Joining the PS2 Team

[Malorn]

Hey PSU, as some of you may have gleaned from a few of Matt's recent cryptic tweets, I have been hired by SOE to be a game designer on PS2! It's quite an awesome opportunity and a major life change. I wanted to share with the community a bit of background and let folks ask any questions rather than answering them all in PMs everywhere.

In addition to what you've seen from me in the PlanetSide space, I've been a professional software engineer working for Microsoft for nearly 8 years, primarily in Windows from Vista through Windows 8. I'm no stranger to what it's like to design software, and manage a complex project. It's a big difference from a smaller game studio, but it's been a fun journey, I've learned a lot of great skills, and it gives me a unique experience to bring into SOE.

In a game perspective in addition to being the Enclave XO, I also ran a leetfit, Liberty, in PS1 which some vets may recall. I understand what it's like for large outfits and small ones and want all play styles to be viable and enjoyable. It really is a great experience to see things from the perspective of a large organized group, a small organized group, and even just the average casual player. They all bring something unique and great to PlanetSide.

My first day is at the end of the month, but I will be at SOE Live (particularly at Clegg's MTG draft events). I will have to make a bit of a role transition into game designer so you probably won't see anything big from me for a while. The rough plan as I understand it is that I'll be starting off in world design, so I might be making a few outposts and learning the ropes of game design and how things work in the studio before diving into a bigger role. As Matt's tweet indicated, after I get ramped up I'll be helping out with the meta game elements. That includes battle flows, motivation, keeping things fresh, the feeling of accomplishent and progress, and a lot of the topics that you've seen me post about over the last year here and on the beta forums.

One of the coolest experiences for me will be knowing what its like to be on both sides of the eternal struggle - the diehard rabid fan, and the developer trying to make everyone happy and create a great game. A few months from now I might have some insights!

You can consider this an AMAA, so if you have questions, ask away.