Interview by: Jamin "
Skorpion" Colley
Spotlighted site: hel-guild.comJamin - UBBDev.com: What is your background with computers, and how did you get started on the Web?
Jay - hel-guild.com: I work in the IT field now, but mostly on the functional side. My job title is VP of Operations. I am the guy who lays out the concept and creative ideas and gets a team of qualified programmers to deliver... much like a dreamer... I dream it and they deliver it. My first experience on the web was when I got into online gaming- prior to that I was one the regular surfers who had aol decades ago... and had fun just absorbing the fun stuff available on the net.
Jamin - UBBDev.com: How did you brainstorm the idea behind hel-guild.com?
Jay - hel-guild.com: Battlezone 1 was the first game I played online . I was totally anti clan that time; just wanted to get off work and enjoy playing, with none of this belonging to a clan stuff. However that changed pretty soon...HEL was created in October 1997, in Battlezone 1, by Pit Fiend, Demonic Lord, Redrum, Dark Plague and Asmodeus. Initially, we had no intention of calling ourselves a clan. We were just elite players who hung out together and kicked ass. In February 1998 we decided to expand into what has become one of the largest guilds of elite players on the net.
In short, HEL exists for the enjoyment of its members and values all member input. We are always interested in speaking with those players who are curious about our guild or who wish to join or with anyone who wants to challenge a HEL chapter to a match. Please feel free to browse our site at your leisure (
www.hel-guild.com).
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Sounds like you've been on all extremes of the internet spectrum. What was your reason for choosing UBB™ for your site?
Jay - hel-guild.com: Ahh UBB!- The best way of giving you that answer is to ask your viewers to visit the site. I am stickler for perfection (although I fall short many a times), but I believe to have any sort of success in life, or as in this case online gaming, one should have the best presentation, to get visitors of a high caliber and to ensure they keep coming back..
We are all aware that - as in business - when trying to procure a new client, not only is the service level important, but also how you present it. UBB gives us the professional look on the most important facet/visited portion of an online guild, the message boards.
As much as people say it's only a game, communication is very important. A great looking message board brings out great conversations.. Just like when you dress up well... you feel confident.
UBB makes us look good!:-)
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Mmm, good answer! :-) What do you like and dislike most about UBB?
Jay - hel-guild.com: Naturally the fact that you can dress up the board without being master programmer is the best thing about this software. It's what we call 'a people person' in the real world:-).
As far as dislikes- The only complaint I have is too many versions that don't actually add features, aka fun stuff. I mean less face it, the folks on Ubbdev come out with some really cool mods and it seems ages , till something is actually implemented(as a default feature) by Infopop.
BTW, it would also be great if Infopop would promote ubbdev more.. I mean, I only happened to come across ubbdev because an fellow ubb user directed me to the ubbdev site.
Mark - hel-guild.com:I like the mature perl code (been doing perl for 6+ years)
I prefer DB based systems but that is because that is what I do (perl/php driven DB back ended sites)
Jamin - UBBDev.com: I don't think I've ever heard UBB called a 'people person' before, and thanks for the UBBDev props! :-) So, what did you get for Christmas?
Jay - hel-guild.com: Ahh, besides the clothes and all... I get to go to alienware.com and buy my next computer, which happens to have won the best gaming machine award. Fiancée , gave permission :-) (still hanging on to the single life)... oh! she bought me new wheels - ZR rated, for my babe (my red sports car)!
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Whoa, sweet. Sounds like Santa was good to you this year. :-p How do you keep your site content "fresh", and keep your
visitors returning?
Jay - hel-guild.com: heh sweet it was. What keeps us fresh?
I have a great group of professional friends/ programmers/gamers who take care of that aspect. They make me us look good, crisp and popular...Night 'the UBB Devil' Grave (Mark), Psychotic 'The Graphic/Flash Lord' (Gary) and Dragon 'The Mad Coder' Warrior (the 3 amigos) are our team of web designers.
These guys make what hel is today.. prior to that, I enlisted the services of a professional company to build our site. It's the greatest group of online family of gamers we have that help us constantly grow and are trying new games, thereby achieving our 1.5 million hits per month and 45,000 unique visitors per month. My co-Guild Masters and Guild Admins are a huge contributing factor as to why we have the most loyal, elite group of gamers and visitors today.
Jamin - UBBDev.com: What's the one UBB mod that you like the best? And the one your visitors/users like the best?
Jay - hel-guild.com: I love Who's online and Stats mod.
Who's Online/Stats mod- cause it brings out the voyeuristic gene in us:-) I wanna know who is there this very second, or feel proud about how many people visit us. Success is measured by popularity on the net.. these 2 mods give tangible records to measure it.
Visitors say it's the Avatar mod - it adds pizzazz to the board! It gives you the freedom to express ya self.
Mark - hel-guild.com:Probably the most popular is the polls and sticky threads. I like the hidden private myself.
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Any big plans for New Years?
Jay - hel-guild.com: Yeah! party harder than last year....:-) My Motto- Live life , King size!
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Good plans and motto! :-) Are there any "tricks of the trade" you can share with us, so other UBBers can benefit from your experience?
Jay - hel-guild.com: I shall defer this to Nightgrave (tricks of trade)... As far as benefiting from my experience goes? All I can say, it's not the size of your board or how it looks:-). It's about whether you can deliver the message:-)
Mark - hel-guild.com:Be familiar with where everything is in the code before you start doing things on your own. Use provided code and template structure as much as possible since it is extensive and fairly well done. No use recreating the wheel. And it makes mods much easier to install and maintain. For example the hidden private was easily extensible to add our region mod
Jamin - UBBDev.com: What are your future plans for hel-guild?
Jay - hel-guild.com: Plans for HEL- Bigger- Stronger- Higher ! If you ain't having a great time... you ain't in HEL!
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Alright, that's all the questions. Thanks so much for your time! You sound like such a busy guy, we're glad you can spare a few minutes to talk to us! :-)
Jay - hel-guild.com: Can I add just one more thing?
Jamin - UBBDev.com: Sure.
Jay - hel-guild.com: I just wanna mention - and people who know me know I don't dish out praise just because...
Ubb dev is the reason we won this award...it's truly a place that breeds winners ... and we all our winners for participating and being a part of this great site(ubbdev.com) and software(ubb)
