Hello,

This is the tenth edition of the Faces of Apolyton interview series. This time I present to your attention a conversation with DanQ:, the Canadian co-owner of the Apolyton site. Dan has beaten Ming's record in speaking :), so this interview is also split in two parts, both very big, though.

In the second part, Dan will speak more about Apolyton as it is currently, and he will also tell what he thinks of Civ 3 and Infogrames.

Enjoy,

ACS Interview Chief - Solver.

Solver: The standard question of "How did you find Apolyton" isn't quite in place here... so please tell us, how was it when The Overlord asked you to take over the Ultimate Civ 2 site?

DanQ: I knew that this question was going to surface in some form, but it's been a long time since I heard someone mention Mike DelPrete (The Overlord). I'm impressed that someone would mention him and it will soon become obvious that it was because of his offer to take over "The Ultimate CivII Site" that I got involved in running a CivII fansite in the first place. Before I get into that though, I think I'll back up a bit to give you a bigger picture of the circumstances leading up to this event.

I had only discovered "UCIVII" a few months before and had submitted a map and a scenario to Mike on two separate occasions. The former was called 'The River', I believe, or something along those lines -- all I remember about it was it had a few rivers in it. {lol} The scenario, for which I cannot remember the title I gave it (yes I could have looked it up in the database, but my being honest in admitting I cannot remember just goes to show how long ago this was :D) had one civilization in it, the Canadians :), and started out in 4000BC. That's it. I had only been playing Civilization II since mid-May and at this point realized that 'modding', to use a generalized term, was not an interest of mine nor was it a skill I felt I could muster. I shortly thereafter submitted one of the first ten 'Viking Scribes' that the site would comprise, but that's a story for another day... or question. {grin}

 On August 5th, 1998, The Overlord emailed me about the blue about taking over the day-to-day operations of the "UCIVII Site". I say 'out of the blue' because I had not been talking to him for 5-6 weeks as the site had not been updated during that period of time and I knew that other visitors to the site were becoming just as restless as I was. I was honoured by the offer, seeing as how we only knew of each other via half a dozen exchanged emails over a few months. My only experience with website design was a PC shareware page hosted on GeoCities (I hear those guffaws!) that I had opened a couple months before. I told Mike I would need at least a day to think about it, and I remember discussing the matter with my parents over a summer barbeque (I was barely 15 at the time) and they said they were fine with it as long as I didn't let my grades suffer.

 The next day I emailed Mike and accepted his offer. On August 7th (or 8th), it became official: 'The Emperor', as was the nickname I had chosen for myself, took over the "UCIVII Site"'s regular maintanence from 'The Overlord'. Speaking of all this history reminds me how terribly dated the history section of Apolyton itself is... definitely a summer overhaul project to tackle.

Solver: Any idea as to why has The Overlord chosen you over other visitors?

DanQ: I was checking in with The Overlord over the said period of six weeks that “UCIVII” was not updated to see what the status was and so forth. I cannot imagine I was the only one to do so. Also, I do not recall making any offer on my part to assist in the site’s operation – the thought never even crossed my mind as I was content with my webmastering presence then [discussed in the next paragraph].  

In his email detailing his offer to me to take over as the site’s webmaster, he mentioned that he was impressed with my previous website work, At that time, this was limited to a PC shareware page hosted by GeoCities that I had been operating for a couple of months at that point. The site was not ‘attractive’, per se, but functional and I was updating it no less then several times per week. By and large, it was a collection of links to demos I perceived as “popular” of the day and indexed them in alphabetical order (if memory serves correctly, most of the links pointed to the GamesDomain and/or ZDNet servers). This was the only reason that I can recall him mentioning as for his reasoning to approach me specifically. Beyond that, I don’t suppose I or anyone else will ever know.

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