Post news Report RSS Breaking in The_Hunter649

In our third edition of Breaking in we asked The Hunter some questions on what he do in his daily basic life. And what made him decided to make one of the most popular Zero Hour mod ever. Come and join us while we ask The_Hunter649 some questions

Posted by on

MrTaxikiller wrote: Hi who are you and what do you ?


Online alias is "The Hunter" and i play video games in my free time altho the time i take in doing 2d and 3d art for my own projects is almost equal to that.

MrTaxikiller wrote: You've got some great mods under your belt. How come you decided to join these project's or start them by your self ?


It's different for each of them realy but i can explain it for all induvidualy.
ShockWave - basicly when i first started playing Zerohour in 2003 i thought it was pretty great but didn't like the original execution of the Generals done by EA so i set out to change this.
As time went on i didn't just change stats but also started adding new things and unit, sometime allong the road met some people willing to help me with 3d and 2d art and showed me the basics of how this was done and thus i started learning how to do so myself.
As i gradualy progressed in this more people joined in to help me out with my project untill we put out the final release in 2011.

Wargames ZH - I started this one with the motivation to bring back an older RTS game favorite of myself in a more modern game engine.
It was also the first experince in making my own models and notably textures from scratch for the first time.

Rise of the Reds - possibly by now the most populair one of the three by now altho i didn't originaly start this one (kind of).
I joined the original team back in 2005 to help out with some art assets and coding which had its first release in 2006.
After this the mod went largely dormant and wasn't realy heard of again and after a while we as SWR (we didn't have that name back then) took over this project and basicly rebooted it starting from scratch.
It remained dormant for some time untill my good friend and long time fellow artist Comr4de suggested merging the generals Beta mod idea i had for some time into ROTR and thus basicly be came a beta mod with a new russian faction to the game.
We had our first release in 2008 and shortly after that we merged out project with Rise of Europe which was an other mod that fell into a grinding halt due to just beeing a single person working on it at the time.
It was from that mod which we inherreted the european ECA faction and many of their design and unit looks.

MrTaxikiller wrote: That is some great history about your mods! How long have you been working in the bowels of modding ?


I first started with just modifying weapon and damage stats for Duke Nukem 3D in the late 90's and later the rules.ini files from the earlier C&C games.

MrTaxikiller wrote: Damn, that's the second time those alien bastards shot up my ride! See what I did there ;) ? Describe to us a day in your life, like for example what you do and how it is.


Nothing to special i wake up every day eat my breakfast do the things i'm expected to do and use my spare time for hobbies, modding beeing one of them :)

MrTaxikiller wrote: What is the most important for you, Experience, work ethic, or talent?


All 3 of those realy.
I find it important to work in an atmosphere which is welcoming and friendly and it generaly motivates people alot more.

MrTaxikiller wrote: Do you have to work at maintaining your passion and drive? What do you wish you could have done differently?


My passion or drive mainly comes from enjoying the game and seeing my own creations come to life as i add them to the game.
Not realy sure what you mean by second part of the question as i have been quite happy the way things have been going for the past few years :)

MrTaxikiller wrote: That doesn't matter most people don't understand me lol. What did you do on college, did you followed any Game design study before you made mods or did you self study ?


I studdied IT management mainly and did a few years of a game design course but the main focus of that course was set on programming which is not one of my strongest points.

MrTaxikiller wrote: If you could give any advise to new modders what would it be?


Be patient, determined and don't try to start to big.
Lot of people (and particularity in the CNC generals scene) start mods with the goal of adding way to many things while the only people working on it are usually just themselfs.

MrTaxikiller wrote: Some good tips there my friend, and you are correct about the start to big part. What about your own historical stats? How did you end up doing what you do now and what were you doing before you worked/started modding?


The time before i started doing modding as a serious hobby i just played video games on my old NES and at friends places in most of my spare time.

MrTaxikiller wrote: Yeah I can remember that back in the days that people where hanging together and played video games spit-screen instead of online game. If you could only play two video game's your entire life which two should that be ? Remember just two.


First would be Homeworld (the first one) this game is what i regard as one of the best video games of all time not to mention that its plot and setting are entirely timeless.
Second would be Serious Sam i wouldn't regard it as one of the best FPS games but certainly one i experienced the most fun with of all i have played, specially due to its immensely fun coop game mode over lan or internet.

MrTaxikiller wrote: You look like a guy that speaks 1000 of language's. Which do you actual speak ?


Dutch, German and English and a few other languages but only a few words not enough to have an actual conversation in it.

MrTaxikiller wrote: When you were a kid, did you always wanted to make games/mods, or did you wanted to be a cop and lock up the bad guys, or a fireman and save cats that are stuck in tree's ?


I always was fascinated by video games from the first time i started playing them in the late 80's and did indeed want to develop them at some point.
Altho modding isn't quite like developing your own video game its close and its not to say that i meant to stop it there.

MrTaxikiller wrote: What kind of game's do you play your self, RTS, FPS, MMO ?


Mainly RTS and FPS games altho i do enjoy RPG too if the focus is not to much on XP grinding.
Never been a big fan of MMO's (because of the grinding argument) since they tend to feel like a second job more than just having fun with your own spare time in many cases.

MrTaxikiller wrote: Well thank you Hunter for your time and like the GDI commando Havoc says "Keep them coming" (I'm talking about the mods you are working on. I Think you are the person that inspires most people to start modding for Zero Hour.


- Interviewed : The_Hunter649
- Mod creator of: Generals Classic - C&C ShockWave - Rise of the Reds - Wargames Zero:Hour

Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account: