Zkman: Because cout << is the limit of my c knowledge, I know zero Pascal, and my qbasic skills are pretty poor even =).

V Planet: What feelings did you get when you first put up your magazine?

Zkman: That 50 hits a month were a lot =).

V Planet: Did you get a lot of constructive and not-so-constructive criticisms during the first few months?

Zkman: Quite a few...most of them ended up in the Letters section, and most of them back in the first couple months said to make the color darker. (It was light blue and white...It hurts my eyes to think of it now.)

V Planet: What letter do you remember the most?

Zkman: I think Angelo Mottola wrote me sometime during the first couple of months, which I thought was very cool. Oh, the guy who runs gamedev.net (the old gameprog.com site) wrote me, which also rocked.

V Planet: Do you remember what it said?

Zkman: Umm, no =).

V Planet: What features in QB:tm are original or completely yours, that you were particularly proud of?

Zkman: All of it. Oh, Tek wrote the cgi that handled the poll, and there were like 20 writers, but there's nothing in the mag that I ripped; every article was original. My favourite articles were Petter's asm series.

V Planet: What did you consider your main "competition" at the time QB:tm was out?

Zkman: There was the QB Voice, which had 2 issues about the time QB:tm started,  Basix Fanzine was not making issues at the time, and that was it. 

V Planet: Do you think the competition has been raised since?

Zkman: A lot. QB Times is still out, Tek started an email newsletter, Danny Gump had a magazine for a while at Virtuasoft, there's Razor Diskmag, there's QB on Acid, and there's Qubed coming soon, and Basix Fanzine also restarted

V Planet: What do you think today's QB magazines need to have to survive?

Zkman: Someone editing who is responsible, writers who know a lot about qbasic and are good at communicating ideas, a decent design, original article content.

V Planet: What's your favorite QB game?

Zkman: Wetspot 2, and Shadow of Power.  Freelancer, DA2 and Prt I'm most looking forward to.

V Planet: Here's the big question. Taking all your knowledge, who do you predict will win the 2000 QB Gaming Golds being held right here at V Planet? 

Zkman: Alright....Best Graphics Shadow of Power will win, Wetspot 2 in second and Secret of Cooey 2 in 3rd. Original music should be Monospace, but Dark Ages 1 will win, I bet.

V Planet: Okay.

Zkman: Best Sound Effects, I give it to SpinBall, Monospace is nice though.  Eric Carr's (the Spinball guy) new 3d engine kicks it, btw. For Best Story....umm, Secret of Cooey 2, I think, although I'm voting for MiniRPG3. (Coincidentally, I have to finish an interview with Jaws and ChangeV soon for an unnamed new QB magazine.) 

V Planet: Cool! Give me a link to your QB magazine later. I tried to link to QB:tm archives on my page but quickbasic.com as you know is spitting gas.)

Zkman: Best Video Gaming Hunk?

V Planet: You'd be surprised who's really winning here.

Zkman: Umm, Holger is the coolest in my opinion, he eats at McD's =). But I'd guess the MiniRPG guy, Rom.

V Planet: All right.

Zkman: The best babe is Cookie!  The anime in Cookie Delivery rocks!  But I figure Lianne will win, since the game is so common. Qbtm.quickbasic.com will be back up soon, also, I talked with Chuck about it, since you mentioned it.

V Planet: Hopefully Chuck'll have it ready by the next update :)

Zkman: Wetspot 2 better win best arcade game, although based on the polls that were in qb:tm, Monospace Shooter will put up a good fight. TheGame for Generations Award?  Tsu's a great artist, but the game is barely even started.  Then there's a certain scandal involving Relics that I'm breaking in said publication above (it's not edited by me)...I figure TheGame will win though.

V Planet: An interesting choice. Tsugumo would be happy to hear it.

Zkman: Best RPG... I vote for Shadow of Power, but Dark Ages I will win. Gaming Legend better be Angelo or Milo or I'll freak out =)

V Planet: lol

Zkman: I'm voting for Angelo, but Milo did some great things...prob'ly Luke Molnar, Jaws-V, and Darkdread should be the next 3, but they're not nominated.

V Planet: Well, I'm sure they might be next year if people would give them the support :)

Zkman: Proggin' team of the year is Enhanced Creations because of RT and dqb, but Darkness Ethereal has a chance. JawsVSoft doesn't have much new other than a shooter demo and early MiniRPG4 work (which is damn nice looking and really inspiring when you find out what goes into it.)

V Planet: That leaves your prediction for Game of the Year.

Zkman: Game of the Year should be Secret of Cooey 2, considering that it's the only good game on that list that came out *this* year.

V Planet: Ok, last question. Suppose it's the year 2013. QBasic has been long forgotten, and your site was chosen as the representation of QB's history. They give you three days to add a scrapbook section to your site that would include QB's highlights. What do you do with that time?

Zkman: Heh, I'm sorta having to run here, so I'd put in DA, DA2 demo, PRT demo, SpinBall, MonoShooter, Carr's new 3d engine, Xeno, SFB2, Lianne, the MiniRPGs, the source to RapidBasic, and the game Shadow of Power. I'd also put dqb, dash and blast, Bob Sagat Killer 2k by Molnar, Subquest by the IRC group, and a copy of Powerbasic and qb4.5.

V Planet: Ok, thanks for the interview!

Zkman: No problem. Check ya later, Adios.