Andreas Endres (World of Padman)
 | By jorgerosa |
Who is Andreas Endres (aka Ente)? Well, besides being a awesome cartoonist and illustrator, creator of the well-known padman character, he is the man responsible for what it is simply the best free game ever made! Even ready to beat most of top rated commercial games out there. Everything is awesome and perfect: 3D rendered videos, playability, graphics, audio, music and fun! Yep, just dare to play it online, you will see what really fun is… Ok, but all that is only my personal opinion. If you want to find out for yourself, just try to download WoP and play it. Seems that every project Andreas is envolved you can expect no less than outstanding high quality in every aspect and detail, besides a pure genius, he really is what I call a perfectionist.
What is your position or what do you do for WoP?
I’m the leader of the “World of Padman” project but that’s not my only task. I’m the one who takes care that all the different aspects of the project fit together harmonically. I’m also responsible for the whole game design and concept. Most of the maps, textures, model skins and many other things were done by me. Back in the beginning of the project in 2002 I lay the foundations with creating new game types and a unique concept which I discussed with the other team members, together we reviewed and polished it up.
How did it all started?
Padman is one of my creations, a character for a comic which first appeared in a Playstation games magazine back in 1997. With the release of Quake 3 Arena in 1999 I started designing levels, or lets call it mapping straight away. A very important design element were pictures of my comic character Padman. I placed pictures of him as textures into my maps and called them “PadMaps”. Shortly after that a small community started to form up and I received media coverage for my works in magazines as well as on TV. I made those maps not only for Q3A but also for Elite Force and Jedi Knight 2.
Due to the positive feedback I became aware of the potential of Padman as a game modification. I considered how a mod could look like and got in contact with several people to frame a team. WoP was planned to be a fun focused project. There was no intention to create a game for hardcore gamers only. Thus the development process started and as the source code of Q3A was released under GPL, it was about time to make a stand alone game, a real “PadGame”.
This is what I call a true "dream team".
How many developers are envolved in the project?
Like all the other open source modding projects we also struggle with a continued coming and going of team members. Virtually nobody of the team I started with developing the mod is still involved. But note that development started seven years ago. Over all this time the development process paced up and down and always we had to spread out seeking for new manpower and resources.
Luckily, during the last three or four years the team kept nearly unchanged and from that a core team evolved, who put their hearts and souls into the project. Working together for such a long time was not always easy and sometimes we needed to get along, but I’m really proud of my small team and the results. I think round about 20 to 30 people played a part in the project but strictly speaking about 10 people have done most of the work.
Is WoP developed on GNU/Linux systems?
You can bet your life on that. The World of Padman engine is based on ioQuake3 engine code so we are able to support multiple platforms like Windows, Linux and Mac systems. Some of our developers do programming and modeling work on Linux, but most of us use Windows or dual-boot systems. We need to pay attention to Linux systems and do a lot of betatesting on those. It’s a pity that some of the mapping tools are not available for Linux but nevertheless there are Linux mappers and modders out there in our community.
What can we expect in WoP in the future?
We’ve been working on WoP 2.0 for a while now and we’ll keep polishing it up some more for the upcoming release. Not only new maps and player models are planned, also new game types, power-ups and weapons should be included. “Capture the Lolly”, our version of Capture the Flag, for example is most anticipated. This new game type comes along with at least four complete new maps. Aside from that we keep working hard on a single player mode, which comes along with a brand new game type, new maps, new challenges and a storyline. You can expect double the amount of player models, compared to WoP 1.2. There will be an “Instagib” mode with it’s own unique weapon and two new power-ups can be found in “Capture the Lolly”.
But developing the game isn’t easy at the moment. Nearly ten years of “World of Padman” leave marks and the team is a little exhausted and short on time. On top of that we had some time consuming and frustrating contacts with publishers. Two times there was a chance for a publishing deal to get WoP into the stores as a commercial title but both times it did not come to a signing. As you can imagine this also caused some internal trouble and we lost the focus on the project a little. That’s why we missed our planned release date on christmas last year and on april this year.
What is your favourite GNU/Linux Distro?
