To start us off, could you introduce yourselves? Tell us a little about yourself, your history, and what you do for the team.

champi - Hi, my name is Sascha and I live in Bremerhaven, Germany. I'm a software developer working in a small company. I started online gaming in 1998 and already played around with mod development back then. For Q3 I did X-Battle over a period of 6 years. It never had the success of osp, but it has way more functions (nothing against osp, I really like it). In the team I act as lead-coder of the project and decide the direction that the development goes.

kaffeedoktor - Hi, my real name is Marco and I'm from Karlsruhe, Germany. I'm a university student of computer science, currently at the end of my 4th year. My first contact to Quake 4 mod development was based on the idea of writing a server statistics tool, which assumed log output implemented in Quake 4 first. I later contacted CHAMPI, who was interested in my work. This was also the beginning of my membership in XBM, where I'm now one of the coders. By the way, the server statistics tool is still in development.

What is being worked on for future releases that isn't already in the mod?

As we don't want to whistle-blow too much, we won't answer this in detail. Our current focus is on implementing needed competition features, but also the improving the often criticised "smoothness". Furthermore, we spend a lot of time on code cleanup and enhancements. As our development team grew over the last few weeks, we also had to rearrange our quality assurance system. But we're sure you'll be impressed with our next release.

Why is X-Battle pushing for so many votable commands over a definitive standard?

One of our goals is to leave Quake 4 on its default settings and let the user decide what they want. We don't want to domineer over our users. Along with this we provide something that you may call a standard inside our hardconfig system. Beside the hardcoded configs (settings that are forced by the server via vote) for various leagues, we provide a XBM standard of the way we like the features. We believe this is a good trade-off between standards and the user's latitude to vote.

I have no doubt you read our interview with arQon, what do you think about him?

kaffeedoktor - We think arQon did a good job in Quake 3 Arena times. But now Quake 4 is here, and mod development started off with with Q4MAX and XBM - the last one under command of CHAMPI, who already made X-Battle for Quake 3 Arena over a time of nearly 6 years. Remember, X-Battle for Quake 3 Arena is a quite popular mod with no backwardness of features and an uninterrupted development until today. To return to your question: we sometimes wonder why he first said he won't engage in Quake 4 mod development, and today you can get the impression Quake 4 is his purpose in life.

In that interview, arQon cited the reason behind the lack of a merger between XBM and Q4Max, saying that it was because X-Battle was too gimmicky. Is that something you take offense to? What's your side of the story?

Yes, we took offense! We felt forced to search for gimmicks in XBM, and after we didn't find one, we had to implement one. Now we have a clear conscience, because we know we fit arQon's opinion about us. All jokes aside, I don't think it had something to do with gimmicks, because we are a competition mod in the first place.

Which leagues or events currently support X-Battle?

http://www.clanbase.com/
http://www.esl-europe.net/
http://www.kuh3liga.net/
http://www.jolt.co.uk/
http://www.eliott-ness.org/ (a smaller German league)

With the CPL's competitive mod choice being Q4Max, what are you thinking right now about the CPL, Q4Max and XBM?

We still don't understand what reasons forced a league to establish a mod to be their competitive choice, with the SDK being released within a few days. At least the experience with Quake 3 Arena should enable persons in charge to have an open mind about the development. We agree it is necessary to choose a mod that is played on events and switching during events or seasons will falsify the results. A major argument on choosing a mod should be the stability of development - a quality ^CHAMPi^ already demonstrated with X-Battle for Quake 3 Arena. We just want everyone, the community and the persons in charge at the leagues, to make their decision without blinders on.

Are there any large events that XBM is currently working to partner with?

Not at the moment.

When I contacted you, CHAMPI, about an interview, you insisted that it be an interview with the team. Is this a small dose of the XBM philosophy?

Yes of course, we act as a team. XBM is not a one man show. So I try to involve my teammates in interviews whenever we have the time for it.

Is the team going to be delving more into the map making realm?

Yes, drach is our man for that. He's the one who made those far spread fps mappacks. Currently we have some really nice maps in development.

Did the CPL contact you at all before they picked up Q4Max?

No!

Few people work without reason. Speaking to CHAMPI, why are you heading up the XBM team?

I always did something for the community. Besides the work for X-Battle for q3, I am also the owner of some pickup chans (#spontanctf (q3) and #spontanq4ctf) and wrote a special pickupbot for it. I try to do as much as I can for the community. The main reason for it is that I have fun coding and try to invest my time in useful things.

I appreciate the time you've spent answering these questions, and I wish the XBM team the best of luck. Anything you have to say before we close this off?

Choose XBM! :)
champi: I want to greet my Wuscheli :D