Auto Assault Mutant Faction Interview
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Q: As a Faction Lead Designer what were your duties and what aspects of the creative development did you direct? Was your involvement restricted to just the Mutant faction?
A: As the faction lead, everything mutant content related was my responsibility at the end of the day. However, abilities (other than how they would be represented and how they worked in lore), combat formulae, non-quest drop rates and the XP curve were not aspects I had control over, or did much work on, sadly. With a few exceptions, such as the combat formulae, though - we designers were a unit, a team. We worked together and we often bounced our ideas off of each other. We were still 3 separate units, but they were units in close contact with each other. In fact, we'd rotate which designers were working with which faction from time to time to make sure we were all exposed to as much of the content from across the game as possible.
So, for example, even though it wasn't part of my duties as the faction lead, I was included in the initial design discussions for everything from weapons to skills to crafting. Really, we all had feedback on everything - but we could only really directly change the stuff that was part of the faction we were working on. (This, for me, was mutant all the time, except when I lent a hand to the other factions to do a quick map, or quest line to help lighten the load. We all did a lot of that cross-faction content work in our spare time.)
As for what aspects of the creative development did I direct? All of the mutant zone designs, quest designs, enemy designs, Landmark design, lore, NPCs and quest items. Also, if it was in text and mutant specific, I was directing it.
This is true only up until the point I left ND, however - at which point Zirp was cool enough to step up and take my place. Mutants must love Zirp. That's not a statement; it's more like a commandment. ;) That guy did so much for mutant lore, it's not even funny. He was hired to be the mutant specific writer, to work for me to do the writing for the second half of the game so I could focus on directing the new redesign we were launching, but from the moment he started, he and I were working as partners. He and I go way back, pre-ND and I was stoked that he came aboard to help out. I wouldn't have had the focus needed to pull off our goals for the Bloodfarm, and that's just one gem he dropped while working "for" me. I could not have asked for a better replacement when I left.
