Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

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JeanApple
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Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by JeanApple »

Greetings all

Sorry for the delayed response. Ive been working with the devs to set a time and day for the interview.

We will be sitting down with Bill Chinn, lead designer & lead programmer for Star Trek Birth of the Federation. If you have questions for the developer please post them in this thread or email me -> developerdialogue@icloud.com

When:
Friday, March 12th @ 12 PM EST

Where:
Developer Dialogue Discord: https://discord.gg/mPnpXnA

If you cant make it the episode will be published here:

https://developerdialogue.com

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d ... 1524192396
Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aH ... Rlcy9mZWVk
Spotify:
Spreaker:
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 7xEJUkh9Op
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Flocke
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Flocke »

Awesome! That's 18:00 / 6pm here in germany.
Not sure whether I have a meaningful question to bring up, but I'm happy to join and listen.

I can't praise myself for having modded the game alot, but I'm an experienced programmer by today, and when time permits I'm looking forward to get back to continue my works. The most noteworthy I did so far is the broken mpr++ project.

Some points that come to my mind and I'd be happy to hear on is:
  • What limits they troubled the most with with the Star Trek license?
  • What active contacts they had with Paramount and CBS and how did that work out?
  • How did the project get started and how did they get the team together?
  • What plan they had when they started and what major development changes did they undertake?
  • What unfinished work did they leave or what plans did they drop in the hurry to get the game released?
  • What material is left from the game development? May it be arts and design work, game design, unreleased alpha versions, their development plans, libraries the game depends on or even snippets of the source code.
  • What feelings does Bill Chinn have on the game by today?
  • What did he learn by the project and what would he do different by today?
  • What other projects was or is he involved with?
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Tethys »

Flocke wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:31 am [*]What plan they had when they started and what major development changes did they undertake?
[*]What unfinished work did they leave or what plans did they drop in the hurry to get the game released?
[*]What material is left from the game development? May it be arts and design work, game design, unreleased alpha versions, their development plans, libraries the game depends on or even snippets of the source code.
[*]What feelings does Bill Chinn have on the game by today?[/list]
These I feel are the more important questions. Second and third entry in quotes seem to be similar, and can be condensed into a single question. Yes, I'd be most curious to know what materials are left over and if they can be packaged and made available for the community, but thats wishful to even think any exist. But who knows. I'd also be interested to know Bill Chinn's thoughts about his time on the project.
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

Flocke wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:31 amThe most noteworthy I did so far is the broken mpr++ project.
I have to disagree with both statements:

- even apart of MPR++ your outstanding efforts as member, consultant and contributor on AFC are beyond doubt
- the AFC members don't consider MPR++ as 'broken'


@ Topic

Some nice talking points, Flocke. :up: But keep your expectations low. You realize it's the same user (different account) who spammed the forums in early 2009 with a dozen topics about an interview with Bill Chinn asking similar questions. IIRC you yourself stated that the answers were more on the useless (not to say hilarious) side. Not because they were faked but Chinn simply did not know or remember any, to us still unkown, useful specifics. Even all the anecdotes, you are now asking for, were long before disclosed by Jig, Dafeds and Joker (albeit those forums are long gone).

However, as you say, asking again shouldn't hurt either and, on the funny side, we again get to enjoy the high style of:

- not answering in topics, but always creating new topics (with advertising)
- no proper legal information on web pages
- inflated misleading language ('the devs' = one person, 'we' will be sitting with...)

:up:
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Flocke »

Spocks-cuddly-tribble wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:14 pm I have to disagree with both statements:

- even apart of MPR++ your outstanding efforts as member, consultant and contributor on AFC are beyond doubt
- the AFC members don't consider MPR++ as 'broken'
Thanks mate, hearing so from you is a great honor to me with all the in depths asm modding you did! :up:
Technically speaking, mpr++ is broken, but this goes way too much out of topic here.

Lets give this interview a chance. Doesn't matter to me that the forums got spammed some little a decade back. There exists much worse in the world than some misled spam. Looking backwards on myself, I find lots of things I'd love to do better next time. From what I can see by today there is real effort made with some nice interview podcasts hosted.

