Post by warpspeed on May 4, 2008 5:48:11 GMT -5
Ok, if we try starting from the beginning here.
First, how did you come up with the idea to create shockplay, and when was this?
In the year 2000 I founded my company, Raketspel, together with two partners:
Johan "Hammarn" Höglund and Oskar "Pixel Pusher" Andersson. Our objective was to
create fun web games, and also make more traditional CD-ROM based multimedia.
In 2001, I got the idea to make a Table Tennis game. It was just a small singleplayer
game, but almost everyone that tried it was hooked, and it spread widely on the web.
We decided to build a Community around this game, and added more games.
In December 2001 we launched Shockplay 1.0. It was a gaming site with 7 singleplayer
games, and it was free of charge.
At first shockplay was a singleplayer version only with table tennis, what made you
decide to make a multiplayer version?
We got hundreds of requests to make the Table Tennis game multiplayer, and this was a
tough challenge for us, and to cover the development costs and the server costs, we
made Shockplay to a pay-to-play site, and we also added more features, like buddy list,
PM, more multiplayer games: Couronne, Backgammon, etc.
How about an economical question?
Is shockplay the big source of income or is it programming for others or what is
that you make a living on?
The truth is that Shockplay stands for less than 10% of our income. We build a lot of
other games to make a living. But, since Shockplay is our own community, and since
there are so many active players that help us run the community, we feel that it has
great potential, and we want to improve Shockplay in every way we can.
Do you need another job on the side of this?
Yes, we have lots of clients, and the problem is that we find it difficult to get the
time to work with Shockplay as much as we would like.
So is your "rear end" (could be children accessing this sight) glued to the office
chair or does this job mean you are sitting at the coffee table being lazy all day? =D
Personally, I love my job, and I cant wait to get to the office every morning when I
wake up.
Yeye that didn't really answer the question did it
Can you tell us a bit about what it is you really do? Think many people
might be interested in knowing!
I am a programmer. This means that I write the logic in the games. I use Adobe Director
Shockwave Studio and Java to create the games. Often I build a small prototype without
any fancy graphics, just to see if the game idea is enough fun.
Is shockplay your work or does raketspel mean that you have
other obligations as well?
Well, we today Raketspel have 7 employees. We have several other projects, but one of
our goals is to make Shockplay bigger than it is today, but it will take time and money
to improve Shockplay with more games and features, and in order to afford this development,
we build and sell other games for other clients.
Enough about work it's boring
Lets talk about the people inside the great world of multiplayer games.
ok, shoot!
Who was the first ever member at shockplay?
Magnus "Mc Mongo" was the first member. But he is one of the guys working at Raketspel,
actually he is the one that made the database with all the users, so of course he took
the no.1 spot in the database.
The "oldest" member who is still a member at Shockplay is tommylu, the "shanghai pro"
He became member 2002-11-04
And then comes: Thorleifa, Sara, Surfin, Haney, andreas.carlsson, Samson, Kru, goran34,
Dubbel-H
How did you get people to join shockplay from the start?
We have done very little marketing, a few tests with affiliate networks that did not
work so well, but,, a few players found it, and then it was spread "word of mouth".
How many active members are there as of today? And are double accounts counted for?
Around 1000 accounts are active today.
About the double accounts, is that a problem that you try to keep track of or don't you
see it as a problem?
Sometimes it can be a problem. We do not allow 2 players that use the same IP to play
in the same group in the league.
Ok this is getting too serious hehe
Lets see whom your favourite member(s) is/are?
oh, I have so many good friends there...let's see...torkelsnorkel, Joe Killer, Chris,
Vicky, Redhead, Mayhem.
I have a question I have been wondering about, maybe there are more who did.
You are Rocketman, but then there is Rocketkid, Rocketgirl, and RocketDJ. And these are
people that have had more or less responsobility on shockplay. Who are they? And did they
choose names themselves or did you give them those names?
We created the users Rocketkid and RocketGirl with some special features for recruiting
new members.
A member (chris) who is a DJ used to send a shockplay web radio, and that is why he got
this user, RocketDJ.
Alright here is a nutcracker for you, someone needs to sort this out and be honest about
this. Who is really the best female player on shock all times, in your opinion?
Oh, I think Katjziska is the best female couronne player, and Wickey27 is the best
"female" tabletennis player.
In backgammon there are several good female players.
Eh what the heck, male aswell, who is the best?
I'd say Hektor.
But once in a time, it was me! Before we launched Shockplay 2.0 with couronne,
I bug-tested the game a lot, and when we launched it in december 2002, I was the best
player I even felt bad dominating the game that newcomers tried to so hard to master...
