October 2003: Bobosama interviews NeoPickaze

Bobosama: What was the first website you ever worked with in the Abandonware scene? Who were some of your earlier contacts in the business?

NeoPickaze: In my lifelong search to reclaim one particular game, my search lead me to a site named 21st Century Oldies with a guy named NetDanzR, I'd been playing around with shockwave and must have impressed my way into a review job, being only 13 years old the reviews I produced were of *cough* sub-standard quality and I'm lucky I got a position there.

The main people I got on with at the start were...

...NetDanzr, Mr. Creosote (who learned me a lot) and someone known as Wasp27 a really cool italian guy - who introduced me to Vinny and bang, we just clicked (not in a gay kind of way - but we just thought alike and had similar ideas).

Bobosama: Who came up with the name Echo?

NeoPickaze: Me and vinny had been throwing names at each other, I decided it would be the best way to throw cool words back and forth, we were hitting names like AcidRing, ViewRing, GravityRing and other real wierd names like that, we decided on one called NightVision Ring for a long time, I made a design (which really did suck) but we never released it (mainly due to lack of decent server space).

NeoPickaze: We were going through a barrage of nouns and Echo simply stuck. …or is Echo a verb?

Bobosama: its both: an echo, to echo 

Bobosama: Which is your favorite version? Why?

NeoPickaze: Hmm, I don't have any particular favorite, from the work I spent on them all the best period was the creation, I was working hard and Vinny was giving me real positive feedback - it all felt awesome - the apprehension before launches. If I had to choose though I was really proud of EchoRing 3 and I'm certain a Christmas day launch date reflected that (or maybe I'm just sad). It's just a shame....

NeoPickaze: ...in my oppinion that we were avoided, I believe we were under-appreciated, all the webmasters had to do was submit their site - simple.

Bobosama: So what did happen in the later months of Echo 3.0?

NeoPickaze: Hmm, My memory is really bad - but as I remember we started missing updates and me and Vinny were losing communications, on top of that nothing was changing, no new sites etc and I'm a dynamic person, I don't like staying in the same place too long I like fresh challenges but after a while we lost our motivation.

It would be very very accurate to say the best part of running a ring is getting...

...feedback from a wonderfully positive co-webmaster who knows how to motivate you, once the ring opened we seemed to lose that again and eventually we both decided it should close - for good.

Bobosama: What are your feelings towards what Bobosama is trying to accomplish?

NeoPickaze: If I'm honest at first I was a little unsure about EchoRing being involved, I couldn't understand why someone would want to re-open a dead ring than open a new one - especially one with such a bad reputation as ours did (or was me and Vinny had) But I'm quite pleased with the direction he's taken the ring, it's not too different, but it's just different enough and it takes it a step closer to...our most popular v1 / v2 styles - but i'll warn him it's tough to feel appreciated in a scene   without a figurehead anymore, or a huge resource site to handle everything and make sure people doing good get praise and people doing bad get scolded... I'm sure if LuN had still been around EchoRing 3 would have continued as long as he dished out the Kudos

Bobosama: Aside from the ring, have you run any Abandonware sites and what are your plans for your future in the scene?

NeoPickaze: !AirWare, Relay, RelaySound, Relay3000 and 3000*Linkpage were my other abandonware sites, I left the scene a while back though, and I do occasionally look back - I might return in the future with something else, but I'll probably not come back using this nick - it's a bad representation for me now, I've changed a lot - keep your eyes out.

Bobosama: Are you still close with Vinny The Saint? Any chance you may work with him on something in the future?

NeoPickaze: We don't talk as much as we used to, I'm sure we're good friends but we've grown into different people and our interests are beggining to spread. I'm always a little busy when I'm on my computer now, especially with the weight of my education hanging over me. There is every chance I may work with him, but I may work with someone else - or I might never do anything again...

NeoPickaze: ... Realistically though, I'd love to work with him again, but not in abandonware, we've enjoyed our Punch & Judy days and perhaps it would be interesting to try to tackle somewhere else

Bobosama: Do you have any tips for the new generation of EchoRing webmasters?

NeoPickaze: Know what you are doing is helping people, we never had anything to gain from EchoRing when we were doing it - but we really did go over the top looking for praise, all we wanted to see was EchoRing is awsome everywhere -but we didn't and it disheartened us, stick with it even if the praise doesn't come straight away, I'm sure if someone can stick it out through the rough times they'll get their...rewards at the end.

Bobosama: Thank you for the words of wisdom.

Bobosama: May your name live in infamy and may you join the Abandonware GODS.

Bobosama: Echo won't be the same without you, but I will do my best.