[Sirtodge]

Forge and Detomah have asked me to be an articalist, I have been commandeered to write, well…articles I suppose. My first was “Mir 3: EI – What’s all the fuss??” and it was when that was submitted to TF that I was appointed. That one will be online when the site goes live, but for now we all felt you would like to have a look at this one, which will also go on the site. Hopefully over the coming months (nay years) I will be able to provide the community with some informative, interesting and enjoyable reading.

This article is my first in my new role, and is an interview with Detomah and Forge, the men behind Total Format. Other things I am hoping to include are: Outings with Guilds in Mir, what we did, where we went, what the food was like etc. As well as general information about the game, the staff and the players. An interview session is also underway with the team at QGO and hopefully that will be online soon. These will not be in the form of ordinary Q & A sessions those you can find on another part of this site. These are more questions about how its going, what they are doing, what’s it like etc etc.

Think of me as your investigative journalist, providing you with interviews and articles to while away those extra few hours when your mum says you cant play. Onto the article


Today we are lucky enough to have an interview with the two main men behind Total Format, known to us all as Detomah and Forge. Hopefully we can all get some insight into what makes TF tick as well as what they think about the latest news regarding Evils Illusion.

Gents, Total format has been knocking around for over a year now and was originally known as lofm.com. Did you both decide to go into this venture at the same time or did one start and the other joined after it all kicked off??

Forge: Well for me it was simple, I’m sure all the veteran Mir2 players will remember the events that happened around that time. So after hearing of a new player’s forum I decided to check it out. Off course, at this time I had never even spoken to Tom before. After signing up, I received the private message asking me to join the moderator team, as you can see I accepted. Was strange at first as was the first forum I had ever moderated, but I soon got into the flow of it, as I think it was a case of I learnt as I went along. So for me, Tom kicked it all off, I sort of jumped on the back of the train as it was heading through the station.

Tom (aka Detomah) : Hmmm, lofm.co.uk actually started off as something completely different and was initially going to be nothing more than a profile page for myself for Mir2. But as all Mir 2 players who were around in January of 2003, Mir 2 was on the verge of disappearing and I could see very little action from anywhere else to come up with a way to save the community, so instead I decided to take it into my own hands and built a little forum for Mir 2 players. I instantly knew who I wanted on board and went straight after them and the team has gone from strength to strength ever since, the rest as they say is history (still in the making)…

Everyone knows that you both work incredibly hard behind the scenes on the TF site, but few realise that your actual jobs are Total format. Was it hard to stop “normal” work to start running a forum? How easy was it to make a decision like that?

Forge: hmm, well for me it’s weird. I mean if you had asked me this time next year that my job would be sitting at home all day playing the computer, I would of laughed. I guess the hard part to adapt to is being in doors all the time. Believe it or not working from home is a lot harder than going to work in an office or something. You’ve got so many different things distracting you, television and the likes. You can guess what I do though, just by my very pale skin. Was easy for me to make the decision, I enjoy doing it and don’t think I could go back to your normal 9 till 5 job.

Tom: I didn’t actually sell my main business for at least the first 6 months of TF being alive, it was only when I realised how strong the little community was that I decided to give it my full attention and make it my number one life’s priority. TF now kind of rules over everything else in my life and I love it in ways I can’t even begin to explain. I wouldn’t swap TF for all the money in the world. I know the vast majority of the community very well now and with the new influx of users, I now have even more people to get to know.

Originally TF was known as a place for freedom of speech away from the repressive rules of the Official Mir 2 forums, since then it really has expanded hugely, incorporating many different forums for loads of different games, as well as introducing games and reviews and so on. How hard was it going from just Mir and general chat to being this large monster that TF has become?

Forge: Funny you should ask because I can remember the day that the expansion was decided. Started off as a normal day on TF, log onto forum, check the staff sections, and there was a thread discussing the future of TF. One thing lead to another and it’s just kept growing and growing.

