[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]This month we are hearing from Black Wolf. He's been around HLP for a long time and has picked up skills from FRED to Textures! He has also worked on a number of projects with a few more on the way. Unfortunately, he's a busy guy and we had been wanting to interview him for several months. Again, it just didn't work out for us to meet on IRC for a more free-flowing interview, but I thought it was important enough to get it done anyway. Using PMs, here is Black Wolf's answers to questions about where he's from and how he really feels about Axem!

[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]So, first up. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]Well, my name is Matt, I'm from Western Australia. To pay the bills, I'm a geologist working for Rio Tinto, flying in and out of the Pilbara (around 1200km away), exploring for iron ore.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]When did you first play Freespace? (1, 2, or both?)
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]I'm struggling to remember exact dates, but not long after FS1 came out, my brother got a demo copy of FS1 on one of those demo disks that used to come out with gaming magazines. I was a Star Wars and Sci Fi fan in general, and I'd played Descent, so I bugged him mercilessly to install it. He finally did, but the performance was woeful to the point of unplayability on our PC at the time, so it largely got forgotten. A year or two later, my parents bought a new computer that came with the OEM version of FS2. I played the hell out of that demo - it wasn't a Star Wars game, but it was close enough for me, and, of course, it was just such a good game in its own right. I got hooked pretty quickly.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]When did the love affair really begin? Like when did you start modding? Why?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]At the time, FS2 was really hard to find, but we managed to get a copy of FS1 and Silent Threat. By that, I had a computer of my own that was capable of running it, so I installed it on that. It didn't take me long to discover FRED, which hadn't come with the OEM version of FS2. If I hadn't already been on my way to being a serious Freespace fan, it was FRED that cemented it.
I'd always been interested in modifying or creating video games, but previously I'd never found a game or a modding system that I was capable of using, or at least, using well. After all, I was maybe 13 or 14 at the time, and this was the late 90s, when a lot of the internet content that makes modding so approachable now, like YouTube tutorials and wikis and the like, simply didn't exist yet. But with FRED, for the first time, not only has I found a tool that I could quickly and easily learn, for a game and in a genre that I really enjoyed, but I could very rapidly produce content that I could actually [b]play[/b], even enjoy. That was so different to most modding tools I'd used previously, where you could spend hours just learning how to make a big room with an enemy or two in it.
Later, of course, we did get a copy of FS2, and the new weapons and ships (not to mention the new capabilities of FRED2) meant I largely migrated over to FS2, and I started doing different things to the game, but it was those first few months making FS1 missions on my very own computer that really made me both a Freespace fan and a Freespace modder.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]What was the first campaign you worked on?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]The first campaign I actually worked on was... I don't actually quite remember the name. Something about "Diablo". By that point, I had learned how to modify tables, and change textures in ModelView32 - even a little bit of image editing in Paint Shop Pro. I had this idea about a Deimos corvette (the titular [b]Diablo[/b]) that had been retrofitted with Shivan technology and gone bad somehow - I don't recall if it got stolen or whether the Shivan tech somehow took it over. Needless to say, it suffered the same issues that just about everyone's first campaign idea does - too much ambition, too little skill and dedication, and it collapsed fairly quickly. One day, I should actually make a minicampaign along those lines, just so I can claim the title of longest development time of any FS project.
The first time I ever actually worked on something that got released would have been on the Neo Terra Victorious demo, with Alikchi and a few others. I'd not really like to see those missions again - I suspect they'd be pretty atrocious by my standards these days. But I recall having fun making them. :)[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]I often see you trying to fill modding niches. For example, you made a lot of useful civilian models and head animations. You spent some time dabbling in Vasudan models as well. What motivated you to do all of that? What's the most difficult job for you of all the modding skills?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]Well, primarily I think it mostly springs from a bad habit I have when FREDding. I'll come up with a new idea for a given mission - often one that requires a new asset - and that will completely derail me from finishing that mission while I go and find a way of getting that new asset. In the past, all too often, that was simply impossible - there just weren't that many assets around, and what there was tended to fall into a fairly small number of categories - primarily Terran fighters, bombers or capships. If you wanted small stations, civilian ships, Vasudan ships, mission scenery, anything like that (and I frequently did want those things) you had almost no options. So, I pretty much had two paths I could go down - either make the missions without the assets I thought I needed, or ask other people to make the assets for me (I'm certain that the internet archive will have posts from me on the VBB asking about small stations, for example), which was, as far as I recall, almost universally unsuccessful.
