So today we sitting together with Anubis_theDark, n5p29, Zeke and Kris. First of all thanks for the time you guys made to make this new edition possible.
So tell us, who are you guys and what do you do ?
- Anubis: Hy. My name is Smeu Calin, aka Anubis or Anubis_theDark and currently i'm a graduated medical student.
- n5p29: My real name is Nayoko Putra, my internet name is n5p29, usually just called "n5" (pronounced "en-lima") for quite obvious reason. 
I'm just graduating as IT Barchelor and currently looking for employment, hopefully in game industry.
- Zeke: I'm Zeke, and I'm a ZH modder.
- Kris: My name is Chris Cruz (yes, i'm serious) and on the internet, i'm mostly known as Chris or Kris.
Well Nice to meet you guys in a more personal way. So what kind of hobbies do you transfer into your own personal day to day operation?
- Anubis: In my case hobbies and real-life don't mix much. Though movies and stand-up comedy make real-life funnier.
- n5p29: My spare time now are mostly spent on modding and internet. Though I also like to read books and play games. And there's still a lot of animu to watch.
- Zeke: I assume you mean hobbies related to modding. If that's the case, mostly photoshoppping and sound editing.
- Kris: If you mean what modding skill i use in my real life. Basically, mostly photoshop work.
Look aht dath only modding hobbies here. Y'all got some great mods under your belt. How come you decided to join this project's or start them by your self ?
- Anubis: Many years ago i posted pics of my drawings and joined GenerationX and CCU as well as a few other mods. Along with Zeke and Kris then created NLS and it's been quite an adventure. I'm a narcisistic ass sometimes, so the chance to see my stuff in a game was my initial motivation. After that modding just became more or less an addiction. That along with friendships made me stay this long into something i get no reward for.
- n5p29: NProject is my first published mod on internet. It was started as a simple Boss General and unused assets enabler. After decided to restart it, it were more focused into a bugfix patch mod. Started on small sites until it got to ModDB and quite well known.
Along the way to this day, I joined and was invited to several mod projects and getting involved. Now I ended up hanging around with NLS guys and helping them in their mods. I'd also like to tell the story about my other mods (such as Tidal Wars and now suspended Recolonize), but because a lot of things happened I guess I will tell you if we have another time.
- Zeke: It all started with ZH Reborn. After playing that mod I wondered if there were other mods for ZH. Eventually I found ShockWave and the ZH modding community and the rest is history.
- Kris: Just like Zeke, i also started with ZH reborn. Then decided to lurk around and pretty much managed to stumble upon a library of mods (Progen, Shockwave, CWC and others) and tutorials and along the way, i've met Anubis, n5p29 and Zeke....Thats pretty much the start of my ZH modding career.
Soooo, how long have you all been working inn the bowels of modding ?
- Anubis: about 8 years.
- n5p29: I've been modding since highschool, so it's since 2006 I guess.
- Zeke: Almost 7 years.
- Kris: Early 2004 up to now (2013).
So let's say its been already like 5 years, thats pretty long guys. Could you describe to us a day in your life, like for example what you do and how it is.
- Anubis: I wake up, i eat, i shit, i mod, i read, i skype, i go out, and i sleep.
- n5p29: Usually I got uni classes in the morning till afternoon, after that I'm hanging around with friends before nightfall. I got home then turned on my computer doing modding, internet and gaming, and sleep at midnight.
- Zeke: Basically, food, Internet, and sleep.
- Kris: Wake up, Make sure this is real life, eat food, internet, mod, play games abit and lastly, sleep....then repeat process!
Standard routine like with everyone haha. What is the most important for you, Experience, work ethic, or talent?
- Anubis: All 3. You can be experienced but be an ass, you can have talent but 0 experience and fuck up alot or you can be Jesus himself and suck at it cause no talent or experience. So all 3 are equally needed. Though if i really must chose - Ethics. Cause experience you make, talent you can mimic, but you can never change being a piece of shit.
- n5p29: In this order: Talent, Work Ethic, Experience. Talent is an irreplaceable gift. It helps you to boots things easier in your job/life. Many people succeed because of their talent. You still be able to success even without talent, but it's just way harder. Second important is work ethic because without it your talent will be wasted. Also because of work ethic you can cover up your lack of talent. If you have these two, experience will be gained by itself.
- Zeke: Experience. A proper work ethic is created by experience, and talent without work ethic is useless.
- Kris: Zeke, n5p29 and Anubis pretty much answered it.
Kris you are being lazy here.... Do you have to work at maintaining your passion and drive?
- Anubis: Sometimes. Modding is something you do out of pure passion and you get pretty much no reward. And when the community is full of morons and retarded fanboys stuff sometimes becomes quite annoying. In this 8 years of modding i have to say i pretty much lost alot of the initial passion, and a good percentage of the reason is the overall community.
- n5p29: Yes. These modding things really builds my passion in game making. However, it really consume my life and it feels not really rewarding.Sometimes I really lost cause about what the hell I've done till now. I'm having hard times and nobody else nearby that shares same passion. And maybe now I'm at the turning point about what I will do for my life, chasing this passion or giving it up.
- Zeke: Yes. Creating content is only half of the experience, the other half is reading comments and seeing how other people react to your work. Let's just say reading comments ain't as fun as it used to be.
- Kris: I do it for shits and giggles.
What do you wish you could have done differently?
- Anubis: Die at birth
- n5p29: If I could go back to junior-high school, I want to have more social life, go hangout with friends more, aim for art clubs instead the (unpopular) computer club, and don't ever think to make your own project if it will consume your life.
- Zeke: I think everyone has things they wish they have done differently.
