For about two years I was the Lead Concept Artist on WAR, which was a great gig. I got to work with our team of awesome concept artists, many of whom are former professional illustrators hired specifically to work on our game. My job was to help them get their work approved by our Art Director and Games Workshop, and to make sure that our 3D guys could sensibly build what we designed for them.
One of my favorite things was to imagine how to bring to life a well known location from Warhammer that has never really been seen before. It was very difficult to come up with a look for Chaos environments that we could achieve in our 3D game world, but I think the players will love what they see in the shipping game.
The fans may not know this, but in addition to the 8 concept artists we have in-house, we’ve also had up to 8 guys elsewhere working on the game. I helped manage them, and occasionally found time to draw some concepts myself.
Recently, I’ve moved over to work on the UI and get it ready for launch. I worked on some of WAR’s UI previously so it’s been an easy switch.
What is your background? College? Degree? 1st game industry
job? How long have you been with Mythic?
I’m a Systems Engineer by degree (University of Virginia), but as soon
as I was out of school I decided to ditch that path and learn game art. I made a few Quake 3
Arena player models before getting my first job working in games.
I’ve been with EA Mythic since Trials of Atlantis. For Camelot fans, I’m the guy who made the artifact weapons and designed the Catacombs character revamps. I was also Lead Character Artist on Imperator, which was a real game once.
What was your “welcome to the game industry” moment when it
hit you that you were really making games for a living?
Making games “for a living” was actually a painfully slow transition.
But, what got me hooked was when I spent two weeks one summer pulling
a character out of my head and putting it into Quake 3 Arena. It was a
rush to see one of my creations brought to life (and gibbed to death).
What excites you about the Warhammer property? What makes it
perfect for an MMO? What cool things in the Warhammer universe do
you hope to bring to life?
It took me a long time to fully appreciate all that Warhammer has to
offer. Initially, I was skeptical about working on a licensed game,
but Warhammer is a gaming license at heart, which has made the
transition to an MMO a natural one. In addition, you’d be hard
pressed to find an IP as rich with great ideas as this one.
Warhammer’s 25 year existence has spawned some really wonderful
locations, characters, and stories, all designed to work in a game
setting.
Do you collect Warhammer figures?
I appreciate the character designs and sculpture of the minis, and
have put together a few. But, computer games have spoiled me to the
point where the idea of rolling dice to figure out what’s supposed
to happen next seems pedestrian (to me). It’s fun to watch, it’s just
not for me – I’m too lazy. Plus, where are the particle effects?
What are your hopes/goals for the game?
I’ve been at Mythic almost 5 years and Warhammer Online will be my
first launch of an MMO. My hope is that WAR will complete Mythic’s
transition from being the ninja-indie development studio that made
Dark Age of Camelot, to a brawny AAA studio. The studio has really
grown and matured, and with EA’s support, I know it will happen.
What your key influences when making the game? Anything besides
Warhammer?
Artistically, the guys at Games Workshop are a key influence. In
particular, Paul Dainton and Karl Kopinski are legendary around here,
and they paint the way I want our game to look. Beksinski and Barlowe
were great references for our Chaos zones.
On the UI side, Edward Tufte’s books, as well as Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, helped change the way I think about information design.
What is the biggest problem with current MMO’s you hope to fix with
WAR?
Now that I’m on the UI team, it’s my goal to be the advocate of the
lowly noob. Often in MMO’s, we layer on complex parallel game systems
in an effort to give the players lots of things to do. That is great
after you’ve been playing for a week, but we can’t throw it at you
all at once. A lot of people quit MMO’s after trying them out for a
few minutes or a few hours and never get a chance to really experience
that depth. We all have friends who fall into this category.
I feel that what draws players into a world early on is an elegant simplicity to the fun. Another way to say all of this: Accessibility.
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?
My head is spinning from all the great games coming out this fall.
I honestly cannot remember a time when so many of the world’s best
game developers where releasing titles during the same few months.
The only thing that has saved me from slavering fanboy convulsions
fed by an excess of awesomeness is that my 360 is bricked again.
What music are you listening to right now?
Right now? I am listening to the music of the evening office
cleaning crew. The soft crinkle of garbage settling in the bin.
The shrill cry of the wheel on the cleaning cart. It is magical.
