Christian “Dr. Fusselpulli” Piontek moved from Düsseldorf in Germany to Prague in the Czech Republic to become the Community Manager for Warhorse Studios. He has a foible for realistic games and movies and started in the community as a moderator before he joined the team.
Do you have any questions to Christian “Dr.Fusselpulli” Piontek? Please ask here!
You can find a Spanish translation of this interview here.
1) Where can we usually find you lurking in the holy halls of Warhorse?
My place is in the PR department, in the middle of the Studio with short distances to every other office. It is the spot right behind the huge pile of paper of dialogues for the voiceovers and next to the sweets of the Tobi-shop.
The view from the window is quite nice, as I can see the Statue of Jan Žižka up on Vítkov Hill.
The interesting part is, that this was not just a nice hill for a monument like this, it was the actual place from where he defended Prague against Sigismund during the Hussite wars in the Battle of Vítkov Hill in 1420.
huge pile of voiceover papers.
2) How did you hear about Warhorse?
I heard about Warhorse Studios in the late Summer of 2014 after the Kickstarter campaign. I wanted to watch an RPG let´s play on YouTube, because RPGs can be quite interesting to watch. They often have an interesting story and some YouTubers put some effort into the background story of their characters.
On my search for a new RPG (which I hadn´t discovered yet), I came across an RPG called “Kingdom Come: Deliverance." It looked very interesting because I am a fan of realistic games and movies about history.
I was hooked by this game instantly and had to look for more information about it and then I joined the community here on the forum.
At first, I didn´t wanted to spoil myself, but then I couldn´t resist. Warhorse was already quite open about their idea and what the game would be about, but I wanted to know more! I knew Kingdom Come: Deliverance would tell a historical story, so if I found out what happened in that area in Bohemia in 1403, I would know what the story is about. So, I began to dig deeper and posted my findings on the forum.
Tobi noticed my passion as I was very active in the community. He then asked me if I wanted to become a moderator, which I did!
A few months later, in the late summer of 2015, Tobi asked me if I wanted to help Warhorse Studios in the Public booth at Gamescom, and I said yes. I also provided shelter for our two voluntary knights from Zitadelle.
This was the first time I met the Warhorse Studios team in real life. It was a lot of fun, but also very exhausting. Afterwards, Tobi asked me if I wanted to join Warhorse Studios as a Community Manager. In October 2015 I moved from Düsseldorf in Germany to Prague in the Czech Republic, and here I am!
3) Describe your position. What is it about being a Community Manager?
My job is to answer the questions from the Community, which is basically everyone who contacts us, except for business partners and press.
I get all types of questions about the game and the development on social media, the forum and email. People want to know about all kind of things, or want to send us their idea of the perfect game, but we are already busy on developing Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I also get a lot of technical requests about the Launcher or problems with their profile or their game. If I can´t solve them on my own I get help from our QA-Team (most of the time I ask Proky in this cases).
I am like the bridge between the Community and the Development team, and this works both ways. With my answers to questions, posts on social media and the weekly torch, I want to provide an inside view into the development of the game and be a contact for the team. At the same time, I collect requests and the mood from the community and carry this information back into the team.
I also support Tobi as an assistant on his task of being a PR manager. For example, I help him to prepare for a Livestream or every week I´m collecting all the Media articles for an evaluation.
4) Have you ever worked on Videogames before?
No. I studied social science in Düsseldorf and worked as a freelancer for an advertising agency as a graphic designer, so I know how to use photoshop.
It is the first time I’ve work on a Videogame. I was working on some mods for ArmA II and Skyrim before, but I haven´t gotten very far and my work never saw the light of day.
What I really enjoy even more than playing a game is creating scenarios, as long as there is an editor option. Back then I spend a lot of time on the editors of Warcraft II and Age of Empires, but I really went crazy on Operation Flashpoint and the ArmA series. It is amazing how creative you can get in this series and it is a pleasure now to work on the same team as Viktor Bocan, the creator of Operation Flashpoint. He is the hero of my childhood.
5) Please describe Warhorse Studios:
I really like it here at Warhorse Studios. It is very calm and friendly, even if it can be stressful from time to time, because developing a game like Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a very complex task. But the team is awesome, sometimes we like to go in a pub together and you can have very interesting conversations.
