{"data":{"id":13064,"title":"Meet Ben Lesnick","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/13064-Meet-Ben-Lesnick","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/13064","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/13064","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"Meet the team","images":[{"id":556,"name":"Sandi-And-Ben.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/e7jtkxjhig8p4r\/source\/Sandi-And-Ben.png","alt":"","size":674468,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2013-07-19T05:08:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/556","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/556\/similar"},{"id":557,"name":"2013-01-15_headshots_ben_leznick_01.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/7cizxeyzuhotxr\/source\/2013-01-15_headshots_ben_leznick_01.jpg","alt":"","size":2641289,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2013-07-19T05:08:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/557","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/557\/similar"}],"images_count":2,"translations":{"en_EN":"Greetings Citizens,\n\nToday you\u2019re going to meet one of Cloud Imperium\u2019s first employees, Community Manager Ben Lesnick! You\u2019ve likely seen Ben on the forums or live chat and have read his articles in the Comm-Link and in Jump Point! He\u2019ll appear on Friday\u2019s episode of Wingman\u2019s Hangar, so stay tuned for that interview!\n\nHow did you get started in the game industry?\nYou\u2019re looking at it! I\u2019ve been a Wing Commander fan since the first game and active online for almost as long. I\u2019ve run the big community site, the Wing Commander Combat Information Center, with a group of friends since 1995. We stayed active after EA lost interest in the franchise, updating every day, cataloging Origin\u2019s history and organizing fan works. I got to know Chris over the years and he brought me on in the early stages of planning Star Citizen\u2019s campaign. I spent the first two months with another full time job, spending my nights and weekends working on Star Citizen. When the campaign was a success, I moved to Austin to help with the game full time. It has been a big change and a great adventure! What projects have you worked on?\nStar Citizen is my first full-time industry job, but I\u2019ve helped out with a lot of Wing Commander projects over the years. As the point person for the community, I would do continuity editing for tie-in stuff (the novels, promotional material) and things like producing the extras for the GOG releases. Over the years EA would contact me whenever they wanted to relaunch the series and I ended up being involved in the planning stages for a host of projects that never worked out: several iterations of Privateer online, a Gamecube game, a television series, a browser-based Privateer, a re-release with special features on Origin and most recently (and bizarrely) a social media remake of Wing Commander II. They never understood what made Wing Commander great the way Chris Roberts does, which is one of the reasons none of those projects went anywhere while Star Citizen is thriving. My first experience on a real development team was the Gameboy Advance port of Wing Commander Prophecy in 2002. The team acquired the rights to do the game in a sort of legal loophole and EA had no interest in providing assets\u2026 so I volunteered to take apart the original game and explain to the programmers exactly how everything worked. I went on to assist with the design of Wing Commander Arena for Xbox Live Arcade in 2007,although almost everything cool we did on that game ended up on the cutting room floor. I did finally live my fantasy on that project and did the full-length in-universe Origin-style manual for the game, Star Soldier.\n\nI show up throughout the Wing Commander universe, too! If you have a copy of the original Wing Commander Prophecy, you can find a star system named after me (there are at least two other CIG employees on there!) and I\u2019m a character in one of the movie tie-in novels.\n\nWhat will you be doing for Cloud Imperium?\nA little bit of everything! I write the daily messaging, interact with the fans, help with the marketing plan and have worked on the initial design of the game! I write most of the copy you see at the RSI and CIG websites and several articles for every Jump Point. It has been a great experience so far, learning how all this works, meeting an amazing fan community and working with a bunch of my childhood heroes. (Instead of baseball cards as a kid I had Origin\u2019s \u201cPlaytesters Guides\u201d that introduced the team members.) What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen\/Squadron 42?\nThere\u2019s so much to the game, I don\u2019t know where to start. The multi-crewed ships are on my mind right now, though, because they\u2019re going to be such a revolution in space combat. When space sims \u201cdied\u201d in the 1990s one of the criticisms was that there wasn\u2019t anywhere to go with them\u2026 and we\u2019re going to prove that thought very, very wrong. Running a Constellation or a Retaliator with your friends is going to be like living in Star Wars or Firefly\u2026 a total game changer for the genre. What are you playing right now?