Interview - (2002-08-08) Deathscythe & SiLenTx

Interview - (2002-08-08) Deathscythe & SiLenTx

Description: Mordini freelance for the Phrozen Keep interviews Deathscythe and SiLenTx on their Ancients : The Fury Within mod and mod making in general.

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MORDINI
Could you tell everyone a little about yourselves, either on or offline?
DEATHSCYTHE
im just a guy who is 21 years old who dont have a job. so i keep my self busy by making mods and enjoying the iinternet or making some websites.
SILENTX
I'm just a simple guy living here in Philippines, graduated as a computer engineer at PUP Manila, 23 *cough* years old, loves watching movies most of the time with my gf, gimmicks with my friends, loves joining PC games tournaments such as Starcraft, Battlerealms, WarCraft etc., watching MTV and listening to Winamp while modding, retired MiRc chatter, Graphic Artist, Desktop Publisher and Web Developer/Designer (ooops! sorry... I thought Im writing a resume') and occasional drinker *hik* (ooops!)...
MORDINI
How did you come up with your screen names?
DEATHSCYTHE
my screenname came from a cartoon character.. the anime is GundamWing. my favorite is Deathscythe so i make it as my screen name.
SILENTX
Actually, my first chosen nick was SiLenTaSsaSsin way, way back before I've discovered that there's an existing Phrozenkeep Forums and wasn't aware about mods in Diablo II. It's a Blizzard's code name for 'Observers' in Starcraft. I find it kewl and my friends told me to try that because it seems like Im the guy hiding behind that nick. Until I used it in MIRC and ICQ and almost all stuff that requires login names and nick. But when I was registering a nick for Phrozen Forums, I decided to make it a little bit shorter so SiLenTx was the first thing that comes out from my mind. How did I come up with 'x'? Well I like Animes mostly Yuyu Hakusho and Samurai X so I got the 'x' stuff from Yuyu Hakusho :) Huh? just kidding ;) hehe. So thats it. I'm living in my own nick...
MORDINI
Is Diablo 2 the first game you've modded?
DEATHSCYTHE
for me yes.this is my first modding job.. since in not very good at computers.(im a BS in marine tranportation). my girlfreind now my wife just teach me some lessons..
SILENTX
Yeah, Its the first one. I like Diablo so much and my interest was always there to come up with different ideas on what to add as features for the mod. It's easy to modify that almost anyone can do it without requiring you to have knowledge in different programing languages. Not to mention the availability of great tools for mod making and helpful guys from the Keep that always there when you're experiencing problems on you mod. Thanks to all of them.
MORDINI
What got you both interested in Diablo 2 and more specifically, how did you start mod making for the game?
DEATHSCYTHE
When i first visit my wifes house i saw SilentX and his little
brother Irvine playing the game(classic Diablo 2).. i saw the game
interesting and caught my attention and addicted to that game.. my
first modedd patch is Eastern Sun introduced to me by SilentX and
then i get in love with Teknokyo's AR when i surf the planetdiablo
site.. i started to make fansite for Teknokyo.
and i got my website link on Teknokyo's site and i post a lot in his
forum ... i remember i have more that a thousand post there.. then i
started to read the idiots guide from the Keep and reading post in
mod makin section in the Keep's forum and got hooked in making mods
together with my brother in law SilentX .
SILENTX
Actually, there are so many games I like including RTS games that I've mentioned earlier. I've been playing Diablo since the first original Diablo came out and Hellfire. So, when Diablo 2 came out, I spend a lot of time playing it and played all the characters up to hell. Then, when LoD came out, played also the 2 new characters and had a great time and lots of fun. I like chatting so much that spends me a lot of time browsing to the internet until I found the Eastern Sun website and amazed with those new items and stuff. I had a great time with that mod and tried all the new mods from PlanetDiablo's Mod of the Week. Actually, Teknokyo inspired me a lot with those new monsters, maps and gameplay ideas. We usually hang out through Tek's forum. Im not posting that much in Mod Making Forum since searching to the previous posts and reading them is already enough for me to know all the basics that I want to know. Our first mod only came up as a plugin for AR. I didn't expect that many people will like it. Then I decided to team up with Deathscythe to create a new mod from scratch which is now we called The Fury Within...
MORDINI
For those people out there who aren't familiar with AFW, could you give them a brief overview of the mod?
DEATHSCYTHE
TFW is a mod that introduces a lot of new monsters from different
games like baldurs gate, ice windale, and the first diablo. It also
have a multi dungeaon like the first diablo ( I think 17 or 16 in
all..)and in the end you can deal with the original grafix of Diablo.
