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Meet the Team: Justin McElroy
In the world of professional game blogging, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the bloggers who investigate the stories and readers who make silly comments. These are the first group's stories. Name: Justin McElroy Job Position: Blogger and host/producer of the Joystiq Podcast Past Experience/Education: I've been writing about video games since I started reviewing them for The Herald-Dispatch when I was 12 years old. Besides Joystiq my work has appeared in Computer Games Magazine, The Escapist, Gamezebo, Gamers With Jobs: Press Pass and GameDaily. Life outside of the 'Stiq: I also have a degree in theater that I occasionally utilize. And, as you can tell with a quick Google Image Search, I love exercising. But my favorite (usually) non-gaming activity is hanging out with my wife Sydnee. Why I'm blogging: It's not very hard. First game experience: My earliest gaming memory is playing H.E.R.O. on the Atari 2600 at my friend Eric Near's house. Favorite games: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Seaman, Spider-Man 2, Quest for Glory series, BioShock, Phoenix Wright series, Fugitive Hunter, Portal. More to come every Tuesday and Thursday.
Meet another content creator for Champions Online
It's that time of the week again, where we get to meet another team member working on Champions Online. This week the spotlight shines on Nellie Hughes, content designer -- which if you're keeping track, means she works with that wily Mr. Zeke Sparkes. Which gives us even more reason to believe that she's got a very cool job.All of the Champions Online-related and otherwise questions put to Nellie are quite entertaining, especially when talking about her Weird Al Yankovic performance during her elementary school years. That's simply the kind of thing that takes a lot of courage to pull off. We'd say it's similar to the kind of courage it takes when creating MMOs for rabid comic book fans.
Champions Online's content designer talks games, miniatures and fiddles
Of all the team members we've met that are working on Champions Online, Zeke Sparkes is possibly the most important yet. That's not to say that the previous team members haven't been anything but incredibly important. You see, Zeke is the guy in charge of designing, creating and testing the "meat n' bones" of Champions Online. The shape, color palette, mob layouts and generally everything you interact with in both persistent and instanced areas are all streaming from this man's brain.He is -- in a sense -- the Game Master of all our future excursions into the yet-to-be world of Champions Online.
Meet a Champions Online concept artist, Imario Susilo
It's been a surprisingly info-heavy week for the Champions Online fans, as yet another post has been placed onto the official website by the awesome community content writer, Kestrel.The concept art that's been coming out for Champions Online has definitely been impressive. With every new character that's revealed, the game seems to develop a personality all its own. One of the guys we have to thank for that is Imario Susilo, who's one of the concept artists working at Cryptic and the focus of this week's "Meet the Team" article. Born and raised in Indonesia, Imario (who apparently stands at seven-feet-tall) moved stateside during his high school years.Imario himself goes over his method for designing a new character for Champions Online, which sounds like an exhaustive -- but very fun -- job. We're certainly grateful for the people designing this game -- be it character, world or story -- because without them, our superhero fantasies would fall flatly onto their collective faces.
Meet the man responsible for Champions Online's combat
Remember this name: Geoff Tuffli. If the combat in Champions Online ends up disappointing you, then you've got your scapegoat.All right, we're just kidding -- sort of. The truth is that while Geoff may be the combat systems designer for Champions Online, he's not exactly solely responsible for making the moment-to-moment aspect of the game fun. His is a position of various roles, the coolest one being that he gets to design player powers for Cryptic's new superhero MMO. However, he's also responsible for removing any roadblocks facing the combat team and keeping the lines of communication open from his team to other teams. Those are two hectic sounding roles we're not so jealous of, but it's all in a day's work for Geoff.And if you're wondering what his past work includes, then you'll be in for a surprise. While he did lead the internal balance assessment team for City of Villains, he also majored in Aztec Cultural Linguistics -- go figure. There's a lot more in-between Geoff's graduation and current job at Cryptic and you can find it all at the official Champions Online website.
Meet Champions Online's art development director
For the past few week's we've been receiving these intriguing interviews with members of the Cryptic staff who are working on Champions Online. So far, it's been an interesting month, as each week we've gotten a look into the varying madness of each team member -- in a good way. This week's interview with Cryptic Studios' art development director Shayne Herrera is especially fun to read through, as Shayne seems like the goofy-fun kind of guy everyone has a blast hanging around. We take it as a good sign that the guy in charge of CO's art development has a sense of humor -- it explains the game's rather bright and cheery color scheme a bit.If this is your first time seeing one of these developer profiles, make sure to check up on the last three we've spotlighted as they're also quick, interesting reads.
Talking to Champions Online's lead programmer
The position of lead programmer is typically reserved for those who love two things, numbers and -- football? Apparently so, in the case of the Champions Online team's Charlie Grisafi, who likens the job to that of being a football coach. We're inclined to agree once he lays out everything he's responsible for getting to people -- programmers to program, design documents and other various bits of software. So yeah in a sense it's like commanding a team of skilled people with different 'plays' which given to the right people will get the job done successfully.All right, enough of the analogies. The truth is it's a rough job -- but somebody has got to, uh, program it. That is we mean somebody has got to program Champions Online and if it weren't for Charlie and his programmers, we wouldn't have anything to play. So what about this mathematical man's credentials? Well they're nothing to scoff at, that's for sure. Citing an 25 year history as a software engineer -- 18 of which have been as a gaming programmer -- tends to cause us to nod in silence and respect. We certainly couldn't do something involving so much math for more than 25 minutes, let alone years. Our hats off to you sir, thy math is strong.
Say hello to Champions Online's producer
The job of a producer is a precarious one, full of uh -- well we're not sure exactly. That is, we weren't sure until this new article when up over at the Champions Online official website about Chris Lena and his daily activities in the ongoing development of CO. So sort of producing background does Mr. Lena have? Ah, we're glad you asked, oh readership of ours -- as Chris was the producer for EverQuest. In our books, that makes him pretty well-suited for the job of making Cryptic realize all of our superhero fantasies. His typical day is full of emails, future planning, status meetings, cheerleading and playing any new version of CO. Can you guess which one of those things we're jealous of him for? Yeah, the cheerleading.Aside from work, apparently Chris enjoys bringing the tunes on the Theremin in Rock Band, but don't we all?