- Kris: Stop being lazy and develope C&C Untitled alot faster while balancing my social and digital life...oh and, what anubis said .
Like I said before Kris you are being lazy ;) So what did you guys do on college? Did you followed any game design course before you made mods or did you self study ?
- Anubis: I graduated medical university, but i did attend a 2 years game design class organized by Ubisoft. Drawing and codding i taught myself.
- n5p29: I graduated with dual degree of IT and Mathematics majors, because that time I don't think I'll be hooked this much into gaming industry. But last year, my university opened the new Game Development course, and I guess it's too late to retake the major. D:
I learned several coding languages from the uni, also a short 3D modelling course. The rest were learned by myself.
- Zeke: I am currently studying Industrial Design in college. I taught myself how to mod. I've only recently started properly researching about game design and game development.
- Kris: I graduate from a simple photoshop class back in 2003 and in 2007, was enrolled in some 3d animations class; but out of personal reasons, didn't finished it. However, the rest of the stuff i know now is self learned.
If you could give any advise to new modders what would it be?
- Anubis: Stop stealing stuff without even asking. Stop being assholes that don't give a crap about someone's work just because it's free on the internet. And always remember - modding is fun not glory. If you want glory stick a finger up your butt and smell it in front of a crowd. It's a faster result.
- n5p29: "One does not simply make a game." That's why get some friends sharing same passion. Real life strikes hard, at some point you need to really think which to prioritize. If you're not really serious in modding (and also game making), stop and don't even bother with it again.
- Zeke: No pain no gain. Stop looking for freebies, and do some actual work.
- Kris: Basically the following:
1: Don't steal assets from others.
2: If borrowing other people's assets, GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT IS DUE.
3: Don't be afraid to ask questions.
4: Find peeps, either in real life or online, that shares the same passion as you do.
5: No pain, no gain.
6: While freebies are good, doing the work yourself is ALOT more rewarding.
8: Research, research, research!
9: Do it for fun!
10: Made you realize there's no number 7.
What about your own historical stats?
- Anubis: well i had awesome sex with Cleopatra, joined forces with the crusaders and butchered everyone in Jerusalem in the name of 'Jesus' and had a few joints with George Bush.
Other historical facts are unimportant.
- Kris:
Turret armour: 6/5/5 (front, sides, rear - mm)
Hull armour: 12/6/4
Track armour: 2/1/1
View range: 25 meters, 110 maximum
Signal range: 3 meters, 5 maximum
.....kidding aside, not really sure about this question.
How did you end up doing what you do now and what were you doing before you worked/started modding?
- Anubis: I had an annoying girlfriend before i modded and since i couldn't find her mute button i resorted to modding to release my frustrations.
- n5p29: When I was still in junior-high, computer and IT stuffs is a really new thing in my place. Back then I used to think that being hacker was cool thus hooked me in computers. After were taught how to hack (aka cheat) in Counter Strike and Red Alert 2, then finally ended up finding Generals. From here then started my boring life.
- Zeke: If by "what you do now" you mean modding then I've already answered it in the previous questions. Curiosity combined with doing what the cool kids we're doing.
- Kris: Mostly out of curiosity and back then, I was hooked with RA2 and a tiny bit of Counterstrike back in the day. Then C&C Generals came along and thus, the rest is history.
If you could only play two video game's your entire life which two should that be ? Remember just two.
- Anubis: Command&Conquer Generals Zero Hour (with mods) and Starcraft2 after the second expansion comes out.
n5p29: The game that I will make. It will be a big hit franchise. (*hopes big*)
- Zeke: RA2 and Zero Hour
- Kris: RA2YR & C&C Generals Zero Hour.
You look like a guy that speaks 1000 of languages. Which do you actually speak ?
- Anubis: My native ofc, English and French.
- n5p29: My native is Indonesian and Javanese, and I can use English pretty well. I'm still learning Japanese, and I know a little bit of Chinese and German languages.
- Zeke: English, Filipino, a little Fukien and even less Mandarin.
- Kris: My native language is Filipino, but i also know a tiny bit of UK and US English.
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 ?
- Anubis: A fireman - because firemen always get the pussy
- n5p29: As stated above, that time computer and IT stuffs is a really new thing in my place that I wanted to be computer engineer. But I think my interest is in a bit different way from that.
- Zeke: As a kid I wanted to be a cartoonist.
Kris: As a kid, i was aspiring to be an architech and was pretty much drawing ships, houses and boring skyscrapers..
MrTaxikillerWhat kind of game's do you play your self, RTS, FPS, MMO ?
- Anubis: RTS, RPG, TBS.
- n5p29: Even my interest is more on RTS, somehow I prefer to play platformer and puzzle games, and also the games I play for the story.
- Zeke: Mostly RTS
- Kris: RTS, MMO, FPS and a tiny bit of simulation games. Generally however, just like zeke, mostly RTS as well.
Well guys thanks for the time and also without y'all we could not make this edition of "Breaking in" We wish you all the luck with your current mods and maybe we see something new coming out of NLS
Interviewed: Anubis_theDark, n5p29, Zeke_Dlyoung, moddingrocks
Mod developers of: Command & Conquer: Untitled, Deep Impact, Generation X, Command and Conquer: Condition Zero, Forgotten Fury and Zero Hour Reborn
Do you as reader have some questions your self that you want to have answered in the "Breaking in" interviews, or do you have suggestions we should interview.
Then mail them to contact@363productions.com with as subject the suggestions for your questions or the guys/girls we should interview.
Thanks for the interview :D
"I wake up, i eat, i ****, i mod, i read, i skype, i go out, and i sleep."
Yeah, this sounds like Anubis :P