The ten gnomish questions are, as most of you must have already gathered, the interviewing format I am now and will forever (and ever) be using. The format is perfect. It's the questions I am worried about. I do hope that I will eventually manage to ask the most intriguing ones around this corner of the Net, but for the time being, I guess you'll just have to put up with my (rather puny) journalistic skills.
Anyway. Ugur Sener, the founder and all-around chief/good-guy of my favorite video (+adventure) gaming e-zine Adventure Lantern, was unlucky enough to be the first person interviewed on gnomeslair. Without further ado, let me present you with his answers (and unfortunately with my questions too):
1. Please state your name, age and favorite alcoholic drink.
Ugur Sener. 23 (turning 24 on March 2nd). I am not much of a drinker, but let's go with margaritas.
2. What are your gaming interests?
Video games are definitely my main interest. I have been playing them since I was 7 years old. I currently play games on my PC, PS2, and GameCube. Adventure is definitely my favorite genre, there'’s really no contest. I'’ve been hooked since a friend of mine showed me the first Monkey Island game many years ago. I also greatly enjoy RPG, strategy, and action-adventure games, but I'’ll give just about any video game a try.
I am also a big fan of pen and paper RPGs. I have been playing them for about 6 or 7 years. I ran my fair share of campaigns, participated in many others as a player, and have more character sheets than I care to count. Back in college I even started a club for role-playing games. My friends took over its administration after I graduated.
Finally, I am always partial to a good board game. My wife has a nice collection and we both love to play board games every time we find enough people to participate.
3. How would you describe Adventure Lantern?
Adventure Lantern is an electronic gaming magazine focused on adventure games. It is also a Web site that features the contents of the magazine and additional articles in HTML format.
AL is still a brand new site and our archives are humble at best. However, thanks to the efforts of the staff members, I believe we have a lot of potential for growth.
From a more personal point of view, AL has given me the opportunity to do something I truly enjoy and get more out of the games I play.
4. What is Adventure Lantern'’s history (so far)?
Despite the fact that the site has only been open for about two months, we have somewhat of an '“interesting' history. AL actually started up as a partnership. Along with my occasional contributions to Just Adventure, I had started writing for a second small adventure gaming site. The owner and I eventually decided to start a partnership and opened Adventure Lantern.
Unfortunately, various differences of opinion eventually led to our separation. The co-owner and the staff that came from the older site decided to go in a different direction than AL. I believe this happened about a week before we were planning to release our first issue. However, the remaining staff members (Wendy, Neetie, Suz, and Berent) really came through to my aid. We were able to pull together the first issue at the very last minute and successfully publish it on January 1st.
During our second month, things ran much more smoothly. Our active staff doubled in size and we were able to post a number of articles throughout the month. I believe we were able to recover from our initial setback, and I am looking forward to our March issue.
5. What kind of games will Adventure Lantern cover?
Adventure Lantern will be focused on adventure games. Our main goal is to provide information about current adventure games while building up our archives with coverage on older titles. However, we are not fully dedicated to a single genre. We do occasionally extend our coverage to other types of games. This is mainly to broaden the site'’s scope.
6. How has the gaming community reacted towards the e-zine?
I can only answer this based on the feedback I received or saw on other sites and forums across the Web. Overall, I have seen a good deal of positive feedback. Some readers were excited to see another site talking about adventure games. It'’s been especially great to see random posts on forums talking about the launch of Adventure Lantern.
However, some readers did complain about the inclusion of non-adventure games in the magazine. A couple of members of the Just Adventure forum also informed me that some of our reviews gave them the impression that we picked our favorite games for the first issue.
Of course I am always open to any kind of comments about the site. There is no way we can create a magazine that will please every single gamer, but we can certainly try to make improvements in many areas.
7. Why did you choose to run an Adventure Lantern site parallel to the e-zine?
The idea is to make the site more accessible. Our February issue ended up being around 120 pages. Even after compressing the images and zipping up the magazine, it is still a 5 MB download. I want to make sure the readers who do not have fast Internet connections have a way of getting to our articles.
