The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

"I received my first computer in 1980. It was a TI-99 4a. It had no hard drive. It had no disk drive. If you wanted to save a program, you saved it to an audio cassette tape. It typically took 3-5 minutes to load a single program from a tape.

There were no computer programs. If you wanted your computer to do something, you had to tell it what to do. That's when I learned to program. I was 8.

Since 1980 I have kept up with technology standards, right through today. I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Arizona State.

My life is, more or less, consumed with my work. I've gotten to a point in my life where I can focus on the projects I want to take on. It's a far better situation than working on projects others have contracted you to do".

"Vampire Rave wasn't born over night. It started as an idea to host actual Vampire Raves, back when I was running Vampire Radio in the late 1990s. I ended Vampire Radio in 2002 and the Vampire Rave project went on indefinite hold. In 2003 I started up Acrimony.org, a gothic/paranormal magazine. In 2004 I had a little free time so I started up Vampire Rave. The idea had morphed from a club website into a vampire database website.

By late 2004 Vampire Rave was taking up all my time and I was forced to abandon Acrimony. I've always wanted to restart Acrimony, and add a more modern flair (Acrimony was distributed in print format and electronically via PDF). I have plans for a new and improved Acrimony, but I have so many pending projects, it's difficult to know if I'll ever get it done.

In 2004 there weren't many social networking websites. I had never heard of MySpace at that point (although it did exist). Facebook was just starting up, but membership was limited to college students only.

For a solid year (June 2004 - mid 2005) I worked, slept, and breathed Vampire Rave. All I did was improve upon the site. It continued to change, and continues to change today".

"Everything I can think of would be an inside joke, and wouldn't make sense to the average Joe".

"In late 2004 I knew I had a hit with Vampire Rave. It's why I kept working so feverishly on it, trying to improve it. At that time I had a project concept I code named Shadow of the Moon. It was a vampire/werewolf game, and a direct extension of Vampire Rave.

I started work on Shadow of the Moon, but after a few weeks I abandoned the project. In 2004 the technology did not exist to accomplish what I wanted to do. I had this idea in my head, and I couldn't translate it into a system that would deploy over a web platform.

Web browsers are inherently static and one-way in nature. You request a web page, your browser fetches it, then your browser, for all intents and purposes, shuts down. It doesn't care if you request another page or not. It has done its job and it will just sit there until *you* ask it to fetch another page. We call this statelessness. The web browser has no state.

Two-way server-client communication through a web browser has always been difficult. Plugins were developed to address the problem. My concept called for a game that didn't require any plugins or downloads. It needed to just play, and it had to play in a web browser.

I couldn't accomplish this is 2004. However, over the past year there have been some exciting new web technologies that make my original concept possible. In June I decided to take the project back up, and that is what I am currently working on. I scraped the old code name and came up with a new one: Rave Wars.

Rave Wars is a browser-based multi-player game. It requires zero downloads to play, but if you want sound you'll need to have Flash installed. I acquiesced a little on my 'no download' policy to include Flash, but just about every computer has Flash installed. Plus the game will play without it, there just won't be any sound.

It's hard to fit Rave Wars into a game category other than browser-based and multi-player. It's kind of like an RPG, and it's kind of like a MUD, but it's definitely in a class by itself. Rave Wars has so many new and unique features it may launch an entirely new game category.

If you've ever played a browser-based game before you've probably been disappointed. Rave Wars is something new. It is rich both visually and audibly. It has a compelling storyline and offers true multi-player all in a web platform. I'm not going to go into too many details about the game (I'll leave that for when the game goes public), but imagine this:

There's a very high-level player online. She's one of the most powerful players in the game. She's worked hard, leveled her character up, obtained all the top equipment, and is near unbeatable. No one has been able to take her down one-on-one in months.

But Rave Wars is multiplayer.

Six lower level players decide to team up. They form a group and go after our powerful hero. Together, they are able to take her down and they all share in the spoils. This all happens in real-time, blow-by-blow, in the browser.

The game will be a direct part of Vampire Rave. You'll log into Vampire Rave, then click the Rave Wars link if you want to play."

"Actually I've had 3 days off since I started work on the Rave Wars project, which I started in early June. I took one day off for my birthday, then two days off to play a little Starcraft 2 when I just couldn't code anymore. Looking forward, I don't plan on taking any more days off until Rave Wars launches publicly in September 2010. I never work less than 8 hours a day. 10-12 hours per day is the norm.

I really am doing the work of 6-12 people. I'm not just doing all the programming, I'm doing all the database work, all the graphical work, all the audio work, everything. This project is bigger than Vampire Rave itself. Although I've been working on it for more than two months now, I am flying through it. I am able to work very fast, as I have gotten very good at what I do.

As to fun, living near Las Vegas has its perks. I'll leave it at that".

" Vampire Rave has always been my vision. I don't create updates or new features because it's what other people want. I do it because it's what I want.

When that changes, the updates will cease".

"I've accomplished just about everything I want to accomplish. I'm a pilot. That was a big one. The next step is getting my own plane. I take a lot of 'working vacations'. I work online, so I can work from anywhere. I love to travel. I've been to every US state, most of Canada, and a fair amount of Mexico. I've also travelled Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Monaco, France, and Germany.

There are always new destinations. Traveling is probably my favorite hobby and the main reason I became a pilot".