The worst has yet to come ! The_Autobiography of The_Vandhaal
_{written on: 30-07-2005
Little update on: 01-08-2006
another little update on 5-2-2007
another little update on 09-5-2008
final update on 22-1-2009}





^{Let me first start with a variation on the introduction sentences I have used on all the web sites I have ever created for this Rts design hobby:}

I am aware that not many visitors will read or even care about this autobiography. However to you the lost visitor who stumbled into it I like to say: Welcome on The Vandhaal Rts scenario design autobiography page ...my friend !


Ok...you AomH guys asked me to write an Autobiography...not sure why you asked me but ok....Well let’s see what I can and would like to throw down and share with you all...let me think..hmmmm ok let’s start!

The personal stuff:
Well most of you who know me will also know that I never talk about private stuff. The " other world" should stay the " other world" and it should stay away from the world of imagination, fantastic stories, ingenious triggering, boring play testing and having fun in the various virtual communities. This is of course also visa versa. I also have to disappoint those who wonder how I look...sorry guys you have to do it with that ugly green "The_Vandhaal face" at the top of this page. There are tons of pictures from the real me aviable on the internet so if you are in the mood just try to find them. But no worries I will reveal something, although maybe not very joyfully, so you guys at least know why I am doing this scenario designing thing.

Although I had messed around in game editors before, I will tell some more about this subject later on, my activity in the online gaming community and in the Rts scenario designing intensified during the period in which both of my parents got very ill. This started some years ago. My Mother got diagnosed to have terminal cancer and my Father had a very heavy second stroke which damaged his body permanently. In the period between the final stage of my mothers life until she died from the Cancer I used the game designing to ease my mind as I could not get this done with my "other world" activities. At this very moment as I write down this text, things have gotten worse again so these events where, and unfortunately still are, the main reason I got into this scenario design and community stuff more seriously.

Updated part:
My father died on 9-06-2008. well now both my parents are gone it probably will mean that the end of the scenario design stuff for AoM TT is very close....or maybe it has already ended.....but who knowns...its not a job so i will see what happens

What are the other things you like besides Rts scenario designing? I can hear you ask. Well I like a lot of things but again I will not go deeper into this subject and probably this is also for the best of some of you who read this autobiography. If you take a good look at all the things I have posted in the various online community places you could find a lot of clues on this subject.

The nickname:
Over the past years I got a lot of questions about the nickname so I will throw the story behind it also into the community. As a lot already have guessed The_Vandhaal is indeed a variation on Vandal. It goes beyond the scope of this autobiography to tell some more about what the word Vandal means and where it is taken from but if you like to learn more I suggest to check here. Now where was I ? Oh yes..well like I said it was a variation, which I took from some character in a story. Vandhaal is the Old Dutch translation for Vandal, but don't think we are there yet because... yes I made a spelling mistake!, which happens quite often in this gaming hobby because I do this stuff always late at night and try to throw in texts or type stuff as quick as possible. But to round this up: the word should have been Vandaalh. The fact that I had to put "The" upfront has also a stupid reason. Originally I used just Vandhaal but lost my Msn Zone password to that account so from that day it is and will stay: The_Vandhaal

The gaming and designing stuff:
Over the years I have build up a nice collection of games. I will cut this part down to only the latest Rts titles because otherwise the text becomes too big and I know that lot of guys in the online community have great difficulties to read. Of course I like the great graphics and game engines of new games however I am also a big fan of old and classic games and replay them once in a while. So yes I have played and own a lot of turn based and real time strategy games like for example the old Dune 2 and the ancient Civilisation. A lot of Old games just keep me Interested and are just great ( and more compact when compared to new games ). So I hardly abandon any game which has grabbed me in the past. Most of them won't run anymore on modern day systems but I solved this problem by keeping an old Win 98 system running and by using emulators.
I do not buy just every new game which is the next hype and I certainly do not just follow any new Age of ...game which is released by ES. Game titles and their topics have to catch me and they have to stimulate my imagination. When I am in the shop and read the cover of a new game it has to instantly create stories in my head. If it doesn't I will come back another time and if it still does not give me a spark after a long period of time I will not buy it.