When you have some reference or record on earlier disclosure of anecdotes on the BotF development (possibly with the way back machine), I would be happy to read on it! The first few years on the forums I missed, given I had no internet at home by that time, and had lots of other games to try. :D
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by JeanApple »

Flocke wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:31 am Awesome! That's 18:00 / 6pm here in germany.
Not sure whether I have a meaningful question to bring up, but I'm happy to join and listen.

I can't praise myself for having modded the game alot, but I'm an experienced programmer by today, and when time permits I'm looking forward to get back to continue my works. The most noteworthy I did so far is the broken mpr++ project.

Some points that come to my mind and I'd be happy to hear on is:
  • What limits they troubled the most with with the Star Trek license?
  • What active contacts they had with Paramount and CBS and how did that work out?
  • How did the project get started and how did they get the team together?
  • What plan they had when they started and what major development changes did they undertake?
  • What unfinished work did they leave or what plans did they drop in the hurry to get the game released?
  • What material is left from the game development? May it be arts and design work, game design, unreleased alpha versions, their development plans, libraries the game depends on or even snippets of the source code.
  • What feelings does Bill Chinn have on the game by today?
  • What did he learn by the project and what would he do different by today?
  • What other projects was or is he involved with?
Thank you Flocke. Ill be asking many of your questions
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JeanApple
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by JeanApple »

Spocks-cuddly-tribble wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:14 pm
Flocke wrote: Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:31 amThe most noteworthy I did so far is the broken mpr++ project.
I have to disagree with both statements:

- even apart of MPR++ your outstanding efforts as member, consultant and contributor on AFC are beyond doubt
- the AFC members don't consider MPR++ as 'broken'


@ Topic

Some nice talking points, Flocke. :up: But keep your expectations low. You realize it's the same user (different account) who spammed the forums in early 2009 with a dozen topics about an interview with Bill Chinn asking similar questions. IIRC you yourself stated that the answers were more on the useless (not to say hilarious) side. Not because they were faked but Chinn simply did not know or remember any, to us still unkown, useful specifics. Even all the anecdotes, you are now asking for, were long before disclosed by Jig, Dafeds and Joker (albeit those forums are long gone).

However, as you say, asking again shouldn't hurt either and, on the funny side, we again get to enjoy the high style of:

- not answering in topics, but always creating new topics (with advertising)
- no proper legal information on web pages
- inflated misleading language ('the devs' = one person, 'we' will be sitting with...)

:up:
I said devs because Ive been talking to the Game Manager as well, Wella Lasola. She was considering attending but recommended Bill Chinn as he was the Design & Engineering Lead.

Also my apologies for the posts in the past. Ive tried to expedite development of Star Trek Supremacy by getting Slitherine Ltd. involved in the project. Unfortunately that didn’t work out.

I believe I did reach out to Bill Chinn in the past but I dont remember the conversation.
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Flocke »

Checking some older posts I found this developer portrait here on Bill Chinn:
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/she ... rId,27710/

If correct he is president of http://www.mercenarytechnology.com/
As far I found they mostly work on porting games to other platforms.

Would be great to hear some on that as well, and might give a bonus on him for giving attention to his other work too.
And leave him some room to talk on stuff he likes to talk on. It's by far more worth to get some contact with him than to ask for support he can't deliver anyhow.

What ever this is leading to, I'm looking forward to the interview tomorrow. Just relax and make it a great talk! :)
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JeanApple
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by JeanApple »

We had to adjust the time of the interview for 6 PM EST.

We apologize for the inconvenience.
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Flocke
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Flocke »

That was an amazing interview! Thanks alot Bill, Wella and Jean! :D
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by thunderchero »

I missed live podcast I guess I will have to catch it later.

just checked all other options and not posted yet
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Flocke »

I guess that will take a few days, as far I understood Jean is first going to cut the record and goes for approval, and they recorded more than an hour again.
But look forward to a good record with some nice insight to their development works. Not anything with impact on our coding efforts I guess, but a real great talk! :)
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Re: Interview with BOTF Scheduled!

Post by Martok »

Sorry I missed the interview. Hopefully it gets posted soon!
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