From the interview found on this site, by master412160.
TSC version:
Teal Deer version:
master412160 wrote:I made it a featured interview. That means it will come in rotation forever in the featured interviews box on the homepage of my interview site. You gave nice replies. You deserve it.
TSC version:
- Spoiler:
- 1) Could you tell us a bit more about yourself so the readers know who you are? Also what is the story of how you came up with your username "Zezima"? (Mention your asl aswell if you wish.)
Zezima: Not very good talking about myself since I don't consider myself significant or noteworthy, but I suppose I can try.
I began using the internet around 2003, but I never actually participated in an online community until four years later in 2007. During that year I only joined two sites, the first being Sonic Online, the second being SEGA of America forums, also known as SoA.
I lurked a lot on Sonic Online and in total only made about 20 posts, and my presence wasn't very well received since I wasn't very attentive or sensitive to others' feelings on the matter so I came off as ignorantly enthusiastic. Once I finally got the message that I wasn't welcome, I turned my efforts towards SoA. Again, I wasn't the most popular guy for my first thousand or so posts, but there was one user in particular who publicly defended me and said he believed I had potential if others gave me a chance. Once I had read that I promised myself I wouldn't let that user be proven wrong and disciplined myself to be vastly less of a numb-headed noob.
Time went on, and I stayed very active there for a year, almost two, then things started changing. The users I admired left, the forum software changed, everything I grew familiar with was gone. I couldn't relate to the site anymore, so I decided to build my own where users could interact amongst themselves free from draconian moderation hassle, or people like my former self who couldn't hold an intelligible conversation.
When I noticed people actually preferred my site over the official one, I became more and more dedicated to its success, eventually ignoring all other communities save for a select few, and even those I only posted on occasionally.
And here I am today, still working on the site, and still wanting to provide a better environment and atmosphere for discussing Sonic than SoA could. I know this wasn't really about me, more about my forum history, but I think that's all that's relevant or interesting, to me anyway.
As for how I came up with Zezima, it was inspired by the former number one player on RuneScape who went by the same name. Its originality and ease of use appealed to me and I decided to use it, and people often confuse me for the real deal, which is fine by me since I still play it intermittently.
My age, sex, and location are not to be disclosed at this time.
1.1) What was the first Sonic game you played?
Zezima: Sonic 2. It was one of my earliest memories, being about 3 or 4, sitting on the floor in front of my Genesis, model 2, and playing Hill Top Zone. It was such a rush to be able to build up momentum, spin dash, and collect emeralds. It always held my interest.
2) What part of the game got you hooked with playing a lot more of the Sonic series? What attracts you the most to these games?
Zezima: Well once Sonic 2 had impressed itself upon me, SEGA just went on a roll with it. Next came Sonic 3, then Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3D Blast, and I liked all of them. Then it got even better when the Dreamcast era came about, and my favorite games of all time were released; Sonic Adventures 1 and 2. It doesn't get much better after that.
However, their appeal to me from 1991-1999 was their simple, intuitive, yet engaging gameplay. It was obvious who you were, what your objective was, and it was fun doing it. It had universal likability. Anyone of any age could and did play it, it didn't discriminate. The characters had depth to them despite never speaking a word, and you could sympathize with their cause. Unique environments and objects that immersed you into their world just deepened it.
And the two Adventure games just sealed the deal. They took the concept to 3D and didn't fail. The only real difference was how you played with certain characters, inclusion of dialogue, and a more convoluted plot as an extension of that. It did its job well; tell a story in an interactive manner while keeping the player both entertained and invested in what's happening in it. The execution in those respects were flawless.
3) Can you give us a brief introduction about the Sonic games what they are mainly about most of the time? (Type of characters, storyline, etc..)
Zezima: Accidentally answered this in question 2. Oops...
4) It all started with "Sonic the Hedgehog" released in 1991. Isn't the Sonic series the oldest gaming series in the gaming industry still alive today? If so why do you think that is? Do they keep making good stuff?