I touched a scenario editor of an Rts game for the first time in Command and Conquer: Red Alert. Later titles as StarCraft followed. These first experiments where not very serious and on a regular base however , including the scenarios I have created for my personal pleasure , in total I have created many scenarios. Ofcourse a lot of them where crap and others had too personal/private storylines to be released into the gaming community. At a certain point in time I started creating stuff for Star Wars Galactic Battleground ( SWGB ). Maybe Star Wars is a commercialised fairytale but I cannot help it that I just like the Star Wars universe. I got the SWBG game from my brother for Christmas and was much exited that I finally was able to play a nice Star Wars themed Rts game. A lot of guys and girls don't like the game but for me it is still one of my favourites and I still play it a lot. So during the events described in the first part of this autobiography I created the project called Episode 10 the Hidden Force.This project was built up out of a series of games within one big Storyline.The content of Episode 10: the Hidden force was as follows: A 6 scenario counting multiplayer campaign, 2 single player campaigns with a total of 20 scenarios and 2 multiplayer battle scenario series containing 5 scenarios. When I look back on this project I obviously could have made it a lot better in regards to triggering and storyline but then again it brought a lot of fun to a lot of guys and girls around the world. So it served and still serves it purpose. Nowadays I am just designing SWBG scenarios for my personal pleasure. I had some nice ideas for a new multiplayer campaign which could be released to the general public but I am not sure if I will ever create it The idea has probably to wait until the next nice game title on the Star Wars front. The next thing, after SWBG, I started design stuff for was Age of Mythology The Titans ( AoM TT). It took me over a year to finally buy this game (Yep it didn't trigger stories in my head the first time I had it in my hands). In the end I decided to give it a try and bought both AoM and Titans Expansion together. The things I found in this game really triggered my imagination. The Cinematic features gave me the power to expand the storytelling to a new level. The Idea of turning one of my favourite tales, The Ring Of The Nibelungen into an Rts game popped up after I came back from Germany, where my brother and I had brought the ashes of our deceased mother back to where she was born and released her remains into the river Main. A river can be a magical thing for the mind and so the river Main became the river Rhine. The theme and the editor of AoM gave me the opportunity to tell the Nibelungen story and after some try outs I started with this project. I decided to make an adaptation of the opera version of this epic tale by Richard Wagner and had to add a lot of storyline to make it suitable for an Rts campaign. Basically the entire storyline in the scenarios was made up by me and I incorporated the original story seamlessly into my story. It took a lot of work, effort and endurance to get this 18 scenario counting campaign done and on a lot of occasions the testing and re-editing broke my back. But in the end I was victorious and defeated al the "Humps" !! You can get the final result here at the Ring of the Nibelungen act 1: The Rhinegold download page, read some more about it in the AoMH showcase or see some more of it on my website. During the creation of The Rhinegold I also have made 2 other rpg scenarios but they will not be released to the general public because of their personal storyline. So now I hear you ask: What about the other 3 Acts ? Well the answer is that they will not be brought to life with AoM TT. For now I only can tell that, as I am writing this autobiography there is still one large project running for AoM TT. It is called The Corruptor and will be a full cinematic campaign. Check the AoMH Corruptor showcase here or check The vandhaal website and forum for more info. (addition on 1-8-2006..) While the corruptor is running smooth and has got a final time lenght of 130+ minutes now.....and.....check again at the bottom of this section because well yes The Corruptor campaign version has been released in 2009...I have also released a little short movie called Brass Monkey on 1-8-2006
(addition on 5-2-2007..)...On 1-9-2006 I released my interactive eyecandy map called Wonders of The Deep. It was created in the scope of the 2006 Age of Mythology Heaven Pretty Town Contest.... I was voted as winner of the contest but more important to me was that this contest became a nice little succes with a decent amunt of other designers who enterd their maps.....maybe it was one of the last larger community things on AoMH....maybe there is more to come...only the future can tell. On 30-01-2007 i released another project....A full functional DVD video with as main movie The Clash of the Gibichungen the directors cut ...this was my first experiment to create a DVD with aom footage....and to see how I could share these large files for free on the internet. In 2007 I released a stand alone version of the custom aom tt menu Wonders of the Deep and in the same year ( 2007) also The Tower of babylon, The Spartans Multiplayer Campaign, some fun thing called Elflesh hades City, a texture mod Hades nudes & Archers which I made toghter with papsidude, a.k.a Alex. Hades Nudes & archers was my shortest and most hilarious project......we did it in 3 hours and i had tears from laughing in my eyes the entire time. Also I have added in 2007 some nice new goodies to the Christmas stuff I made in the past years. And ofocurse I have created tons of eyecandy screenshot stuff which can all be found in The Vandhaal gallery.
During this period Pepsidude also tipped me about the official Ensemble Studios Age of Empires 10th anniversary image contest. Well at first it looked like it was...ust all crappy aoe3 stuff but I decided to send in something AoM TT. So i used some of my many eyecandy screenies to make one huge panorama image which refelcts the story of a brave Valkyrie who travels trhough time and around the entire Age of World. You can read all about this official Ensemble Studio contest here...and yes i was the lucky bastard who also won it. Especially the artbook was very nice. Instead of a copy of the aoe3 boardgame i asked Ensemble Studios if they could give me the aom boardgame ....hahah they found a copy in heir office and send it along with the other prizes.
Another addition which is not scenario design but is very closely related to it is the Vandhaal Online shop which I had opend in 2007. All items in it contain special designed high quality artworks which often are realtated to the scenario desin stuff.
(addition on 22-1-2009..)
Well as already mentioned earlier on in this text.....the Corruptor campaign version has been released in 2009. This feature lenght (130+ minutes long) AoM TT machinima movie is fully voiceacted.......the voices are the work of 25 voiceactors who added their magic to this movie...... As far as I have seen is this the first feature lenght AoM TT machinima in the world hahahahah. Well anyway check the Corruptor showcase here on AomH and also read my final last notes in that showcase..........As we speak, in januari 2009, I have zero spare time left for the hobby stuff....and I am not able to be very active....and as said in my last notes in the Corruptor showcase......The Corruptor will be, most likely, the last Vandhaal story which is told in AoM TT.
In the future I will probably explore some new game titles or I will disappear completely from the Rts scenario design hobby thing...who knows.... so we will see what happens.
At the bottom of this post you can see some of the titles which I have created for AoM TT.

