Previously, we had a detailed look at the WoP News of the years 2003 and 2004. The development of World of Padman started back in 2002, when this website was still available under the domain planetpadman.com. So, now we want to jump back with you into the first year of development of the PadMod. Again, we were able to bring some information and visual material back to light, though not so much of the latter.
The data is unfortunately not quite as good for the year 2002. On the old website, German and English news were generally written and posted on separate pages. Fortunately, there are gaps on both sides in different places, so we could put the news of the year 2002 together again by the content from both sides. The missing English translations to existing German articles we have, as before, subsequently recreated. The missing German articles, but to which English translations are available, we have not translated back into German yet and they will remain in English. At that time, there was no news archive page, so we can not see here, if we could collect all the articles and where exactly gaps occur.
As before, most of the news was written in German by ENTE and translated into English by other team members, sometimes with the support of the community. In the following we want to review the year 2002 of World of Padman again.
- January: The PadMod-Team says hello, introduces itself and the first work on maps, weapons, menus, shaders and concepts are named briefly. Of course, more employees were needed, whereupon freelancers like FEzzz and Redlemons as well as permanent members like SLoB joined the team. Right from the beginning an animator was missing and in the first big news update screenshots were shown about PadLilly, the first four weapons and the first maps.
- February: The Who-is-Who of the Quake3 scene was showing up and names like milla, BoBo_the_seal and QuarterPounder made the rounds. Entire nine player models (Padman, PadGirl, PadLilly, PadTula, FunnyPad, SpacePad, MonsterPad, FatPad and PadClown) were in development right from the start and PQ.de released a very detailed interview with ENTE about the PadMod. The second big news update featured screenshots of PadGirl, FatPad, FunnyPad, the weapons BOASTER and BUBBLE G., and the maps GreensShed, PadAttic, HarmsHütte, GamersHome and GamersGarage.
- March: The third big news update introduced MonsterPad, the SPLASHER, the design of the powerups and of course recent developments in the maps. Redlemons left the team for personal reasons, so the team was looking for a skin artist again. The PadMan and PadMod forums were offline at short notice and the urgent need for a skin artist reaffirmed.
- April: There was some news at the end of the month, so we are assuming a bigger gap here. On HazardTeam.de there was a worth reading interview with ENTE about Padman, the PadMaps and future plans concerning the EF scene. Paul Hasset, also known as NoSeRider, joined the team as an animator.
- May: The fourth big news update featured work on the menu, important 3D work by SLoB, new weapon models, and maps. For example, the Flintstones-Map by Maverick. The spray rooms and the game concept of Spray Your Color were also highlighted for the first time. In addition, the success of the PadMaps caused ENTE some nice headache, because his Padman website with domain and e-mail addresses went completely offline due to the high traffic volume, as it turned out later. Traffic was a major cost factor at that time!
- June: June saw the loss of key team members, including Redlemons, Fiesling and tone, all for personal reasons. There was a survey on the concept of ingame hands and new members such as raute and GlowStar joined the team.
- July: There were no news posts this month, so we are either expecting a bigger gap here or there was really nothing to report.
- August: It has been announced that tones PadAction packs, known from the PadShop for Quake 3 Arena, will now appear in the PadMod as well. Other important team members left or simply did not respond any more, so the team was desperately looking for reinforcements. Unfortunately, this state of crisis continued, but in the fifth big news update, new progress toward the weapon models, rautes first work on the code, the maps, the models such as PadClown and the spray room teleporter, and the soundtrack of Dieselkopf was shown.
- September: In a small interim report there was information on SLoB’s map objects, on Landi’s sky boxes, raute’s code work and it was decided that WoP will get a jukebox with the songs from Dieselkopf. Unfortunately, QuarterPounder, Maverick and Paul Hassett left the team for personal reasons. Finally, another big news update was announced that then delayed until October. Interesting here is the mention of a first internal alpha version.
- October: The sixth big news update includes a multitude of screenshots of Gogitason’s FatPad skin, Cyben’s map CybBath, who by the way joined the team. The first spray rooms were shown and it was decided that there will be ammo items in WoP. Previously, ammo and health should only be available via the LoadingStations. In addition to the great screenshots of SLoB’s map objects, there were also screenshots of the very first in-game scenes that were taken in an offline session with bots. In addition, the PadLilly-Skin by milla was presented, there was an open discussion on the HUD design, WoP got ModDB’s Creativity Award and finally, further map objects by SLoB with the participation of ENTE were presented. With ENTE’s Padman website still offline, he decided to made his old PadMaps, the Padman model and skins and other files available for download on the PadMod website.
- November: There were no news posts this month, so we are either expecting a bigger gap here or there was really nothing to report.
- December: In the seventh big news update, Harmonieman represented the busy ENTE and showed great sky boxes from MightyPete, who by the way joined the team. There was a slight relaxation in the staffing issue as Herby joined the team as a coder and MrFloppi as a GFX artist. An animator and a skin artist were still missing. First screenshots of ENTE’s new map PadRevenge (PadShip), the spray room teleporter, the WeaponMarker and the LoadingStation were shown. There were first concept images to the menu and again many new map objects of SLoB. The month ended with a rather personal Christmas greeting from ENTE.
As before, we hope that we will be able to supplement missing articles, pictures and files in the future and we will deal with the news of the years 2005 and possibly even 2006. 😉
Finally a few impressions from the year 2002.
