Asherons Call: WCoD Interviews srand

What is your proudest addition to the world of Asheron's Call?

[i]Well, first let me say that I don't feel comfortable calling any addition to AC 'mine'. The fact is that our team is very close-knit, and everything I've done has benefitted greatly from the input of the rest of the team. Even the simplest code additions are often driven by one of the designers asking me why such-and-such works this way, or if they can have this or that feature. And for large things ... well, suffice it to say that we spend hours upon hours discussing ideas for gameplay improvements, and that what eventually emerges from those meetings (besides a lot of tired and hungry devs) is very much a collaborative idea. And no, I'm not just saying that so I can blame the bad ideas on them. *grin*

Having said that, the largest addition that I have had a hand in designing has probably been tinkering, and I am quite proud of that. There's also a host of smaller additions that I implemented -- although I didn't come up with most of them -- which I think were good things, including the @corpse command, the portal magic changes, the upcoming ... err ... I can't tell you about that yet. Sorry.

[/i]What type of character do you enjoy most and why?

[i]I mostly play melees. I'm fond of big, stupid types. *grin* I am a very simple and straight-forward person -- I like to kill things and take their stuff -- and melee works very well for that, without getting me mixed up in all those scarabs and arrows and things to keep track of. Did I mention that I don't buff?

[/i]Which of the AC "villains" do you indentify with?

[i]AC has villains? AC has a storyline? Does it drop phat lewt?

[/i]What do you appreciate most about the AC community?

[i]The passion for the game. I understand when it gets out of hand, when people get upset, because I also get passionate about the game and start yelling at my co-workers and throwing things. (I'm trying to stop with the throwing things, though. And I haven't yelled at Allan in almost a week.) But it really shows how much the fans care about AC, how much they too are caught up in the game. It makes me feel a bit less like a freak to have a community that feels as passionately about the game as I do.

[/i]
What's a typical day like for you?

[i]It depends a lot on what part of our monthly development cycle we're in at the time, but I can give you a general idea. I get into work about noon or 1 pm. (Most of the team works more normal hours, but for various reasons I'm on a shifted schedule.) I read my mail and check my bug queue, and deal with any emergencies that have come up on the live worlds or in our most recent internal build. Usually it's about this time that the designers descend upon me asking for features -- new behaviors for NPCs and things like that. While I'm working on those, I do a quick check of the boards to grab any new problem reports that I come across. This is also when we tend to have team meetings, although thankfully we only have one or two of those a week.

Then it's time to get started on the real work -- whatever major code changes I'm working on at the time. I usually go into a code fugue until 7 pm or so -- basically until I get hungry. Then a couple of us go grab some Thai food or order pizza, and it's back to working. Later in the evening I hit the boards again to answer questions, usually while I am compiling and testing my code changes. If the day's work went well, I'll leave after the nightly internal build kicks off at midnight, or if I still have work to do I'll stay 'til 2 or 3 am.

[/i]Do you have any pets and what are their names?

When I moved up here from Florida, I had to place all of my pets in other homes. See, I kept and bred monitor lizards, and neither the climate nor the laws of Massachusetts are good for monitors.

My biggest baby, though, I left with a friend, and although I haven't seem him since I moved up, I still think of him as mine -- and I think of him all the time. His name is Gabriel, and he's a black throated monitor lizard (Varanus albigularis "ionides", although the subspecific name isn't recognized as valid by most herpetologists). Last time I saw him, he was just over 6 and a half feet long and weighed about 50 pounds. He's likely still about the same length -- he's out of his major growing years -- and he's probably lost a bit of weight. (I always coddled him and gave him too many treats.) He works now at Cypress Gardens as an educational lizard. He travels to schools up and down the east coast, meeting children and helping them learn about reptiles. He always loved children. He loves the attention. I miss him alot.

Now you've made me sad.

What is your homepage on your web browser?[blockquote]Google. It's simple and clean and very, very useful.[blockuote]