Tom: Before I decided to sell my business and take TF on full time, I had already put plans down for TF that I knew would take TF forwards and upwards. I never knew exactly where it would lead, but I have always known the potential was there and that I could make it a success, I also have a great team which makes things a lot easier.

As most seem to know, yourselves knew about the EI news a week or so before the rest of the community. How hard was it bottling up that info, considering you knew the whole community wanted to hear it??

Forge: It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting. We were just planning like crazy on what we could do. It was harder in some cases than others, when you see friends tearing their hair out over other games, you kind of just want to blurt it all out.

Tom: I was in the unfortunate position of knowing about EI a few days before the rest of the TF team and all I can say on this, is that it was terribly difficult to keep it all bottled up to myself, I seriously wanted to explode and just let all that excitement out. It was a great relief when the day finally came when I could share with the team what I knew.

How did you feel about the news personally?

Forge: Was great news, the long awaited Mir3 finally arriving in Europe. I knew the excitement it would bring to the players and I knew that beta feeling would return again.

Tom: First an foremost, just like a lot of other people I was nervous and a little dubious, as I had seen what state it’s predecessor ha got into. I was greatly relieved when I saw the plans and the structure of the set up though and as time has passed I have become more and more confident that the correct decision has been made and that this is the best possible outcome, in fact in my opinion it’s better than I could have ever dreamed for.

With the news came a seeming huge load of new traffic, hundreds of threads have been made in the first week alone, how do you see your partnership with QGO affecting your business in TF?

Forge: Can only see the friendship between us getting stronger. You’re right, we have had a large influx of threads in the first week alone and I suspect that will increase again once the beta application form is online. Is good fun really, and is nice to see what the players are saying, as you must remember I to myself am an old Mir2 beta player.

Tom: From a personal point of view, it’s everything I was expecting and the timing was perfect, I am extremely happy with the situation, I couldn’t ask for a nicer bunch of people to work along side and to have the connection with the game I love so much makes me feel great. I know for a fact that QGO, like TF, will give at least 200% effort to make sure the community is happy and that everything is run as smoothly as possible. Would I swap them for any other company? Not in a million years…

Since the news how many new people have signed up to TF? Has there actually been anyone new? Or are people now just posting a little more?
Forge: hmm let me check. For the first three days, the stats were as follows:

June11th = 70 new users
June 12th = 144 new users
June 13th = 100 new users.

Tom: Well, that about covers that… Taking into account though, the average amount of new users has been approx 10 per day for the last few weeks and has been gradually rising over the last few months anyway, but this news has seen a huge jump and once beta and the likes happen, I can foresee a huge jump in numbers.

Yourselves along with Loganzo / Krysstle / Puratech / Tagred / Delusion all moderate the current TF forums. Is it sometimes a strain or do you feel you have enough mods at the moment to cope with the amount of messages posted?

Forge: At times it does get a little tough, but overall I think we have a pretty good team. We can work together well together. Although it doesn’t help when a certain moderator wakes you up at 10am to get online to the forum.

Tom: Maybe this’ll sound a little harsh on people, but if people actually read the info and rules sections before posting questions, it would make things a whole lot easier and it would free up a lot of time for the finer things such as additions to TF to be done. I don’t see that it’s difficult though, it’s a little busier maybe, but nothing we can’t handle. There are always more people out there that would like to help if and when needed though.

What will you be doing about the moderating situation when the Forum get busy as the game becomes more popular? Do you think 5 people will be able to handle that AND TF??

Forge: We are always on the look out for new members to add to our team. Off course each person gets looked at quite in detail to see how they’d fit in with the team, their skills on the forum etc. We added Loganzo to the team a few days ago to boost our strength (and pizza making skills!) As time goes by yes, we will be adding new moderators, in fact I do have a shortlist in my little TF notebook. Five people would be pushing it (although I’d give it a go!) I think once we start getting hundreds of users online then we will have to start looking at our shortlist.

Tom: Plans are in place already for expansion. All it need is for that one bright star to shine in the sky and we have a new mod. Could we handle it though? I really believe we could, but why try when there are talented people willing to help.