6) What is your favorite team activity?
In the end of summer, we go a team event at a small castle in Malešov, where we have a barbecue, drink beer and play board games. Tobi likes to bring his collection of Settlers of Catan, but I also enjoy the rounds of Codenames pictures or Secret Hitler.
7) What are you currently working on?
Right now, we are at Gamescom in Cologne. It is very loud and crowdy, but this year we have the biggest booth we ever had. Guests can try out the first quest of Kingdom Come: Deliverance on 1 of 30 computers.
Humans and machines are getting to the limit there. the computers get very hot, running all day, and we are on fire to get all the people to play the game. But it is amazing to get in contact with so many people. We are working extremly hard in our booth and we have an awesome team there. A big thank you to the people from Deep Silver and the Berliner Rittergilde.
8) What do you think is the most important part or thing in the game?
I think the most important thing of the game is the realistic atmosphere. If you play Kingdom Come: Deliverance you are really immersed into the game; it feels very realistic and you can truly imagine yourself being there.
9) What is the most important characteristic a Community Manager must have?
As a Community Manager you need to have a lot of patience, because people ask the same questions over and over again. But I assume teachers have the same problem. They teach the same facts to the kids every year, over and over again.
10) What do you like the most about Kingdom Come: Deliverance?
I am a big fan of realistic games and movies, so Kingdom Come: Deliverance is the right game for me.
I like to visit the reconstructed churches and castles. I have seen the Talmberk castle and I was in Rattay, Samopesh and the Sazava Monastery. It is fascinating to compare it to the buildings in the game, and it feels like you’re walking into a time machine.
11) How, when and with what platform or game did you first get acquainted with videogames?
My father bought an Atari ST in the end of the 80s. We played Dungeon Master and Test Drive together. It is amazing to see how games have developed since then.
12) Which class, gender, or type do you usually pick?
I really like to play as a sneaky archer. I prefer to play as a male one, but gender is not so important to me.
I just don´t like to play as a magician.
13) Are there any videogames you repeat playing over and over again?
Every then and now I come back to play ArmA. Operation Flashpoint was my favorite game for a long time, and the ArmA series is basically the same game, but with better graphics and more possibilities.
14) What would a perfect game according to your wishes look like?
Probably a mixture of ArmA, Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Crusader Kings II.
15) Most hilarious bug you have ever encountered or worst video game experience?
There was a very strange bug in Operation Flashpoint, back then before the 1.30 patch.
When a Tank got destroyed, it was slowly sliding uphill over the ground.
There was a canyon in the west of the island Malden in the game, the slope of the cliff itself was way too steep for the tank to slide uphill, but the plateau on the top was also not flat either.
I used the Editor to put an already destroyed tank on this plateau, and let it slide slowly into a group of anti-tank mines to catapult it with a huge explosion into the canyon, where I waited as a player to watch a tank dropping next to my feet. Sometimes it hits me…
16) What game have you been really looking forward to but turned out to be a total disappointment?
Ohhh… the U-boat simulation Silent Hunter V was such a huge disappointment. I was a huge fan of Silent Hunter III, and I was quite active in the community. When I heard the news about a new Silent Hunter part I was thrilled. The ideas were quite amazing as they wanted to make a Simulation with RPG-Elements where you could walk through the boat like a real captain.
However, during the development the game got ripped apart slowly. They scrapped all the other U-boats except the VII types. It was the most common type in the war of course, but for the very important “Unternehmen Paukenschlag” during the second world war, you also needed boats of the type IX.
They also ended the game in 1943 already, which was a bad joke in my opinion.
It was easy to see that they just wanted to close the development and release an unfinished game early. Although I was a huge Silent Hunter fan, I never bought part V of the series and I was not the only one. The game sold badly and Silent Hunter V was the last part of the series. What a pity.
17) What species is your spirit animal?
I like the common Bohemian Bacon Dumpling.
Such friendly and tasty creatures, you have to love them.
18) Sport is…
I like to practice traditional archery with a longbow. Sadly, my equipment is still in Germany.
