What is your name and official title?
JD Wiker, Game Designer/Content Developer
What is it you do on a daily basis?
I write event overviews, quests, NPC dialogue, and, generally, anything that involves turning individual words into coherent sentences.
What is your background? Where did you go to college and what did you study? Has it helped you with this job?
I've never had any formal advanced education. I graduated from high school in 1982 and never looked back. However, I've been writing since I was eight years old--seriously--and I wrote and designed games for the tabletop RPG industry--mainly for Wizards of the Coast--for several years before I came to Mythic Entertainment.
What other titles have you worked on in the past? In what capacity?
My "titles" to date have all been tabletop RPG titles. With those, I'm mostly known for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, though I've also worked in some capacity or another on Dungeons & Dragons and d20 Modern. Perhaps my best-known titles are The Hero's Guide for Star Wars, City Quarters: Thieves' Quarter for D&D, and d20 Future for d20 Modern. But there are also some old-school ALTERNITY RPG players who know me from my work on Dark*Matter, particularly Xenoforms and The Dark*Matter Arms & Equipment Guide.
What was your "welcome to the game industry" moment when it hit you that you were really making games for a living?
It actually came many years ago, in 1995, when I saw an issue of White Wolf Inphobia with an article I wrote in it. I was actually in England at the time, attending Gen Con UK for Wizards of the Coast. I remember telling the dealer behind the table "I wrote an article that's in this issue!" ... and having to see his polite-but-disinterested smile. That was like "Welcome to the game industry! Now prove to us that you belong here." At that moment, I swore that I would become to the game industry what Bob Uecker is to baseball--and I think I've done that. ::grin::
What excites you about the Warhammer property? What makes it perfect for an MMO?
I've been a big fan of Warhammer for years--since I started running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign back in the mid-80s. And I played Warhammer 40,000 up through the late 90s. It's just such a richly-detailed world that it's hard not to get one's imagination fired up just reading the background material. (Though, to be honest, I'm terrible at the miniatures aspect of the game; I think I'm 5-for-200 when it comes to my WH40K win/loss record.)
Why does it make a great MMO? Hello! What part of "A grim world of perilous adventure" don't you get? Battlefields as far as the eye can see! Goblins! Orcs! Trolls! Troll slayers! It's like a great big sandbox filled with greenskins, Dwarfs, ogres, Elves, artillery, and people bashing each others' heads in with bloody great weapons!
Do you collect Warhammer figures? What army do you play?
I do, but mostly for the roleplay aspect. When I played WH40K, though, I had a good-sized Space Marine army--the Storm Angels, my own chapter invention--and an even larger Imperial Guard army. Sadly, the Imperial Guard figures I had painted were mostly lost when my storage locker in Seattle was broken into, and I just haven't had the time to go back and recreate them.
But I do have a rather large collection of Praetorians I've been planning to paint ...
What are your hopes/goals for the game?
I really hope that people look beyond the baggage of "standard MMO expectations" and look at the innovations this game brings to the industry. As an example of what I mean, my wife hates PvP in MMOs; she sees it as an exercise in getting smack-talked by 12-year-olds (or people with that level of maturity), and so avoids any game that includes it. I had to really twist her arm to get her to try WAR. But now she loves it. When we start playing, she frequently says, "Do you want to queue for a Scenario?" before I get a chance to ask her.
We're also both huge fans of the Public Quests. I think it's a brilliant addition to the standard quest mentality. No need to form a group (which is often about as much fun as herding cats). You simply get stuck in right from the start, join a party if you want to, leave when you're done, no muss, no fuss, no "now I have to friend this bozo" nonsense. I really foresee other MMOs looking to WAR's PQs for inspiration in the coming months.
What are your key influences when making the game? Anything besides Warhammer?
Real-life war. Seriously, as much as I'm opposed to the general concept of invading other countries and killing in the name of empire or whatever, war has a long history of heroism, courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and bold strategy. I think all of those things are present in Warhammer Online, but aren't immediately obvious amid all the MMO hustle-and-flow. I try to inject opportunities in the quests I write for the players to feel like they've done something noble, or heroic--to give them that taste of what fighting for a cause is all about ... without ever leaving their PCs ...
What is the biggest problem with current MMOs you hope to fix with WAR?
Honestly, I think there's too much of a focus on catering to players who zip through the games to the maximum level, and then want more content. Dude, seriously, if you're hitting the max after 40 hours of gameplay, you're not getting the nuances. Chew your food! Try creating a character that isn't min-maxed, and wander around the world for a while. There's material in there for explorers as well as achievers, and you're doing yourself a disservice by running past it on your way to the next grind.
That being said, I have no problem with giving high-level players more to do--WAR's Renown system provides plenty of things to keep high-level players busy--but I don't think that any MMO studio should be so focused on retaining high-level players that they overlook attracting completely new players.
What are your favorite video/computer games of all time? What games are you playing right now? What game should the reader be playing if he's not?
I've played the original Deus Ex a couple times, all the way through, and as soon as my wife and I finished Rainbow Six: Vegas II, we immediately started over again--we had that much fun. And my Xbox 360 right now has Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: World at War, and Grand Theft Auto IV all sitting out, waiting for their turn in the rotation.
As for what you should be playing, well, duh: Warhammer Online. I'm not just saying that because it's the game I work on. I'm saying it because, as MMOs go, this one kicks ass, picks the ass up and dusts it off, kicks it again, then buys it a beer, becomes its friend, then kicks its ass one more time for old time's sake.
What music are you listening to right now?
Actually, I'm listening to RadioRivendell.com -- streaming movie and gaming soundtracks. (A little shout-out to my Radio Rivendell homies!)
Is there a recent movie you've seen or book/comic you read that you'd recommend to others?
John Adams. My wife and I watched this right after Christmas, and we loved it. As for a book, if you use the Internet and haven't read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, you have no business using l337-speak.