Stories, stories, stories and little design philosophy

I won't bother you too much with my views on designing and will restrain myself a little to just the hobby Rts designing.
For me the story is the most important thing. As I have more then enough reality in the " other world " I prefer fantastic and science fiction stories when it comes down to the Rts hobby. My main inspiration comes from within, I like to create things from scratch based upon my own imagination and the stories which run around in my head. If I base something on an existing tale I always incorporate it into my worlds. Ideas for stories are constantly available in my head just waiting for the right occasion to be let out. Having ideas is just the same as breathing for me...I don't have to think they are just there. If the right time arrives I just make a little sketch in my mind (most of the time before I go to sleep) and just start. The creative ride and creative adventure is one of the things which I enjoy the most in this hobby. The tech stuff doesn't really interest me...triggering is just needed to bring the story from my head into the scenario and of course I try to do this as good as possible...

I have seen and played a lot of scenarios and campaigns which sparkle from original imagination, those are the kinds which I like. and it does not matter if they are simple games or not. On the other side I have seen a lot of high tech complicated games which are just dead....A lot of skilled techies just lack any imagination....Those games may be hyped by their authors or the community and high rated by this game design community but they do not excite me in any way .....dead is just dead and I prefer the , maybe sometimes simple but, imagination rich games above them any day ! I do respect all the guys and girls who behave in a well mannered way and put some effort into the creating of stuff. I see these little game designs just as a hobby. My main goal is to have fun and in the process of that try to create some nice stuff. So not to worry I am not like those immature morons who have no life and see their hobby as a professional job or as a chance to be somebody and have their "5 minutes of fame" on the internet.

