01-06-2013, 05:15 PM
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Good day and welcome to our first developer interview. Hypernoma , please introduce yourself.
Hypernoma: Good evening!
Hypernoma: Outside of running NordInvasion I have the delight of studying law (for my 5th year) and being a poor Scotsman stuck in the sunny city of London
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion : You may be one of only a few who call London sunny
. Well, how did you got into Nordinvasion and escpecially into Development ?
Hypernoma: Well there's more sun than in Scotland so it's pretty tropical!
Hypernoma: I first started playing NordInvasion at the end of november 2011 with my MM regiment. I had a pretty screwed up sleep cycle in those days and one night I was playing on Rich's NY NordInvasion server.
ConquerorWorm was playing on that server and invited players to join the teamspeak channel. That was my first night playing with Worm(he let me use his wormbane!) and the start of a beautiful friendship
Rich and I became the first NordInvasion game admins as Jez and Worm were struggling to keep track of the nonsense going on on servers (SK!).
I offered to help Worm with anything he needed beyond being on the servers and he asked me to take over the banner project implementing player banners into the texture files for use in-game.
I must have been doing that for a week or two when the infamous roll-back occurred. That was the night I became a developer, being thrown in the deep end with angry players everywhere raging non-stop.
Worm and I were working on the database for a good 11 hours after the rollback to try and fix everything and I guess we got it all done in the end seeing as we're still here!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: That`s a decent history ! What is your role in the development team ?
Hypernoma: I think I've held just about every position in the development team except for head of mapping. Hande is just too good! I took over from Worm as Head Developer about a year ago now. My role just now is fairly limited due to my insane workload in RL but thankfully I have a pretty awesome team to pick up my slack!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Yeah, some players just forget that you have a real life to care about too. What do you like on Nordinvasion the most ?
Hypernoma: Hmmm it would actually be the rare occasion that I get to actually play! With all the work that has gone on for the last patch and the increasing number of players that seem to need disciplined, it leaves very little time to get on a server with a good team and play. I've been working on my "new" longbowman for a very long time now and I am still only level 34!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: I see. Well, hopefully you will find some more time to actually play the mod you are developing in the near future. What do you hate in Nordinvasion the most ?
Hypernoma: It has to be the manner that a minority of the community insist on conducting themselves in. I hate players breaking the rules, glitching maps or exploiting any little feature they can get their hands on. I appreciate that players want to progress and be the best but cheating is not the way to do it. It is insulting and infuriating to see our hard work abused and then have players tell us why they shouldn't be punished for abusing our work.
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Understandable. Seeing you as the current main developer, where do you think will the mod be in one year? (also regarding Bannerlord).
Hypernoma: Haha what Bannerlord? I'm amazed that NordInvasion is still running and so is Jez. He asks me from time to time if we've killed NI yet.
Worm asks if I've managed to break it yet... I have a lot of support from my predecessors! It has amazed us that NordInvasion has survived such a long time and the player base has grown to its present size.
We rarely drop below 500 players a day, often reaching as high as 700 on the weekend (a record I want to beat is 776!!).
As long as we can continue to find new ways to expand and develop the (limited) warband system I'm sure we'll continue pushing out updates.
We have a worryingly large list of ideas in the developer forum on what to do next... Ideally in 1 year NordInvasion will still be going strong and that record will have been smashed! Regarding Bannerlord, it is very difficult to predict how we will react to that and if there will be a "NordInvasion2".
While the idea sounds wonderful, it's so difficult to know how Taleworlds are getting on and what exactly they are doing the modding system! I'm afraid I'm going to have to return to my forum stance of " "who knows?" ('cause I don't)."
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Fair enough. As it currently seems, the only viable tactics to beat NI is to either kite or cade up a spot. Are you happy with the current mechanics, and\or what would you like to change ?
Hypernoma: Haha not particularly! As to what needs changed? The entire AI... Warband's AI is so unbelievably stupid it makes working on a PvE mod a challenge!
Kiting was the old favourite making bots run in a nice big circle while snipers could shoot the bots. Before that it was cav archery... Now we have shieldwalls.
I do miss the old days of soloing on my demi-god commando but that was equally ridiculous in its own way. We have implemented a few changes (Trickster bombs and Thor's Hammer) to make shieldwalls a bit more interesting but it does remain a shieldwall... I have a few ideas in mind for a future patch that should liven things up but I really can't talk about them here...
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: What is your Idea of a top-notched tactic then ?
Hypernoma: I have ragged a bit on the shieldwall above, but my ideal tactic that I see so rarely and would love to see more of is a proper mopving shieldwall!
I used to be able to find players in the open with a moving, flexible shieldwall on the US central servers at about 3am but I hardly ever see any anymore.
It was so much fun to be shouting "wheel left" or trying to support the flank with archers running around just behind us and players with pikes moving to where each bot was rather than spamming overheads for minutes at a time.
There was also no opportunity for afk shielding or everyone died! For me, those shieldwalls were the most fun and most challenging and I would love to get out with a good team and try it on the new hardmode!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: That sounds very interesting! Hopefully we can test this out soon. Thank you for taking the time for this interview, and the endles stress developing Nordinvasion! Keep up the good work and see you on the battlefield. Any last words ?
Hypernoma: Only that I look forward to seeing someone defeat Odin! If players want to find good legendaries, they know where to go!
