1. How did you first hear about Ace of Spades (AoS) and what drew you to it?

I first heard about Ace of Spades roughly a few days after it was initially released (April 2011). A friend of mine insisted that I check it out and I told him I wasn't interested on several occasions. Eventually I caved in and gave it a shot. I became hooked instantly. The game itself has a low learning curve, just a quick install and you're ready to join a server. No registrations, no confirmations, you just play the game. While that design has it's disadvantages in some aspects, it's a great selling point. The game has changed a quite a bit since I started playing, but it hasn't strayed too far from its original, simplistic concept.

2. How was the community surrounding AoS when you first joined and how was your experience of it over the months you spent with the game?

When I first joined, there wasn't much much of a community, at least not in a structured sense. It was quite loose knit. There were some basic forums in place, but not much else. Danhezee was the other admin at the time and as we starting talking a bit more, we began trying to shape the community. We started doing things like events with matches and map/mod competitions to help get people involved.

3. From your knowledge, how and why did Jagex get involved and what's the situation with the original developers of AoS now?

I will preface this by saying I'm obviously not ben (bcoolface) and I can't speak on his behalf.

bcoolface was unemployed while he was making Ace of Spades. He was in a tight spot financially after he released it to the public, so when Jagex approached him with an offer it didn't take much to lure him in. The deal apparently wasn't that good, we know of two occasions when bcoolface tried to buy the rights back, and finally he just had enough and quit leading up to the 1.0 release.

4. What is your opinion of how Jagex have handled the game and its existing community? What would you have liked for them to do?

Jagex's procedures for managing a community probably need a thorough review and audit. Initially, the original Ace of Spades staff tried to help steer Jagex's community managers in the right direction, one that would help ease the transition for both themselves and the existing community. Sadly, they took our advice and did the complete opposite and the community is the one that is suffering because of it. They are quite trigger happy with banning whenever anybody raises any concerns that puts them in a negative light.

5. Why did you decide to start up Build And Shoot? Could you describe what Build And Shoot is for those who don't know?

It was easy to see Jagex has no intentions on steering this game in a direction that would thrive or satisfy it's existing userbase. While seeing this, danhezee, izzy, and myself (StackOverflow) decided to create a new community called Build and Shoot. We kept it secretive at first, namely to resolve some legalities. By the time Jagex was ready to drop the free version, we were ready with our community.

We are a community that aims to provide a safe harbor for the Voxlap version of Ace of Spades. All while giving users a place to be creative, voice their opinions, and of course, enjoy the game that brought them all together. We hope to take it to another level by expanding things both technically and socially as time progresses.

6. How has the response been to Build And Shoot been so far?

The response has been great so far. Traffic has been steadily increasing since our launch and we've experienced a boost since Jagex officially launched their game on Steam. It's not uncommon for our player count to exceed that of the Steam version.

Sadly, the same can't be said on the Jagex front. The judgement of the community managers has been clouded by pre-existing differences between the old Ace of Spades staff and themselves. Even mentioning Build and Shoot on the "official" forums has resulted in many people being banned. That doesn't stop people from sharing it via other means though. If anything, them trying to censor the site has only made it more popular through some sort of "Voldemort effect".

7. What's your future plans regarding Build And Shoot and its community?

We want to focus on improving the game experience without modifying the client. We fully acknowledge intellectual property rights and are doing our best to respect them.

We have a few specific objectives in mind and have already reached a few of them:

- Create an independent community (Done)
- Create an independent master server (Done)
- Create an independent game server (Done)
- "Ace Servers" with added functionality and protection
- Better social interaction with friends via a friend system
- Create new game modes and in-game functionality
- Host official and user-driven events

8. Have you or will you play the Jagex backed version of AoS? If so, what do you make of it?

The entire Build and Shoot staff has played 1.0 and the general consensus is it's just not the same game. It's been watered-down to appeal to a new audience and is more of a "spray and pray" game rather than a tactical one.

There were early versions of the OpenGL client that were tested a few months back. These versions were perfect. They had the same Voxlap feel, just with improved OpenGL rendering and capabilities.