Hi Moon, can you tell us a bit about yourself? (name, age, occupation, residence, hobbies, more..)
Hi my name is Magnus and I’m 39 years old. I live in Vaxjo, Sweden with my family and I work as a technical writer producing different types of service manuals. Besides Quake I enjoy creating/recording music (unfortunately not that much anymore), collecting old prints and etchings and in general relaxing in front of the computer getting your mind on something else, playing games, doing textures and stuff.

Back in 2003 or 2004, I started a thread on fuhquake forums trying to reinstate interest in quake retexturing since the then-qrp project (owned by [Win]Elchtest) was dying out. RaRe` (currently an active member) helped out, and then you come out of seemingly nowhere and started to produce many textures. Why did you start making textures for Quake 1? Were you a Quake regular at this time?
Even though I wasn’t that visible posting things I was a regular on the Fuhquake forum and I followed that QRP thread as it progressed with new textures all the time. As I remember I’ve just finished my first “highres” charset around that time and was beginning to learn my way around Photoshop ‘cause earlier I’ve only used PSP and Wally. The first quake “world”-texture I tried doing was some door texture – door02_2 – as the one posted on the thread didn’t looked quite right from my point of view so I thought I have a go at it and that’s how it started.

When did you start making graphics on the computer? Were you any good?
I guess sometime around 1995 when I was starting to look into how to create websites. I made some textures and logos but they were rather simple in style. It wasn’t until I find out that one could create new stuff for Quake from sites like ‘Bugsy’s Quakeworld Custom Graphics’ that I was really hooked J

How long does an average texture take for you? Do you test them in-game?
It’s hard to tell and very different from texture to texture. If it’s a texture that’s in a set of similar textures you just have to make the base for the texture once and then it’s usually only some colour variations on top. These variations only take a couple of minutes each but on the other hand can the base take a really long time if you don’t nail it right away.

I’ll always check out my new textures in-game cause it’s easier to see if it’s ok or not and if it fits nicely with the adjacent textures.

What's your gaming history? When and how did you get into Quake, and why have you stayed for so long?
I started out my PC era with Doom2 on my brothers comp around 94-95 which really made a big impression so when the Quake demo came out I bought a copy of PC-gamer. Also played some Duke Nukem, Strife and Descent2 at the time. Quake2 passed almost unnoticed. Quake3 I played for some time, mostly Clan Arena. I also play some Day of Defeat:Source from time to time mostly because my brother has some servers running.

Quake1/Quakeworld has always been my home so to speak which I always return to when I get tired of playing the “flavour of the month” game. I guess it’s the fast paced action and the fact that there are still things I haven’t learnt, played or textured yet that keeps me lingering on.

What's your favourite map? Do you watch demos, and if so, what kind of demos are your favourite? Who do you like to watch the most?
If I must choose one map I guess it must be Aerowalk cause it’s really nice (almost like home J) Painkiller (ztndm5) and Powder Keg (pkeg1) is fun to play too though. And I really miss playing some of the original episode maps online but I guess that’s not going to happen anytime soon. And if it’s DM4 or DM6 I’ll usually just disconnect these days. Playing unknown and new maps is fun though if only for checking them out.

I’m not that keen to watch any demos but it happens. I’m more into playing I guess J

Have you played all the single player maps? What about the mission packs like Scourge of Armageddon and Hypnotic?
In the beginning I didn’t knew about deathmatch so for quite some time I only played the singleplayer episodes over and over. Another time I played a lot of episode maps was when I switch from my old setup (non-bunny compatable), which I guess came from Descent2 (A=forward, Z=back, Alt=Strafe) to my new setup (J=forward, M=back, H=leftstrafe, Space=rightstrafe), which took some time to get used to but it rocks imo J. I still play through the episodes once in a while though.

Of course I’ve played the mission packs a couple of times, who hasn’t? In fact I’m a little of a collector of id games and their mission packs. Especially the big boxes are nice if you can find them in good condition. I guess I have around 20 of them ranging from Doom to Quake3. Hm, still some missing …..have to check ebay.

Have you played any modifications to Quake, like TeamFortress or Clan Arena?
After I moved from quake to quakeworld I played a lot on the Bluecherry server in the US which ran a runequake mod and even though I had 300 in ping I thought it was really fun. Other than that no. Tried TF a couple of times but didn’t get it really.

Do you still actively play Quake? If so, do you play with full eyecandy settings or none?
I try to play daily even if it sometime is only a game against frogbots. Lately I’ve been participating in the FTK tournament which is fun.

I have a certain setup that I use when I play online but it only differs from my QRP/Eyecandy setup in that I use a lower video resolution, a different charset and r_fastsky 0 (black).

How do you like FTK/KTK? How about qw leagues in general? Have you heard of ignition, if so, what do you think of it?
FTK is really great and suits me perfect cause it doesn’t take up that much time and we are trying out new maps every time which is nice too. Other than that I’m not that interested in qw tournaments atm. Would be nice to try some 4on4 sometime though, but finding the time and right team mates is kind of hard these days.

What do you think of the current qw community? How are we compared to years before, and how do you think we will do in the future? Where are our strong points and what are our weak points? What would you really like to have in quake that doesn't exist?
I guess I’m a part of the community even though I always felt more like a spectator than a member. I’m not one of those who keep perfect track of everything that’s going on in the community but I try to at least look up things related to graphics and maps that pop up here and there. Hopefully will the community stay the same or even better – grow somewhat. Yes I’m an optimist 

How do you like the progress of the quake retexture project? Many people have deemed QRP the best quake project because it's the longest-running, how does that make you feel?
I think we’ve done a good job so far  We could of course have a faster pace putting out new textures but on my part I’ve been occupied with real life stuff lately which of course take priority. I also think that taking a step back once in a while is a good thing and makes you see the project in another light and helps to see what works and what does not, which can be hard at times.

It is always great to hear appreciating words about what we’ve accomplished with QRP or things I’ve done outside of QRP as well – thanks.

With this release, we see many new textures and finally some bump/gloss textures. What will we see with the QRP in later releases? What are your plans?
My number one priority is to create the remaining textures not previously done. This includes creating some really difficult textures e.g. dead bodies for dm1 (bodiesa*_*), piled bones (exit2_*) and some odd tech textures. After that I guess a general update of some of the “old” textures should be done, so that all textures are at approximately the same level so to speak.

How do you feel towards a Free Quake? Meaning GPL-compiled maps with QRP (essentially your) textures for legally distributable maps?
I guess this is a good thing and I have no problem with them using our textures if they want to. What impact a Free-Quake would have on the community is hard to say though but I guess it can’t hurt.

What client do you use, and why? If applicable, how do you like ezQuake? What are your favorite features, and what do you hate? What would you like to see in it?
I use ezQuake mostly cause it’s a natural sequel to FuhQuake and I think it have all the features I need atm. The serverbrowser in conjunction with the masterserver at quakeservers.net is a great help in finding friends or a decent server. I don’t fiddle around in the menus that much but I guess for a newcomer it must be a big improvement with the new menusystem.

Besides ezQuake I also have a version of Jogi’s CamQuake which I use for comparing/switching between new and original textures in-game. Unfortunately I haven’t used it all that much yet but it’s an asset I’ll probably use more and more with time.

Anything you'd like to add before I let you go?
No not really no

Thanks for the interview, Moon[Drunk]!