Q: How did you come to working for NC-Austin?
I’ve been in the industry for a while and actually had a previous relationship with some of the people working with NC. I had been a designer at another company on a single player game, but was anxious to get back into the online area.

Q: How long have you worked at NC-Austin?
About 18 months. I started right after the episode 8 publish.

Q: Describe your job
A: I work as a liaison between Seoul and Austin, and generally coordinate the Lineage product in North America. I work closely with the Operations, Customer Service, Community Relations, Quality Assurance and Marketing teams here. More recently, I’ve taken on the task of designing and developing content for the Lands of Aden server, building upon the base of Lineage and adding content and changes tailored for the US Market, with an emphasis on the new user.

Q: From when you arrive till when you leave, what do you do?
A: There’s always a Customer Service report from the previous day listing the general state of the servers and players along with server numbers and castle status. If there are any concerns or bugs listed, these get investigated. Then I’ll review the global server status—what’s been published to the Korean Test and Main servers. At this point we’ll retrieve files from our master server and begin the process of applying them to an internal test server. This entails providing the QA team a change list to test against and working with the Ops team to make sure the correct content is published. We’ll make sure the Localizations team has any new text files translated. Then a “preview” meeting for all the teams internally so they’ll know what’s planned. Then we’ll roll that content out to the Public Test Server and begin in depth testing. I’ll do a final detailed check of what is currently on the Live Servers compared to what is running on the Test Server just to be sure that no unintended changes are being deployed and wait for QA’s approval.

Other than that, we’ll have frequent brainstorming meetings on suggestions for the dev team, LoA content, possible events, marketing opportunities, etc. If we’re doing events, I’ll generally write the front page fiction and make the file changes and hand that off to the publish process. Same thing with LoA specific content. I try to visit the boards a couple of times a day (although I’m not a board moderator) and visit the fan sites on a regular basis. I try to work in the time to play the game for a bit at least a few times a week.

Q: How do you feel about the work you have done at NC-Austin?
A: I think we’ve done a good job with ensuring predictable and reliable service. I hope that we’ve taken the appropriate steps to remedy the situations when the player population did have a bad experience. We’ve worked really hard to get the content delivered from the Dev Team to the US servers very quickly. Overall, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve been able to do, but I’m never going to be pleased until all our players are 100% satisfied.

Q: Do you find time from your busy schedule to play Lineage on a day to day basis?
A: Pretty much. If we’ve got major content coming in, then I don’t get as much time as I’d like.

Q: Do you play along with the players if you play the game often (example: join pledges, hunt in parties, siege)?
A: I play as a normal player, experiencing all the joys and pain of the game. :^) Now, I do play completely anonymously with a normal character with normal items. And yes, I have been pk’ed.

Q: How do you rate the progress of LoA now (1-10; 1 being bad, 10 being good)?
A: Probably a 7 or an 8. It really depends on what criteria you judge it by. If its player reaction, then a 9, even 10. But I’d really like to see more users, and although the service has positive growth, I’d like to see even more. We’re hoping that LoA will exhibit “player oriented growth”—if the players are enjoying themselves, perhaps they’ll share this experience with fellow students, co-workers, or family members. Having people try the game based on another players invitation will usually result in a more positive experience than arriving all alone into a new online world based on a magazine add. (So, invite your buddies to play!)

Q: Personal enjoyment of the project?
A: 10. No wait, 11.

Q: How do you feel about the current class system right now? On LoA you are making great changes that please the audience but really do you think you can still go beyond better?
A: We still have a lot of things we can do. I think the current foundation is solid, but now we can focus on some refinement and implement some neat ideas. Keep in mind that I’ll generally be working on one class at a time. Some players often complain their class is being ignored, but we’ll make our way around the circle.

Q: What do you have to take (school wise) to get you where you are today?
A: I’ve taken more of the creative route to arrive here, but it’s a changing and more competitive industry. I’d suggest a strong background in computer science and business. Anything to further your creative side is a positive. But, I’ll be honest—perhaps the best preparation for this business was the time I spent in the infantry. You can’t ever give up or expect things to be easy, and the more you put into a job, the more you get out of it.

Q: Would you say your career path is an easy task or something that should be taken more seriously.
A: Its definitely not play time. I often work long hours and more than the occasional weekend. It’s a real business, but can be quite rewarding.

Q: Do you intend to maybe further your ideas into your own game one day?
A: There’s not many people in the business that don’t have that “Greatest Game Ever” idea running through their head. Of course, the idea is the easy part.

Q: Cake or pie?
A: Neither. My favorite dessert is asparagus.

Q: Do you have any favourite fan site(s)?
A: A couple, but you’ll not pin me down any further than that!