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Interviews | Major Headache & Celtic / DF Arena
Website: www.dfarena.com/ 3,535 Views Added 02/01/2004 Add Comment PermaLink

What is your name / handle:
Major Headache
Celtic

Where are you from, where do you live?:
MH: I live in northern California, the armpit of Silicon Valley.
Celtic: Germany. But I am sort of living in FL every now and then.

How old are you?:
MH: Old enough to know better, yet here I am anyway.
Celtic: I am only 31 but feeling much older.

What is your Role at DFA?:
MH: I call myself Owner/Acting Site Director; I say “acting” because it’s not the title I wish to keep for long. I prefer to spend my time creating tools and mods for DF.
Celtic: I am the webmaster at DFA, trying to keep things running. Without the help from others it wouldn't be possible. Thanks go to all who've helped in the past and hopefully will continue to do in the future.

What are you hoping to achieve with DFA?:
MH: For me, DF has always been about “community”. DFArena was built as a tool to support the community in any way we can. I think “one stop resource for all your DF needs is probably an overworked cliché these days, but that’s pretty much what we’re going for too.

How come DFA took so long to make?:

MH: That’s a good question. Now that it’s so far along, I wonder that myself. I think initially we set the bar so high we were never satisfied with anything we did. That sort of snowballed until it seemed like nothing would ever get done. It wasn’t until we lost the old forums that we felt there was a new opening for the site again.

Were there any setbacks in the website making process?:
MH: Besides trashing the forums immediately after installing them, things hae gone pretty well. We’re still struggling with some issues, but we’re making steady progress.
Celtic: Not really I think. Once we had decided to get going the whole thing went pretty smooth. Of course I have to say (and you all know this sentence all to well): We're still working on it.

What ever happened to Jackyl?:
MH: He just lost interest in DF. His business grew and kept him too busy.

What has been the general reaction to DFA by the DF community?:
MH: The feedback I’ve gotten has all been positive, which is always reassuring. Membership is coming back steadily. I imagine some people are surprised we finally got our act together; I just hope nobody is disappointed.

What can we hope to see on DFA soon?:
MH: We’ve gotten the content of fatandhairy.com from Fats. We’re sorting through it now and should have it online soon. There are some great nuggets in there and it’s quite nostalgic for us old timers.

What is so good about the DF series of games?:

MH: To me, Delta Force blows away every other game. It’s not the most realistic, or the fastest paced, or the most varied, or anything like that. But in my opinion it is played by the best bunch of guys and girls around the world. I don’t know why, but it seems to attract an elite, friendly, and good natured crowd from the four corners of the globe. I think anyone reading this will readily agree. In the area of gameplay though, one of it’s real strong points is variation. The terrains are varied, you may have to cover great distances, or have an in-your-face CQB. It’s all there.
Celtic: For me it is very clear where DF is ahead of all other "outdoor" online games I have gotten to know. It's ability to create large outdoor maps which have this "organic" look and feel (which I specially like about DF2). Those huge terrains not only make Sniper Matches possible in the first place, I also made the experience that DF plays just better for people with slower (talking about ping here) connections. That is mainly because of the large terrains. In DF you do not depend so much on a good ping than in other games. Even with a bad ping one can hit a target because everything is just not as fast as it is in other games and that I really enjoy. For CQBs there are games out there which I prefer over DF – I am specially thinking about Army Operations which smokes DF "indoor". I think NL should concentrate on the outdoor / long distance part. That is what they did and still do best. The "QOB/Indoor" battle was lost long time ago. Also, I think NL should take a good look at OPF1985 and/or BF1942. What the DF community has been demanding since many years is reality there: The ability to just GET INTO ANY VEHICLE AND USE IT.

Which is the best DF Game?:
MH: Technically I think DF2 was the best with its long grass. In my opinion NovaLogic gave up too much in the quest for framerates when they released DF:LW. By the time it came out, most PCs were dealing with DF2 with no problems. BHD looks promising too, but time will tell.
Celtic: This may come as a shock to many of you, but I say DF2. For one reason only: Tall Grass. That's why I'd vote for DF1 (with EXP installed) too. I cannot say anything about BHD, but the fact that the release has been delayed sounds promising.

One thing you could add/fix to a DF game what would it be?:
MH: Better attention to cheats and lobby support for various mods. This is one area where other games seem to outdo NovaLogic’s best efforts.
Celtic: Add AI to the AI guys so that they don't act so silly. The SP part really needs tweaking … or NL simply gets rid of it altogether and makes DF an "online only" game. But if you do Single Player please do it right. OPF1985 or HL showed us long time ago that it is possible.

What are you expecting from BHD?:
MH: My M.O. is to have very low expectations, that way I’m rarely disappointed. I think custom terrains may be very difficult to do well. I hope it may have more driving options, like BF1942. I also hope they don’t focus the objects too much on the BHD scenario, which would be kind of limiting for map makers.
Celtic: I hope that the rendering quality of the terrains will be improved, specially the texture quality, "flickering" terrain and the pixel bug. And if BHD will focus more on the CQBs (and it looks like it does) I have the hope that NL will improve the indoor engine does not show us this unfurnished houses without true light sources any longer.

Would you like to say anything to NovaLogic?:
MH: Hi NovaLogic! Call me sometime, let’s have lunch.
Celtic: A: Nothing. They don't talk to me either. ;-)

Would you like to say anything to the DFA Fans?:
MH: Bear with us during this painful birthing process. Give us a lot of feedback and DFA can become something for everyone.
Celtic: Please have patience with us. We all have a real life and sometimes our time is limited. That is why often things don't move as fast as they could and we'd like them to do. We'll try our best.

And finally give a plug for/to something/someone:
I’d like to say a huge thanks to all the people who have been helping out with the site. I’ve kept Celtic busy with a million oddball requests. Servant really knows the forums and always steers me in the right direction. A.Bullet from DFBarracks has been a HUGE help with server issues. Even guys from other sites (DF-HQ among them!) have volunteered to help us out, which is just another indication of the high caliber of people you find in this community.

MajorHeadache and Celtic thank you for taking the time to do this interview, we all wish you well and hope everything goes smoothly for DFA