The online gaming community and my personal website
Frankly I can say that in the beginning I didn't care much for game community websites with forums and stuff. Basically I started interacting with other gamers online on the Msn Zone. This began at the time I had finished the first chapter of my SWBG Episode 10 the Hidden Force multiplayer campaign. In those early days I obviously encountered a lot of fools but as time progressed I got to know more and more nice people.. Amazingly I still have contact with a lot of them nowadays. After the 6 parts of the multiplayer campaign where finished I decided to turn the story also into single player campaigns. So the first single player project was the reason that I paid a visit to the Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Heaven website for the first time . Looking back on those days it wasn't much fun wasting my time in the forums of that HG website. On SWBGH I encountered for the first time the "I am an uber guy and I own you all" phenomenon. It was just very sad and pathetic to see how some guys acted up. But it got worse....some really sad dude started putting my creations down in order to have his own stuff at the top of the rating list. He started making insulting comments and low ratings on my download page and made insulting posts in the forums about me. You all probably think now...well this must have been probably some N00b...wrong I discovered later on that it was a member of the design team called Scenario Punk. I got so fed up with this guy that I asked the mods to remove all the ratings, good or bad ones, from all my games....and thank god this helped. After this period I just visited SWBGH once in a while and decided to not submit any new scenarios to it. I kept playing on the zone and took a distance from the community website thing but in order to have some kind of place where the nice guys and girls which I had met could come to I started setting up my first Rts hobby related website, more about it will follow later.

A couple of months after I bought AoM TT I thought let me give the online community thing a new chance so I started visiting Age Of Mythology Heavens. I must say that I saw the same weird phenomenon as I had previously seen on SWBGH but luckily there where also some nice guys. As time progressed I got to know more and more of them. During this time Byzantine Warrior contacted me and asked me if I would like to become part of Tsunami Studios. As I am not the clan or team type of guy I wasn't sure about it. Some research on the team showed me that Tsunami Studios was not some kindergarten with guys and girls yelling and advertising around in the online community or trying to put games created by others down, but a group of serious people who just like to create nice stuff. Byzantine Warriors well mannered way of talking and approaching me gave me the final push to give this team a try . Most of you know that Tsunami Studios is one of the oldest and most famous design teams around in the online community. The team has a huge amount of high quality achievements on its account but for those who haven't a clue check out the Tsunami Studios Forum and the AoMH showcase thread of Tsunami Studios: Mythology Achievements.. After the release of The Ring of The Nibelungen act 1: the Rhinegold I finally got to know more guys and girls from my targeted audience. A lot of the anonymous downloader’s and players from all over the world contacted me because they found the campaign and the story inspiring and liked it very much. Weird enough the reactions from this group of people were much bigger then from the known forummers on AoMH. At the same time I met this "new"group of people the sad behavior from online community members also reached another major dept point; Some of the guys who did not like me and the campaign found it necessary to send me some treat mails with content like for example "We will kill you and your campaign and will not rest until the rating is down to zero" and more of this crap. After I made some posts about this and took again my distance from the forum community the weird and pathetic stuff luckily stopped. After a while I became a bit more active again and tried to help some gaming community efforts here and there. In general I always just try to help out nice community initiatives whenever I have the time….but I have also learned that I have to watch out and not just blindly spend a lot of my precious time in just anything for anybody. In this period Elpea also contacted me and asked me If I would like to replace him as an AoMH moderator. Unfortunately I had to decline this great honour of being promoted to an Angle because of my lack of time. But I suggested another name of a guy which has proven himself in my eyes to be perfectly fit for the job.He had also the prefect name for being an AoMH moderator. However recently I learned that he unfortunately also had to decline the honour( sorry in the case I have used the wrong rank names but I keep mixing up the HG chain of command. So I gave up on keeping all the ranks of Cherubs, Halos, Angels and so on apart from each other a long time ago).

So all in all I have had a bit of a mixed online gaming community experience. I have met a lot of nice guys and girls through it , who I have really learned to appreciate and although a lot of them did not know it they have given me a lot of hours of fun already , let’s just forget about all the insulting fools because I close my eyes on them and their immature actions and behavior. Although this hobby gaming and virtual community stuff is just bits and bytes flying through cyberspace it has already brought me some positive vibes. If I have to make up the balance at this point the nice and respectful guys and girls have turned it into a positive ride for me.