Zezima: I'm not exactly a gaming history expert, just an enthusiast, but I'm fairly certain Mario's been around longer since SEGA invented Sonic as a means of directly challenging Nintendo's mascot, and succeeding for the better part of a decade. But yes, aside from a few exceptions, Sonic's one of the oldest surviving franchises, and I think that's because of what I mentioned earlier about universal appeal.
The character designers said that when they were conceptualizing his image they combined elements from Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse to form his appearance, and tweaked his personality so kids could better relate and look up to him. You can't go wrong with that formula. You're already taking iconic recognition and fusing that with the moral compass of a superhero, and leaving the elements that may drive away select demographics out. It's like pizza. It's kind of hard to mess that up. Of course I do mean that only in the first half of his career.
5) What makes the games so good ? What is the most important part? (storyline, music, gameplay, etc)
Zezima: I was about to say that I had already inadvertently answered this, but you brought up something I neglected to mention and I think deserves to be touched on. The music. No matter what anyone says about these games, no matter how bad the development or publishing is handled, no one can ever say Sonic's had a bad soundtrack. With the exception of maybe Sonic 4, whose music is only mediocre at worst, they've had an amazingly outstanding track record of sound development. From the very first game to the most recent, they've found a way to make some of the most iconic and recognizable scores period. Even if you don't even like Sonic or have played it, there's bound to be at least a track or two you'll still associate with him regardless. And it arguably only got better with the Dreamcast era when they began the inclusion of lyrical pieces. You just can't beat their arrangements.
6) If you had to rate your self from: 1 being totally not involved or busy with Sonic to 10 fully involved. How much would you give your self from 1/10 and why ?
Zezima: My answer would've been very different if this question were asked years ago. But at this time I would rate myself roughly a 7.
I'm moderately involved, but not extensively. This can be attributed to several factors, but I'd say the biggest is the decline in game quality since 2003.
Now, don't get me wrong, they have been improving since then and are making up for it, but I'm still waiting for the game to blow me away like Sonic Adventure 2 did. To completely enrapture me in a fantasy world that makes me yearn to be a part of it, to wish the characters were real. I haven't had that effect from a Sonic game since 2002. There were notable installments in the interim, such as Sonic Advance, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Colors, but the others aren't worth your time unless you're a casual player who's not interested in investing a whole lot into story or character development.
I suppose it's a chain effect. The developers became apathetic about their project, so I guess the consumer, i.e; me, became less interested in it as well. You can tell when someone cares about their work through their attention to detail, and Sonic Adventure 2 epitomized how far they could go with their dedication. And then there's the other side... Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). It was rushed, perhaps no fault of their own, yet, still released to the public knowing it was unfit for play. That showed, at least in that instance, that they valued profit over art. I can't speak for SEGA directly, but if I were in charge, I wouldn't have released it no matter how much it cost me, because it would've cost me a lot more if I had anyway; my integrity. I wouldn't want to release a product knowing it was a subpar and neither should they. I took offense to this aggressive and avarice driven marketing and sort of disassociated myself with SEGA temporarily. Once I noticed they became apologetic for this fact, with games like Generations and Colors, it began the slow healing and forgiving process. They still haven't completely regained their footing, but they're showing effort again, and that's at least a start, and at most respectable.
But yeah, back in the day I was easily a 10. Every game, every cartoon, every comic book, every day.
7) How many games have been made in total of the Sonic series? Can you name them, and tell us which one is most popular?
