Member of the Month January 2017 (EddieM1974)

HAPPY NEW MEMBER OF THE MONTH!!. HA gotcha didn't I? Well it is a new month and a new year and now a new hour!! lol. I hope everyone out there in GTN land had a very happy, safe and nice new year. As we put 2016 behind us just This member also put something behind him. Now if you're done nursing your hangovers and want to get back on track here is where to start.. so lets get started and read what this rising star has to say.


Name:
Edwin, usually go by Eddie since it’s easier and more common when communicating with people who speak English.

Where do you live?
I currently live in the Netherlands, to be precise in Tilburg (an average size town of about 250,000 inhabitants in the south of the Netherlands. Quite some years ago I lived in Penzance, England for a short while.

My family consists of me, my wife Josine and our beautiful daughter Amber. Our daughter was born in April, so that makes us pretty new at parenting . We also are the owners of three rather big cats. They’re some sort of cross-breeds of Maine-Coon with whatever.... Just imagine 10 pounds of fur and craziness each, and you’ll have a pretty good idea.

What do you do for a living?
After getting my Bachelor of Arts I started out as a teacher of English on a school for children with learning and behavioral difficulties. A great job seeing those kids develop and grow in their personal lives. Very hard work, but very rewarding.

Since it took quite a toll on my personal life however, not all the kids were eager to play nice to put it mildly, I decided to look further. At that time teaching jobs were hard to get so I went in a completely different direction. Through a temp agency I started to work for a health insurance company at customer service. After only three weeks they offered me a contract. Since then I have developed myself through studies at schools of applied sciences, ending up in finance (still with the same health insurance company). I’m currently responsible for reporting to Financial Supervisory Bodies. So I’m used to juggling around millions of Euros

Tell me about your Gamertag?
Eddiem1974
My gamertag isn’t really spectacular. When I started gaming on the Xbox I basically needed a GT. I just took my first name, the first letter of my last name and added my year of birth in the mix. As happened to be it was available and has served me well ever since.

When did you start playing?
I started gaming when I was about 9 or 10. We had a Sharp MZ 700 desktop at home that was supposed to be for my dad’s work. At first I just played the games that were on the tapes it ran on. A little later on I started to develop my own ‘games’ using the programming language Basic. From that moment on I was hooked. After the Sharp we got a Commodore 64.

Very soon I stepped over to my first console, the Atari 2600. Since then I’ve owned NES, Super NES, Playstation, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, current generation laptops for Win8/Win10 games and several WP’s.

The NES was the console that really dragged me into the gaming community. Playing Mario (with the ever annoying dumb wench of a princess), Legend of Zelda, Ghouls and Goblins, Medieval and countless other gems.

The X1 had been neglected by me for quite a long time. My initial thought was there were nowhere near enough decent games for it. I managed to hold off until this year. So at this moment I’m also the proud owner of an X1, a complete newbie at X1 games and making up for lost ground.

What's your play style? Ex: booster? Completionist? How often and long do you play?
I’m anything but a completionist where achievements are concerned, but I do try to search every nook and cranny in a game. To me gaming comes first, achievements are a close second, but second nonetheless. I dare say I’ve played more of some games than people owning all achievements in them.

I prefer playing single player. Online and multiplayer are ok for the occasional boosting session, but they’re not really my fancy. There’s just too many people online who only yell, swear, mod games, and ruin gameplay for ‘fun’.

What’s your current gaming setup like?
My gaming set up is pretty simple. A good 4k enabled tv standing on top of a cabinet which holds both my Xbox 360 and my X1.
I also own a MSI gaming laptop for all non-Xbox games and the few Win10 games that are Xbox-enabled.

Tell me a good gaming story or experience? ex: Epic win/fail, marathon, accomplishment, a time you visited a game convention or met someone...or anything.
Both my best and worst experience with the gaming community happened while playing Project Spark. As several people on this site already know, I had huge difficulties getting the Rising Star achievement. Getting that achievement took 6 boosting sessions and I’ve played thousands of other people’s worlds which must have taken dozens of hours.

From those 6 sessions 4 were complete and utter train wrecks in which I got screwed over big time. Each time we’d get together a group of sixty to eighty people. And each time around 15 to 20 people decided to only help their specific group, screwing over the majority of players. Afterwards they of course all claimed to be the best participant in that session and had played everyone’s world several times. One person even claimed to have played worlds with all his 20 accounts.

Last time I finally got the achievement, all be it by the skin of my teeth. Half an hour before the countdown ended I had only 86 plays on my world. I decided to get in touch with about everyone who owned Project Spark. It were real life friends, friends on various gaming sites and complete strangers. Pleading and trying to convince them to play my world. With just a couple of minutes to go I got to 101 plays. The people who got me over the threshold were Itzz Sh0wt1m3 and a mate of his. That guy didn’t even know me and got me 5 plays. I’m still very, very grateful for their help.

Do you have a special shout out to anyone in particular in the gaming community?
Definitely Itzz Sh0wt1m3 for his huge help on Rising Star.

What's your favorite game genre?
I’m a huge fan of racing games. I’d like to think I’m pretty decent at them as well. RPG’s are another soft spot with me. In the course of my gaming career I’ve seen and played the best and the worst in games for both genres.