Also one of the more fun things is the online gaming stuff with good friends. This basically started on the old msn zone with the Star Wars Galactic battlegrounds the clone campaigns game and continued on the Aom TT Eso server. AoM TT gets less popular all the time but still we have a nice group of pals who always join in for some bloody battles. To be honest The Fight club parties are bigger then the AomH forum parties...we will see how long this activity stays alive for AoM TT and who knows maybe some other game will be the follow up maybe not...who cares..if it all ends then it all ends. In our steam AoM EE gorup you can find the Vandhaal Online section with the Fight Club and in the Vandhaal Online recorded games section you find some historic epic records from our wars



Ok I have mentioned my personal website earlier on, well let me now tell something more about it. Like I already have told you, I had set it up as a place where the people I had met at the various places in the gaming community could come to. On the Vandhaal blog you can find some Some old bullshit...like the beasty Boys would say and some more info on the old webbies. At times when I get a little fed up with triggering and stuff I mess around with my websites and the artworks on it. All the graphics you find there ( save the AoM and the SWGB logo) and the website itself is created by me. Those graphics and artworks are maybe far below my artistic skills but you have to consider that I do not want to spend too much time on them, again it's just a hobby. Obviously the screenshots are from the different games however I made those scenarios and shot the screenies. The website got a little out of hand at the time Elpea offered me some web space on his Elpea.net domain just a week after I had updated the looks of my old Geocities website...but that is not all...another week after I received the web space from Elpea somebody else offered me also some web space: Pacogames. Up until then I did not know Paco but he told me that he had followed the entire creation process of The Ring of The Nibelungen act1: the Rhinegold from beginning to end and was impressed by it. So he offered me also some web space on his Gaming Extremes.us (is gone since jan 2013) domain. I was dazzled by both offers from Elpea and Paco and am still very grateful to them....so again guys thank you very much !!! Once I got this huge amount of web space I was able to expand my little fantasy realm some more The web space gave me the opportunity to create an even more entertaining place for the friends I had met over the years. Nowadays the website contains a lot of information on my designs, a theatre section , where you can watch streaming videos and listen to audioperformances 24 hours a day, called: the Theatre of the Mind , A Games Arcade where you can play online games and more . If you are in the mood and in a galaxy nearby just drop in at http://www.vandhaal.elpea.net or http://www.vandhaal.gamingextremes.us(is gone since jan 2013) As I grew a little attached to my old trusty Geocities website I decided to keep it alive for as long as possible. So in the case something terrible happens to the new domains you can always visit it. This Geocities webbie is also gone but saved by the internet here http://webspace.webring.com/people/pv/vandhaal/

And now let us boldly go where no man has gone before: on into the future
I will keep designing Rts scenarios , campaigns and cinematics for as long as time allows me to do it and ofcourse for as long as I keep enjoying it. I hope my creations will keep inspiring people and I hope that I will meet even more extraordinary people with this hobby thing. Like I have said earlier on I will probably explore new game titles, if I encounter a title which can grab my interest... but I will also stay into the old games which I have ( as long as they run on modern computers and as long as i still enjoy to mess around with them). Probably I will take a distance from the online gaming community once in a while to prevent me from getting fed up with it or maybe I will leave the entire game community all together but for the guys and girls who like to have me around don't worry I am always somewhere out there in cyberspace so I am always just a few mouse clicks away.

There are just too many names to mention but I like to thank all the guys and girls who are down with me !!! I appreciate your virtual company around me very much and I hope we will stay in touch.

Ok I can keep winding on but I will not bore you any longer so the last thing to say at this point in time is stay tuned "The Worst Has Yet to Come"....Probably not for AoM tt because I think that it is getting time for me to quit with AoM TT scenario design stuff...

Best regards,

The Vandhaal

Contact info:

• The Vandhaal main website: www.vandhaal.elpea.net
  
• The Vandhaal websites splash navigation (GONE since 2013): www.vandhaal.gamingextremes.us
  
• The Vandhaal forum: (GONE since 2013) www.vandhaal.gamingextremes.us/forum/
  
• The Vandhaal online Steam group http://steamcommunity.com/groups/The_Vandhaal_Online
  

Unfinished business:

AGE OF MYTHOLOGY
TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
EXPANSION
_{(Will never being released)}






(The_Vandhaal.....yes..thats me on the above pic )


For all The Vandhaal released and or published stuff on AomH and the HG network and around the internet counts:




and

[This message has been edited by The Vandhaal (edited 02-19-2015 @ 02:18 AM).]