E-Views with Boomer

An interview with a young DJ and hard working moderator on the Atari RCT3 forums Atari!

That name brings a lot of images to mind in both the young and the old in the fast moving electronic world of gaming. To the old, images of Pong and Pac-Man and other pioneer games such as that, bring back old nostalgic memories that fade in and out like the sun on a foggy coastal morning in the summertime! Sweet memories of simple games, in a simple world, with a simple goal.

To the young the name Atari brings images of multi-level battle, adventure and simulation games where strategy, artificial intelligence, stunning 3-D graphics and state of the art developing and programming, have all combined together into a sound and visual experience that takes gaming to a whole new dimension.

The Atari online forums were established to give a place for the players of Atari’s ever growing stable of games, to come ask questions, get updates and hang out and chat about their favorite games. The problem is, over the years the Atari name has grown progressively bigger and so did the game forums, pressing hard to keep up with an ever increasing member base which swelled as fast as did the amount of games Atari has put out. Popular games, with players at all different levels and ages of play and interest. A could be nightmare of planning and logistics to sort out and organize the game forums that where really needed by both the gaming community and an understandably good tool of communication for Atari itself.

That’s where my hat goes off to the team of pros behind the scenes at the Official Atari Forums. They pull rabbits out of hats on a daily basis there, keeping an intricate web of game topics, post and news, organized and flowing properly. A magic act indeed considering the sheer numbers of the forum members registered there across the whole gaming community. Each game has their staff of game Guru’s that help keep a particular game forum, not only up and running, but fresh and reader friendly as well. Kind of like going through and picking the weeds to keep the flowers healthy.

THAT brings this E-View to the E-View station house and its “all aboard” for a great ride on the hot sim. game that is still setting records at Atari! This game has its own following of devoted fans that has grown tremendously over the past few years and these fans have a place in the Atari Forums (among other RCT related fan sites) to hang out and revel in a game that seems to have limitless potential.

The RCT3 forums are no exception to the Atari Forum team. If you aren’t familiar with the staff there, you can go there and register and jump right in and in no time you will be up to speed on who’s who there and what they do. Today though we are going to focus on one of the Atari RCT3 forum staff members and moderator there. He goes by the name of bctrainers (bctrainers1 on the Atari forums) and his real name is Brett Cooper. Brett is only 16 years old at the time of this interview and in his spare time is a DJ. When I asked Brett what drew him into the RCT world he said; “what got me into the RCT series was because of how the coasters and the peep / park simulation was mind blowing at the time (1999 that is)”.

Doesn’t that remind us a little of what we all felt when we first discovered RollerCoaster Tycoon? And it’s still setting records for Atari and still keeping the crew at the Atari forums busy. So keep your hands in the car at all times and join me now as we talk to this young moderator from the Atari forums.