\nThe hardcore game answer is that I\u2019m very slowly playing through Bioshock: Infinite. The real answer is that I\u2019m spending every extra minute building my house in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I still spend most of my gaming time in the Wing Commander universe, though! I just started playing through the FM Towns port of the original game again. Maybe I\u2019ll do a little dogfighting on the livestream next week\u2026","de_DE":"Gr\u00fc\u00dfe B\u00fcrger,\n\nHeute treffen Sie einen der ersten Mitarbeiter von Cloud Imperium, Community Manager Ben Lesnick! Du hast Ben wahrscheinlich im Forum oder Live-Chat gesehen und seine Artikel im Comm-Link und im Jump Point gelesen! Er wird am Freitag in der Episode von Wingman's Hangar erscheinen, also bleibt dran f\u00fcr dieses Interview!\n\n\nWie bist du in der Spieleindustrie gestartet?\n\nDu siehst es dir an! Ich bin seit dem ersten Spiel ein Wing Commander Fan und seit fast ebenso lange online aktiv. Ich leite seit 1995 mit einer Gruppe von Freunden die gro\u00dfe Community-Seite, das Wing Commander Combat Information Center. Wir blieben aktiv, nachdem EA das Interesse an der Franchise verloren hatte, indem wir jeden Tag aktualisiert, die Geschichte von Origin katalogisiert und Fanarbeiten organisiert haben. Ich habe Chris im Laufe der Jahre kennengelernt und er hat mich in den fr\u00fchen Phasen der Planung der Star Citizen's Kampagne mit einbezogen. Die ersten zwei Monate verbrachte ich mit einem weiteren Vollzeitjob, wobei ich meine N\u00e4chte und Wochenenden damit verbrachte, an Star Citizen zu arbeiten. Als die Kampagne erfolgreich war, zog ich nach Austin, um bei dem Spiel in Vollzeit zu helfen. Es war eine gro\u00dfe Ver\u00e4nderung und ein gro\u00dfes Abenteuer!\n\n\nAn welchen Projekten hast du gearbeitet?\n\nStar Citizen ist mein erster Vollzeitjob in der Industrie, aber ich habe bei vielen Wing Commander-Projekten im Laufe der Jahre geholfen. Als die erste Person f\u00fcr die Community w\u00fcrde ich Kontinuit\u00e4tsredaktion f\u00fcr Ankn\u00fcpfungspunkte (die Romane, Werbematerial) und Dinge wie die Produktion der Extras f\u00fcr die GOG-Ver\u00f6ffentlichungen \u00fcbernehmen. Im Laufe der Jahre kontaktierte mich EA, wann immer sie die Serie neu starten wollten, und am Ende war ich an der Planung einer Vielzahl von Projekten beteiligt, die nie geklappt haben: mehrere Iterationen von Privateer online, ein Gamecube-Spiel, eine Fernsehserie, ein browserbasierter Privateer, eine Wiederver\u00f6ffentlichung mit Sonderfunktionen zu Origin und zuletzt (und bizarr) ein Social Media Remake von Wing Commander II. Sie haben nie verstanden, was den Wing Commander so gro\u00dfartig gemacht hat, wie Chris Roberts es tut, was einer der Gr\u00fcnde daf\u00fcr ist, dass keines dieser Projekte irgendwo hinging, w\u00e4hrend Star Citizen erfolgreich ist. Meine erste Erfahrung in einem echten Entwicklungsteam war 2002 der Gameboy Advance Port von Wing Commander Prophecy. Das Team erwarb die Rechte, das Spiel in einer Art Gesetzesl\u00fccke zu spielen, und EA hatte kein Interesse daran, Verm\u00f6genswerte zur Verf\u00fcgung zu stellen.... also meldete ich mich freiwillig, das Originalspiel auseinanderzunehmen und den Programmierern genau zu erkl\u00e4ren, wie alles funktionierte. Ich habe dann 2007 beim Design der Wing Commander Arena f\u00fcr Xbox Live Arcade mitgewirkt, obwohl fast alles, was wir in diesem Spiel cool gemacht haben, auf dem Boden des Schneideraums landete. Ich habe endlich meine Fantasie f\u00fcr dieses Projekt gelebt und das vollst\u00e4ndige Handbuch im Origin-Stil des Universums f\u00fcr das Spiel Star Soldier erstellt.\n\nIch tauche auch im ganzen Wing Commander Universum auf! Wenn du eine Kopie der Original Wing Commander Prophecy hast, kannst du ein Sternsystem finden, das nach mir benannt ist (es gibt mindestens zwei weitere CIG-Mitarbeiter dort!) und ich bin ein Charakter in einem der Film-Fesselromane.\n\n\n\n\nWas werden Sie f\u00fcr Cloud Imperium tun?\n\nEin bisschen von allem! Ich schreibe die t\u00e4gliche Botschaft, interagiere mit den Fans, helfe beim Marketingplan und habe am ersten Design des Spiels gearbeitet! Ich schreibe den gr\u00f6\u00dften Teil der Kopie, die Sie auf den RSI- und CIG-Websites sehen, und mehrere Artikel f\u00fcr jeden Jump Point. Es war bisher eine gro\u00dfartige Erfahrung, zu lernen, wie das alles funktioniert, eine erstaunliche Fangemeinde zu treffen und mit einem Haufen meiner Kindheitshelden zusammenzuarbeiten. (Anstelle von Baseballkarten hatte ich als Kind Origin's \"Playtesters Guides\", die die Teammitglieder vorstellten.)\n\n\nWas freut dich am meisten in Star Citizen\/Squadron 42 zu sehen?\n\nEs gibt so viel am Spiel, dass ich nicht wei\u00df, wo ich anfangen soll. Die mehrfach besetzten Schiffe sind mir jedoch gerade in den Sinn gekommen, weil sie eine solche Revolution im Weltraumkampf sein werden. Als Weltraumsimulationen in den 90er Jahren \"starben\", war eine der Kritikpunkte, dass es keinen Platz gab, um mit ihnen zu gehen.... und wir werden beweisen, dass dieser Gedanke sehr, sehr falsch war. Eine Konstellation oder einen Vergelter mit deinen Freunden zu betreiben, wird wie in Star Wars oder Firefly zu leben sein.... ein totaler Wandel f\u00fcr das Genre.\n\n\nWas spielst du gerade?