What’s your favorite game on 360? ONE? Of all time (any system)
On the 360 it’s a close call between Lost Odyssey, Enchanted Arms (a lot of people hate it, but I liked it from the beginning), Forza Motorsport 4 and Project Gotham Racing 4.

X1: as mentioned before I a bit of a newbie to this system. From what I’ve played so far Forza Motorsport 5, but it’s really too early to tell.

All systems: Both the first Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy VII. These were games I played so often, I would still know every secret, every weapon and every tactic to use . Both of them also are in the small list of games I completed and replayed several times.

What is your worst game and Why?
Got a couple of hours :-). I’ve played numerous POS games. Here we go. In no particular order:
- Forza Horizon 2 Fast & Furious (360): I had to play the final two races in completely blank screens. To this day I still don’t know how I completed it.
- The Game Room series (WP): the controls are god awful. Almost impossible to complete on phone.
-[url="https://www.gamertagnation.com/games/game-3632/"]Throne Together (wp/Win8): if a game is difficult that’s ok, but this is just ridiculous. Impossible to complete without paying. (And I’m from the generation of the insta-kill games. One hit and you’re dead.)
- Leisure Suit Larry Box Office Bust (360): do I really need to explain??? Please have mercy....
- Three Fourths Home; Extended Edition (X1): god, this was boring. Also had the most obnoxious achievement for having to listen to 52 minutes of horrendous ‘music’ .

If you were a Video Game or game character who and why?
I think I’d go for Link (Legend of Zelda). You get to play around with numerous weapons, wield magic, get to travel around, and in the end you even get the girl :-) What’s not to like?

Are you looking forward to any new releases?
I’m intrigued by We Happy Few. They did a bloody good job on Contrast, and I’m really curious what their new game will play like.

Do you collect or not so much?
You might even call it hoarding. I own over 1,100 games and the number is still rising. I also have no intention of getting rid of them any time soon. I guess all gamers are like that.

What else do you do besides gaming?
Off course nowadays most of my time is being claimed by my little girl. It’s great watching her get stronger and getting curious about the world around her, but besides taking care of my daughter, work and gaming, I try to create time to read, watch movies (still need to put Deadpool in the DVD-player), and go out for a nice dinner with the missus.

What's your favorite feature on GTN?
That must be the forums. They are made for and by a small group of enthusiastic gamers who know what they are talking about (at least some of the time). I really like the fact that this community is smaller than you find on other sites. And there is way less drama than on a site we all know.....(there’s bound to be some drama but not overly annoying).

What would you tell people about GTN if you were trying to get them to join?
If I want people to join I tell them about the close and tight community. Everyone can, and will, speak their minds and people will help you if you just ask them. It’s the opposite of most sites where you ask a question, and three weeks later no-one has responded or even looked at it. If you’re really unlucky your post has even been deleted. People at GTN are enthusiastic about their gaming and proud of their accomplishments, all at their own level, but most importantly they care for the gaming community.

Is there anything you would like added to the site?
Most of the site I love just the way it is. The only thing I’d add is just a minor improvement. In forums there are several topics that have multiple pages. Now I have to scroll way down to the bottom of a page to pick the page I want to read. I’d add the page selection possibility at the top of the page as well as on the bottom.

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Congrats on being MotM!

First MoTM of 2017 congrats.

Edwin isn't a common name in English speaking areas of the world? It is a fairly common name, if potentially out of popularity, in the US.

Good read!

Welcome to becoming member of the MotM club. Nice to see another person that programmed in Basic back in the days
Remember when you written all the code and it got a error, and finding out it was just a letter wrong after long time trying to figure it out?

Thanks people! Really glad I made MotM. Hope the read wasn't too boring ������.

@futiles: Edwin is a name that's sporadically used in England. Apparently it was a rather popular name in medieval times. As for America I have to admit I have no idea whether or not the name is used ������

@Mardagg: Most of the time it was an annoying little typo that had you searching for it for hours. Either a letter that you mixed up, or a number in a line reference you made a mistake in. The most satisfying moment was when you had written thousands of lines of code and it worked first time. To this day I still regret having quit 'programming'.

Great read and welcome to the MotM club. Itzz Sh0wt1m3 has always been a great asset to so many folks - nice plug!

@futiles: Edwin is a name that's sporadically used in England. Apparently it was a rather popular name in medieval times. As for America I have to admit I have no idea whether or not the name is used ������

Originally Posted by EddieM1974

The second man to walk on the moon is named Edwin, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. Three time governor of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards. Edwin Starr, the Motown Singer most famous for the song WAR. Edwin Hubble, Astronomer for whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named. Just to name a few Americans of note to be named Edwin in recent memory.

So, not the most popular name in the US, but, far from uncommon.

Congrats on MotM.

Congrats Eddie!

Eddie i agree with you on that. But programming wasn't my thing. I was more of the building person, guess that's why I liked building networks and computers instead

Congrats Eddie on MotM, nice read!!

Congrats :-)

Congratulations on getting MotM! That was a great read!

I really enjoyed Enchanted Arms right from the beginning too! It wasn't the best game I've played, but it was definitely an enjoyable RPG!

I also love Enchanted Arms!!!!! Great interview and congrats!!!!