I even played with my left hand just to give them a chance to win a set once in a while...
It took 2 months before a member got good enough to beat me. But soon after that I have
fell way behind the top players.
Alright, there we had som bragging aswell
About the couronne game!
In my opinion: Müller was very close to perfection when it came to the tactical game
in league and I'd say that GodisGuden, Zimond and maybe Hektor are two steps infront of
others when it comes to "skillplaying" sweeping and finding ways to like I call it
"refurnish", do you think we are getting close to the end when it comes to
the development in the game, has the top skill level been reached?
I have constantly been amazed of the new discoveries that members have come up with, e.g.
the different kind of trick shots. And back in 2003 there was a fight between those that
did not accept pushing, and those that did. There was a group that called themself NCP
(no chicken play) that swore to never play chicken (no pushing) and then the opposite
group, CPFL (Chicken-play for life) that used pushing as much as possible. I was myself
a member of NCP. And there was a lot of speculation if NCP was doomed to fail. Later,
players like inqy and Hektor proved that it is possible to play offensive and handle most
pushers quite well. So the game has evolved and is still evolving, but in smaller steps.
So I do not think the "top skill level" has been reached, although I have no idea how
the skill level can become even better.
There are glitches in couronne, for example, rings get stuck on eachother once in a while
and the yellow goes in the hole if you put it o close, even though you hit it forward
(I call it reverse physics ^^) is this something that will be looked at?
Yes, actually I spent a week trying to fix this glitch, and I managed to fix it, but,
as a side effect, the physics of the game was a little bit different, so that is why I
never launch that version. Lots of players would complain, even though I just change a
microscopic detail of the physics.
Ok I think questions about the game are gonna show up again real soon.
Reason for this is that, (as probaly everyone knows by now) a new version of shockplay
is to come in the near future, isn't that right?
Yes, we are working on Shockplay 3.0.
Can you please tell us all something about the new version that we don't know?
Sorry. we want the new features Shockplay 3.0 to be a surprise.
What is the purpose of this update? What do you want to achieve with it?
Several reasons:
- Today we have the resources we need to update shockplay.
- We want to do some marketing to try to get more players to join Shockplay, but before
we do that, we need to update our servers and software so we can handle more players.
- Lots of players want to help us administrating leagues, tournaments, and stuff, but
we lack the admin functions for them to do so.
- When we built Shockplay, many players had slow modem connections. Nowadays almost
eveyone has cable modem or better. So we have now better possibilities to make better
features and games.
- The current version is a bit old fashioned. We want to update the user interface
the code behind it too.
Ok enough about that, we will be back with more questions when the actual update is done.
But when can we count on that the update will be finished and made?
We have not gone public with the date yet.
Up for some personal questions ?
Starting with a shockplay question haha.
What do you like best about being a member at shockplay?
Getting friends from all around the world. And I love to play chess.
What do you do in your spare time?
At the moment i'm trying my best to get in a good shape for a bicycle race (vätternrundan).
I'm also like to practise juggling with clubs, balls and tourches.
Ok, that ought to be interesting if we will have a "shockplayparty" in the future.
We have entertainment folks
What would you do if you won a lot of money?
I would invest it in my company, and make it possible for us to work 10 months with only
shockplay and nothing else. But, I doubt I will win that kind of money, because I never
play on any lottery. I calculate the probability to win, and the odds are seldom to my
advantage
Or maybe you have loads of money ? Thanks to Shockplay
Unfortunately that is not the case.
Whats your favourite song, and group?
Rocketman by Red Elvises
You can listen to it here: redelvises.net/mp3/roketman.mp3
Awesome, thank you for sharing the song, might that be a reason for his shockplay nick?
A general question about shockplay.
There are a few couples that has met here am I right?
Which once do you know of?
Yes, it is wonderful that couples have met here. Im afraid I might be wrong about this,
but I think these players met through shockplay: Petrify and Marru, Katjziska and
Mr Daydreamer, and Goodman1967 met someone, i forgot her name.
Thats 1 of 3, good work ^^
Was Katjziska that made friends with Petrify, and then one thing lead to another =) However, Marru and Petrify are no longer together.
And I give you a wrong answer for not knowing the name of the one Goodman met.
Maybe you can see shockplay as a matchmaking site?
That's a cool side-effect. I see Shockplay as a friendly community where you have fun
and meet lots of new friends. That some players meet their love of their life is a bonus
How about a trick one?
If a rooster sits high up in a tree facing the east, and then the rooster lays an egg.
Which direction will the egg drop?
Well that ought to be....... roosters don't lay eggs
Oh darn, you were not as easely fooled as woodchip
Ok last but not least, what is your shoe size?