Do you ever get frustrated when moderating? What sort of things really get under your skin??

Forge: Tom would be best person to ask what I get like (Calm and count to 10, hehe.) Yeah, things sometimes do get frustrating, but it doesn’t happen to happen too much. I don’t have a pet hate that frustrate me on the forum at the moment, except maybe Wizard (Wizard = Sorcerer btw!)

Tom: Me frustrated…All the time…I need more hours in the day…Seriously though, I am like a very thick impenetrable brick wall when it comes to TF and I tend to have all the patience in the world, for the main fact TF’s my baby. So no, normally I am pretty calm about most things. There are a few things which push me though, one is cheats and cheating, my blood boils at the thought of it, another is people who hold grudges, I mean what’s the point, life’s to short to spend a large chunk of it being angry at someone.

Rumours have been rife since the announcement was made. About the staff members as well as a few other things. Since you are the only people so far to have really dealt with them on a large scale, what would you like to tell the community to try and allay some of those fears and trepidation?

Forge: Like I said previously, me and Tom both went down to Bradford for a few days. We met the QGO team, spoke to them and got some questions answered. Up until then, I was like a lot of you, very sceptical about it, but that’s all gone now. After speaking to them, and hearing how various parts of the game will be ran, I can honestly say we have nothing to worry about. Their customer service system is fantastic and will be un rivalled in any other online game to date in my opinion. We went down there with the thought of staying there for a day, we ended up there half a week and only left due to lack of clothes (still say we should of ram raided that Tesco!) Seriously though I have faith in them that they will do the job well.

Tom: Nothing. Everyone will see for themselves soon enough, just how good QGO are and how much effort has been put into making LOM3 the best isometric MMORPG there is.

Total Format is ever expanding, do you think the link with QGO is going to be the biggest expansion yet? Obviously you need more viewers to generate more money to expand the site further, but are you worried that the forums may lose some of that “family” feel if thousands of new users sign up with TF??
How much have you enjoyed working on this project? We all know you have been incredibly busy and are getting very little sleep, but does that just get ignored when your doing something like this?

Forge: Defiantly the biggest expansion to date. It could loose it’s family feel, but I’d hope not, I think the majority of that is down to the community itself. Sleep doesn’t matter anymore, can’t speak for Tom but I’ve been working on pure adrenaline for the last few days, and loving every minute of it.

Tom: By far the biggest to date, but there’s still bigger to come… ;-)
TF will never lose that family feel, it may just take a little while for the new family members to settle in and become part of the family, that’s all. TF has roots and they will never be forgotten and neither will any of the people who have helped to make it all happen. You can walk a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, or something like that.

On average how much coffee and doughnuts do you two get through in a week?

Forge: I hate coffee, and don’t eat doughnuts. Although today I did buy, 12 Wham bars, 12 Vimto bars, 12 Irn Bru bars, 24 refresher bars, 5 giant refresher bars and many more!!! I also have a soft spot for candy laces and love the sour ones.

Tom: Put it this way, you seriously don’t want to see me without a cup of coffee in my hand. I don’t do donuts though, well unless they are those yummy caramel ones they do in Asda.

A final message for the community?

Forge: Have some faith, if after P2P the game is going down hill, lagging out every 2 minutes then feel free to criticise, but until you’ve seen it in action, please bite your tongue. Most importantly, enjoy yourselves, beta only lasts for a few weeks, make the most of it while you can.

Tom: Total Format has always been and always will be, done for the community and with the communities best interests in mind. Any additions to the community are seriously pondered and thought about for quite some time before being implemented and that even includes such things as partnering up with QGO for the release of Mir3. You may have doubts now and that’s fine by me, but in the long term you will look back on those doubts and will laugh with pleasure at how misplaced they were.

Well ladies and gentlemen, Oma’s and Woomas, there we have it, the first interview with the people behind Total format and may there be many more in the future.

SirTodge



If you have any questions you would like me to put to TF or the QGO team, please pm me and let me know what they are. NOT all will be used, please also make them sensible.

SirTodge