Meet the Team: Loren Roosendaal, Founder and Chairman

Over the past three months, we have been able to introduce you to some of the great people that are constantly working on realizing the PlanetQuest vision. However, some of our observant Еxplorers might have wondered why we have not introduced one specific person yet. Someone that quickly made a name for themselves while proclaiming their obsession with Earl Grey and simultaneously spilling all of PlanetQuest’s tea. Many of you will have seen him go by RetroBooster in our Discord, now it’s time for you to meet Loren Roosendaal, one of our founders and PlanetQuest’s mastermind.

Hello Loren! Could you please introduce yourself to the community?

I am Loren Roosendaal, also known as RetroBooster in our Discord. I’m originally from the Netherlands, although I have been around the world a fair few times. Right now, I’m in Dubai where I might be spending a lot more time over the next few years. I am one of the Founders of PlanetQuest.

Tell us about your background! And how did you land in the games industry?

I rolled into video games at a very, very young age. I was about 10 years old when I got my very own first computer. By age 11, I figured out I enjoyed building video games even more than I liked playing them. That was entirely self-taught. I quickly got into modding and total conversions.

I started taking games like Command & Conquer and modifying files to see what I could make them do. In some cases that might make the game not start up anymore and in other cases it might create an explosion that is three times as big as normal, the latter case being a lot more interesting. I basically started dabbling in modifications for the Command & Conquer series.

By the time I was 12, an internet connection had rolled into our home, and I found out that there were other people online that really loved to do this, too. Various bulletin boards and ICQ let me connect with them — before long, I ended up setting up a team of some six people. We started working on a total conversion of Command & Conquer into a realistic recreation of WWII. I found two other groups working on the same idea and even at 12, I thought, “Hey, that’s not very efficient”. Before long, I organized my first merger and then there were around twenty of us.

It was around age 14–15 that we finished that project. We put it online on places like FilePlanet and it ended up racking up around 3 million downloads, it also helped Westwood sell quite a lot of additional copies of the Command & Conquer game it was based on.

That’s how I rolled into video games. Soon after, I started working on MMOs, some of the very first ones. This included the very first MMOFPS, Neocron. This was very much in the days where MMO teams were still starting out in garages… just past EverQuest and pre-World of Warcraft. I eventually ended up managing a team of gamemasters there and organizing events for 10.000’s of subscribers. From that, I rolled into co-founding my first Silicon Valley-based game studio around age 20, which we grew from three to forty-five people in six months, and was the subject of a reality show with John Romero, the designer of Doom, providing commentary. After this I went into more serious applications of in-game technology.

Although I always stayed connected to the videogame and movie industry, it wasn’t until four or so years ago that I started getting deeply into building video games again by co-founding Bright Star. Where I’m working with some fantastic founders and helping an amazing team to build Ember Sword, the very first Blockchain MMO and one of the most hotly anticipated games out there right now.

What inspired the creation of PlanetQuest and how did you come up with the vision?

I think it might be good to rewind a little bit: the ideas of PlanetQuest came up in very early conversations with the founding team. We talked about a lot, but we kept returning to questions like: “How far can you take this concept of building a universe with the community? How about the concept of true ownership? And how can you take that beyond just games?” This is where PlanetQuest started taking shape. A guiding idea of ours was, “Wouldn’t it be great if the next Star Wars or Marvel cinematic multiverse was created alongside the community from the beginning?”

This was a big starting point for PlanetQuest. The idea of this cinematic multiverse then made us ask, “What if we could have people own entire planets?” That would be amazing, right? And it started to take shape from that. Another part of it is that PlanetQuest is inspired by early access games and the whole movement of making people a greater part of the game creation process. With my background, I love seeing more people get involved in creating on this scale.

Another inspiration for PlanetQuest has to do with the storytelling. I have a massive love for sci-fi. There was always that thought on the back my mind, you know? You’ve experienced so many amazing sci-fi universes and you’re asking yourself how to bring the elements you loved the most in those together into a new universe? From the story perspective, that was a big deal for us.

