An Interview with Paul

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Could you briefly introduce yourself (age, location…) and tell us since when you are active in the Q1 community?

I'm Paul Healey, I'm 29 years old and I live in somewhere in the sunny North of England (not far from Shambler Woods). I was most active between 1997 and 2002.

How did you get involved in the community?

I started by making some god awful maps for Quess (Quake Chess), Quake Rally and normal deathmatch. I used to download tons of maps from cdrom.com and then came across MultiPlayer Quake (MPQ) which was being run by Taskmaster at the time. I was hooked on getting my weekly dose of Quake goodness. Taskmaster then moved on and the next chap running the site, Xori, was after dropping Quake reviews (Quake 2 was all the rage then, bah kids) unless someone else wanted to do them. I stupidly put my name forward thinking why not get my maps straight from the source not really realising the work involved in reviewing 'em. Still, it was a good laugh. And I got my revenge by eventually dropping Quake 2 reviews!

What Q1 contributions are you best-known for? Which of your works is your personal favorite?

I'd say running MPQ for a bit. I only properly released one map, PHDM1, and it wasn't very good. I nabbed the textures and most of the style of it from Laeth's Timeless since I thought it was great looking map. Shambler was very nice (unusual for him!) in giving it a good review!

What was your very own motivation to work for Quake?

It was a natural progression from Wolf 3D and Doom. The whole atmosphere and style of it was so cool and deathmatch was pretty mental. And it forced me to learn how to play using the keyboard AND mouse!

Do you have a website/links where we could check out your stuff?

Yep, MultiPlayer Quake Archive

What are your best memories about this community?

The fun of playing online, testing out new maps, seeing how they'd evolve, meeting peeps because of MPQ, reading Qboard, Peej & Fribs then Qmap, chatting to the asshats on IRC.

Are you regularly playing Quake? Are you trying out mods, maps and engines?

Not really, it's very occasional now. I last properly played stuff for QExpo 06 since I was doing some reviews with RPG. I've tended to stick with FitzQuake since other engines add stuff that isn't really "Quake" (e.g. coloured lightning!).

Have there been other games you have been playing a lot?

Oh yeah lots. I've now joined the unwashed masses of the console brigade. I play a lot of stuff on the Xbox 360, mostly racing games. Burnout Paradise and GTAIV has been taking up a lot of time of late. I replaced my PC with an iMac, so I don't really play PC stuff anymore, although I might one day get my World of Warcraft character to level 70…

How would you describe the Q1 community right now? Is there any contribution that really impressed you in the last couple of years?

There seems to be plenty of activity from looking at func_msgboard. The last contribution that impressed me was than's DM3RMX, that was just excellent.

How do you picture the future of the community? Do you (objectively) think that people will still be modding/mapping for it in, say, 10 years from now?

Well I still lurk in #terrafusion and that's full of bodies, but whether they're warm and active bodies, it's hard to tell. I reckon though, it'll still be going strong, it's been 12 years and counting!

Your #1 secret special ingredient to a good map (imagine a newbie asking for your advice)?

Make it fun to play! (Bonus tips, just keep practicing making maps and attention to detail helps towards making a good map).

What is the question you would have like to be asked (but weren't), how would you have answered it and how pissed are you for me not thinking about it?

Q: What's your favourite cheese?
A: What a stupid question! There are too many to choose from! (Wensleydale or Lancashire or Danish Blue or some mature Cheddar or Edam or…). I'm not pissed at you, I'm just disappointed :(