\n\nDie Hardcore-Frage ist, dass ich sehr langsam durch Bioshock: Infinite spiele. Die wirkliche Antwort ist, dass ich jede zus\u00e4tzliche Minute damit verbringe, mein Haus in Animal Crossing zu bauen: Neues Blatt. Ich verbringe aber immer noch die meiste Zeit meiner Spielzeit im Wing Commander Universum! Ich habe gerade wieder angefangen, durch den FM Towns Port des Originalspiels zu spielen. Vielleicht mache ich n\u00e4chste Woche einen kleinen Luftkampf auf dem Livestream.....","zh_CN":"Greetings Citizens,\n\nToday you\u2019re going to meet one of Cloud Imperium\u2019s first employees, Community Manager Ben Lesnick! You\u2019ve likely seen Ben on the forums or live chat and have read his articles in the Comm-Link and in Jump Point! He\u2019ll appear on Friday\u2019s episode of Wingman\u2019s Hangar, so stay tuned for that interview!\n\nHow did you get started in the game industry?\nYou\u2019re looking at it! I\u2019ve been a Wing Commander fan since the first game and active online for almost as long. I\u2019ve run the big community site, the Wing Commander Combat Information Center, with a group of friends since 1995. We stayed active after EA lost interest in the franchise, updating every day, cataloging Origin\u2019s history and organizing fan works. I got to know Chris over the years and he brought me on in the early stages of planning Star Citizen\u2019s campaign. I spent the first two months with another full time job, spending my nights and weekends working on Star Citizen. When the campaign was a success, I moved to Austin to help with the game full time. It has been a big change and a great adventure! What projects have you worked on?\nStar Citizen is my first full-time industry job, but I\u2019ve helped out with a lot of Wing Commander projects over the years. As the point person for the community, I would do continuity editing for tie-in stuff (the novels, promotional material) and things like producing the extras for the GOG releases. Over the years EA would contact me whenever they wanted to relaunch the series and I ended up being involved in the planning stages for a host of projects that never worked out: several iterations of Privateer online, a Gamecube game, a television series, a browser-based Privateer, a re-release with special features on Origin and most recently (and bizarrely) a social media remake of Wing Commander II. They never understood what made Wing Commander great the way Chris Roberts does, which is one of the reasons none of those projects went anywhere while Star Citizen is thriving. My first experience on a real development team was the Gameboy Advance port of Wing Commander Prophecy in 2002. The team acquired the rights to do the game in a sort of legal loophole and EA had no interest in providing assets\u2026 so I volunteered to take apart the original game and explain to the programmers exactly how everything worked. I went on to assist with the design of Wing Commander Arena for Xbox Live Arcade in 2007,although almost everything cool we did on that game ended up on the cutting room floor. I did finally live my fantasy on that project and did the full-length in-universe Origin-style manual for the game, Star Soldier.\n\nI show up throughout the Wing Commander universe, too! If you have a copy of the original Wing Commander Prophecy, you can find a star system named after me (there are at least two other CIG employees on there!) and I\u2019m a character in one of the movie tie-in novels.\n\nWhat will you be doing for Cloud Imperium?\nA little bit of everything! I write the daily messaging, interact with the fans, help with the marketing plan and have worked on the initial design of the game! I write most of the copy you see at the RSI and CIG websites and several articles for every Jump Point. It has been a great experience so far, learning how all this works, meeting an amazing fan community and working with a bunch of my childhood heroes. (Instead of baseball cards as a kid I had Origin\u2019s \u201cPlaytesters Guides\u201d that introduced the team members.) What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen\/Squadron 42?\nThere\u2019s so much to the game, I don\u2019t know where to start. The multi-crewed ships are on my mind right now, though, because they\u2019re going to be such a revolution in space combat. When space sims \u201cdied\u201d in the 1990s one of the criticisms was that there wasn\u2019t anywhere to go with them\u2026 and we\u2019re going to prove that thought very, very wrong. Running a Constellation or a Retaliator with your friends is going to be like living in Star Wars or Firefly\u2026 a total game changer for the genre. What are you playing right now?\nThe hardcore game answer is that I\u2019m very slowly playing through Bioshock: Infinite. The real answer is that I\u2019m spending every extra minute building my house in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I still spend most of my gaming time in the Wing Commander universe, though! I just started playing through the FM Towns port of the original game again. Maybe I\u2019ll do a little dogfighting on the livestream next week\u2026"},"links_count":1,"comment_count":74,"created_at":"2013-06-19T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"12 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-13 23:39:31","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":13063,"next_id":13065}}