When I finally did teach myself how to mod, it was less about some sort of artistic vision I had for a particular ship or a model, and more about the purely utilitarian concerns of getting these models that I needed in game. That was what started me on that whole idea of "niche-filling" - if I hadn't needed to fill those niches, I wouldn't have made anything at all. Now though, I do very consciously try to make models that do fill empty niches, even when I'm not building for a particular mission, because I still remember that extremely frustrating feeling of being a new FREDder with a cool idea but lacking the ships I need to carry it out. I want to help eliminate that element of frustration from the experience of the current generation of new FREDders.
In terms of difficulty, well... that's tricky. It depends so much on the individual model. Anything that requires lots of slow, relatively non-creative work is really hard - the classic example is UV mapping, but there are elements in texturing as well - simply because it's hard to stay motivated. But I think for me personally the hardest part has always been what I think of as "organic" modelling - anything that requires lots of curves and soft angles - Vasudan models and some Shivans. I simply never learned how to do them well. I am amazed by people like Oddgrim and The Dagger who can pump out these amazing, high quality Vasudan models because despite the number of hours I've spent in front of modelling programs, I still have absolutely no idea how they do it.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]Tell me about Frontlines. How'd it start? What spawned the idea?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]Frontlines really had two separate geneses. The first was several years ago, when I had been I think browsing some of the old TVWP threads. For whatever reason, that particular time I got a bit frustrated by the fact that the TV War was this big, sprawling period of FS history that almost nobody had played with - despite the fact that the TVWP had been going for awhile, there hadn't actually been any new Terran vs. Vasudan campaigns set in that time period since Cardinal Spear (at least, that I knew of). I felt like they'd gotten too tied up in telling the story leading up to the war, when what I wanted to do was play [b]in[/b] the war. I also thought that I'd've made some different decisions regarding shipset and things like that, so, rather than complaining, I decided to do something about it. I figured I could create a series of minicampaigns set throughout the war - with that setup, I could ignore the politics and history and just focus on fun battles at different times. Plus, minicampaigns of 5-10 missions, I thought, would be relatively quick and easy to throw together.
Of course, this was me, and it was FS Modding, so that guarantees that nothing is ever quick or easy. That iteration of the project got pretty far along with a minicapaign set in 2322, but balance issues started to spiral out of control, and I ended up back-burnering it, since the job of a complete rebalance (which I was staring down the barrel of) was going to be a difficult one that I didn't want to deal with just then.
Fast forward a little while, and I played Bem Cavalgar, and that really reminded me of how much I liked the FS1 era ships, and that part of the Freespace timeline generally. Again, I felt that there were things I would have done differently had I built that campaign, so the old Frontlines idea came off the backburner in order to give me a way to play around in that time period. I ignored most of what I'd done previously and set about building a new minicampaign right near the end of the war, so that I could use pre-existing FS1 ships and, importantly, balance mechanics. I was really lucky in that I happened to start this project at a time in my life where I was able to dedicate considerable time to it, and proress moved extremely quickly early on. It was those first few moths of pretty considerable work that made a big difference between this iteration of FL and the previous one - it's one of the reasons why people have played 2334 but not 2322.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]You ended up putting a small team together for Frontlines. What was that like and who did what?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]That was a really rewarding experience and, in hindsight, the best move I could have made. One of the most important things you can do as a FREDder is get external testing, and that was originally all I wanted - fightermedic and Admiral Nelson both started to help me out with that during the initial burst of activity. But they both became quite busy, and eventually stopped being able to regularly contribute (though they made a huge difference early on, and helped me adjust the difficulty level downwards to something realistic for players who hadn't happened to have designed the mission). A few months after that, the project was in danger of stalling, and I was lucky enough to be able to recruit Lorric and Lepanto to come in and really help with the final push.
