What is your official title?
Currently, I am the lead artist for the Empire/Chaos pairing and the capital cities, but I have worn several hats over the course of this project. We shift teams and people around based upon need and priority. If there is an area of the game that needs some extra help, we will shift teams consisting of artists, coders and content implementers to focus on that area. I’ve had opportunities to work with several areas of the game, including effects, UI, lighting and world fixtures. But my passion has always been environmental art so it’s good to be back on a team where that is the focus.
What is it you do on a daily basis?
My normal day consists partially of providing feedback and art direction to my team and partially working on my own art tasks. Then there are meetings and schedules and fun stuff like that thrown in just to keep it really interesting.
What is your background? College? Degree? How long have you been with Mythic?
I actually studied cartooning and animation in school, and took a lot of traditional art courses. I’ve been in the game biz for a long time so when I was in college they didn’t offer game art courses. I learned pretty much everything on the job. I’ve been in the industry for almost 15 years and I’ve been at EA Mythic going on 5 years.
What other titles have you worked on in the past? In what capacity?
I’ve worked on something like 8 shipped games. I worked for MicroProse back in the day and did sprite based animations for graphic adventure games like, Rex Nebular and Return of the Phantom. Then over time I started using the Unreal engine and built levels for games like Klingon Honor Guard and X-com Enforcer. Just before coming to EA Mythic I worked on Robotech Battlecry at Vicious Cycle in North Carolina. I then came here and worked on Camelot and now Warhammer. All in all, I’ve had a good run.
What was your “welcome to the game industry” moment when it hit you that you were really making games for a living?
Well, I’ve had a few fun moments when I’ve been in a game store and overheard people talking about a game I worked on sitting right there on the shelf. That’s a neat feeling.
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?
What excites me about Warhammer is its history and lore. It’s a fantastic and rich world that has been built upon and loved by tons of people for over 2 decades. It is fun to bring to life places that players may have read about in a book or player guide, and then let them run around in it.
Do you collect Warhammer figures? What army do you play?
I don’t collect figures anymore, but I used to play 40K and Warhammer Quest (which was this sort of dungeon crawl, tile-based game in the Warhammer universe). I still have all my miniatures though and I keep them in a finished area of my basement that I made just to display all my geek stuff. I call it the man cave!
What are your hopes/goals for the game?
My hope is that the game will be the next huge thing and make a bazillion dollars. Beyond that, I just really hope that people truly enjoy playing this game. It’s nice to know when all is said and done that people have fun playing what you’ve put so much time and work into.
What are your key influences when making the game? Anything besides Warhammer?
Sure, I draw ideas from everywhere - movies, books, fantasy paintings - anything can spark an idea.
What is the biggest problem with current MMO’s you hope to fix with WAR?
I think one thing that sets WAR apart from other games is the level in which players can affect and change the state of the world. In WAR, fighting your enemies and beating them in RvR will allow different things to happen through out the world, such as cities becoming vulnerable to attack. You can then go and take over that city and wreak major havoc.
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?
One of my favorite games from way back is X-Com UFO Defense. It is a turn-based strategy game where you lead a team of commandos to fight aliens who liked to terrorize small Midwestern towns. Recently though, I’ve been playing Mass Effect and I just finished Assassin’s Creed.
