Community Spotlight
February 2nd, 2015 by Possidon

John the Late

The doors of the office swung open and a man walked in, he was panting and out of breath, he had clearly been running. As he walked across the room, the chair behind the large oak desk swung around.

“Late as usual, if you seriously want to stay working here at Olympus Tower, you’re going to have to buck up your ideas John.”

“Sorry sir, why did you call me here?”

“We recently captured ZeroEmpires, he was snooping around looking for our captives. I thought you would like to be the one to fully interrogate him. But first I’ll have to check you’re up for it…”

Welcome to the Community Spotlight. A chance for the staff to abduct one of our beloved forumers and get right down to the nitty-gritty secrets in the stone-cold blackness of their souls! This months spotlight is slightly late, and I can only apologize for that, but you know, it’s probably because our victim this month is the one and only; John the Late.

Bold text: Interviewer (Possidon): Regular text: Victim (John the Late).

Would you care to tell us a bit about yourself?
Don’t know much to say. My name is Jonathan and I’m a student living in Germany. Nordrhein-Westfalen, to be exact. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. :p

You’re one of the more active members of the community, and you’re not late to respond to various posts. So what is the story behind your username?
For one, I’m always late when meeting up with people and my luck with bus connections is kind of a running gag between me and people that know me. I’m not saying between my friends and me because it is a known fact to a far broader amount of people. 😀 And then while knowing AoK and HG for years, I never joined the forums, so relative to the game’s and site’s age, I was late, too. I used John because I didn’t know any cool name to use so I went for something with a connection to me. Jonathan was too long, so I used one of the several short names I had been called with already. Used John instead of Jon because the later looked wrong somehow. 😀

How and when did you discover the gem called Age of Empires?
When in year 2 in school, a friend had the first Age of Empires game (well, actually his father did, but we were the ones playing) and while we were really bad at it, it was a lot of fun. I got it for christmas later that year and really enjoyed the game. Some time later, I don’t know if 4 or 16 months (I think 4 though), I was given the second game for birthday, from a friend of my mother. I played the original AoK shortly and then with the expansion, and kept playing the game regularly for quite a while, until I eventually got to Civilisation 3 (which I also still play to this day). Then I more or less took a break from the games (played some others but generally less in the meanwhile) and only in 2010 found back to the game. Which leads to the next question.

How did you stumble across this beloved haven of weird AOK freaks?
My first visit to Heavengames was at SWGBH, when looking for information on the expansion pack for that game. I don’t even know when that was. Then I found to Empire Earth Heaven, looking for custom maps and campaigns. After that, Stronghold Heaven, for the same reason, looking for SH1 and SHC maps and designing tricks. (Great game, too, really!) Then, in 2009 or 2010, same for AoK, but also downloading various mods. I also downloaded the Age of Chivalry: Hegemony mod for the first time at that time and kept playing it ever since (when playing AoK at all), either single player or multiplayer via LAN, but not online yet. I even made an account at a HG site that year (When recently trying to register a 2nd account during the login problem, it told me that the email was already in use and so I found the account.), but never made any forum post with it.

You joined the community in 2012 and you have quickly become and active member of the community, and join out ranks in the staff. Did you ever expect to grow respected in the community so quickly?
I stopped playing the game again some time but at some point, a few weeks before making my account, I just remembered Age of Chivalry and Oliver’s Renaissance mod and thought about the latter that it only added some units, so I thought that this should not be too hard. I googled “age of empires 2 mods” and found a link about the Forgotten Empires mod. From there I somehow found to AoKH again and also to the Userpatch (1.1). I downloaded several programs and looked at university guides, and started modding. I only made the account to ask for help when I encountered a problem, my first post was in the Advanced Genie Editor 2 topic. And no, I never expected to even get a hundred posts, let alone being an active member of the community, not even thinking of staff! Funny how it turned out, no? :p

What’s the future looking like for you? Any plans or hopes & dreams?
I’m currently studying economics, and while I certainly lack motivation at times (largely contributed to by the fact that I have to go by bus and train for over an hour twice every day), I plan on finishing the course of studies with a good grade. If it is good enough and I am still interested, I might add a Master right away, but I can’t say anything yet. It will get increasingly demanding in commitement, so I doubt that I can keep up the level of activity here, but I certainly won’t leave the site yet, even if I just end up as one of the Town’s Crier-only posters. 😀

In the long term, of course I hope to get a good job while not giving up all free time either, and this means a lot for me. While I’m far from hedonistic, I think that one should not give up his entire time and basically life in order to achieve a greater enjoyment at a later time. You can never know when something unexpected will come and ruin your plans. 🙂

Quickfire Questions:
Sahara or Antarctica?
Too hard. Both are places that I would like to visit and places that I would not like to be stuck in. Maybe I’d say the Arctic > Sahara > Antarctica. :p

What’s your favourite sport?
Badminton.

What’s your favourite AOK Unique Unit if you had to choose one?
The Teutonic Knight obviously has the best looks. Longbowmen and Cataphracts come second.

To finish off, are there any scenarios, bands, books, or films you would like to recommend to the readers?
I usually have plenty of everything to recommend to people, but right now it’s suddenly hard. 😀

I don’t think I can recommend any scenarios that are not already well-known.

About bands… I listen to a lot of different music. If you like metal, I think Avenged Sevenfold are great, same for the old albums of Linkin Park. For rap, I like Eminem’s old (and some new) songs. Justin Timberlake rocks, too. And then there’s a whole bunch of great Electro/House tracks, often not too many per artist there though. But also classic, I particularly like Alan Stivell there (which I found to via the Age of Chivalry mod, funnily enough). If you feel like wanting to know more, just ask.

Haven’t read a book in a while, which is sad, but there are some particularly captivating ones, notabily The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. The A Song of Ice and Fire book series is captivating, too, despite some questionable writing and plot at times. Sadly, the quality went down in each book, with the first one being a little better than the second and third, which are miles superior to the fourth and fifth – which are not bad by any means, just not quite as good as the previous ones. I also enjoy reading Tom Clancy books, my favourite being Red Storm Rising. I definitely recommend reading the first and last book I mentioned. 😀

There are just so many films, it is really hard. Talking about particular films, I think that the following are great: Ronin, a film about various Ex-Agents hired to do a job, acquiring a suitcase. Definitely one of my favourite films. Then there’s Heat, a film about criminals and a policeman (from both perspectives), that inevitably clash. While there is more than one thing in the film that I did not like, it is still one of the best and I can only recommend it. Once upon a Time in America is a great gangster epic, make sure to watch it if you have nothing to do for four hours. And then there’s Kill Bill, which I won’t say anything about. The Hunt for Red October is one of my favourites, too, despite not being special in any way. But how could I forget Rome! The series are of very high quality and just plain amazing. You must watch it. 😀 In general would say that I recommend any film with Robert de Niro or by Quentin Tarantino.