Every time in the summer when I go back home for a couple of days, I really enjoy to go and shoot a few arrows together with my girlfriend. just for fun.
It is not a medieval bow, but a modern version with laminated fiberglass. Thanks to CSWBS who helped us to create the right sounds for the archery in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, I also got the opportunity to shoot a medieval recreation of an 80lbs war-bow.
You can´t compare my small arrows to the beasts you have to shoot with this equipment.
I was only able to shoot a few times, because my arms got soft and I was not able to shoot properly anymore. Unbelievable that 80lbs is just the start of a war-bow, and they also used way heavier bows back then. Lars Andersen can´t deal with powerful equipment like that.
19) Is it possible to buy you with candy?
Yes definitely.
20) Imagine you are a cake, what kind of cake are you and why?
If I would be a cake, it would probably be a fluffy mint cake with dark chocolate.
A bit odd and bitter from the outside, but sweet and fresh from the inside.
21) Who is your favorite historic character?
Count Adolf VIII. of Berg (Adolf V. in German literature), who gave the rights of a City to Düsseldorf in 1288. By the way: He is a family member of King Wenceslaus IV. and King Sigismund from Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
I really like his story: he once was an unimportant count in the west of the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. Then his uncle, Waleran IV., Duke of Limburg died without a male successor and therefore Waleran´s daughter, Irmgard became Duchess.
She was married with Reginald I, the count of Guelders, but she died in 1283 before him.
Reginald I became the new duke of Limburg, but count Adolf VIII. claimed this to be his title, because Irmgard was his niece. That’s how the war of the Limburg Succession started.
He had no power to do anything against Reginald I, but he was clever and he sold his claim of the title to his mighty friend John I, duke of Brabant for 32,000lbs of silver.
Now Siegfried II. of Westerburg, the Archbishop of Cologne had awakened. He was one of the most powerful people in the Empire, with a lot of lands in the lower Rhine region. However, he had to fear the alliance between the duke of Brabant and the count of Berg, especially if they claimed the Duchy of Limburg because they would get too powerful for him, which would lead him into a difficult situation. So, he claimed a veto, Reginald I. needed to keep dutchy of Limburg. Siegfried II. would even fight for him.
John I. didn´t care because he paid a lot of money for his title and occupied Limburg in 1285.
They would fight for 3 years, leading to the big battle of Worringen in 1288 near Cologne.
The citizens of Cologne hated their archbishop, so they saw their opportunity to rebel against him and joined the site of Adolf VIII. and John I. against Reginald I. and Siegfried II.
A battle occurred with around 6,000 knights and a lot of infantry.
Reginald I and Siegfried II lost the battle and both got imprisoned. Reginald I had to acknowledge John I. as the true duke of Limburg and he renounced all claims on Limburg.
Siegfried II. had to pay over 3 tons of silver and most of his lands to Adolf VIII. to get free after 13 months of imprisonment, and Cologne got a free city under the Empire because it was no longer a property of the catholic church.
Although Adolf VIII. was a very powerful count in the Empire now, he looked with worries on the situation about Cologne. This was one of the biggest and most powerful cities in the Empire. Now without their archbishop keeping them occupied, they would become even more powerful quite soon, and this would be his next problem in the future.
That´s why Düsseldorf got the rights to the city from him, a few miles down the river Rhine, every merchant from the north had to stop in Düsseldorf first and expose their wares.
The people of Cologne hated Düsseldorf, this new city which got rich on their backs, but there wasn´t anything they could do about it.
In 1292 Adolf VIII. of Berg got into an ambush of Siegfried II., who imprisoned him and tortured him for four years.
Adolf VIII. died 1296 without children in the dungeons of Siegfried II.
Siegfried II. died just one year later, as a late cause from the imprisonment in Adolfs dungeon.
22) You have to fight in medieval times who are you?
I would become an Archer, because I properly know how to use a bow.
23) If you could say something to the fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, what would it be?
I really like the Kingdom Come: Deliverance community, which is more mature than other communities and I still see myself as a part of the community, because that´s where I came from.
Do you have any questions to Christian “Dr.Fusselpulli” Piontek? Please ask here!
