Interview with TheGrandmaster.
How did you find Ace of Spades and when did you start playing?
I found Ace of Spades through another forum which was for the game Soldat. I read the little description of it, eventually decided to download it. It was just after the release of beta 0.22, so sometime around mid-april last year I'd think.
You are the leader of <@>, considered the best clan in Ace of Spades - did you have the idea to create <@>?
The creation of <@> was a joint effort between a bunch of people from the IRC channel who enjoyed playing the game and playing as a group - it felt natural to form some kind of team. How that happened exactly is documented here. While some people seem to see me as <@>'s leader, the team really leads itself - recruitment is done as a group agreeance to invite someone, and different people went out and organised games etc.
In your opinion, what should be changed in Ace of Spades?
Currently, I am happy with the latest release candidate for 0.76. Rifle accuracy/power is restored to a decent level - I would prefer generally to have rifle-only, since weapon balancing is a pain when you try to balance mid and short range weapons in a predominantly long-range fighting game.
For you, who is the best player in Ace of Spades today?
I would say mikuli. He has, from the early days, always given me the biggest headache, with Tank/Talent/Salina/hompy also giving me real trouble when they have been in form. mikuli has spent time recently, along with me, to actually get back to an alright level so for me he's probably the best right now. Many <@> were great in their prime, but many have withered away a bit. Outside of <@> there are some decent players around - Tiki and ExiTeD to name a couple, though I haven't met all too many players on 0.76 yet however.
What do you like to do besides playing Ace of Spades?
I enjoy music, different instruments though centred on guitar. I used to do a fair amount of sports until lately - had a bunch of injuries which prevented me for a while, hope to get back into sport at university a bit. I play other pc games as well, namely Minecraft, Soldat, Age of Empires 3, Stronghold Kingdoms etc. However, the last few weeks Ace of Spades has eaten up my time with the staff side of it, trying to prepare to go to university right now so we'll see what I get to do once there.
From what I gather, <@> are not very fond of the current version of Ace of Spades - do you know why?
Of course I know why :p it sucks! After playing even just one minute on 0.76RC, 0.75 feels broken like it did during the first few weeks after its release. There was a middle time where I/others attempted to get back into it but eventually faded out. 0.76 has sparked some activity from some of our members, but we're not sure about spending more time on it right now, we're pretty burnt out. Playing regularly just to keep your level as being 'the best' (or as good as we can be) does get dull after a while. I'm sure we'll get back into it at some point however.
What was your most exciting moment in Ace of Spades?
The earliest versions were probably the most exciting, the game felt like vast unexplored land and rival factions having a full scale war, which was great fun. Other exciting moments have come from playing with/against the guys in <@>, including some hilarious moments, it has been great to be with them all this time, so my thanks to those guys o/
Finally, what are your plans for the future at Ace of Spades?
Well, I don't do anything development wise, I'm just adminning in a few different places. There's a lot planned to happen, some of which are being organised by staff, some not, so the future is pretty much as unknown for me as it is for everyone else right now. I am very much hoping to see 0.76 released, would be a shame if such a good and needed version was put to the side because everything's gearing up for the big 1.0 release. I'll be around for the future, whatever it holds, but we'll see how things go.
Sorry my english I'm Brazilian, I used Google Translate.
This idea was made by ronpaul all the due credits to him.