I also hope that making the articles accessible in HTML format will help locate them when we have a number of issues of the magazine. I wouldn't want anybody to have to download a number of issues trying to find a specific article.
8. What are the future plans for Adventure Lantern?
There are a lot of things I would like to do with Adventure Lantern. The first objective is to start offering more current content to our readers. I would like Adventure Lantern to be providing coverage on new games as soon as they are released.
Another objective is to strengthen our archives throughout 2006. I would like to see us host at least a hundred reviews before the site is six months old. I would also like to improve the site UI and include more dynamic functionality. Unfortunately, a lot of that has to wait until I can purchase personal copies of Web site development tools I use at my day job.
In the long run, I do have plans to offer Adventure Lantern in multiple languages. I think it would also be interesting to feature at least small sections on other types of gaming such as pen and paper RPGs or board games. I also have pipe dreams like offering Adventure Lantern as an actual printed magazine someday, but we'Â’ll see how that one goes.
9. Tell us a bit about your journalistic and reviewing work for Just Adventure+.
I have been an avid reader of Just Adventure since 2001. I originally joined the staff in 2003 to write about some older adventure games. I wanted to be involved in making the Just Adventure archives more complete. Then I stayed on as an occasional contributor.
I am not exactly the most active member of the Just Adventure staff, but the experience has been really wonderful. The site owner and editor Randy Sluganski has always been kind and supportive towards me. I think Just Adventure is a truly great source of information for any adventure gamer.
10. How would you describe the current state of the adventure gaming scene?
I am very enthusiastic about adventure games in 2006. There are a number of titles nearing completion, not to mention a host of others that have been recently announced. This could be a truly great year for adventure gamers with a multitude of titles to keep us busy. I am personally excited to see the evolution of our genre and all the games coming our way.
(11.?) Thanks a lot mate. And good luck.
Anyway. Ugur Sener, the founder and all-around chief/good-guy of my favorite video (+adventure) gaming e-zine Adventure Lantern, was unlucky enough to be the first person interviewed on gnomeslair. Without further ado, let me present you with his answers (and unfortunately with my questions too):
1. Please state your name, age and favorite alcoholic drink.
Ugur Sener. 23 (turning 24 on March 2nd). I am not much of a drinker, but let's go with margaritas.
2. What are your gaming interests?
Video games are definitely my main interest. I have been playing them since I was 7 years old. I currently play games on my PC, PS2, and GameCube. Adventure is definitely my favorite genre, there'’s really no contest. I'’ve been hooked since a friend of mine showed me the first Monkey Island game many years ago. I also greatly enjoy RPG, strategy, and action-adventure games, but I'’ll give just about any video game a try.
I am also a big fan of pen and paper RPGs. I have been playing them for about 6 or 7 years. I ran my fair share of campaigns, participated in many others as a player, and have more character sheets than I care to count. Back in college I even started a club for role-playing games. My friends took over its administration after I graduated.
Finally, I am always partial to a good board game. My wife has a nice collection and we both love to play board games every time we find enough people to participate.
3. How would you describe Adventure Lantern?
Adventure Lantern is an electronic gaming magazine focused on adventure games. It is also a Web site that features the contents of the magazine and additional articles in HTML format.
AL is still a brand new site and our archives are humble at best. However, thanks to the efforts of the staff members, I believe we have a lot of potential for growth.
From a more personal point of view, AL has given me the opportunity to do something I truly enjoy and get more out of the games I play.
4. What is Adventure Lantern'’s history (so far)?
Despite the fact that the site has only been open for about two months, we have somewhat of an '“interesting' history. AL actually started up as a partnership. Along with my occasional contributions to Just Adventure, I had started writing for a second small adventure gaming site. The owner and I eventually decided to start a partnership and opened Adventure Lantern.
Unfortunately, various differences of opinion eventually led to our separation. The co-owner and the staff that came from the older site decided to go in a different direction than AL. I believe this happened about a week before we were planning to release our first issue. However, the remaining staff members (Wendy, Neetie, Suz, and Berent) really came through to my aid. We were able to pull together the first issue at the very last minute and successfully publish it on January 1st.
