Jess LeWho? LeBow. Jess used to work at ArenaNet (on Guild Wars Prophecies/Factions) then jumped ship (pun alert!) to go work on Pirates of the Burning Sea. Now he’s mutinied and returned to the good ship NCsoft, where he’s ended up as Lead Quest Designer at Carbine Studios.
Ah, but working on what…?
If you don’t know who Carbine are right now, you might want to get acquainted. That’s all I’m saying.
Jess doesn’t have a lot to spill about his new project in this interview with Massively (except for one tiny comment right near the end which most people will probably miss…) but he’s still got a great history; he worked for Wizards of the Coast as their fiction editor when he started in the biz.
Via Rock Paper Shotgun, I read an interesting interview tonight with Daniel Dociu, the Chief Art Director for ArenaNet – who make Guild Wars, in case you weren’t aware. The interview’s at the excellently named BLDGBLOG, which is a blog about architecture.
Why talk to Daniel? Well, he has interesting things to say about architecture in games, and of course he really knows his onions. When asked about his influences when coming up with designs, this was part of what he had to say:
… I look back all the way to the dawn of mankind: to ruins, and Greek architecture, and Mycenean architecture, all the way up to the architecture of the Crusades, and castles in North Africa, and the Romanesque and Gothic and Baroque and Rococo – even to neo-Classical and art deco and Bauhaus and Modernist.
Sounds like he’s forgotten more about architecture than I’d ever know! Anyway, the interview’s worth a read. Or if you prefer, just worth a look for some lovely imagery of Daniel’s. If you’d like more info on the man himself he’s also got his own site, complete with gallery for your perusal.
If you’d like to hear all manner of NCsoft staff talking up a storm (plus Draw the World Together artists like David Nakayama and Andrew Wildman, to boot) then Split Infinity Radio and MusicWorldRadio have you covered, baby.
I had the pleasure of talking over the weekend with Riff, AKA Scarlet Shocker, of MusicWorldRadio, and also with Simon, AKA DJ Villain, of Split Infinity. Both had plenty of questions to ask and I hope I answered ‘em well. I’d like to thank them both for taking the time out to come down to the event and do the interviews – I hope you had a good time guys, and we’ll definitely see you next year!
Keep reading for all the links and information you need….
First of all, Split Infinity have a bunch of different interviews live. You can get to an index of all of them from this news story, but if you prefer you can download the MP3s directly. The links below are all separate MP3 downloads, so you can get each one easily. The interviews include all of the following peeps:
The re-telling of the MiniCon is turning into an epic – Saturday’s over 3,000 words and only up until the auction – so I want to add some photos to make it more palatable, and that won’t happen until Monday.
Until then, some random bits that don’t fit in my narrative. I don’t know when all of these happened exactly, but I’m pretty sure they did:
… on video, and show inside the first minute that once again, relying on Wikipedia for facts isn’t always a good idea.
(Or at least, it’s not a good idea to mention that you’re relying on it.)
Things pick up a bit after that, and Melissa gets some good answers in. Anyway, it’s here to watch. Also: Andrew ‘Draw the World Together’ Wildman.
Get in with a nagging feeling that no matter how much I do today, it won’t be enough.