Connor the Craftmaster, also known as Chazriker, has come to the forefront of the Asheron’s Call community by his helpful nature towards players and his impressive video production skills. From his hilarious series “Connor's Adventures in Dereth,” to his 2009 Video Contest winning entry “Derethian Times Daily Newscast,” his ability to combine humor with valuable information has made him one of the more beloved members of the AC community. Please join us in congratulating Connor on becoming the very first Asheron's Call Featured Player!
Connors Adventures in Dereth
Other Excellent Videos
Where are you from?
Akron, Ohio. It sounds pretty much as boring as it actually is. Go tire country!
What do you do for a living?
I used to work in the I.T field doing a little programming and mostly data entry, but now I’m a full-time student. I am working towards a bachelor's degree in business finance and will have my associate’s degree by the end of the fall semester of 2010.
What do you like to do when you are not playing AC? Any interesting hobbies?
Where do I begin? Forgive me if this gets a little detailed. DANGER! If you are not an uber geek, you may be better off just skipping this section.
Most of my hobbies involve gaming in some way shape or form… not playing the games, but modifying them and creating new content.
I began when I was about 12 years old, creating content for a game called “Battlezone”, it was re-released by Pandemic Studios in 1998 and featured a robust map editing program that rise and lower terrain in real time in addition to placing objects and props. Ever since then, I’ve been intensely interested in seeing how else I could modify games to a higher degree. I later went on to create a weapons and unit modification which was pretty popular at the time, which was achieved by editing the many .INI files that were used to make the weapons and objects in the game work.
Many games back then had their files organized in such a way where you could directly open their files. For example, many game demos would have all their texture files in PCX or BMP files rather than in some compressed and proprietary format, so I would go in and “re-skin” the files to give the in-game objects and characters a unique look. It’s funny, but I still use the same program I did back then to edit image files, which is Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro 6. It’s not that I can’t use more updated software like Photoshop, I guess I’m just too spoiled by the program’s snappiness, modest features and lightweight programming.
Back then though, I was a terrible artist and for some silly reason I believed “inner bevel” looked cool on anything, so a lot of my work was crap and was never saved or backed up. The list of games I’ve made content for include Descent, Quake 2, Daggerfall, Half Life, Rune, Soldier of Fortune, Tribes, Tribes 2, among others.
As I went on, I developed an interest in creating flash content and began the long journey into 2d animation. I finally had at least a little artistic talent at this point, so I began to make my first serious attempt in animation, Totally Awesome Man. Long story short, the end result wasn’t all that great and I was really disappointed with my work, but I had learned many tricks and techniques that would serve me later for my next project, Connor’s Adventures in Dereth.
One thing that I was never able to do was to create 3d models and animate them. I have always wanted to do that but I never had the resources to do so. The programs were way too expensive back then and my computer was way too slow to create in anything in a meaningful way. It frustrated me, and I really wish I could have experimented at a younger age. Connor’s Adventures in Dereth is my way of venting this frustration after all these years.
What began as simple backdrops and 3 characters has exploded into a series with over 141 modeled props, dozens of human re-skins/modifications and some unique models including the snowmen, drudges and even ursuins created using Lightwave (ironically the same program used to make most, if not all of Asheron’s Call’s models). Every episode I create is a learning experience, and I always try to incorporate a few features from Lightwave that I’ve never used before. While a single episode can take upwards of a month or longer to create, I hope the end result will always be the same; I will be better off than I was before as an animator/artist and people will be entertained at the same time.
To make the latest Connor’s Adventures in Dereth (as of this writing episode 5), I create the models, props and backgrounds, and then pull textures from Asheron’s Call to “wrap” those models in (making my own where needed), then I work on camera movement, lighting, special effects, audio, compositing, rendering times, storyboarding, writing, re-writing… the list is just endless. This is typically why you very seldom see any professional animation made by a single person. Being able to re-use characters and props from episode to episode means that the further I get into my series, the easier and faster things will get over time. This is one of the main reasons that Connor’s Adventures in Dereth was made into a series rather than a one-time deal… abandoning all the work I’ve put into this gets harder to do as time goes on.
Taking the Asheron’s Call world and putting some cinematic quality into it never disappoints me when I have the desire to make a story and give it an image. It creates a nostalgia effect on me as I often think back to games like Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, which, despite the limitations of hardware, blocky models and pixilated textures, found creative ways to illustrate their stories (even if the voice acting was always cheesy) with animation to enhance the player’s experience.
So, yeah…That’s my hobby in a nutshell.
What is the last book you read? What is your favorite?
Gargoyles Clan Building: Volumes 1 and 2, though technically these are graphic novels. If you think that's geeky, my favorite books, predictably enough are the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling. Truly an immersive read I’d recommend to anyone.
What was the last movie you saw? What is your favorite?
Pocahontas...er... I mean Pohahontas in space… er… oh wait I mean Avatar. District 9 has to be my favorite so far, with Spaceballs being a close second. I am extremely critical of movies and often don’t like things that many others might.
What kind of music do you like to listen to?
Typically, the stuff on my playlist are things from Black Sabbath, Skid Row, Judas Priest, Genesis, Therion, and many other varieties of “big hair” bands. Sonata Arctica and Nightwish are also prominent on my playlist.
When was the first time you heard about AC? What was it that made you decide to play?
