Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work. Seriously though, I'm responsible for reviewing and revising the quests, encounters and public quests that our writers come up with for WAR.
What is your background? College? Degree? Has it helped with the job?
I have a background in English; which is to say that I speak it, and fluently I might add. I have tended bar, taken pictures from the belly of a Cessna for the government and repossessed cars. All of these experiences have helped immensely over the past five years when dealing with the variety of people that work at Mythic
What was your "welcome to the game industry" moment when it hit you that you were really
making games for a living?
That would have been at the Indianapolis GenCon where we had the Warhammer Online booth set up.
There were fifty people queued up for a chance to play the Alpha build and I got to chat with
them about the game. They were completely and utterly pumped up to play through the quests,
many of which I had written. I would have to say that was a good day.
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?
Absolutely everything about Warhammer is exciting! Warhammer has been around for almost
twenty-five years and has so much source material to draw on; its universe makes for a perfect MMO.
Do you collect Warhammer figures? What army do you play? Does your spouse let you display
them when friends come over for dinner?
In Warhammer I have an Empire Army and in Warhammer 40,000 I field the Tau.
Fortunately for
me, my spouse likes to paint the models so she's been pretty lenient about all the crap I
constantly bring home.
What are your hopes/goals for the game?
I sincerely hope that millions of folks from all over the world rise up and play WAR, forging
a new world order of peace and love and... I'm sorry I'm tearing up, we should move on.
What is the biggest problem with current MMO's you hope to fix with WAR?
The lack of any decent RvR content. Other games have PvP, but they fail to make me, the
player, care about it. It doesn't affect anything; it's barely even spoken about in the
quests. In WAR we are providing an overarching story and system of RvR that will
suck the player in and make him care about the ongoing struggle.
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?
Not to get all 'Fan-boy' but one of my all time favorites is Dark Age of Camelot. A bunch
of guys got together and made what I still consider the preeminent RvR experience. Sure,
I played the other MMO's but none of them made me want to rush home from work just so I
could log on for an hour or two and smash people in the face. As far as a game I am
playing right now and would recommend to anyone, that would be 'Dawn of War'. Awesome
game play and chock full of Warhammer 40,000 ambience.
What music are you listening to right now?
The majority of the time I'm listening to soundtracks to get the creative juices flowing.
Constantine is a good one, any LOTR music and 300 is crazy good. Recently though I've been
jamming out to Finger Eleven – Paralyzer, you should check it out.
Is there a recent movie you've seen or book/comic you read that you'd recommend to others?
300. It's not what you would call new but it totally gets you pumped up for history. They
should do more movies 300-style. I mean, can you imagine Teddy Roosevelt leading the Charge
of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill all muscle-bound and sweaty in a leather loincloth?
Anything else you want to add?
Here's a quote for you. Kudos to whoever gets where it's from: "I mean, seriously, Asia? You
framed an Asia poster? How hard did the people at the frame store laugh when you brought this in?"