Lepanto was a tester and a FREDder - he worked on several missions, including the cutscenes. He was able to take ideas I had but hadn't been able to crack, and turn them very quickly into high quality, functional missions that went in directions I hadn't been expecting. I was really impressed with the speed and quality that he was able to work.
Lorric was our primary tester, and I'll say again what I've said before, he's one of the best mission testers I've ever worked with. There's much more to being a good tester than just playing the missions and saying what you think - you have to play them over and over, trying to break them and giving good, actionable reports and feedback to the FREDder. Lorric did this better than anyone else I've ever worked with, and his enthusiasm for the project really helped keep me focused. He also worked on some of the 2335 missions, and I think we helped him improve his FREDding quite a bit there.
It's not an exaggeration in the slightest to say that 2334 probably wouldn't have been released at all without Lepanto's help, and it would have been a shadow of its current self without Lorric's quality control. They both made a huge positive difference in the project.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]You've been modding for a long time... so.. small team, large team, or no team?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]Small teams, I think. Frontlines, in my opinion, had pretty much the optimal staffing situation. If you have an idea that you are excited about - and this applies to lots of things, but particularly to complex, labour-of-love projects like FS campaigns - I think that if you want to get it off the ground, you have to be prepared to do as as much of the work to make that idea happen as you can yourself. Nobody else will ever precisely share your creative vision, or be able to match the enthusiasm you have for the project as its creator. So, as much as possible, no team is ideal.
However, as I said before, you should always try to run your missions past high quality external testers, and, if you're anything like me, having someone else working with you is a big help for motivation purposes. So one or two other people are probably necessary, but I don't think anyone should be starting a project assuming that other people (be it just one or two, or a whole big dev team) are going to get them over critical development hurdles. You need to at least consider how you can get over all the foreseeable hurdles on your own, or you probably wont get over them.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]What did you like about how Frontlines turned out? What would you change (if anything)?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]Overall, I was pretty happy with how 2334 turned out. From the start, my primary design goal (other than making a fun and high quality product, of course) was to replicate, as much as possible, the feeling of the first few missions of FS1, when you were flying Apollos, fighting Vasudans, with ML-16s and no shields. I think that we achieved that, and I think that we managed to make it pretty fun too, as well as being a somewhat nostalgic exercise. But what I see as nostalgic and fun, a lot of people probably see as old fashioned, and maybe a little dull. That's a legitimate point of view, but not one I share. Hopefully future increments of the project will be more novel and appealing in that regard.
As for what I'd change, well, I don't think I've ever been completely satisfied with anything I've ever done, FS related or otherwise. I'll probably even read this interview in a few months time and wish I'd said this or that differently. In Frontlines' case, we released it in a bit of a rush due to time constraints on my part, so a few bugs slipped though that I'd prefer to have avoided. And I would have liked to have had the Sokar (the small, weak Vasudan capital ship) better integrated into the narrative - it shows up for just one mission, and feels very shoehorned in - partly because it kind of was added into the campaign quite late specifically to make that mission work.
But overall, I'm pretty happy with how the campaign turned out.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]You mentioned that you plan to restart work on a Frontlines minicampaign this year. Can you tell us what that will be about?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]The Terran-Vasudan War. :p
Beyond that, well... Frontlines isn't really intended to be a story driven project. What it's "about" - the details of the setting, plot and characters - are less significant in a project like this than the way the missions [b]feel[/b], the technology of the time period, that sort of thing. The key goal is immersion in a time period, demonstrating what it was like, rather than telling a particular story in great detail. So in all honesty, it's not something that's been much of a focus for me. We had the Terrans on the offensive last time, so maybe this time it will be the Vasudans invading, and you'll have to hold some territory. I've also considered setting something around humanity's early wartime colonization efforts, but the details there aren't finalized.