Personally I don’t use Linux at all. Among the team the favorite distros are Ubuntu and Kubuntu. From what I know, Suse, Gentoo and Mandriva are also popular in our community.
What is your favourite Game?
Since recently I call “Fallout 3″ my favourite. This game is really awesome. I’m very addicted to doomsday scenarios shown in movies like “Mad Max” or “Escape from New York”. Apart from that my favourites of all time are “Sin”, “Blood2 - The Choosen”, “Half-Life” (yes, part one is best *g*), “No One Lives Forever” (1+2), “Rune” and many more. Oh, I forgot WoP, even if I can’t stand the sight of it any longer… (hehe)
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What are your favourite GNU/Linux Applications?
Not being a Linux user, I´ll have to say WoP!
Any message you´d like to say for our community?
I’d like to say thanks in the name of our team for the great reception WoP had by Linux gamers, we are very happy about that. We want to thank the rest of the WoP community as well, whether they use Linux, Mac or Windows, it’s one big family really. Its truly amazing how creative and active the community is. By now people have done dozens of custom maps and even small mods for WoP. It’s more than we ever dreamed of, thank you everyone out there.
The community always welcomes new players, if you like WoP give a visit to our forum and get involved.
Many Thanks for the nice interview and good luck for the future!
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.
|
Ente homepage: www.enteswelt.de | WoP homepage: www.worldofpadman.com | Ente in MySpace: http://myspace.enteswelt.de | Ente profile in Moddb: www.moddb.com/members/ente | WoP profile in Moddb: http://www.moddb.com/games/world-of-padman | WoP forum: http://padworld.myexp.de/forum
ubuntumagazine.org would like to THANKS to Andreas Endres for the nice interview.
More news about WoP, will be avayable soon, also we will have an WoP extended review and an how-to install in Ubuntu.
Related to his article, in worldofpadman website: http://padworld.myexp.de/index.php?news&update_id=174
More articles in: Featured Articles, Interviews
Please, help us to keep this free project updated and alive. THANKYOU!
Article created by: jorgerosa.
Who is Andreas Endres (aka Ente)? Well, besides being a awesome cartoonist and illustrator, creator of the well-known padman character, he is the man responsible for what it is simply the best free game ever made! Even ready to beat most of top rated commercial games out there. Everything is awesome and perfect: 3D rendered videos, playability, graphics, audio, music and fun! Yep, just dare to play it online, you will see what really fun is… Ok, but all that is only my personal opinion. If you want to find out for yourself, just try to download WoP and play it. Seems that every project Andreas is envolved you can expect no less than outstanding high quality in every aspect and detail, besides a pure genius, he really is what I call a perfectionist.
What is your position or what do you do for WoP?
I’m the leader of the “World of Padman” project but that’s not my only task. I’m the one who takes care that all the different aspects of the project fit together harmonically. I’m also responsible for the whole game design and concept. Most of the maps, textures, model skins and many other things were done by me. Back in the beginning of the project in 2002 I lay the foundations with creating new game types and a unique concept which I discussed with the other team members, together we reviewed and polished it up.
How did it all started?
Padman is one of my creations, a character for a comic which first appeared in a Playstation games magazine back in 1997. With the release of Quake 3 Arena in 1999 I started designing levels, or lets call it mapping straight away. A very important design element were pictures of my comic character Padman. I placed pictures of him as textures into my maps and called them “PadMaps”. Shortly after that a small community started to form up and I received media coverage for my works in magazines as well as on TV. I made those maps not only for Q3A but also for Elite Force and Jedi Knight 2.
Due to the positive feedback I became aware of the potential of Padman as a game modification. I considered how a mod could look like and got in contact with several people to frame a team. WoP was planned to be a fun focused project. There was no intention to create a game for hardcore gamers only. Thus the development process started and as the source code of Q3A was released under GPL, it was about time to make a stand alone game, a real “PadGame”.
This is what I call a true "dream team".
How many developers are envolved in the project?
Like all the other open source modding projects we also struggle with a continued coming and going of team members. Virtually nobody of the team I started with developing the mod is still involved. But note that development started seven years ago. Over all this time the development process paced up and down and always we had to spread out seeking for new manpower and resources.