43
First, how did you come up with the idea to create shockplay, and when was this?
In the year 2000 I founded my company, Raketspel, together with two partners:
Johan "Hammarn" Höglund and Oskar "Pixel Pusher" Andersson. Our objective was to
create fun web games, and also make more traditional CD-ROM based multimedia.
In 2001, I got the idea to make a Table Tennis game. It was just a small singleplayer
game, but almost everyone that tried it was hooked, and it spread widely on the web.
We decided to build a Community around this game, and added more games.
In December 2001 we launched Shockplay 1.0. It was a gaming site with 7 singleplayer
games, and it was free of charge.
At first shockplay was a singleplayer version only with table tennis, what made you
decide to make a multiplayer version?
We got hundreds of requests to make the Table Tennis game multiplayer, and this was a
tough challenge for us, and to cover the development costs and the server costs, we
made Shockplay to a pay-to-play site, and we also added more features, like buddy list,
PM, more multiplayer games: Couronne, Backgammon, etc.
How about an economical question?
Is shockplay the big source of income or is it programming for others or what is
that you make a living on?
The truth is that Shockplay stands for less than 10% of our income. We build a lot of
other games to make a living. But, since Shockplay is our own community, and since
there are so many active players that help us run the community, we feel that it has
great potential, and we want to improve Shockplay in every way we can.
Do you need another job on the side of this?
Yes, we have lots of clients, and the problem is that we find it difficult to get the
time to work with Shockplay as much as we would like.
So is your "rear end" (could be children accessing this sight) glued to the office
chair or does this job mean you are sitting at the coffee table being lazy all day? =D
Personally, I love my job, and I cant wait to get to the office every morning when I
wake up.
Yeye that didn't really answer the question did it
Can you tell us a bit about what it is you really do? Think many people
might be interested in knowing!
I am a programmer. This means that I write the logic in the games. I use Adobe Director
Shockwave Studio and Java to create the games. Often I build a small prototype without
any fancy graphics, just to see if the game idea is enough fun.
Is shockplay your work or does raketspel mean that you have
other obligations as well?
Well, we today Raketspel have 7 employees. We have several other projects, but one of
our goals is to make Shockplay bigger than it is today, but it will take time and money
to improve Shockplay with more games and features, and in order to afford this development,
we build and sell other games for other clients.
Enough about work it's boring
Lets talk about the people inside the great world of multiplayer games.
ok, shoot!
Who was the first ever member at shockplay?
Magnus "Mc Mongo" was the first member. But he is one of the guys working at Raketspel,
actually he is the one that made the database with all the users, so of course he took
the no.1 spot in the database.
The "oldest" member who is still a member at Shockplay is tommylu, the "shanghai pro"
He became member 2002-11-04
And then comes: Thorleifa, Sara, Surfin, Haney, andreas.carlsson, Samson, Kru, goran34,
Dubbel-H
How did you get people to join shockplay from the start?
We have done very little marketing, a few tests with affiliate networks that did not
work so well, but,, a few players found it, and then it was spread "word of mouth".
How many active members are there as of today? And are double accounts counted for?
Around 1000 accounts are active today.
About the double accounts, is that a problem that you try to keep track of or don't you
see it as a problem?
Sometimes it can be a problem. We do not allow 2 players that use the same IP to play
in the same group in the league.
Ok this is getting too serious hehe
Lets see whom your favourite member(s) is/are?
oh, I have so many good friends there...let's see...torkelsnorkel, Joe Killer, Chris,
Vicky, Redhead, Mayhem.
I have a question I have been wondering about, maybe there are more who did.
You are Rocketman, but then there is Rocketkid, Rocketgirl, and RocketDJ. And these are
people that have had more or less responsobility on shockplay. Who are they? And did they
choose names themselves or did you give them those names?
We created the users Rocketkid and RocketGirl with some special features for recruiting
new members.
A member (chris) who is a DJ used to send a shockplay web radio, and that is why he got
this user, RocketDJ.
Alright here is a nutcracker for you, someone needs to sort this out and be honest about
this. Who is really the best female player on shock all times, in your opinion?
Oh, I think Katjziska is the best female couronne player, and Wickey27 is the best
"female" tabletennis player.
In backgammon there are several good female players.
Eh what the heck, male aswell, who is the best?
I'd say Hektor.
But once in a time, it was me! Before we launched Shockplay 2.0 with couronne,
I bug-tested the game a lot, and when we launched it in december 2002, I was the best
player
I even felt bad dominating the game that newcomers tried to so hard to master...I even played with my left hand just to give them a chance to win a set once in a while...