Finally, when we’re looking at gameplay, that goes way, way back. The game design of PlanetQuest, when it comes down to on-planet gameplay, carries inspiration all the way back from 2001 or so. One of the more obscure games from those days, a gem in its category, was Infantry Online. This game was, for the comparatively few people lucky enough to have played it, a unique experience. Essentially, a couple of really, really cool mechanics made the game amazing.

Vast maps to play on and a decent number of players, especially for the time. It had a kind of class-based combat at the core of which players used energy as a damage absorbing shield as well as to power weapons and other gear. There was a constant trade-off, which made the gameplay interesting and even strategic to some extent.

Finally, its use of teleportation was special. Teleportation is nothing new in gaming, but the way that it was handled in Infantry Online…it became iconic, adding to the ebb and flow of the gameplay. You could select another player from the player list on your team and teleport to them, allowing whole teams to assemble in seconds, but it would also drain your entire energy reserve, which meant that teleport straight into combat would end up getting you killed very quickly.

Options like these led to player creativity. Eventually, players started creating these text macros to talk and strategize together. People would start spamming these situational text lines like: “This is Bulldozer, I’m outside enemy base at F3, location safe, teleport to me to attack!” and everyone would teleport, attack, defend etc. This entire ebb and flow of things led to an amazing experience. This was a major inspiration for PlanetQuest.

Could you tell us a bit more about your role in PlanetQuest?

I think that as a founder, the way I approach the companies I’ve helped build has always been to try and bring the right people together and empower them to do amazing things. A lot of these companies were born from me getting together with some of my friends and wanting to help them create something amazing. Rather than taking on a very specific role or activity, given the busy schedule I have, it’s more about just shaping a vision, helping to bring the right people together and supporting them as they take on this large challenge.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself!

Quirky facts are a dime a dozen. As a kid I played chess a lot, which might not be too surprising. I also used to do a fair bit of sleight of hand and mentalism for fun. Oh, and at some point I was one of the top 10 players in the world in an RTS game called Dawn of War, so you might say I have a bit of a competitive streak.

What’s the story behind you drinking tea and do you have any of this exclusive tea that can be shared by you ;)?

First off, another interesting fact about me: I have tasted coffee three times in my life. Every single time I absolutely hated it, including the last, when I tried it from someone with this $100,000 coffee machine that they were showing off at an event.

Instead of coffee, I got to drinking tea. Being a man of habit, I drink pretty much exclusively Earl Grey tea. And if I can, I’ll have Russian Earl Grey because it’s my favorite sub-flavor of Earl Grey. At some point, I think I made a joke in the discord, which by now is becoming a meme; I said: “Oh, you know, there must be something in the tea I’m drinking, because I’m spilling all the beans today.” This has been embraced by the community, since.

Is there any tea to spill today?

There is! Without spilling too much, we just brought on a new team member who has been developing videogames for three decades and are continuing to grow the team at a rapid pace. So expect to meet new faces and have more opportunities to interact with the amazing people building the technology and gameplay of PlanetQuest.

What are you looking forward to the most in PlanetQuest?

There is so much to look forward to. I’m really excited about the Planet Sale, where people will get to see these planets from orbit. I think that’s going to be awesome. So much work has gone into the Genesis Engine to bring this about. I’m looking forward to everyone getting to see that. For most of the team, our favorite days are Wednesday and Fridays — that’s when the storyline drops. I’m excited to see how that develops further. And, eventually, just getting to land some high-energy plasma blasts in someone’s face, in-game, of course ;-).

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We can imagine there are probably a lot more things you would like to know about the visionary behind PlanetQuest. Rest assured, there will be plenty of opportunities for you to get to know Loren better and for him to spill more tea about the game. For now, be sure to keep an eye out for RetroBooster in our Discord, as Loren is likely to drop some more secrets and exciting developments soon.