Who is Joshua Vanderburg? Is he famous or something? I thought these E-Views were supposed to be with RCT celebrities! These are all good questions. Well, I'll tell ya, if you will give me a little time and Josh a little time we will TRY to answer these questions... and a few more too!
Who is Joshua Vanderburg? Well I suppose he's the son of Mr. and Mrs. Vanderburg. Is he famous? No, not yet. Is he considered a RCT celebrity? I would say yes... yes he is. Maybe not in the way that you would at first think. I mean he's not like the son of Chris Sawyer or anything, but for his age Josh has come up with some really first class and innovative programs and ideas that merit some attention from our crazy RCT community.
It must have felt a little strange when a 50-year-old RCT madman in Oregon E-mailed a teenage RCT site master and asked to do an E-View with him.
"Why would you want to interview me" Josh queried. Although I didn't give him my answer at the time, here are the reasons. For one thing Josh is kicking off a new section on his site RCTOA that will feature all my stuff such as my virtual park reviews and the E-View series. So a little ego thing there happening… Well I like to have my stuff read ya know! But also because I recognized something in Joshua that I found interesting and I think you will too.
Joshua Vanderburg is a young man possessed! He is possessed with energy and a swirling tornado like mind that spits out ideas and methods about RCT related subjects. Here are his own words quoted from a post he posted at his site, "I have so many ideas for RCTOA my head is spinning. You will love them. You will want to adopt them for your own. You will want to marry them and have children with them".
I do believe that someday this young man will be a RCT legend due to the love he has for RCT and the inventiveness of his systems. I could tell you more about him and his Topsites tracking system but those who know me will tell ya that when it comes to puters, I lack somewhat in skills, to me PC stands for Personal Confuser. So I will get on with it and let him talk and tell you himself what it's all about and his thoughts on RCT 2.
Soooo… let's get off the tram and into the interview!
| Boomer |
Joshua, its a pleasure to have you with me in Boomer's Basement and I thank you for your time. RCT 2 is going to be here before long, what do you think of the screenshots of it, so far? |
| Joshua |
"To a degree, I'm actually kinda surprised. I guess I expected a whole new look. I understand what the purpose of RCT2 is and so now it doesn't bother me as much. I remember in the GameSpy interview he (Chris sawyer) said the look would stay relatively the same, I didn't realize it would stay this much the same". |
| Boomer |
That's your view of course but what are the members on your RCTOA forum saying about these first screenshots? |
| Joshua |
"The RCTOA forums aren't really popular enough to have dedicated people who regularly visit to have comments on the new screenshot. Besides, I haven't yet put these screenshot on RCTOA, I'm kinda leaving a lot of that up to RCT:2. I'm sure I'll put them up soon". |
| Boomer |
(laughing) Well we here at rct:2 appreciate that. Sends more people to our site. (Laughs again) We love visitors and I can tell you there are many views on the new screenshots including mine! But until someone interviews me we will try to limit ourselves to what you think. Other then what's already been leaked out and what you've seen on the screenshots, what do you hope to see in RCT2? |
| Joshua |
"I'm really happy with what's already been announced with RCT2. The only real thing (I don't know if this counts or not) is that I would really like to see an official web site updated regularly". |
| Boomer |
Yeah, what a farce the official website was when Hasbro had it! Let's hope things get better with Infrogames and RCT 2. How will RCT 2 change YOUR site, if at all? |
| Joshua |
"I'm sure this will bring a ton of new traffic to most RCT sites. I'm sure this will change RCTOA from being more of a "utility site" (As I like to think of it) to more of a file site". |
| Boomer |
I am interested in a innovative new system you have made. Tell us a little about RCTOA Topsites, site-tracking system. |
| Joshua |
"Well, the main purpose of any site feature is to bring in traffic. But RCTOA Topsites is a script I recently wrote to measure the traffic of web sites. It ranks on a 3-day average of the unique visitors (Not hits). It also creates a dynamic image with that site's rank on it kept up in real time. A common misunderstanding with this system is that clicking on the rank image will somehow vote for that site or give more traffic to it. This isn't true. Clicking on that image will just take you to RCTOA's Topsites information site, along with stats and such". |