It took 2 months before a member got good enough to beat me. But soon after that I have
fell way behind the top players.
Alright, there we had som bragging aswell
About the couronne game!
In my opinion: Müller was very close to perfection when it came to the tactical game
in league and I'd say that GodisGuden, Zimond and maybe Hektor are two steps infront of
others when it comes to "skillplaying" sweeping and finding ways to like I call it
"refurnish", do you think we are getting close to the end when it comes to
the development in the game, has the top skill level been reached?
I have constantly been amazed of the new discoveries that members have come up with, e.g.
the different kind of trick shots. And back in 2003 there was a fight between those that
did not accept pushing, and those that did. There was a group that called themself NCP
(no chicken play) that swore to never play chicken (no pushing) and then the opposite
group, CPFL (Chicken-play for life) that used pushing as much as possible. I was myself
a member of NCP. And there was a lot of speculation if NCP was doomed to fail. Later,
players like inqy and Hektor proved that it is possible to play offensive and handle most
pushers quite well. So the game has evolved and is still evolving, but in smaller steps.
So I do not think the "top skill level" has been reached, although I have no idea how
the skill level can become even better.
There are glitches in couronne, for example, rings get stuck on eachother once in a while
and the yellow goes in the hole if you put it o close, even though you hit it forward
(I call it reverse physics ^^) is this something that will be looked at?
Yes, actually I spent a week trying to fix this glitch, and I managed to fix it, but,
as a side effect, the physics of the game was a little bit different, so that is why I
never launch that version. Lots of players would complain, even though I just change a
microscopic detail of the physics.
Ok I think questions about the game are gonna show up again real soon.
Reason for this is that, (as probaly everyone knows by now) a new version of shockplay
is to come in the near future, isn't that right?
Yes, we are working on Shockplay 3.0.
Can you please tell us all something about the new version that we don't know?
Sorry. we want the new features Shockplay 3.0 to be a surprise.
What is the purpose of this update? What do you want to achieve with it?
Several reasons:
- Today we have the resources we need to update shockplay.
- We want to do some marketing to try to get more players to join Shockplay, but before
we do that, we need to update our servers and software so we can handle more players.
- Lots of players want to help us administrating leagues, tournaments, and stuff, but
we lack the admin functions for them to do so.
- When we built Shockplay, many players had slow modem connections. Nowadays almost
eveyone has cable modem or better. So we have now better possibilities to make better
features and games.
- The current version is a bit old fashioned. We want to update the user interface
the code behind it too.
Ok enough about that, we will be back with more questions when the actual update is done.
But when can we count on that the update will be finished and made?
We have not gone public with the date yet.
Up for some personal questions
? Starting with a shockplay question haha.
What do you like best about being a member at shockplay?
Getting friends from all around the world. And I love to play chess.
What do you do in your spare time?
At the moment i'm trying my best to get in a good shape for a bicycle race (vätternrundan).
I'm also like to practise juggling with clubs, balls and tourches.
Ok, that ought to be interesting if we will have a "shockplayparty" in the future.
We have entertainment folks
What would you do if you won a lot of money?
I would invest it in my company, and make it possible for us to work 10 months with only
shockplay and nothing else. But, I doubt I will win that kind of money, because I never
play on any lottery. I calculate the probability to win, and the odds are seldom to my
advantage
Or maybe you have loads of money ?
Thanks to Shockplay Unfortunately that is not the case.
Whats your favourite song, and group?
Rocketman by Red Elvises
You can listen to it here: redelvises.net/mp3/roketman.mp3
Awesome, thank you for sharing the song, might that be a reason for his shockplay nick?
A general question about shockplay.
There are a few couples that has met here am I right?
Which once do you know of?
Yes, it is wonderful that couples have met here. Im afraid I might be wrong about this,
but I think these players met through shockplay: Petrify and Marru, Katjziska and
Mr Daydreamer, and Goodman1967 met someone, i forgot her name.
Thats 1 of 3, good work ^^
Was Katjziska that made friends with Petrify, and then one thing lead to another =) However, Marru and Petrify are no longer together.
And I give you a wrong answer for not knowing the name of the one Goodman met.
Maybe you can see shockplay as a matchmaking site
?That's a cool side-effect. I see Shockplay as a friendly community where you have fun
and meet lots of new friends. That some players meet their love of their life is a bonus
How about a trick one?
If a rooster sits high up in a tree facing the east, and then the rooster lays an egg.
Which direction will the egg drop?
Well that ought to be....... roosters don't lay eggs
Oh darn, you were not as easely fooled as woodchip
Ok last but not least, what is your shoe size?
43
