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This is a Interview with Chocobogo, webmaster
of one of the best all time RCT sites there ever was.
Interviewer
- Jacko
Interviews
- Chocobogo
on 1st May 2001
via e-mail.
Jacko - What first got you into Roller
Coaster Tycoon and what was your first thought about the game?
Chocobogo - I
read a preview in a Computer Game Mag, and I thought it looked
great. I later received a demo disk and within 5 minutes of
playing the demo I decided to buy the full game
Jacko - What made you think about starting a RCT Website?
Chocobogo - Well I decided
to look on the net for RCT, and there was hardly anything out
there! Only the official site and a few fan sites. So I decided
to start up a RCT site mainly because I wanted to be a webmaster
and also I felt that there was a lot of demand for my site as at
the time there weren't many around.
Jacko - What would you say are main Pros and Cons about
running such a big RCT Website like yours?
Chocobogo -The main one is
the fact that you are providing a valuable service to the RCT
community through your site, and especially when people send you
e-mails commenting on how useful your site is made it all worth
while. I suppose the only downside was that it did consume a lot
of my time!
Jacko - How did it feel when your site was closed
down?
Chocobogo -- I
couldn't believe it! I knew there was a 100MB/day bandwidth
limit and realised I was WAY over that, but I was over that
limit for a year and Free-online took no action, so when they
closed my site without consulting me in any way I was... well
gutted.
Jacko - How did it feel when you were running your
site at the peak of its hype?
Chocobogo - It felt great,
every day the site would change, the forums were buzzing, the
chat room worked, all the sections were growing and I was adding
new sections... It felt great!!
Jacko - What do you think about other top leading RCT site
like RCTUK,
RCT
Station, Tycoon
resource and Damnation?
Chocobogo - I think that
they are all great, but I felt my site was the only one that
provided such a "personal" feel. I was very easy to
find what you wanted, I tried to lay it out as easy as I could.
I was always in the forums and always replied to emails.. I feel
that other sites tend to neglect these things to an extent
Jacko - What do you think of the official Roller Coaster
Tycoon website?
Chocobogo - Well, put it
this way, if I thought the official site was any good I wouldn't
have started my own!! If you look around different forums you'll
see that the general feeling of the official site is that its
not up to standard
Jacko - If you could take over the Official RCT website would
you?
Chocobogo - Yeah... but I
would replace it with my site
Jacko - What other projects, if any are you doing at this
moment in time?
Chocobogo - Well I run a few
companies websites.. and have set up various sites over the last
few months... but mainly I am concentrating on my A' levels at
school.
Jacko - I know this is one of the most asked question
you must get asked but I have to ask it as I know everyone is
dying to know, but are you going to restart Chocobogo?
Chocobogo - I tried my best
to bring the site back, when I finally managed to it got closed
down due to excessive bandwidth just over the few days I
re-opened it. I can't see the site coming back mainly due to the
fact I have no means of getting back the 1GB + of data lodged on
the server!!
If I could, then yes, maybe you will see a return!!
Jacko - What is your Top 5 Games of all time and why?
Chocobogo - I
cant really rate them, but they are.... RCT, Duke3d, Unreal
Tournament, Red Alert, Quake.
Jacko - I know that one of your main problems of
restarting Chocobogo due to all the files that is still on your
last server, if there was away for you to transfer them to
another server would you reopen the site
Chocobogo - see two
questions up.
Jacko - Would you like to see another RCT Add-ons or
RCT 2?
Chocobogo - Hopefully
the eagerly awaited RCT 2 will be released with a whole bunch of
new features, the main on being a "ride your own ride"
feature. Many RCTers have had a taste of this using the No
Limits Simulator which I have to say is excellent, the game
developers should really look into this.
Jacko - What game are you currently hocked on at this
time?
Chocobogo - None Really, I
play Unreal Tournament every now and then
Jacko - What would you like to see the most or be added to
the next RCT game?
Chocobogo - As
I mentioned above I think a "ride your own ride"
feature would be great.
Jacko - Do you still play Roller Coaster Tycoon if so how
often do you play it?
Chocobogo - I have given up
on it really I used to enjoy checking out all the parks I got
sent but I cant do that anymore
Jacko - How much of your time would you say u spend a week
working on your site?
Chocobogo - 5-7 hours maybe.
Jacko - What was the main resources and software you used
to make the site?
Chocobogo - HTML EDITOR: Arachnophilia
IMAGE EDITOR: Paint Shop Pro 5
And Of course Roller coaster Tycoon Series.
Jacko - had to ask this question but what do you
think of RCT Inc?
Chocobogo - Promising.. I
think you need to try and exchange links more and get on voting
engines to try and boost your traffic
Jacko - Did you work on the site alone if not how many
other people did you have working with you and what were there
jobs?
Chocobogo - .
I would say I ran 95% of the site, I did have some people
sending me news, and I had a mate, Davyboy who runs
Tycoonresource, who helped me with design and ran a few sections
of the site
Jacko - If you had the chance to talk to Chris
Sawyer himself and you only had 3 questions to ask him what
would they be?
Chocobogo - 1. How did you
start designing and developing software.
2. Are there plans for RCT2
3. What did you think of my site
Jacko - Would you like to come work for me and
would you like to ask me anything? :) Only joking
Chocobogo - Hey.. you never
know
Jacko - Have you got any messages or comments to
all the budding RCT Fans and Webmasters out there?
Chocobogo - If you need any
help in designing a site.. or just have a query on RCT you can
always e-mail
me or ICQ# 18831199
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