During our second month, things ran much more smoothly. Our active staff doubled in size and we were able to post a number of articles throughout the month. I believe we were able to recover from our initial setback, and I am looking forward to our March issue.
5. What kind of games will Adventure Lantern cover?
Adventure Lantern will be focused on adventure games. Our main goal is to provide information about current adventure games while building up our archives with coverage on older titles. However, we are not fully dedicated to a single genre. We do occasionally extend our coverage to other types of games. This is mainly to broaden the site'’s scope.
6. How has the gaming community reacted towards the e-zine?
I can only answer this based on the feedback I received or saw on other sites and forums across the Web. Overall, I have seen a good deal of positive feedback. Some readers were excited to see another site talking about adventure games. It'’s been especially great to see random posts on forums talking about the launch of Adventure Lantern.
However, some readers did complain about the inclusion of non-adventure games in the magazine. A couple of members of the Just Adventure forum also informed me that some of our reviews gave them the impression that we picked our favorite games for the first issue.
Of course I am always open to any kind of comments about the site. There is no way we can create a magazine that will please every single gamer, but we can certainly try to make improvements in many areas.
7. Why did you choose to run an Adventure Lantern site parallel to the e-zine?
The idea is to make the site more accessible. Our February issue ended up being around 120 pages. Even after compressing the images and zipping up the magazine, it is still a 5 MB download. I want to make sure the readers who do not have fast Internet connections have a way of getting to our articles.
I also hope that making the articles accessible in HTML format will help locate them when we have a number of issues of the magazine. I wouldn't want anybody to have to download a number of issues trying to find a specific article.
8. What are the future plans for Adventure Lantern?
There are a lot of things I would like to do with Adventure Lantern. The first objective is to start offering more current content to our readers. I would like Adventure Lantern to be providing coverage on new games as soon as they are released.
Another objective is to strengthen our archives throughout 2006. I would like to see us host at least a hundred reviews before the site is six months old. I would also like to improve the site UI and include more dynamic functionality. Unfortunately, a lot of that has to wait until I can purchase personal copies of Web site development tools I use at my day job.
In the long run, I do have plans to offer Adventure Lantern in multiple languages. I think it would also be interesting to feature at least small sections on other types of gaming such as pen and paper RPGs or board games. I also have pipe dreams like offering Adventure Lantern as an actual printed magazine someday, but we'Â’ll see how that one goes.
9. Tell us a bit about your journalistic and reviewing work for Just Adventure+.
I have been an avid reader of Just Adventure since 2001. I originally joined the staff in 2003 to write about some older adventure games. I wanted to be involved in making the Just Adventure archives more complete. Then I stayed on as an occasional contributor.
I am not exactly the most active member of the Just Adventure staff, but the experience has been really wonderful. The site owner and editor Randy Sluganski has always been kind and supportive towards me. I think Just Adventure is a truly great source of information for any adventure gamer.
10. How would you describe the current state of the adventure gaming scene?
I am very enthusiastic about adventure games in 2006. There are a number of titles nearing completion, not to mention a host of others that have been recently announced. This could be a truly great year for adventure gamers with a multitude of titles to keep us busy. I am personally excited to see the evolution of our genre and all the games coming our way.
(11.?) Thanks a lot mate. And good luck.
Related Tags: Adventure games, Adventure Lantern, Interview, Just Adventure, PC games
Ah, man. The good ol'days when we played games like this and it required us to spark our imagination. The classic days of D and D, grape soda, and Duran Duran. Thanks for giving me this trip down memory lane, buddy. I'll be stoping by more often.
ReplyDeleteI used to play Unreal Tournament 2004 all the time, but working on my website has kind of cut into my game playing.
ReplyDeleteAdventure Lantern sounds like a pretty neat site.
That was an interesting post Gnome, I enjoyed reading it. :-)
Tom
Thanks a lot Tom...
ReplyDeleteHey thanks for commenting on my Blog! Do you want to exchange links?
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I sort out how to create the links in the sidebar..sure..why not...
ReplyDelete