Boomer:	Welcome to our house here at the RCT Space Network. Thank you for taking the time to drop by for this visit, being a member here as well as at Atari, it goes without saying I‘ve been looking forward to having this “official“ visit with you. I think one question some of our members might want to know is do you get paid for working on the Atari forum team or is it a labor of love such as it is on most of the RCT fan sites?
Bctrainers:	No, I am not paid from Atari. I do the moderating all free. I do spend quite a bit of time there, intertwining with the members getting to know each one better and better. So, to conclude this one... I do it to support Atari, with the support from the community.
Boomer:	“I do the moderating all free“(Boomer laughs) I sure know the name of that tune, as do many others throughout the gaming community! I would like to know your depth of connections in Atari. How much of an insider or how close to the insiders are you and the other moderators at the Atari forums? In other words are you part of the regular Corporate Atari team or are you an “outside” staff that is responsible for running the official forums?
Bctrainers:	I do know many people that work at Atari. Some I know better than the others. I would consider myself as an outside person. Sometimes, it seems that you are pulling teeth to get something done. Though, I am the one that usually is relaying the info out to the community.
Boomer:	And pulling teeth ain’t easy on either end believe me! (Boomer checks his dentures are in place and continues) With the release of RCT3, I’m sure you have been very busy and I understand that as a staff member at the Atari forums and elsewhere in your busy “real” world, your time is limited. That being said, how much time do you get to actually play RCT3 and do you have any parks under construction of your own?
Bctrainers:	With me being in High School, Moderating the forums, and Chatting in the IRC chat. My time to play RCT3 is to the bare minimum. Currently, I am not working on any park. Though in the near future, I may start creating some for the others in the community to see.
Boomer:	I agree about time being in short supply, to bad we don’t have a real “Time Twister” to create a little more personal RCT play time, I sure would want one of those. What kind of computer gear do you use to play RCT3 on?
Bctrainers:	The computer that I play on is a Sony Vaio. Pentium 4 HT, 3.0Ghz processor. Then my graphics card, it's not something to brag about. It's an ATi Radeon 9200, with 128Mb of memory. Next, I usually play the game settings on extreme, at 1024 * 768. Also, I have 2 Gig's of RAM. The game does lag when I get into them high detailed parks, but overall, it's quite smooth.
Boomer:	Because of your staff position on the Atari forums I know this next question might be a little tricky for you, but speaking of game lag I have to ask it regardless. What is your honest opinion about the talk flowing around the RCT community about RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 being released too early with numerous bugs that should have been worked out during the Beta testing phase?
Bctrainers:	My personal opinion is that the game really should have been delayed a few more months to get all the knot's and bug's fixed up, with more features added to the game. I personally do think that beta testing should have been done in the first place, not a private beta test by a few people. Though, now with RCT3's first expansion pack coming, RCT3 beta testing to the gamers will be a great thing - hopefully this will make a better game. Something that the whole community, programmers, and the publisher to be proud of.
Boomer:	There is also a very strong overall consensus in the community, as I’m sure you are aware of, that the frame lag problem in a RCT3-D park, not even completely filled with rides or peeps, becomes seriously a playability issue that happens to all but the very high-end users who play it. Is there any hope or any news from Atari about how or if this problem can be resolved?
Bctrainers:	Again, this issue has been noted. I do not have an exact response to it. This has happened to me numerous times, it does get quite annoying. Personally I believe that a lot of the objects in the game were not optimized to output 100% great game play. Many RCT3 gamers have stated that it is the scenery causing the lag; others have said that it is how much stuff that you have applied to one area.
Boomer:	Yeah, I think we are all hoping that optimizing the game to a better playability can be done through patches and add-ons. What do you think of the playability of the game now that the patches have addressed some of the issues that were problems when the game first released?
Bctrainers:	Most of the errors in the game have been fixed. The playability of the game with the two patches applied has dramatically improved the game's performance. Then, there are a few left out bugs. Hopefully, a patch or the expansion pack will fix all the remaining errors up.
Boomer:	The new add-on expansion pack for RCT3, called Cape Typhoon has been announced and there is a lot of excitement generated about what this newest addition to the RCT family will have in it. Can you give us any inside sneak peek info or screenshots of this interestingly named add-on?
Bctrainers:	Yes, this expansion pack also has me all excited too. Currently, I am just waiting like all of the others. I don't have anything to share or give out. It's really all hush hush now.
Boomer:	Hush hush or splash splash, however you cut it we hopefully will be swimming in screenshots before to much longer. I’ve got to say, the graphics in the original RCT3 were simply stunning! Can we look forward to more of these graphic eye candy delights in Cape Typhoon?
Bctrainers:	Most definitely. This I can promise, there will be much more great graphics in RCT3's expansion pack.
Boomer:	Looking forward to it! Have you heard anything about there being a RCT4 out there somewhere in the future?
Bctrainers:	Notta, haven't had word about this at all.
Boomer:	Okay, but I had to ask, you never know. Now this might be considered a loaded question, but it wasn’t meant to be. Besides the Official Atari forums, what other RCT fan sites do you think are doing a good job at helping and promoting the game and providing a good atmosphere for discussing the RCT game series?
Bctrainers:	RCT2.com and my personal website. There are numerous others, but I can't go off and name 'em all.
Boomer:	That’s okay (Boomer laughs and winks) the one’s you have named will do. I know you are a busy young man Brett and you need to be going so I will wrap it up with this one last question; have you ever met or talked to Chris Sawyer or the head of Frontier Development; David Breban?
Bctrainers:	I personally have never met the two. I have talked to David B. via email every now and then.
Boomer:	Two men who have given us grateful players a fantastic game and a world of fun to immerse ourselves in. (A moment of respectful silence is observed by both, at the name of Chris Sawyer and then Boomer continues) It has been a real pleasure having you here today bctrainers and we are very thankful for the updates and news that you drop by with from time to time as I’m sure are the other sites around the community.
Bctrainers:	(In a booming DJ’s voice) My pleasure, Thank you for inviting me.

Bctrainers has left the house! As I look out the window of the “Room with a View” I see Brett walking away down the path and though the woods, slowly growing smaller and smaller, then vanishing in the forest mist, as if nothing more then a mirage and leaving nothing more then a memory behind.

But in the distance, in between the call of the owl and the cry of the hawk, a sound could be heard in the distance. The Boom Boom of the bass and the hard driving beat of the drums was all that could be heard at first. Then a DJ’s voice could be heard and I swear as I turned out the lights and softly closed the door behind me I heard a voice announcing “this IS your RCT DJ for the evening and I will be in control of your RollerCoaster tunes for the night… time to parrrty!”. But then all was quiet and the hawk continued his endless love song and all was well in the land of Boomer.

See ya in the forums,

---Boomer---