Hypernoma: Good evening!
Hypernoma: Outside of running NordInvasion I have the delight of studying law (for my 5th year) and being a poor Scotsman stuck in the sunny city of London
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion : You may be one of only a few who call London sunny
. Well, how did you got into Nordinvasion and escpecially into Development ?Hypernoma: Well there's more sun than in Scotland so it's pretty tropical!
Hypernoma: I first started playing NordInvasion at the end of november 2011 with my MM regiment. I had a pretty screwed up sleep cycle in those days and one night I was playing on Rich's NY NordInvasion server.
ConquerorWorm was playing on that server and invited players to join the teamspeak channel. That was my first night playing with Worm(he let me use his wormbane!) and the start of a beautiful friendship
Rich and I became the first NordInvasion game admins as Jez and Worm were struggling to keep track of the nonsense going on on servers (SK!).
I offered to help Worm with anything he needed beyond being on the servers and he asked me to take over the banner project implementing player banners into the texture files for use in-game.
I must have been doing that for a week or two when the infamous roll-back occurred. That was the night I became a developer, being thrown in the deep end with angry players everywhere raging non-stop.
Worm and I were working on the database for a good 11 hours after the rollback to try and fix everything and I guess we got it all done in the end seeing as we're still here!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: That`s a decent history ! What is your role in the development team ?
Hypernoma: I think I've held just about every position in the development team except for head of mapping. Hande is just too good! I took over from Worm as Head Developer about a year ago now. My role just now is fairly limited due to my insane workload in RL but thankfully I have a pretty awesome team to pick up my slack!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Yeah, some players just forget that you have a real life to care about too. What do you like on Nordinvasion the most ?
Hypernoma: Hmmm it would actually be the rare occasion that I get to actually play! With all the work that has gone on for the last patch and the increasing number of players that seem to need disciplined, it leaves very little time to get on a server with a good team and play. I've been working on my "new" longbowman for a very long time now and I am still only level 34!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: I see. Well, hopefully you will find some more time to actually play the mod you are developing in the near future. What do you hate in Nordinvasion the most ?
Hypernoma: It has to be the manner that a minority of the community insist on conducting themselves in. I hate players breaking the rules, glitching maps or exploiting any little feature they can get their hands on. I appreciate that players want to progress and be the best but cheating is not the way to do it. It is insulting and infuriating to see our hard work abused and then have players tell us why they shouldn't be punished for abusing our work.
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Understandable. Seeing you as the current main developer, where do you think will the mod be in one year? (also regarding Bannerlord).
Hypernoma: Haha what Bannerlord? I'm amazed that NordInvasion is still running and so is Jez. He asks me from time to time if we've killed NI yet.
Worm asks if I've managed to break it yet... I have a lot of support from my predecessors! It has amazed us that NordInvasion has survived such a long time and the player base has grown to its present size.
We rarely drop below 500 players a day, often reaching as high as 700 on the weekend (a record I want to beat is 776!!).
As long as we can continue to find new ways to expand and develop the (limited) warband system I'm sure we'll continue pushing out updates.
We have a worryingly large list of ideas in the developer forum on what to do next... Ideally in 1 year NordInvasion will still be going strong and that record will have been smashed! Regarding Bannerlord, it is very difficult to predict how we will react to that and if there will be a "NordInvasion2".
While the idea sounds wonderful, it's so difficult to know how Taleworlds are getting on and what exactly they are doing the modding system! I'm afraid I'm going to have to return to my forum stance of " "who knows?" ('cause I don't)."
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: Fair enough. As it currently seems, the only viable tactics to beat NI is to either kite or cade up a spot. Are you happy with the current mechanics, and\or what would you like to change ?
Hypernoma: Haha not particularly! As to what needs changed? The entire AI... Warband's AI is so unbelievably stupid it makes working on a PvE mod a challenge!
Kiting was the old favourite making bots run in a nice big circle while snipers could shoot the bots. Before that it was cav archery... Now we have shieldwalls.
I do miss the old days of soloing on my demi-god commando but that was equally ridiculous in its own way. We have implemented a few changes (Trickster bombs and Thor's Hammer) to make shieldwalls a bit more interesting but it does remain a shieldwall... I have a few ideas in mind for a future patch that should liven things up but I really can't talk about them here...
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: What is your Idea of a top-notched tactic then ?
Hypernoma: I have ragged a bit on the shieldwall above, but my ideal tactic that I see so rarely and would love to see more of is a proper mopving shieldwall!
I used to be able to find players in the open with a moving, flexible shieldwall on the US central servers at about 3am but I hardly ever see any anymore.
It was so much fun to be shouting "wheel left" or trying to support the flank with archers running around just behind us and players with pikes moving to where each bot was rather than spamming overheads for minutes at a time.
There was also no opportunity for afk shielding or everyone died! For me, those shieldwalls were the most fun and most challenging and I would love to get out with a good team and try it on the new hardmode!
Lost Legend :ingame Nordinvasion: That sounds very interesting! Hopefully we can test this out soon. Thank you for taking the time for this interview, and the endles stress developing Nordinvasion! Keep up the good work and see you on the battlefield. Any last words ?
Hypernoma: Only that I look forward to seeing someone defeat Odin! If players want to find good legendaries, they know where to go!
Wusel @ Omnia