Zezima: Ah this is a question I used to ask myself quite often when I was younger and more involved. At the time I counted roughly 53 unique Sonic games, but that was quite a while back and I'm sure the number's much higher now, though I know I can't give you an accurate figure, it's somewhere between 60 and 100, that much I'm sure of. As for naming them? Well, I'm too lazy to go look up a chronological list, so I'll go off memory here:
Sonic
Sonic 2
Sonic 3
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic CD
Sonic Spinball
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Knuckle's Chaotix
Tails Adventure
Tails Sky Patrol
Sonic Blast
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic Labyrinth
Sonic Drift
Sonic Drift 2
Sonic R
Sonic Jam
Sonic Eraser
Waku Waku Patrol
Sonic Shuffle
Sonic Adventure
Sonic Adventure 2
Sonic Advance
Sonic Advance 2
Sonic Advance 3
Sonic Heroes
Sonic and the Secret Rings
Sonic and the Black Knight
Mario & Sonic at the Olympics Games (insert year here)
Sonic & SEGA (insert sport here)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
Sonic Generations
Sonic Colors
Shadow the Hedgehog
And that's about all I can remember without any references, in order of what I thought of first.
By consensus, Sonics 1-3&Knuckles and CD are the most popular pre-1999 Sonic games, and Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Advance, Colors, and Generations are the most popular post-1999. And the most popular from what I've seen across the spectrum of many communities is without a doubt Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic 2 a close second, it seems.
8) Other then playing Sonic games what other video games do you like to play as well?
Zezima: Good games. I know that sounds a bit condescending or elitist of me, but it's what I play. It's been proven to me that irregardless of its genre or what it's meant to be, if care is taken in its production, it'll be good. For example, I hate puzzle games, I don't typically find them enjoyable, I'd rather not play them given a choice. And yet games like Portal, and to a far lesser extent, God of War, were able to implement the puzzle elements without taking away the entertainment of completing it.
And the reverse also holds true. There are certain genres I have a natural proclivity towards, and when done wrong, even I can't force myself to enjoy them. I really like racing games the most, second would be platforming/adventure games. I've gone out of my way to get racing games despite negative reception by others just to try it myself, and there have been letdowns, but since I like them a lot more than other types of games, I'm more tolerant of it. Yet, if it's apparent there wasn't real attention given to it, I have to turn away from it. Sonic being no exception.
9) Which sonic game is so far the best of all of them in your opinion and why?
Zezima: In my opinion? Well, I've always debated it in my head for years and still can't really settle on just one, but the ones I'm impressed with the most are easily the Adventure and Advance series. I suppose if I had to give them an order, it would be as such, excluding extra editions:
1: Sonic Adventure 2
2: Sonic Adventure
3: Sonic Advance 3
Honorable mentions are Sonic 2, Sonic 3&K, and Sonic CD.
10) On what platforms do you like or is it recommended to play the Sonic games on?
Zezima: Genesis and Dreamcast for life. For pre-1999, you just can't go wrong with the Genesis. This is what made Nintendo sweat and have to bust out the Super Nintendo. Think about that, Nintendo had to ascend to Saiyan level just to match SEGA's sheer power.
Post-1999, Dreamcast, baby. Sure it wasn't as successful as the other consoles at the time, but that was moreover due to bad timing with an early release than it was anything else. Solid platform, solid software, solid games and development backing, it was ahead of its time, just too ahead for its own good that by the time the competitors came in on the market they knew how to 1-up SEGA.
A series of unfortunate events led to SEGA having to ironically rely on Nintendo to supply the hardware for their games now. I would say that just gave them more resources to focus on their remaining intellectual properties, but as aforementioned in this interview, it's evident that removing their console efforts didn't necessarily improve their game quality.
But yes, Genesis for 2D, Dreamcast for 3D. The rest just aren't the same to me.
10.1) From where do you think the developers of the Sonic games got their inspiration to make all of the Sonic games?
Zezima: Well this was answered partially in two other questions, so I guess I'll combine those two and expound upon them. SEGA's main inspiration drew from two sources. Emulating icons like Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, and wanting to compete against and eventually best the gaming titan, Nintendo. Though they drew more inspiration from the latter half.
