Ask ME (Volund) Anything :)

[Volund]

hello free rider app community. i love you all. and so this here thread is an opportunity to ask me quite literally anything you like and i will reply with complete honesty and transparency. there are some ground rules though.

ONE:- if you are annoying...
TWO:- if you ask something weird i will order @Pete to dox you.
THREE:- coager is dark as hell bro wtf
FOUR:- anything that i write here in this thread is 100% TRUE. i do not possess the ability to lie. so dont think you can come into this thread with pete and "fact check" me. this rule guarantees that everything i say has already been fact checked with the relevant authorities.

[Anonyymi]

can i ask anything
is eryp in the epstein files
when will glider come out
how to make featured track
will there be voldun rider ever
how black and how woman is coager

[elibloodthirst]

So you honed your style in the remix contest, when did you realise that your style should stick like that going forward.

You changed your username for obvious reasons, what is the idea behind volund.

Are there any tracks that you've seen and you wished you had came up with that idea or had been part of the project?

What's your guilty pleasure track?

Do you regret sticking around after all this time?

[Volund]

@Anonyymi welcome to this thread! thank you for your lovely questions. very thought provoking. i will answer all of these questions with complete honesty and accuracy.

1. yes but not in the way people think; he loved playing xbox with his buddy jeff and is in the files saying some... unsavoury things on xbox live i dare not repeat them here.

2. when the woke left stops ruining free rider #makeridinggreatagain #ijustwanttofreelyride get these hashtags trending and im sure the glider will be back in no time at all

3. ok so what you want to do is fire up the editor. make sure that shit is really heated up ready for some awesome freaking drawing. toasty. pure fucking flames. then you of course need to set up your settings (get it lol). make sure your keybinds feel natural on your flaming hot editor. get inspired from previous exampes of a hot as fuuuuuuck editor - i suggest from players like Figured. finally, you then need to close the editor and instead play minecraft for 14 hours

4. there actually is a volund rider already ! just go ask you mom about it lol.

[mbcool]

Hello Vlound . I've always been wondering how it's felt to have always been Zycerak's shadow. I know it's something that many longtime players have had to cope with over the years, and I was wondering how you went about that? What's it like uploading a track knowing that Zycerak is still an absolute beast and everyone else will go play his instead?

Thank you for you're time and consideration
(you're*)

Sincerely
mbcool

[Volund]

@elibloodthirst very interesting questions, very eager to answer

1. i think there was three stages to this. first was in 2014 and early 2015 when i realised i was too shit to be drawing like xwinx and lolz there are a couple tracks on @codrey where i tried some heavy detailed forests, and plenty more NTBFs which ive sadly lost. the second was also in early 2015, watching remix contest 3 unfold and seeing alex and max sweep the competition with lighter detail focused more on world building, ride creation and level design. these two really showed me that there is more to good tracks than super heavy detail, and i figured itd be more doable for me.
   finally, i think where i realised i personally have improved in leaps and bounds as a creator and should stick with this detail going forward, was after unconquered isles - the first track uploaded to @Volund. it was a bit messy, derivative and not very focused, but showed a lot of early signs of what i could do in the future. this was started in mid-2015 and uploaded later in 2015, and from there id make 2 feats in under 9 months; clear signs i was on the right track!

2. Volund was an accidental username but im very glad i picked this and not what I had initially wanted like a lot of free rider players, i wanted to separate myself from both the shittier stuff id made on codrey and the heavy-detail tracks. I love the Eragon series by christopher paolini, and had originally planned on going by "Brisingr" instead, but the name was already taken on FRHD. this was definitely a good thing because that as a username wouldve been uyllds levels of dogshit i then picked Volund instead because the dwarves are my fave race in the series and i think the name looks and sounds sick asf. so still inspiration from Eragon, but with a much better user imo

3. in 2016 i was in a collab with cky, mr..a and alex. it didnt amount to anything, but man i fucking wish we'd finished that, is probably the biggest regret of mine. that or dropping out of the super mario campaign tracks, but in saying that we ultimately got super mario frhd, which is much better than anything i could ever do/contribute to. so less sad about that than the cky, mr..a and alex collab. in general i wish i was less of a flake with collabs, but im either a very slow or very fast artist and unfortunately i have little control over this

4. now this is an interesting question. i think it's probably oblivion ii by tp and nitro. look the track is really rough in sections, but the sheer ambition to make something so humongous is sickly intoxicating to me the more time goes on. and nitro's sections are such a blast. i dont think ill ever be able to finish the track, but i love just going in one direction and exploring. if it werent so big i likely wouldnt care for it at all, but making something to that scale on a medium like free rider - and before fr.app came out - is something i can only respect and admire, no matter the execution
   honourable mention for a similar feeling goes to wyatt's let's explore, though no one will ever make me feel guilty about considering that one of the best tracks of all-time, and imo it's executed much better than o2

5. not at all! there are times i loathe parts of the game or community, but i think these feelings are normal after being connected to something for so long. but no, if anything im really happy i came back after my 2018-2019 hiatus and made some cool shit. creating on here makes me happy unlike almost anything else in my life, and even though drawing on here is tedious, the game is deahd and there are less and less people to appreciate what is being made, i wouldnt change a thing about my time on the game

fantastic questions, was a lot of fun to answer

[Volund]

@mbcool firstly...

secondly,

dont pit two bad bitches against each other. there's plenty of room for both me and my pal @Zycerak to coexist

[mbcool]

@Volund You're right actually. There's plenty of room on the court for two big ballers like yourselves

[elibloodthirst]

1. What contributed to the motivation to keep making after attaining VIP? Over the years most VIPs dipped or posted once or twice but you seem to be one of the few who stuck.

