TraBot... both the die-hards of the first hour as those that have just come checking Omerta out in 3.0 know without a doubt what this name stands for... Much lesser known is the size of the network ( 5 bots, maintaining 222 channels for family business/information of just pure fun ) or the story behind it... At the eve of the this wonderful php-bot's third anniversary we take a closer look at the creator.

How did you get in touch with Omerta in the first place ? (as you don't go from zero to bot-builder just like that )

Hmm a few friends from school played it, about 4 years ago, and they kinda dragged me in.

Got hooked by the game right away and played multiple versions (.dm .com .nl) ?

Not really, over all the version I've been around I only reached Bruglione once (.dm ) and Local Chief (.nl), the rest of the versions I usually got killed before I reached mobster because I forgot to bank my money. I've always been more active on irc then in the game.

That love for IRC has brought you to other functions around the game as well?

Yea it got me into the IRC crew, formerly known as Feds, in which I have been active for over 2 years now.

How did you come up with the idea of building TraBot? Any specific reasons or causes?

The first family I was in (somewhere in 2.3) had a bot, and I was like: hey I want that too, so I started to build a mIRC bot. However since my pc was only on for about 2 hours a day then, I needed to think of a solution if I wanted to make a useful bot. That solution was hosting it on a web server, and since i already was quite familiar with PHP, the choice to write it in PHP wasn't that hard. That is how TraBot was born.

A remarkable birth indeed, and one that still has an influence on the game, how did it grow from a personal gimmick you wanted to try to a version-wide success?

I really don't have a clue. It just became more and more popular over the years and right now I run 4 main bots in over 200 family channels, so you can kinda say it escalated a bit.

In what way did you take measures to ensure the grow? As the original TraBot wouldn't have been able to perform at the level the network does now...

The original TraBot indeed wasn't coded to run as a network, so when the first bot reached its channel limit, I had to rewrite large parts of the code to let the bots not collide with each other. I've had to rewrite more parts of the code though, there isn't much left of the original code nowadays.

Rewriting both to add more features and to allow for more users ?

Mainly rewriting to make it run better. The last year there haven't been added a lot of new features, but I've been rewriting large parts of the code to make it run better, use less resources (memory mainly) and have better managing functions. The largest rewrite was to support more languages though, as the bot started in Dutch only, and later English was added in the code. Now it just selects the right text from the database to use when people use a command, which makes it possible for me to add new languages quite easily.

Can you recall what functions the basic, first, non-php TraBot supported?

Not many, mainly fun commands and maybe a simple invite system was in, the thing that I do recall is that it used weird colors and was very buggy.

So a long journey has been made already in these three years... but what does the near and more distant future hold for TraBot? What would you like to see realized if at all possible ?

I don't really have many plans for the IRC part. You could say I'm kinda out of ideas of what to add. As I mentioned before, the last year hardly any new things got added, I've only been improving stuff and rewriting code so it is more efficient.

What hints or advice would you give a starting bot-builder or irc-dabbler?

Google is your best friend! There is a lot of information about mIRC scripting on the internet. You won't create a full functional irc bot in a rainy afternoon though; it takes hours and hours of trial and error.

With TraBot as tricked out as you can imagine, it does leave a lot of open time for your other interests... Did it have an effect on your choices in studies etc?

Not really, I've never been planning to study anything IT related. I like creating stuff on the computer as a hobby, but I don't see myself behind a desk and a pc in a dusty office the rest of my life.

What other plans do you have then for the future besides the usual upkeep of Trabot ?

The current planning is to finish my study Mining Engineering at TU Delft, I haven't really been planning beyond that, should take a few years before I'm there.

Thanks for the peak view behind the curtains Trace, and all that remains for me now is to wish you best of luck in your real life quests and ask who you would like to see interviewed next ?

You're welcome. You could try interviewing Oyaji about those lovely 50x errors which have been terrorizing Omerta lately.