| Boomer |
This system is becoming very popular, any changes ahead in the Topsites system? |
| Joshua |
"Well, any new dramatic ideas, would require a re-registration of all site, something that has already been seen and it's kinda a nuisance. Something I'd like to add in the near future is a commenting system on sites. I'm also very open to new ideas. Just go to the forums (forums.rctoa.com) and post what you'd like to see". |
| Boomer |
(Boomer leans back and scratches his head) Now let's see, you go to school full time, play sports when you can, probably have to do a few chores around the house at your age, you are a site master and designed and maintain a kickin Topsites program. Plus other projects and interest I'm sure. Pretty impressive for a teenager I must say! I bet you get to bed late (Boomer laughs) like me. I can see you stay very busy, how much time do you spend on just your RCTOA projects? |
| Joshua |
"As much time as I can. I'm pretty social around school and so I don't usually get home until about 7:00PM EST. Now that school is almost ready to be out, sports are done and I get home earlier. Most of the time is spent on the computer either working on RCTOA or on Scream Machines (www.screammachinesgame.com) as I am a beta tester. I am doing this mostly until about midnight EST". |
| Boomer |
ahh... Burning that midnight oil, been there, done that! Another question I've been dying to ask you Josh is this; there used to be a huge RCT site called RCTOA. It was run by Denny G. and Sim 5. A little over a year ago the site closed down. It was a big disappointment for us old-timers because it was, in my view, the best ever RCT online site that has existed. Is your site and network some how a re-birth of that site or do those letters stand for something else unrelated to the old site? |
| Joshua |
"The purpose of me choosing RCTOA was because of the old site. I didn't do it so as to get dedicated fans of the old site; I think it had been gone long enough that the user base wasn't significant. I really liked this site and I wanted to bring it back. I'm also looking for DennyG and Sim5 to see what they think of what I had done". |
| Boomer |
Who knows, maybe they will read this and respond. There are some others from that old site that I would like to hear from too. The name RCT Online America could lead me to believe that this is an American site just for Americans, is that the case? |
| Joshua |
"Absolutely not. The main focus of the site is directed toward the American version of the game, but it wouldn't be possible if I tried to keep other nationalities out of the site. Most of the fan base (I believe) is British, anyway". |
| Boomer |
Hey Josh, Got any new surprises or projects up your sleeve these days? |
| Joshua |
"Oh, I'm always full of surprises. You'll just have to watch and wait". :) |
| Boomer |
(laughing) Oh don't worry, I will be watching. I know you are a busy young man so I'll wrap this up with this last question, What is the name of your favorite RCT park of all times, so far, and that can include either others, OR one of your own. |
| Joshua |
"I never was very good at creating full-fledged parks, but I always loved the work that Buster (Who hangs out over at Danimation most of the time) does". |
| Boomer |
Okay, I'm going to let you go and whirl on out of here. I sure appreciate ya dropping by Joshua. |
| Joshua |
"Thanks for the interview. I appreciate that what I have done is popular enough to warrant one". |
Josh has left the house! Popular enough, I mused, popularity is in the eye of the beholder, I thought to myself, and I for one like the direction that this whirlwind called Joshua Vanderburg is headed in!
Boomer dampens the fire in the basement fireplace, turns out the lights and heads for the door. He hears a ticking sound somewhere in the darkness behind him but chooses to ignore it and closes the door softly. But there, left behind in the darkened basement, silhouetted only by the fires dying embers, was a little RCTOA Topsites logo ticking mysteriously away. Under the luminescent logo the proud word BOOMER appeared and the ominous ticking continued as the numbers counted down... 5... 4... 3... 2... And laying on the end table lay Boomers journal, captured also by the embers soft glow. Left open to today's date, the only words entered were "In the Future, I too, will become a RCT Legend"! And the echoes of the pages rang softly back as if to reply, "Hey Boomer... Welcome to the future"!