W@HS November 5th 2010

Image of the week.



When Cmgames of pumpkin map fame took this pic at the NorCal NHSD tourney it was already an impressive shot of the figures, but when he changed the background it rivals some of the official artwork. Wizards of the coast, if you're reading this, you've found your new photographer.

Custom of the week.



This week's custom is the C3G ally exclusive Swamp Thing. Now you may ask why we are featuring a custom that's already so prominent in the community. The reason is that we are also featuring an interview with C3G lead designer IAmBatman and the Swamp Thing was selected by the C3G as the unit to represent them in this article.

W@HS exclusive interview with C3G lead designer IAmBatman, part 1.

First off I'd like to thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Thanks for the interview! I always enjoy the opportunity to put all the hard work people around the C3G in the spotlight.
First and foremost, I'd like to take this chance to dispel a couple of myths that are apparently out there about the group.
I wouldn't say we have problems getting new members involved at all. In fact, we seem to have new members jumping in and helping out all the time. So much so that we don't accept just anyone as a member into the Guild, but we actually require their membership be proposed and voted on by the voting members of the C3G (the C3G Heroes). We currently have 9 Heroes, 8 active (GreyOwl, beloved guardian of the custom realm is on a temporary leave). That's a pretty comfortable number for our private "Inner Sanctum" forum and I don't think we're looking to expand that number any time soon.
Then we have three Guild "Sidekicks" and thirteen Guild "Allies," all of whose activity ebb and flow a bit, as is natural on these boards, but whose combined efforts are enough to keep the boards full of new posts each day. We'll likely be adding to the ranks of those Allies soon as new people always seem to be popping in and asking how they can help, picking up playtest opportunities, and otherwise getting noticed. In fact, Heroscapers member Karat is already on my personal short list of people to nominate for the project.
When you consider that the project started with about 5 or 6 of us, and that we've lost a few along the way, having 25 or so fairly active members (with about 15-20 of those being highly active) is, I think, an unheard of level of activity on these boards and something I consider a smashing success. And I'm not even counting our map department or Executive Review Board (ERB) members.
When we have allies complaining that the playtests they want a shot at are snatched up before they can grab them (something that, if you told me it was going to happen when I was breaking my neck to playtest almost every unit for the "World's Finest" set, I would have found unbelievable) and that they can't wait to have another opportunity to grab a public design thread and literally race each other to try to take an open slot, I have trouble seeing new membership as an issue.
That said, we certainly always welcome new people to come in and get involved, even if it's in a non-membership role. For instance, Balantai (a former member) and Deathwalker 1970 (a non-member serving on our ERB currently) both pop in all the time and comment on things, give suggestions and critiques, and otherwise socialize with us, and we feel privileged to have them around. In the map department, Davidlhsl, a non-member since he doesn't have any interest in designing maps himself, has been amazing us all with his pictorial narratives of battles and tests with C3G maps and units, as well as his thorough testing of various map builds. New posters that I've never heard of before and have single digit post counts (something obviously a foreign idea to me!) seem to jump out of the woodwork all of the time and make comments, give rep, cheerlead us on, or even ask how they can get involved.
Right now we are in the absolutely enviable position of having enough members and member candidates involved that we don't have to (and won't) accept just anyone into our ranks. New members earn their spots there by doing things like playtesting, offering intelligent and useful feedback, and otherwise proving themselves a boon to the project rather than just interested bystanders who want something from the project.
If you take a look at the post counts in the different sections of Heroscapers currently, you'll see that only the Heroscape News and Heroscape Discussion sections have more posts in them than the Comic Hero Customs Creations section does. Surprised to discover that? I was too. Granted, a ton of those posts are mine personally, but I'm not talking to myself. C3G's forum and hidden subforum have accounted for about 48,000 of the approximately 82,000 posts in the Comic Hero Customs Creations section as of my writing this (and we're increasing our post counts at a rapid pace - after all, there's work to be done!). So while I agree that the project might seem intimidating from the outside (and at times from the inside), I would disagree that we're hurting for new members (as much as we certainly do welcome them!).
The second myth I'm hoping to dispel also addresses your first question, so I'll move on to that:

1. The C3G is a huge project that creates what are probably the best customs ever made. What inspired you to start this project?

Thanks for the compliment! I know I've never been prouder to be a part of any sort of custom project and it's a project that impresses me daily with how it's grown and continues to grow as well as with the customs it creates.
The idea that I, alone, started the project is a myth I want to absolutely dismiss, though! What happened was, a bunch of us (GreyOwl, Griffin, Whitestuff, Markb, Balantai, Necroblade, Garada, and Matt Helm, I believe) were all participating in the NM24 thread. I'd been absent from the customs boards for a while and was a bit out of the loop, but with my graduate thesis done I was getting excited about comic customs again and I started blowing up the NM24 threads and getting excited about all the activity there. I believe we were working on Griffin's NM24 Superman when discussions about cross compatibility with NM24 units started coming up. Did GreyOwl's Kryptonite power on his Batman's utility belt interact well with Griffin's Superman? That type of thing.
To give some background, at that point, NM24 was it for the comic customs boards. It was the bee's knees so to speak. TNT, an older project from back in the day, was defunct, and NM24 had grown to replace it both in activity and esteem. And NM24 was and is a great project and a lot of fun, don't get me wrong. But, as our discussions started revealing, NM24 was always and is about individual designers honing their individual customs. It's not about creating a truly compatible custom universe where all the designs fit together beautifully and play well.
Well, honestly, this left me wanting a bit when it came to the custom experience. One night I decided to print off a bunch of NM24 cards and I saved a bunch to do so when something stopped me. I read a card or two. I realized that powers like Mutant Healing Factor appeared on more than one card with the same name and absolutely different power text. So I didn't print anything. Instead, I brought my complaint to the NM24 thread and our discussion quickly spun off into the creation of a new thread where I basically asked "hey, how about we pool our efforts and collaborate on a custom project together?" One of the reasons I feel C3G was so successful from the beginning is that it evolved naturally out of a working relationship a bunch of experienced customizers developed in the NM24 thread and that the people I asked that question to responded so beautifully, with so many great ideas, such great passion, and such a great knack for how to organize it (had Griffin, for instance, not hit such home runs with the C3G Rules and Playtesting Guidelines in the early months of the project, we'd never have become what we did).
And that's not even getting into how new members like A3n, Hahma, Spidey'tilIDie, and SirGalahad have re-energized and re-focused the group over time!

OK, that's probably enough rambling on that one, so I'll move right along!

2. The C3G seems like a very rigorous project. Who exactly is qualified to participate in the C3G, and what would someone have to do to become involved?

I touched on this one partially earlier, so I'll keep it brief now. Everyone is qualified to participate, but that doesn't mean we're going to make you a member. The best way to become involved is to playtest, make posts, playtest, and show us that you have something to offer the project. Oh, and playtest! We're in a position of advantage right now, where we've put so much work into building something that we all enjoy so much and that has captured so much attention that potential new members really have to sell themselves to the group instead of vice versa.
Of course, involvement doesn't necessarily mean designing. For more on how to actually lead a design for the C3G (all C3G designs are collaborative, but different people get to lead them) check out the Sidekick and Allies Rewards thread.

Although IamBatman is the star of the interview we'd also like to thank tcglkn, Griffin, A3n, Deathwalker 1970, and all of the other C3G members who helped to make this happen. We'll be back next week with the second half. Stay tuned!