See, back in the day, Nintendo was infallible. They had the NES, Mario, and all the peripherals that went with it, Nintendo could do no wrong. No other company had even a hope of owning as much of the market share as Nintendo, they just had their technique down to a science. Eventually, someone said enough was enough, and SEGA went on a crusade to prove that other companies besides Nintendo could share the spotlight. But how to do this? They started by taking note of Nintendo's popular mascot, Mario, and figured, if there were a similar mascot, but for SEGA, it'd be much easier to combat Nintendo's reign. So, coming up with all the ideas they could, they decided to go with an anthropomorphic animal of some variety that would be the same color blue as SEGA's logo. They went through many renditions first before arriving at a hedgehog, such as an armadillo, a bunny, and some other unidentifiable creatures. This paid off for SEGA for the years to come.
11) You don't just play the Sonic games, but also started a "Sonic Community". Was the name always like that or had the site in the beginning a other name?
Zezima: Oh no, it's gone through a couple name changes before and after arriving at that. See, in the beginning when I first started off I wasn't very knowledgeable about web design and wasn't sure where to start, so I went through the administration panel to see what would help, and there was an option to apply a skin made by another user submitted to a public gallery for use. The skin I happened to choose was made by a user who ran another site called The Sonic Family. At the time, I was unaware of this, so I thought I had something original going, and gave the site the address of thesonicfamily.phpbbonline. Somehow the owners of the actual Sonic Family found out and made me aware of the situation and demanded a rename. One of my other administrators, The Freedom Fighter, took it upon himself during one of my absences to take the same concept of a family and alter it a bit so it held the same meaning, but in a different light. Thus came to be The Sonic Community, which has appeased everyone since then.
Recently, however, another one of my administrators, Mly, took the abbreviation of TSC, and inserted vowels at random to give it a phonetic pronunciation, and gave birth to the stand alone name Tescia. I took to it rather quickly, and was planning on renaming the site as a whole to that, but I decided to let the community in on the decision first. Turns out they weren't too supportive of the idea, their reasoning being that new users wouldn't be able to properly associate Tescia with Sonic or a community, and it would cost us more than it would hurt us in the long run. I consented to this logic and decided to keep everything as TSC, The Sonic Community, and I intend to keep it that way for a long time to come.
11.1) You recently changed the entire look of the community; a new theme has been added. Do you believe it looks a lot better now? Was it time for a change?
Zezima: Oh, most definitely. For the first half of TSC's lifespan we were generally a dark community. A menagerie of blacks and grays, interlaced with the occasional white text for visibility. This was favored by some, but the majority cried out for a brighter, more welcoming theme. After some deliberation and great help from yet another administrator of mine, karkooshy, we began to remodel TSC not after general Sonic-themed concepts, but in honor of specific games. We've gone through Sonic 4: Episode I, and Sonic Generations, and are developing a Sonic Colors skin, which should be able to effectively please both parties who enjoy an easily navigable and read site with those who would prefer a site with less assaulting gamma. The current theme still needs improvement and I'm constantly working on ways to do that. I'm relatively pleased with how it's turned out as it stands, but the work's never done.
12) Do you have any major competitors who have a similar site as yours?
Zezima: We used to have many, many competitors starting out, seeing as I wasn't exactly the only one out there wanting to build a Sonic forum. But, as time went on and TSC grew more unique in terms of design and userbase, the competition's been gradually weeded out and conquered, one by one. Of course TSC isn't number one yet, but according to the research I've done we're definitely in the top ten largest Sonic communities available on the internet today. From this aforementioned research, I can ascertain that our largest competitors are as follows:
Sonic Retro
Sonic Blast
Sonic Stadium
Sonic HQ
Sonic Zone
Sonic Online
The Sonic Factory
Find The Computer Room
Planete Sonic
Of those, we're very closely matched with Find The Computer Room and Sonic Online, who have been around considerably longer than we have. And the top dogs, Retro, Blast, and Stadium, sure, it'll take some time to reach their level, but it's certainly not impossible, and I have no qualms about doing the work necessary to topple them. You only get out what you put in and I'm willing to and have put a lot in to TSC. To our fortune, many of our once direct competitors have fallen off the map, most of the time due to lulls in activity wherein the administrator begins to feel hopeless and shuts down their forum out of inactivity. Luckily we've never had to completely start over with TSC, we've just had some bumps in the road here and there, and we've been able to recover every time.