Luckily, during the last three or four years the team kept nearly unchanged and from that a core team evolved, who put their hearts and souls into the project. Working together for such a long time was not always easy and sometimes we needed to get along, but I’m really proud of my small team and the results. I think round about 20 to 30 people played a part in the project but strictly speaking about 10 people have done most of the work.
Is WoP developed on GNU/Linux systems?
You can bet your life on that. The World of Padman engine is based on ioQuake3 engine code so we are able to support multiple platforms like Windows, Linux and Mac systems. Some of our developers do programming and modeling work on Linux, but most of us use Windows or dual-boot systems. We need to pay attention to Linux systems and do a lot of betatesting on those. It’s a pity that some of the mapping tools are not available for Linux but nevertheless there are Linux mappers and modders out there in our community.
What can we expect in WoP in the future?
We’ve been working on WoP 2.0 for a while now and we’ll keep polishing it up some more for the upcoming release. Not only new maps and player models are planned, also new game types, power-ups and weapons should be included. “Capture the Lolly”, our version of Capture the Flag, for example is most anticipated. This new game type comes along with at least four complete new maps. Aside from that we keep working hard on a single player mode, which comes along with a brand new game type, new maps, new challenges and a storyline. You can expect double the amount of player models, compared to WoP 1.2. There will be an “Instagib” mode with it’s own unique weapon and two new power-ups can be found in “Capture the Lolly”.
But developing the game isn’t easy at the moment. Nearly ten years of “World of Padman” leave marks and the team is a little exhausted and short on time. On top of that we had some time consuming and frustrating contacts with publishers. Two times there was a chance for a publishing deal to get WoP into the stores as a commercial title but both times it did not come to a signing. As you can imagine this also caused some internal trouble and we lost the focus on the project a little. That’s why we missed our planned release date on christmas last year and on april this year.
What is your favourite GNU/Linux Distro?
Personally I don’t use Linux at all. Among the team the favorite distros are Ubuntu and Kubuntu. From what I know, Suse, Gentoo and Mandriva are also popular in our community.
What is your favourite Game?
Since recently I call “Fallout 3″ my favourite. This game is really awesome. I’m very addicted to doomsday scenarios shown in movies like “Mad Max” or “Escape from New York”. Apart from that my favourites of all time are “Sin”, “Blood2 - The Choosen”, “Half-Life” (yes, part one is best *g*), “No One Lives Forever” (1+2), “Rune” and many more. Oh, I forgot WoP, even if I can’t stand the sight of it any longer… (hehe)
|
|
What are your favourite GNU/Linux Applications?
Not being a Linux user, I´ll have to say WoP!
Any message you´d like to say for our community?
I’d like to say thanks in the name of our team for the great reception WoP had by Linux gamers, we are very happy about that. We want to thank the rest of the WoP community as well, whether they use Linux, Mac or Windows, it’s one big family really. Its truly amazing how creative and active the community is. By now people have done dozens of custom maps and even small mods for WoP. It’s more than we ever dreamed of, thank you everyone out there.
The community always welcomes new players, if you like WoP give a visit to our forum and get involved.
Many Thanks for the nice interview and good luck for the future!
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.
|
Ente homepage: www.enteswelt.de | WoP homepage: www.worldofpadman.com | Ente in MySpace: http://myspace.enteswelt.de | Ente profile in Moddb: www.moddb.com/members/ente | WoP profile in Moddb: http://www.moddb.com/games/world-of-padman | WoP forum: http://padworld.myexp.de/forum
ubuntumagazine.org would like to THANKS to Andreas Endres for the nice interview.
More news about WoP, will be avayable soon, also we will have an WoP extended review and an how-to install in Ubuntu.
Related to his article, in worldofpadman website: http://padworld.myexp.de/index.php?news&update_id=174
More articles in: Featured Articles, Interviews
Please, help us to keep this free project updated and alive. THANKYOU!
.Thankyou for listening!
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Meanwhile, before we publish the WoP review and How-To install in Ubuntu articles, this link could be useful for more information about installing WoP in GNU/Linux http://padworld.myexp.de/padwiki/en/index.php