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Doug Woolsey, Lead Content Developer

What is it you do on a daily basis? I read, edit, brainstorm, and read some more. I lead the content design team. We write designs for ambient encounters, dialogue, quests, world encounters, APQs (advanced public quests), dungeon encounters, area names and descriptions. It’s my job to set the pace and schedule; focus the design to meet the story for a given epicenter (level range); chant our many mantras (RvR, War is Everywhere, Faster, Dammit); be the cheerleader, punching bag, and friend when needed; and to edit everything into a cohesive story that’s not only fun, but memorable, re-playable, and destroys the competition. During any given day I am organizing meetings to brainstorm the production of an epicenter, reading and editing hundreds of pages of text, revising existing designs to match changes in art or implementation resources, and playing the game. What is your background? College? I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. I worked mostly as a Video Artist, but I stunk up the photography lab as well. I learned a lot there about creative collaboration that has saved my butt at EA Mythic. What other titles have you worked on in the past? In what capacity? My background is in table-top role-playing game design. Most recently I joined up with Don Olson to design the Battleaxe RPG for Sixteen Coal Black Horses in 2004. It was Battleaxe that paved the way for getting an interview with EA Mythic in late 2004, and I was later hired to work on Imperator as a content developer. What was your “welcome to the game industry” moment when it hit you that you were really making games for a living? I was sitting on the 7th floor of our offices here in Fairfax with the Imperator life events team. We were talking about monsters and fighting monsters, and it dawned on me that I was getting paid to sit around talking about monsters and fighting monsters. I felt lucky then and I feel lucky every time I set foot in the EA Mythic offices. What excites you about the Warhammer property? What cool things in the Warhammer universe do you hope to bring to life? I remember waiting around in the rain in Tacoma, Washington in 1985 so that I could buy a copy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I still have that book. I still remember the way I felt when I saw that orange-haired Slayer on the front cover sticking an axe into a goblin. There’s a connection that Warhammer hobbyists have with the table-top and role-playing games that goes beyond loyalty. I want WAR to invoke those same feelings. I want our game to be so compelling that it builds a deep and lasting loyalty with our players. What are your favorite video/computer games of all time? What games are you playing right now? What game should the reader be playing if he’s not? I’m probably nearly alone in this, but my favorite video game of all time is Warrior of Rome II. This game is probably the first good RTS. I also have a strong love for Operation Flashpoint, Battlefield 2, the whole Command and Conquer series (Generals ftw), Sacred, Diablo I and II, Warcraft I, II, and III, the Unreal series, and the AoE series. I can’t forget games like Half-life, Quake, Blade of Darkness (say yes to decapitation), just about anything Sid Meier does, Guild Wars, Madden 1996 (yes, 1996), Metal Marines, Mobile Forces (sometimes broken games are hilarious), Team Fortress, Morrowind, Oblivion, Dawn of War, the whole Fallout family, Dungeon Siege, the Rainbow Six series, Starflight, Syndicate, Streets of Rage 1-3, and Zero Divide. Right now I’m playing Fable, Mario Super Strikers, WoW, Battlefield 2, HoMM V, the Rush for Berlin demo, Space Rangers 2, and I’m downloading The Ship as I type this. If you want to know which games are good and worth playing, call Craig Nelson in Mill Creek, Washington and ask him. If he’s playing it, it’s a good game. What music are you listening to right now? Queens of the Stone Age, Interpol, AFI, and Air. Oh, and my wife makes me listen to the Raconteurs and a lot of opera. Is there a recent movie you’ve seen or book/comic you read that you’d recommend to others? I highly recommend that you read Richard K. Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels.

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