12.1) What are you proud of so far that you achieved on this forum?
Zezima: Just the fact that it's been as well received as it has been is an achievement in of itself. It's surpassed all my previous goals for what I wanted it to become and it doesn't show signs of stopping. Though, besides the impressive memberbase, I'd suppose the facet of the site I'm most proud of is the unique design. Due to no small part from karkooshy, the site being able to differentiate itself from other Forumotion and freeware sites in the way it has has definitely helped it garner an identity of its own and made us stand out among the sea of unoriginality. People aren't going to want to join a site that's obviously had little effort put into it, and the design is the most immediate indication of that. When users come here they can acknowledge how much attention to detail has been put into the site's development, and that's something worthy of at least a little respect.
13) This forum is run on Forumotion, are you pleased with the current forum software? Do you ever regret there is the possibility the site might have been so much more on a other forum software like VB or IPB, MyBB, PhpBB, etc?
Zezima: I did early on, but that was more out of my own ignorance and ineptitude than anything else. Once I became more familiar with the Forumotion software and controls, it became a breeze to work with, and I've never looked back or cared about other software hosts.
Sure, I did experiment with other hosts, Zetaboards, countless different variations of Invision, MyBB, phpBB, but none of them were as user friendly as Forumotion, and there's something about Forumotion many people tend to overlook. It's extremely customizable. Now, I know it may not seem that way and they all blur together in some indistinguishable mass of congealed similarity, but that's not the case. Thing is, Forumotion gives the wrong impression to people who don't use it as some garbage freeware for administrators who can't afford to pay for professional software like vBulletin. It's not. It's simply the fact that the vast majority of those users have found Forumotion through some search engine in hopes of finding a good, easy to use software to start developing with. And the problem with that is they're largely uneducated or unskilled in the ways of necessary assets, like coding language fluency, or image manipulation mastery, and so on. That, and you have to understand that some of these paid-for software platforms do a lot of the work for you and have a rigid structure you must adhere to when designing your site, and that stifles creativity. In my time with Zeta and Invision, sure they may have been arguably more stable or offered a couple more features here and there, but I never had the sense of control over what I see that I do with Forumotion. Now, the exception may be MyBB, but I didn't spend enough time with it to find out personally, however, I don't think it's worth it at this point since I'm now thoroughly satisfied with Forumotion.
14) What are the major ups and downs of Forumotion ? Did you ever run this site on a other software or wanted to do that?
Zezima: Well, partially answered in the previous question, but I suppose the major pros of Forumotion is the freedom, flexibility, and responsiveness of the Forumotion support team. The cons would be no access to your database or the other benefits of having server-side access, but if you become proficient enough in client-side it compensates for the negligible lack of features you may otherwise get. Not a huge loss either way.
15) Can you tell us what has been most recently the biggest issue/problem on the forum? (activity, etc.)
Zezima: Well it's been a while since TSC's been faced with a monumentous obstacle, but I suppose the only real problems we've had recently are a few technical issues here and there, like a PM button, emoticon glitches, or chatbox inconsistencies, but for the most part it's been fine. Activity's always been an issue in varying degrees from day one. That problem never really goes away because even the most earth-shatteringly large gods of foruming are susceptible to user apathy and can fall prey to inactivity. Though, I don't want to give the wrong impression, TSC's been on the upswing for months now and is only getting livelier. But of course, from the admin's perspective, it's never active enough.
16) Do you believe this to be the biggest and best Sonic community there is? Can you sum up some features or events that go on at this forum that makes it so great to be here?
