Welcome to the Author Showcase, a project founded by Natzke on Trackmania Nations Exchange. We already made a lot of Interviews, with famous users like Ron Turbo, Panis and GanjaRider, but also normal TMX users like Quat or SeaDevil! We have gotten a lot of positive reactions to it. And we now got the great news that we can publish our Interviews on TMX Blog! We hope you enjoy it!

=¤=

Hey TMX, welcome back to the Author Showcase! It has been a while for a new interview to appear, that’s totally my fault, so my excuses for that [Januy]. Now, we do have a new one thanks to Natzke, so you can all read this interview with our fresh new Moderator! We are sure you have seen him before, so get to know:

Optimusje!

1.Please tell us more about yourself (birthday, real name, place of birth, height, weight, favourite colour) and your background?
My real name is Joost, I'm 17 years old and live in Uden, which lies in the Netherlands. I was born in a small village called Megen, I'm about 1.90 meters long, weigh round 80 kg. Like said, I was born in the small village of Megen, then I moved to Uden when I was 4 or so years old. Not too many special things have happened in my life, I went to school and live a pretty normal life. I got into gaming when I was bout 12 or so, noobed around a lot and finally discovered TM bout 4 years ago around the Sunrise age. I didn't understand naught of it and ditched it soon, until a friend of mine pointed my attention towards TMN and TMX and there I got hooked.

2. How did you get your nickname?
Well, rather stupid story really. My previous nickname was (Lord) Chainsaw (as some people here might know) and as you see: its terribal, so I needed a good one. In latin class the word Optimus caught my attention (which means "the best"), but that felt too arrogant to use, so I added the Dutch addword "-je" to it, which means "little".

3. What made you become a track builder and who made the biggest influence at your beginning?
The person that really got me into trackbuilding is Gekko. He ordered me to go onto TMX and helped me with my tracks, without this guy I wouldn't have known this website. The people who influenced me the most during my starting phase of tracking also were Gekko, who was in the time making these awesome, smooth shorty's and irondragons. The latter is quite logical tough, since I had this server I was driving on most of the time (Kreukelzone, still exists nowadays ;]) and it had many irondragons tracks. Because I was still quite the newbie back then, those were great, since they were easy to finish and fun to hunt.

4. Can you please guide us through a typical track project from start to finish and what part of track building do you find crucial?
It depends on what occasion I start building, I usually just start in the editor when I feel like it and place some blocks. Every now and then I also start building a track with a clear goal in mind, like making a speedy, low to the ground speedtech, or a tight and jumpy FS. Usually these ideas are based around a style but sometimes I just want to try a new combination I've had in my head or even a weird idea with the MT and a song. It really depends, so it's rather tough to guide you trough this. As for the building order: first I build the track, test drive it until I go into seizure, build the scenery, test drive it until I get out of seizure, do the MT works, get angry whilst forcing myself to drive a good author time and fail. When I'm done I just make a quick screeny and throw it up onto TMX.

5. Can you tell us what great track builders need to posses besides versatile capability in track building?
I think the most important thing is that they are able show that they can build multiple trackstyles. This doesn't necessarily mean a FS builder has to be able to build tech to be good to me, he just has to be able to vary within the genre. Also, making original and whacky (and often hard) jumps doesn't make a track better. I think the main charm of a track lies within the way you combine certain elements in a track and make something unique by that.

6. What makes TMX so special place in your opinion and did TMX made influence at your life in any way?
I think that what makes this community so special is the fact it's a very open community. Everyone will be accepted (unlike some more offensive gaming communitys around the web) and when people are new to TM, the internet, life or whatever they'll find help instead of being scared off and left scarred for the rest of their lives. TMX itself didn't really have any influence on my life tough, except for maybe eating a bit of my time. If TMX (or any website) would change a person's life notably, that'd be rather weird tbh

7. Do you feel that you sacrifice too much time for this community and what keeps you motivated to keep going?
Ehm, actually I somewhat do, but that accounts for everything on the interwebs, since I forcefully have to check my mail, forums and others pretty much every 5 to 10 minutes. What keeps me interested in this community have to be all the nice people I've met here. I feel like I can't let this community down and that probably also is one of the reasons I still play TM.

8. Can you tell us who in your eyes were the 3 most important persons that gave the biggest influence on TMX?
Hmmm, gonna give a really cliche answer here:
MrD. : without him this website simply wouldn't exist
MrA. : without him this website wouldn't be running
The last one was a bit tougher for me tough, and I'm gonna go with SabineGoth. She was, at least to me, the most memorable other Moderator (or Nations boss for that matter).