so many cube recipe's.. if i dont mistaken we have or cubemain.txt
have more than 2407 rows in all. and of course the fury gems.sets
item including for merc's. and new unique items.
SILENTX
Well, lots of new items, new monsters, new bosses, new maps to explore, and the famous Fury Gems that lots of people have been talking about. You can enhance any of your favorite items by combining it with fury gems. Fury gem's stats will add to any of your normal, magic and rare stuff...
MORDINI
When you first came up with the idea to make the AFW mod, what goal where you aiming to achieve?
DEATHSCYTHE
nothing much to achive, we just want a good mod to play and share it to others... :)
SILENTX
Actually, the first time we did it, I'm only thinking about the things what we've known so far and combined it into one to make a complete new mod. So there's no goal like a spectacular outcome mod or a super mod etc. Our basic goal was to make the mod more fun and to have atleast different gameplay from the original Diablo II and *poof*, didn't expect lots of people will like it.
MORDINI
Recently Maxx Power posted quite a scathing review of AFW v1.01. What were your thoughts on the subject and did you receive much feedback from the mod playing public?
DEATHSCYTHE
the mod review is nice but i guess in my own opinion some of the of
the good things are misforgoten.. well, im happy many people sending
email to me congratulating us and reporting some minor bugs..
SILENTX
Actually, I took it as a challenge and I'll be glad to be reviewed by him again just in case the new version is already available. Its not a big deal for me because I don't earn money from it and I did always already got feedbacks from the players in our forum before the release of that review. And thanks for all of them especially to those who gave feedbacks and at the same time giving possible solutions on how to solve it. You already know who you are ;). And on the other note, I noticed that the number of downloads for our mod is rapidly increasing. So I guess lots of people got curious on how bad the mod really is. He accidentally used a reverse psychology thing I think...
MORDINI
As far as all of the changes in AFW go, what would you consider to be your favorite feature?
DEATHSCYTHE
my favorite is new monsters and the fury gems.
SILENTX
I think lots of people likes the fury gems because you can create your new items and sometimes more powerful than unique items but you have to spend a lot of games and playing time in order to get your desired/dreamed awesome item and the new hunger for your blood bosses that will hunt you wherever you may hide...
MORDINI
Which element of the mod took you the longest to complete?
DEATHSCYTHE
of course making a game play and packing the files into a .mpq.. siletx do all that jobs... hehehehe
SILENTX
Monster animation is the longest time we've spent on. It needs a lot of trial and error procedures and you should be careful in hex-editing animdata for all your monster work perfectly without crashes...
MORDINI
What can we look forward to in future versions of AFW?
DEATHSCYTHE
the new 10x8 large inventory, some new theme graphix, some bug fix and new grafix for summons.. :)
SILENTX
I have a lot of ideas for features that I want to do but v1.02 is looking great with the new interface including 10x8 inventory, and other backgrounds, Auric books for all characters that carries aura skills and more runeword variations, new maps (thanks to Paul Siramy for this) and a lot more....
MORDINI
And in true 'Deathscythe style', what advice to you have for newbie mod makers?
DEATHSCYTHE
my advice is, read all available guides from the Keep, join the
discussion in mod making forums and try to implement all ideas you
got dont worry if they dont like it as long as you like it. be open
minded get some ideas from freinds and moderators in the forum.. dont
be shy to ask questions on them , the are all glad to help all newbie
moderators.. be responsible on your file.. you never knew when you
accidentally delete them or lose them... make some back ups... dont
hurry up in releasing a mod. people can wait for a nice and bug free
mod.. :)
SILENTX
There's a new version of Idiot's Guide from the keep that you can read and try all the tutorials there. Another way is to read all the problems of our fellow folks in the forums and on how did they solve it by searching for the topics that you want. That's the second thing that I've done after trying all the tutorials from the keep and if you're running out of problems, don't hesitate to ask questions in Mod Making Forum. There are lot of great moderators there that has been so helpful and willing to teach you all the time...
MORDINI
Thanks a lot for the interview guys.
DEATHSCYTHE
thankz
SILENTX
Thanks for the time!...





Anyone wishing to check out the Ancients TFW mod can do so by visiting the official website at http://tfw.d2mods.com.

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[url=https://www.d2mods.info/forum/kb/viewarticle?a=85&sid=82d94ee5921289b91bb2be5def67bfec]Knowledge Base - Interview - (2002-08-08) Deathscythe & SiLenTx[/url]