DP Blog Interview: ihatemundays, DCUO Source Administrator

Recently, I had a chance to catch up with a ihatemundays but you may know him better as the mind behind the burly, Russian, brute, Catacomb. He is one of the individuals who orchestrated the return of the Source. He was more than happy to answer a few questions on quite a few topics. The answers he provided should help clear up a lot of misconception that was lingering during the popular site's down time.


The Super Reporter - First, I'd like to say WELCOME BACK!!!! The Source has been sorely missed in the DCUO community. Aside from the obvious demand to have the site back, what made you and others decide that now was the right time to bring back the site?

ihatemundays - Thanks. It feels good to be back, but the credit goes to Glad_Dog, Durakken, and Methos (the original owner and financier of the site). To be honest, I don't think that we had a launch date in mind for the site. We wanted to release the site as soon as we could get it running, but we had just lost our financier for the new site and were scrambling to find a replacement. It took a few months to make the final decisions. I then took over financing and backend administration, slapped together a mock design in a day, and had the domain transfers done the very next day. Durakken worked on finishing the forums and the wiki while the rest put up content and got the word out. We had the site roughly live in just a week's time and that is a feat nothing short of amazing. I'm proud of my team. They are one of the reasons I came back.

SR - How big of a challenge will it be to bring the site back to its former glory?

IHM - We need the community. Just like my signature says: tell your friends. When the first site was taken down, we had thousands of members. In the last few weeks, we've already received hundreds of registrations. I think over time we'll get the rest of our community back when they realize that the Source is live and the rest of the community is rejoining. Also be mindful that we had to build a completely new site, so any features on the old site have to be reinstalled or re-imagined. It's going to be a process, but the feedback's been immensely helpful. The community drives the site and as long as they are active, I'm sure the task of restoring DCUO Source to what it was will appear less daunting.

SR - Did you know that there was heavy demand from the DCUO community to have the site back up?

IHM - I didn't do a poll, but I knew what people were telling me and what I felt. I could feel that the community was still out there. Did I imagine over 400 registrations in the first two weeks? No. That surprised me.

SR - What are some functions that the old site had that won't be making a transition to the new site?

IHM - It's hard to tell because we're moving forward from a blank slate. The design will be completely new. I'm currently in the talks of getting a professional theme done for the site. The skill planner is being remade into a Flash application with an up-to-date interface. Maps will be back in a Flash application with the ability for our community to add requests for new map markers. That will make it a fully community-driven system. Forums were pruned. We may add or remove forums depending on what the community needs. The wiki is back, but all entries will have to be reentered. For any features I've left out, we'll be addressing them in the coming months.

SR - Have all the old moderators come back to lend a hand?

IHM - Slowly, yes. In fact, our team is some of the same team from the old site.

SR - Who is currently on staff to help maintain the site and make sure that it doesn't turn into a flame fest?

IHM - Well, we can't stop all flame wars, but we try to be as vigilant and diligent as we can. This is a fansite, and although we like to think that we can do nothing but look at the forums all day, we can't. But we are quick. We recently put down a flame war on the site within less than a day of its start. But our current staff of moderators are Glad_Dog, Deadpool5241, and tc89.

SR - Are you currently looking for more mods or are is that further down the priority list?

IHM - We are looking for help, so if anyone is interested, send me a message. I try to respond to everyone. We need content editors and wiki article writers for the most part.

SR - What do you personally look forward to in DCUO itself? Anything in particular?

IHM - I'm more a PvE guy so I am looking forward to playing more with the faster queues with the megaservers. That and new powersets for other character concepts of mine.

SR - What do you think about the game and DCUO Source's future?

IHM - I'm having a blast with DCUO. Everyone wants to compare it to WoW or every other MMO out there, but it is in its own category. Are there still kinks for them to work out? Yes, of course, but the game is just a lot of fun. I have heard rumors about it going free-to-play and I honestly don't know if that's something SOE has been considering. I don't know, but what I do know is that they should just keep adding features (customization options for display of our weapon and power attacks, league bases, and more content is what comes to mind) and try not to be WoW. DCUO Source's fate lies solely on the shoulders of DCUO, so I hope they are paying attention to what the DCUO Source community wants. We are the fans.

SR - Is there anything you'd like the old and future Source members to know?

IHM - If you are looking for a great fansite that is dedicated to helping you get the most out of the game, this site is for you. The old members will find plenty of welcome faces and features. The new members will gain access to our community and resources not available on any other site. We are the Source for DCUO, and I look forward to supporting this project for a long time.