Captured.com: The Rainbow Bridge LMCTF — Mr. White interview, by Kim, February 1, 1999

Mr.White

“Mr.White is one of the most well known members of the LMCTF team. But who is the man behind the name? He’s always been a man of mystery to me, so being able to conduct an interview with him was a chance I couldn’t pass up. He is a real person after all :)” –Kim, 01 February 1999

Who is Mr.White? Where you got the name from?

Who me? I’m just a guy who lives in Toronto, Canada. I work as a TV director at MuchMusic (Canada’s MTV). I got the name from Harvey Keitel’s character in ‘Reservoir Dogs’. Back in the Q1 days, I called myself Mr. Pink but someone else was using that name and had been using it for longer, so I changed it to Mr. White.

What do you like to do in your spare time? Any favorite authors or musical tastes?

What, you mean other than play Quake and make maps? Hmmmmmmm……I am a musician. I play guitar and have been in several bands. My musical tastes are pretty varied although I hate ‘dance music’. When I have time to read, I tend to read sci-fi.

How old were you when you played your first video game, what was it, and do you have any favorites over the years?

I played Pong at my cousins when I was really young but the first game I fell in love with was Space Invaders. I must have been about 12 years old. Of course when I saw Doom on a friend’s computer there was no turning back from the fps genre. Being a Formula 1 fan I dabble in racing games a bit and being an avid golfer I play Links LS but Q2 takes up most of my gaming time. I have to say that Half Life was the best single player experience ever though.

lmctf18_sm

Do you have any formal art training?

Nope but I’ve always been artistic.

How long have you been making maps, for what mods/games, and how long does it usually take you to complete one?

When Zoid put out his 2nd call for levels for Threewave CTF for Q1 I thought ‘man, I could do this’. So I learned how to make maps. I never submitted anything to Zoid although I ended up with about 9 ctf maps that probably only ever got played by me and my buddy on a lan at work. The levels are probably kickin’ around on cdrom.com still. For q2 I’ve made mostly LM and single player levels. I did make a level for Weapons Factory and I made some PUDS (maps) for Warcraft2 a while back.  It used to take me about a month to complete a map. Now I can make one in 4 days if I put my mind to it.

What programs do you use?

I use Worldcraft to make maps. It ROCKS!!!!

What has influenced your map making style?

Probably just playing fps games. There’s a lot of beautiful stuff out there.

What is this obsession you seem to have with bridges? :)

Oh, I thought you were going to say waterfalls. Bridges? I guess it’s the only way I can think of to get across the water without swimming ;-)

After having a sneak peak at your 5.0 maps, I notice the lack of a BFG or power armor, yet they can be found in the 3.0 and 4.0 maps. What has influenced this change?

Well, the fact that most servers don’t use weapons balance anymore has changed my views on the BFG. It’s just too damn powerful and doesn’t require any skill and let’s face it, when the enemy flag carrier has power armor + resist it really sucks.

A question was brought up a while ago on Nachos BB about adding advertising in the maps, i.e: A coke billboard or something similar. How would feel about turning LMCTF commercial by adding advertising in your maps in return for payment?

What, you mean I could make money from this? Cool :-) Actually, if I ever did get paid for making maps I would prefer that people liked them enough to pay for them and not force advertising down peoples throats. That would be cheesy.

Any suggestions or advise for potential map makers out there?

Stick with it, go slowly and carefully. Make one room at a time and don’t move on till you’re happy with it. The clipping and vertex manipulation tools are your best friends. Texture choices can make or break the look of a level.lmctf05b_sm

How and when did you first become involved in LMCTF?

Since there was no ctf in the box when Q2 was released I heard about and started playing LMCTF right away. Then I heard they were looking for mappers so I hopped on board.

The LMCTF community is alive and active, more so than possible any other mod. How do you see the communities influence on LMCTF?

To be honest, I wasn’t sure LM would survive the release of Q2CTF. After Zoid released I was surprised to find people still playing LM on id’s single player maps with those glowing mega health flags. I guess they liked the gameplay better, I know I did. When we released 3.0 I was overwhelmed by it’s success. Shortly after there were about the same number of servers running LMCTF as there were running Q2CTF. Those numbers have dropped a bit since but the LM community is still very alive and supportive. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t still be making it if it weren’t for the community.

What changes can we expect to see in 5.0?

New maps of course, a new weapon (plasma gun) and a few other goodies you’ll just have to wait for :-)lmctf21_sm

System info and internet connection

PII450
256MB RAM
VoodooČ
1Mb ADSL

Favorite map

lmctf23….oh you haven’t seen that one yet ;-P

Favorite weapon

Rail gun or rocket launcher….depends on my ping ;-)

Favorite Tech

Is there any tech better than strength….I don’t think so :-)lmctf24_smlmctf02a_smlmctf06_smlmctf15_sm

https://web.archive.org/web/20030201000819fw_/http://www.captured.com:80/bridge/old/interviews/mrwhite.htm

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