I worked there (on contract for a month) on Homeworld 2
Obtuse: I noticed the note in your yearbook entry, "Contract @ Relic Summer ‘03", how did that come about and what did you do there?
ÜberJumper: Well... I don't know how much you know about the History of Relic and Sierra, so I'll go back a bit. Homeworld was a successful product, didn't cost Sierra much to make, but Relic had to offer up their next 3 titles to Sierra before anyone else could bid on them. Relic started work on Impossible Creatures (which Sierra passed on, and Microsoft published), and there was another title that Sierra passed on as well (I think) then finally Homeworld 2. Relic had been working on Homeworld 2 since almost the end of Homeworld. I was there for a visit in July of 2000 IIRC with a couple of community folks (RipperT and Carradine). We sat in on a dev meeting, saw the game in action, played with it a bit, had lunch with them, it was all good. The Next E3 rolls around, and before that started, Sierra launched the now infamous Homeworld2.com site which had a timer on it counting down to the game's launch, so, I book a flight to LA for E3.
Meanwhile, Relic and Sierra are having some issues over money (which is what a lot of developers go through I hear), and the E3 display of Homeworld 2, and the launch of the website are cancelled. Anyway, while I was there, I got a chance to see Homeworld 2 (in it's then current form) and I was gob-smacked. Flash forward a couple of months to August and news breaks that Sierra had cancelled Homeworld 2. So the game, at that point, is Dead. I hang out for a while longer in the community, and when I think it's clear that Homeworld's not going anywhere, I "left" the community. Alex Garden heard that, and called me up and offered to take me to lunch. He convinced me to stay with the community, that it wasn't dead yet, so I hung out for a while longer. May of 2002 rolls around, and Relic's started work up again on Homeworld 2. They're hiring folks to fill positions that they'd had to let go as HW2 had been stopped (this is when Mecha, long time community member, moved over from England to work on HW2) so anyway, they're working away and basically starting from scratch, but Sierra's not the same Sierra that helped Relic birth Homeworld. They didn't put as much effort into it as they could have. Turn-around time on bug tracking and what not was essentially not happening, so they needed to bring people in to test.
Pike and I were both contracted to do "first pass QA" (credited as additional design support in the credits) on the game. I was working a full time job, getting to Relic at 4pm, working till 10-11pm, then heading home. That was for all of July. The game went gold first week of August and it still needed way more QA on it but it ended Relic's contractual obligations to Sierra and let THQ buy them up. I actually had a chance to see some of the DoW stuff while I was working there, was pretty cool, the early DoW stuff that is.
Obtuse: Whoa, awesome story.
ÜberJumper: It was neat, that's for sure. Relic's totally different now, all but one of the original plank members of Relic are gone. Alex Garden left THQ, took a year off (contractually, he couldn't compete with Relic after he left THQ), and apparently has started a new company in Vancouver pitching game ideas. Ron Moravek left Relic for EA Canada, Curtis Terry just left. Erin daly's headed back east, I believe his wife is working at a university there. Luke Maloney left Relic shortly after HW2 was done. Only Rob Cunningham is left from the HW days (of the startup crew that is, there are still other folks that worked on Homeworld still at the company, including the mighty Quinn Duffy. Curtis and Ron technically came on later I believe, but they're original management).
I should say that this is from my recollection, which is mostly gathered from former employees and may not paint a true picture of how the relationship was with relic and Sierra.
Obtuse: How much communication/interaction do you have with Relic as a company nowadays?
ÜberJumper: A lot more than usual. Since they hired a "Community Manager", communications have been a lot better. Before I used to have to work through several different associate/assistant producers to get info. John Johnson was always pretty good at getting us info (he was producer on CoH and Impossible Creatures) I actually did a phone interview or two for Buggo's job before she was hired. IMO, she's better suited for the job than I'd be. Relic made a good choice hiring her, as I think everyone can agree.
Obtuse: Aye, as cool as it would have been to have an Übermanager, Buggo's enthusiasm for the job has certainly benefited the community a lot since she arrived. I still remember the period before she arrived when it felt like everyone was left in a void between patches. Where do you see Relic going in the future?
ÜberJumper: Relic's clearly one of the top developers in the PC game industry right now. I'd like to see Relic have a breakout hit on the Xbox 360 myself. The Outfit was a lot of fun, but I think a lot of folks didn't know what to make of it. It's really a strategy game (think battlezone) at heart. I think they're going to dabble in Massively Multiplayer stuff (or at least have more online components) with the Dawn of War franchise and they might be re-visiting Homeworld (there's rumours swirling around outside of Relic, on the streets as it were, about Relic having gotten the rights back to Homeworld from Sierra before Ron Moravek left for EA Canada). I think there'll be a CoH expansion announced sooner rather than later
Obtuse: What are your thoughts on the tease Buggo posted for (presumably one of) Relic's next projects?
