1. How did you first enter the Fallout community?

don't remember the specifics of it but i lurked a bit on the vault13 forums back in the days ('the days' = 2001) and from there i somehow made the jump to DAC. i didn't take things all serious like until a bit later.

2. What games have you been playing?

i haven't played anything for a while - the last games i played were half-life 2: episode 2 and portal when they came out. episode 2 was solid food for gamers, neither here nor there really. i liked portal for the novelty of the gameplay, though i would have preferred it if solving the puzzles was less based on incrementally combining concepts handed to you by the game and instead required more insight.

3. You are well known for your cutting edge tastes to the extent that Nicolai looks up to you. What do you think attributes to this?

not so sure... probably an insatiable thirst for stimulating new experiences or something limp-wristed like that. my parents thrust a lot of books and movies and shit upon me from an early age, my friends are always passing me music, i'm always hungry for more culture.

4. What are some of your favorite memories at DAC?

probably forgetting lots, but spacecat, PALS, chernobill and davide (actually, all of megatron's & gimp flask's comics) are all truly special to me and come to my mind often. in terms of actual community drama, then definitely the 2.8 fiasco with rex and trying to deal with DAC's more mentally defective posters.

5. What are your thoughts on Fallout 3? If you haven't played it, why not?

i played it for five minutes once and it seems, in a word, bland. haven't played it any more as i can't run it and am not that interested. i couldn't knowledgably comment on the story or gameplay or anything like that, though i was definitely put off by the visuals. one of the more overlooked qualities of the originals was the incredibly detailed, comic book-influenced graphics but fallout 3 seems to be on some generic dark gritty shit.

6. What do you see for the future of RPGs in general?

the immediate future seems bleak, mainly because morrowind is the dominant model, though i also think that CRPGs trying to mimic tabletop RPGs are a dead end. i do not understand people who insist that things like turn-based combat are absolutely necessary; making something which is a 1:1 replica of a tabletop RPG isn't particularly interesting, and certainly isn't commercially viable. instead, CRPGs need to do a better job of embracing the medium - morrowind-style games are bad as RPGs, but they're equally bad as action games, as interactive storytelling games, and so on. so, while i think hybrid RPGs are the way forward, they are sorely lacking right now. developers need to massively step things up and get together things such as: actual decent story and storytelling, actual decent dialogue, more open-ended gameplay, action driven by the scenario rather than endless pointless dungeon crawling, you get the idea.

7. What games are you looking forward to?

i'm interested in playing GTA4, bully and deus ex but have not gotten around to doing so, and i would also like to play the black mesa source conversion thing, if it ever comes out. i'm barely aware of upcoming games so i can't say more than that.

8. What have you been doing in your time away from DAC?

university is on pause right now (don't know if i want to go back or not), so i'm working 10 hours a day at a horrible government job and doing a few odd design jobs as well. also assembling a portfolio so i can maybe go to art or design school or something, building a bike, helping to write textbooks, going to shows, running around the city, generally mucking around in real life.

9. What do you think of DAC when compared to NMA and RPGcodex? What do you see for its future?

RPGcodex is good for really dry, informed discussion from people who all seem slightly autistic, though i don't like it otherwise. NMA take themselves way too seriously, being quite heavy on the delusional groupthink, always ready to label dissenters as sellouts, etc., which definitely makes them the loser of the three. DAC is obviously where it's at, though it's dwindling (in terms of both traffic and quality) and will continue that way. most of the good members have left or are posting less and it's not like a new fallout game is going to bring people back. best to just let it go in a quiet, dignified way.

10. What are the latest cool stuff in comics, books, music, and movies?

don't know about the latest and greatest i'll say what i'm on right now... bookswise i'm reading some of ballard's short stories and going through everything by murakami (who i was put onto by susan, actually), who is intensely readable and on sort of a magical realism-meets-modernism thing. musicwise, right now it's mainly synth-driven/kind of organic sounding instrumental hip-hop coming mostly out of LA, and heavily syncopated and kind of broken sounding UK house, as well as grime, juke, and early modern classical suchas musique concrete and tape composition. as for movies, i am having a mental block right now and cannot remember the last new movie i saw, sorry to leave you hung out to dry.

11. What do you think of Megatron and the Mammas gang?

mammas gang forms like voltron and megatron is the head. megatron is a true blue, an artist, a savant, a mamma's boy. mamma's gang is blazing an unstoppable path forward into the future. we have to stick together.