Some things are pretty set in stone though. I want to go back and work in the very early TV War, probably back to the 2322 setting of the original iteration. And we will be introducing some new mechanics, including heat management for the player's fighter, and limited ammo for both the player and, if I can figure it out, capships too. We're also likely to downsize the modpack - moving well away from huge destroyers, and towards a fleet dominated by cruisers, small carriers and gunships. One day, I'd like FL to show the gradual increase in size of capital ships over the course of the war, but that's a long way off - for now we'll just show the bookends and go from there.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]What about Twisted Infinities? I've seen you working on that for years with Vasudan Admiral. I even made some animations for it a while back, I think. Give me the scoop! What's it about? When can we play it? Do the Shivans become Vasudan's slaves?
[b]Black Wolf[/b][i]TI is the remnants of what was originally a Sectorgame community project. Now, as you say, it's pretty much just me and VA. It's set 11 years after Capella, in Epsilon Pegasi. We tell the story of a once prosperous system that became a backwater after the nodes connecting it to the core of the alliance were trashed in 2367. The first part focuses on pirates, but has a few surprises up its sleeve in that regard. Later parts will see the introduction of more serious enemies, including, of course, the Shivans. Who may or may not end up enslaved by a desert dwelling alien race.  You're right that we've been working on it for years. It feels very much like a perpetual WiP, but we are ridiculously close to getting Act 1 out the door. We could release that right now, but for a SCP bug and our own quality control standards. It's suffered from all the classic problems - we've rebuilt assets as standards have climbed, we've lost staff doing key parts, we've had hard drive crashes eat assets - just about every cliched problem faced by FS projects has befallen us at one stage or another.
Sheer bloody minded determination will eventually see it come out though. :)[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]Sometimes it's tough to get people to comment on your work at HLP. What keeps you going?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]For the fun parts - the creative parts - I'm pretty self-motivated. I enjoy the process of building a new model , or working out a new mission gimmick, or creating a new animation. The less creative stuff... that's harder. Often I find other people to be the best motivator - it often helps to be poked and reminded that you're supposed to be helping them with something. But I think one of my biggest "passive" motivators, if you will, is seeing my stuff getting used in someone's project. It's why I add a little note in all my readme's asking people to PM me if they use my ship - not because I want them to ask permission, just because it's hugely gratifying to know my stuff is getting used. Nobody ever does, of course, but I do see it in screenshots every now and then, and that's close enough. :)[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]Axem asked me this question and I think it's a good one. What do you think HLP needs more of?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]That's tricky. If you're talking about what we need in terms of assets, well, that's not vastly changed in 15 years. :p Stations, civilian ships, large scale static structures. Small gunships that can pose a threat without being military grade. And anything Vasudan. These are the props and settings that let people tell stories more complicated than "Fighters from this species shot capital ships from that species". Not that military campaigns can't have deep stories - BP (among many others) proves that that's not the case. But there are limits to the stories you can tell in those contexts - the kinds of things I talked about allow for a broader array of stories, and stories that happen at different scales, if you like. It doesn't always have to be about the fate of the GTVA, or the survival of the human race. It was that aspect of your BTA prequel that I really enjoyed, and I'm getting elements of it in some of the statements Rheyah has made about his Ephesus campaign. Small scale stories also inform a big part of TI's first act. So, yeah, anything that allows those small scale stories to flourish, asset wise, I think we need more of.
If the question is about what we need more generally, then the answer is pretty straightforward - more active FREDders. With the exception of things like the MediaVPs and some of the coding, just about everything that anyone does at HLP - be it making a new ship, creating animations, coding new features, scripting, making music, whatever - it's all about creating a richer, better game experience. But the genesis of that experience can only happen through the channel of missions, missions created through FRED. It's the only real portal through which content can reach content consumers in a more meaningful way than looking at pictures or p3d or something in your browser. It's all fairly pointless if there's no missions being made to let people [b]play[/b] with all this fancy new content.[/i]
[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]Finally, who would win in a fight; you, Axem, or Vasudan Admiral? What about if you each had Subachs?
[b]Black Wolf:[/b][i]Oh, Axem, no question. The things I've seen that man do... *shudder*[/i]

[b]Mjn.Mixael:[/b]I want to thank Black Wolf for finding the time to do this for us. Black Wolf has done a great deal for this community and is a talented member. I think most of his niche-filling assets have made it into my mod and I'm keeping an eye out for his new campaigns!