ÜberJumper: I think it's a screenshot of something, probably concept art if it is an actual bit of info from a game. I suspect it's either distorted or encoded. We'll find out, I'm sure, in March (or later)?
Obtuse: Buggo said that she'd be showing the original screen to a bunch of us from #tabletop when we came to Relic, but I would imagine everyone who comes along to the Open House will most likely get to see it.
ÜberJumper: Yeah, haha. I bet if she was talking to folks in #tabletop about it, it's 40K related
Obtuse: Good point. Okay, I think I've asked everything that I wanted to, is there anything you'd like to mention before we get some audience questions?
ÜberJumper: Just want to remind folks that I don't actually know what Relic's working on, just have some suspicions (based on released concept art and logical leaps)
Audience questions
Caesar: I'd like to know about those rumours about the HW IP but I doubt he can say if he knows anything
ÜberJumper: Actually, since I heard them from non-Relic sources I can blab all I want :-D Basically I heard that Ron Moravek was pushing hard to get the HW IP back from Sierra and that he succeeded. There was word out on the Sierra forums and forum staff as well apparently Relic DID get it back but as no trademarks have changed hands (i've not looked in a while) it can't be confirmed. I also heard tidbits that the concepts kicking around for a Homeworld game are NOT Homeworld 3. I should say that I thought Homeworld was Dead, and that Relic wasn't ever going to get it back
Caesar: We all thought so
Inq: Would you say Relic being bought by THQ was a good thing?
ÜberJumper: Yes, totally yes. Best thing that could have happened (for us).
Inq: What the hell is the new upcoming game?
ÜberJumper: The new upcoming games (I suspect) are a CoH expansion (Battle of the Bulge I bet, hopefully followed by an Operation market Garden expansion... CoH:OMG!) and a Dawn of War property (DoW2? Maybe just an online component/add on). I hear rumours of a third title underway as well, not sure what it is though
Skwerl: jumper, I guess it would be bastogne, because there are quite a few concept arts that are snowy. I doubt they'd spend so much time researching and just scrap it.
ÜberJumper: Skwerl, that's my logic as well
Skwerl: to back it up even further, the latest pcoh map has snow map, the snow texture is taken from coh
ÜberJumper: Well, I'd suspect OMG before a campaign on the boot. OMG would mean British units and they could plug easily into an Italian campaign
Inq: What’s your favourite title for relic?
ÜberJumper: Ugh, tough one, actually. August I would have said Homeworld 1, followed by Homeworld 2, followed by Dawn of War, followed by The Outfit, followed by Impossible Creatures, but now, with both Dark Crusade being such a hoot, and Company of Heroes not letting me go... let's just say Company of Heroes is right up there. WW2 was a big part of my youth well before spaceships were.
Obtuse: What's up with your mention on Penny-arcade.com? I quote ""The unstoppable ÜberJumper - for whom no obstacle is an impediment - lets us know that there will be a second Dawn of War expansion.." --Tycho"
ÜberJumper: I sometimes submit Relic related info to Tycho knowing that PA's liked some of Relic's stuff in the past (the Homeworld PA cartoon is GOLD). For the original Child's Play thing they do, I'd mentioned my stay in hospital for Cancer, and discussed it a bit with him on email and at E3 2005 briefly. I like to think that he's either mentioning that not even cancer can stop me, but likely simply making a play on the nickname ÜberJumper ("Able to clear obstacles in a single bound it's SuperJumper!"), maybe it's a bit of both. Yeah, let's go with both :-D I've met him a couple of times IRL. He's quite the fellow, very charismatic and engaging to talk to.
trebeer: Uber, what motivates your life?
ÜberJumper: Sex, duh (actually, the subliminal drive to procreate, but yeah).
Caesar: Why do you blow up tanks so much?
ÜberJumper: I don't blow up tanks anymore, now I save lives with a shock paddle!
Inq: Pirate or ninja?
ÜberJumper: Ninja Pirates
trebeer: He's airborne, he's ninja.
ÜberJumper: Actually, I like pirates too :-(
ceejayoz: I'd just like to note that the windows shortcut for Uber's special character is Alt+666
ÜberJumper: Actually ceej, I've been using Alt+0220, only recently did I learn that it was alt 666
Obtuse: I’ve been using alt+154 :s
Righteo, don't think there are any more questions, so thanks for reading. Continue to have a good 2007! Posterity demands it!