Zezima: Biggest? No, I'm not going to be delusional about any of this, I know TSC is not the biggest by any means or definition. Sure, it is one of the biggest, but not the biggest. But that doesn't deter or discourage me from becoming the biggest. Best? Now this is where things start getting subjective. I've been told on numerous occasions that TSC's the best by many users, but that's been moreover in regards to the actual community itself than anything. When I think best I think in what the site as a program has to offer. And I'd say it's rather difficult to compare my site to other big 9 or so because this is the only competing site running purely on freeware, and the only Forumotion site that's achieved this size. There are many things we've done that many people believed we couldn't do with the software given, and there are still many more things I want to do with it. Like I said with the size, it's not the best definitively, in every respect, but it's certainly up there, and it can certainly be the best given enough effort. I would say Sonic Retro is currently the best overall, with Planete Sonic as an honorable mention. The rest we could easily argue which is better in comparison between them and TSC, so we're not too far off.
17) Where do you see the site in 5 years ? Bigger, on a other host? etc...
Zezima: Definitely bigger and better than ever. I don't see us ever changing hosts, I've had a good relationship with Forumotion these past 4 years and it'd be nonsense to just up and leave them out of the blue. Not like I have much of a choice anyway, given my non-existent access to the database and my inability to move forum data around to different hosts, but I'm content with that since I've already expressed my satisfaction with Forumotion's progress.
We've made it to the top 10 in less than 5 years. In another 5 years we'll probably be in the top 5. Breaking the top 3 will be a challenge, but I'm up to it.
18) Are there any staff of SEGA on this board or people of the companies behind Sonic and other related games?
Zezima: There are only two notable users on TSC who are officially affiliated with the gaming industry. One, who's a quality assurance and localization tester for EA, as well as an environment artist, Phantom, regularly attends TSC, though considering his work schedule it's understandable that he's not as active as some, but it's still an honor to have him here with us. The other, Lunacara, is an official moderator on the official SEGA forums, as seen here. He's much less active than Phantom, having only posted 9 times before announcing that he's far too busy working under SEGA to maintain consistent activity, but he did leave behind a very popular legacy in the form of The Random Hotel. Originally formed on SoA, it eventually got shut down, and TSC's the last site to have an official Random Hotel, as decreed by Lunacara himself. Other than that I haven't had very many official affiliations with members of developing parties, but I have had many forum celebrities join, members who are well known in the fandom but don't actually work under any actual corporation. Hopefully we'll get more in the future.
Teal Deer version:
- Spoiler:
- 1: Who are you?
Zezima: I am all of me.
1.1: First Sonic game?
Zezima: Sonic 2.
2: Why Sonic be so good?
Zezima: SEGA actually tried the first 10 years.
3: What Sonic about?
Zezima: He go zoom zoom.
4: Is Sonic the oldest gaming icon still alive?
Zezima: No, Mario.
5: Why play Sonic?
Zezima: Crank dem tunes.
6: How much you like Sonic?
Zezima: Bunches.
7: How many Sonics?
Zezima: 1,001.
8: Wanna play a game?
Zezima: Yush.
9: Best Sanic?
Zezima: SA2.
10: Best console?
Zezima: Dreamcast: Genesis.
11: You always call yo site TSC?
Zezima: Nope.
11.1: TSC look different. You like?
Zezima: Yessums.
12: What other sites you mad at?
Zezima: All dem.
12.1: What's your claim to fame?
Zezima: karkooshy.
13: Does Forumotion suck?
Zezima: No.
14: Why not?
Zezima: Cuz.
15: Any boo boos on TSC?
Zezima: Lots.
16: Is TSC the bestest?
Zezima: Almosts.
17: Can you see into the future?
Zezima: Somewhat.
18: You gots celebrities?
Zezima: A couple.
Last edited by Zezima on July 21st 2012, 4:45 pm; edited 2 times in total