Meet the Team: Kyle Horner
Once a week our writers will give you a glimpse into their lives, to let you get to know them and the characters they play a little better. Click here to read more Meet the Team.
What do you do for Massively.com?
As a news monkey - aka blogger -- I'm responsible for rubbing two neurons together in my head and making posts. In addition to that, I also put together a weekly column, The Digital Continuum. That's my regular thing, but you'll probably see interviews or other forms of one-off features on the site from me as well. And I'm also the fellow who puts together those nifty little images you see along the right of the website.
Massively is more or less a full-time thing for me, and I love every minute of it. Well, expect when we're electroshocked. That part stings.%Gallery-33889%
What's your favorite MMO?
I've enjoyed too many things about too many MMOs to have a favorite. I enjoyed the setting and class system from Final Fantasy XI. On the other hand, City of Heroes' customization, combat and superhero power fantasy setting is wonderful. Then of course you've got Blizzard's take on the genre, which has various good (and not so good) things about it.
Basically, at the moment I don't have a favorite. But in the past, all of these games have held that position in my mind. I'm sure another one will come along in a year or two.
What games are you playing now, and what are your characters?
Currently I'm relaxing my MMO time while I wait for some new blood, but I have been playing Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. It's an interesting time to be in last year's big hyped titles, and I'm enjoying the chance to see them blossom into more robust experiences.
Stugz is my rank 15/14 Choppa and I quite like him, although I may have to switch to Order sometime in the future and check out the Knight of the Blazing Sun and Slayer careers.
In Age of Conan, I've got a level 20 Tempest of Set, but I'm thinking I may roll a Dark Templar or some other tanking class in the near future. It seems like a large part of the Conan experience involves playing a melee class.
Why do you like MMOs so much?
Who said I like MMOs? You tell me who said I like them so I can find them and crush their windpipe! I mean... hug... hug their windpipe.
I'm an avid videogame player in general, but MMOs are particularly of interest to me because of the opportunity for great potential they represent in game design. I've never been a huge fan of sandbox MMOs, but I see the draw. So when I say potential, I don't mean that sort -- although who knows, maybe a sandbox style game will grab me someday.
What I mean is the directed experience that we can share with friends. That's part of the reason I loved Final Fantasy XI and City of Heroes so very much. And if I'm looking for a sandbox RPG experience, I tend to go play tabletop RPGs with four or five friends.
What accomplishment in-game are you most proud of?
Running a fairly successful guild in World of Warcraft for around five or six months, just after launch. Beyond that, I'm probably pretty proud of my Final Fantasy XI Hume -- who was a 40WAR, 30SAM and 20BLK! That took a lot of time back at launch, and I did it in the span of about two and a half months... I had a lot of time on my hands.
If you had 10 more hours to play every week, what would you spend them doing?
Hmm, right now I'd probably run oRvR and Scenarios in Warhammer Online because those are nice bite-sized gameplay moments.
When you're not playing MMOs, what do you do?
Being a part of Massively means I write and think about them quite a lot. However, I also play lots of PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 games. Recently I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil 5 and Burnout Paradise.
Also, I read both books and comics. I just finished reading If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell (highly recommended read) and am currently reading such comics as Invincible, The Astounding Wolf-Man, The Walking Dead, NO HERO, Doktor Sleepless, The Sword, KOTOR and some more I can't think of right now.