It was after I played Everquest for a good while. Back then the expectations of players, including myself were much simpler and I just was drawn to the fantasy setting and immersive world. As time passed though it got boring as the combat was repetitive and shallow, the classes and equipment choices were way too restrictive and there really wasn’t anything to look forward to after level 50, the maximum level at the time. Looking for something new, I remembered reading about Asheron’s Call, which at the time was one of the only 3d MMORPG competitors on the market.
The open-endedness of Asheron’s Call just blew me away and it was refreshing that loading times were nearly non-existent (which was unheard of!). Character choices were void of that “cookie cutter” feel, the combat was a lot more dynamic, I found myself actually dodging projectiles, questing through dungeons without requiring a group 100% of the time (though help is still nice to have) and figuring out the unique game mechanics to best survive in the world. I actually felt that my character was powerful, and not just because of my level, but because I began to understand ways to counter problems that I ran across. Travel was also much less painful with the concept of portals, which really makes this game much friendlier to people who want more “pick-up-and-play” to their game. I have always liked that I can just get right into the game instead of wasting an entire session travelling.
How did you choose your character’s name?
I actually do instant message chat role-play with Taben from time to time, and Connor was originally one of the side characters who happened to be very resourceful as far as technical skills go. I needed a tradeskill character, and it seemed fitting to name him Connor the Craftmaster.
What class is your favorite?
“Class” is such an inaccurate term that shouldn’t be used to describe Asheron’s Call characters. Shame on you! Anyways, I like to use the term “skillsets” or “type” instead. To shorten my response, I’ve provided this screenshot of my favorite character’s abilities.
With this setup, Connor isn’t exactly the most powerful of adventurers but is extremely versatile. In a group setting, he primarily uses alchemy phials to severely weaken opponents while someone (usually Taben) klobbers the heck out of them, and employs a healing orb when fellows are bleeding a little too much. If the targets die fairly quickly without the phials, Connor simply uses some type of cast on strike weapon that casts imperil (Assassin’s dagger or runed xbow) instead. If the targets are not within my line of sight (or I want to lure targets to us), I switch to creature appraisal lenses, which can be used through walls and further away… not to mention it being less burdensome on my wallet than phials.
Since Connor is trained in every tradeskill except lockpicking (that’s Taben’s department), you can bet that I make good use of them. I provide healing items, rations, and dispel potions to myself and anyone who regularly fellows with me using cooking/alchemy.
I tend to run a tradebot when I’m not at the keyboard in Holtburg, and I’ve found that many of Connor’s tradeskill items provide a steady income of MMDS from people who benefit from the convenience of not having to ask around for people to make them stuff or mess with trade mules. My highest selling tradeskill items are dispel potions, beers and my patented “pre-imbued” trinkets. Simply put, I enjoy being able to employ my tradeskills on a regular basis.
TRADEMULE TIP: The fists of stone gloves from the Colosseum provides a 10-hour strength buff when fully charged. This is useful for raising the burden ceiling for trademules who carry heavy items in bulk such as armor or rations without activation requirements. If you run a tradebot, you can leave your bot going overnight and not worry about burden.
To put it simply, the majority of my characters tend to focus on diversity in many skills rather than prowess in a few. It’s just more fun to play that way, even if it’s a little “gimp”.
What server do you play on?
Verdantine, though I distribute my in-game Connor’s Nifty Craft Guide books to every server every time I update it.
Are you a member of an Allegiance? Which one?
Yep. Knights of Honor. They almost didn’t let Connor in but after a sacrificial wedgie-hanging ritual he was allowed to be part of the team! Go Connor!
Do you have a house in-game? What neighborhood do you live in?
Me and Taben live in the unnamed villas at 9.8N 0.8E near Zaikhal. Stop by and put some graffiti on my front door’s chalkboard sometime… err... we really should decorate now shouldn’t we?
PvP?
Nope, I’m 110% carebear. I am sunshine bear, and Taben is grumpy bear.
What kind of food and drink are must-haves when playing?
Drink: Pepsi max or, if money allows, coffee-flavored energy drinks.
Food: None. Keyboards should not be fed crumbs. Don’t feed the ducks bread, don’t feed the keyboards crumbs, same difference.
What is the funniest thing you have ever heard in General chat?
“Trader Thug” of Leafcull had a really nice slogan for his tradebot. I liked it so much I even featured it Connor’s Adventures in Dereth at one point. I think it was something like this:
“25% off all items! Of course that’s after I raised the prices 150% but that’s retail for you!”
What is your favorite place to go site-seeing in AC?
Xarabydun! It is a nice little decrepit desert town with a store filled with Alchemy goodies and it makes me all tingly inside shopping there! Janier al-Ev is my hero.
If you could hang out in real-life with any of the NPC’s from the game who would you choose? Why?
Janier al-Ev. It’d be like having that comic book store nerd who happens to know inside details on geeky things like when the next Cowboy Bebop series is coming out (probably never *sigh*), or what the plot of the next Star Trek movie is (the latest one doesn’t count, that movie was garbage). It would be epic.
What, in Dereth, are you most looking forward to?
Patch day! Seriously though, this is a very broad question. I suppose the things I look forward to the most are features that allow me to increase the number of strategies that I can employ in achieving my in-game goals. So far, the devs have been doing an excellent job of facilitating this.
Connor, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions. See you in game!
***If you’d like nominate yourself (or someone else!) to be a featured player, send us a quick email at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Make us laugh, make us cry, and tell us why you (or they) should be in the spotlight!***