2. What moment in your years here gave you the biggest sense of achievement?

3. How do you maintain your hobby to real life aspirations balance? Has this game contributed to your wants and needs in life?

4. Do you have any hobbies outside of freerider? Has it ever inspired you in freerider

[Ponjoja]

Is this picture true?

[Volund]

@elibloodthirst

1. simply, i think i just like the game enough to keep going. im definitely very goal-oriented as a person, but i think after a certain amount of time put into (insert hobby etc here), you have to be honest with yourself and admit it's less about the goal than it is enjoying your craft. like id say a fair chunk of it is that i want to get to 10 feats at some point, but ultimately i just have patches here and there where im addicted to drawing in the free rider editor. im juggling a few tracks rn, maybe theyll never see the light of day, maybe ill finish them all, but no matter what i will have (mostly) enjoyed my time creating them

2. i think there's three big moments for me:
   the first was releasing mage's lair in jan 2016. i worked so hard on that track for 2 weeks straight and for it to both get wide-spread appreciation in the community, get featured, and finish 2nd in that round of the remix contest... little can compare to how happy i was for that month. both seeing a feature badge on my profile for the first time and really reaching my potential as a player instilled a heap of confidence and happiness in me
   the second would have to be finishing and uploading ambition. coming to the end of a long journey to be rewarded with toty, vip and most-importantly a track i am so thrilled with, felt like shades of what happened back in 2016
   the third is hosting and getting to watch the success of the cityshep fundraiser. ill never forget, never in my life to the day i die, being in a discord call with a dozen+ other people for hours, all coming together to contribute to something greater than ourselves

3. not very well im all or nothing which is a huge contributor towards my flakiness as a collab partner and my less-than-ideal track output. the best balance ive had is with ambition, where i just slowly but surely worked on it for months in 2022 and 2023. otherwise, all my tracks have been done in huge chunks:

mage's lair - two weeks for remix contest
aoal - one month for frhd oc
ataraxy - two weeks over winter break, one small week-long session afterwards
tot - two weeks for remix contest
bl - 5 days for remix contest
n//ta - three weeks over mid-sem break
pv - one week over a holiday period

usually, to make sure this hobby doesnt impact real world ambitions (which are more important), id work over holiday periods. this way i could work towards both my irl aspirations and my frhd aspirations, without the latter impeding the former in any huge way. i think as ive gotten older ive had to temper expectations a bit (a lot) regarding my frhd aspirations, as ive realised my goals are only achievable in these short, week(s)-long blitzes; i really struggle to just chip away at tasks over a long span of time. so when the opportunity does present itself, i at least give myself a shot to finish a track and take another step towards a frhd aspiration, before returning to my irl goals

and yes, game has definitely contributed to my wants and needs! i think creative outlets are absolutely necessary for everyone to live a fulfilling and healthy life, and frhd has been that for me for years and years. and it also feeds the natural human want for attention, praise and notoriety too, which never goes astray lol

4. definitely! im a bit of a hobby-hopper, but these are the ones i commonly come back to:

photography
very easy one, if i need reference pics ill often just go out and find them in real life. ive went to art galleries to take photos of installations for art inspo, forests/beaches/hills for nature inspo, down dirty alleys in the city, etc etc. my favourite thing of all to photograph are clouds, just going out somewhere and looking for cool formations to snap, which always really fuel what i draw in frhd

writing
i spend a decent chunk of time doing creative writing. short stories, standalone novel chapters, personal history, game and media analysis... although a very different medium to frhd, i have a few documents ive been writing in with the express intention to be used in a track. will it ever get finished? who knows, but i must say that i get very inspired to draw after a session of writing

reading
probably the biggest influence on my tracks is what i read, which is a lot of fantasy. my tracks are all fantasy-themed with very few exceptions, these are the worlds i love getting lost in the most. read tales from earthsea, you wont be disappointed

other hobbies which dont really influence my stuff on frhd but i get a hell of a lot of enjoyment out of:
cooking, gym, single player games (some like silksong are a huge inspiration, but most arent), listening to new music, youtube

great questions, wouldnt have thought of any of these myself

[Volund]

@Ponjoja ...

@Pete I need to send Ponjoja a package, but have lost his address Please tell me his full address and if you have access to his full name, that as well please.

[Volund]

erm guys... not seeing enough movement in here

[Zycerak]

@Volund