9. Can you tell us those today's TMX is standing on "shoulders of giants" from past or today's TMX is a different thing?
I think the old masters still have a lot of influence onto the current builders, mainly as these tracks are still very common online and people grow up with them. Tracks like Angel and Moving Power form the bases of modern trackstyles. However, styles seem to be changing tough, and even tough those old styles of building are still popular, I feel like there's a shift to more show-off tracks instead of tracks that are meant to be driven (no offence to the people who build them). Luckily tough, it somehow feels there’s another shift going on where people are going back to the basics, and I like that a lot.

10. Can you share an entertaining story from TMX with us?
Hmm... lets see. Back in Nations some weird guy that I can't remember started a screenshot service. He would do a screeny for a track if people asked him. Others were soon to follow (I was one of the first). The forums got flooded with screenshot service topics and the mod's therefore made one central topic where people could get requests. The fun thing to me now tough is that somewhat the same thing is happening today, but the other way around, with the Screenshot Compos

11. What is your daily routine and your favourite daily activity?
Well, I get up at 7 am, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast and go to school. Feel bored and most likely will miss important things in class due to the habit of sleeping with my eyes open for the first 3 to 4 hours. When I get back home, I grab some shit to eat and either go do the necessary homework (sadly this is usually the case) or mess around. Then I have dinner and mess around more (usually I'm always online around this time) and then I watch tv till I go to bed again

12. What is the achievement you have made that you are most proud of in real life?
Well, I really don't know if there's anything to be really proud of in my life, haven't done any special stuff really

13. Who made the biggest impact in your real life on you and why?
Another really cliché answer: my parents, mainly because there weren't many other people to influence me (at least not as much) like they did.

14. Tell us about a memorable moment in your life; a time you will never forget?
Well, I really can't remember anything important like that . Maybe the thing that comes closest to this was when my grandpa died, but that wasn't exactly a memorable moment.

15. What are the goals you are still working towards?
The main goal I'm working towards today is to finish my highschool with decent notes and get accepted onto the Technical University. My aims afterwards are to get a good job and build up a nice and stable life

16. Any phobias/addiction or both you’re willing to admit and could you tell your favourite food and drink?
I can't really think of any phobias. Maybe needles, since I've had those up my arm too many time when I was little (apologies for the bad joke). Addictions include TM, Pizza and Southpark. My favourite food probably is Pizza as well and my favourite drink is hmmm... water?

17. What is your general opinion of TM game, what is so addictive, and do you think that Trackmania is most friendliest game around?
Well, I love TM. What is so addictive about it is the diversity that comes from the simple base of the game. The possibilities are endless and that also goes for the replay value, the most addictive part to this game is the community tough, it's what keeps me playing it to be honest. I do not think TM is the friendliest game around, maybe TMX is a very friendly (and clean) community, but ingame TM isn't. The reason you don't hear the big flaming every now and then is because people aren't playing against each other directly and can't influence each others play. When looking at games as Counter Strike and DotA this is different and those are commonly known to have some of the must retards in gaming, but this is just because they get noticed more easily

18. What are your top 3
- favourite websites / games and why?

~ Favourite websites:
- TMX
- Evilgamerz.com
- dota-allstars.com

~ Games is a tough one, but I'll just go with the ones I play most
- TMU
- Counter Strike: Source
- Warcraft III (DotA)

~ tracks of all-time and why?

Tracks:
1- Evolution by Fatal1ty ~ TMN
2- Angel by Ron Turbo ~ TMN
3- Dance Tonight by PWF ~ TMNF

19. Can Trackmania make one step forward with Trackmania 2 and why?
I don't really think it'll be making a step forward. Sure, things will evolve and it will be a more complete game, but it still is, like TMO and TMS a new game with 3 new environments. So sure it'll be a step forward, but I see quite a lot of people approach it in a wrong way (even heard rages that the game wouldn't be free).

20. What advice would you give to someone who just starting out with track building and where we can find you online?
Just build what you want to build and build what others would like (if it's aimed at tmx: don't build to get many awards if you yourself doesn't like the track your building). Just have fun doing so and if you like LOL tracks, keep building them your playing the game, not the people who might check your track. You can always catch me over PM on tmx, as I'll check that waay to much and theres a change you'll see me in either one of the TMX Playpall online servers, although I'm not driving online that often anymore

=¤=

Well, there’s your Lord Chainsaw :) We hope you know him a bit better now! Otherwise we will see you at the next Author Showcase! Thanks for reading!

~ The Author Showcase