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Georgia Nelson, Software Engineer

Do you have any unofficial titles? The Fierce Kitten (or The Ferocious Attack Kitten... whichever sounds cooler on paper!) What is it you do on a daily basis? My job primarily deals with the implementation of server-side community systems for guilds and social networking. I am an extremely social player and refuse to play a game unless I am in a very active and chatty guild. So the work I do is a very good fit with how I enjoy my MMOs. I've also been known to do a little bit of user interface work whenever they let me out of my server hole. I think this frightens and confuses people, so I keep it quiet. What is your background? College? Degree? 1st job out of school? 1st game industry job? How long have you been with Mythic? Ironically enough, I actually have an undergraduate degree in French with a strong minor in Computer Science. This throws people off, so I am now working on a degree associated with my profession. Last year, I started my graduate degree in Software Engineering. I should have my Masters sometime next winter if 20 page research papers do not drown me in the meantime. My first job out of school was with a software development shop in Raleigh, NC called Infinite Technology. Sadly, the company is no more. I used to run the Drunken Friar website and filled the role of "Friar Team Lead" for EA Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot when the game was first released. The Drunken Friar website caught the eyes of some people at EA Mythic and I was brought in for an interview shortly after Infinite Technology’s demise. I still remember the day Jeff Hickman called me to make the offer (roughly 12 hours after I left the interview). I picked up the phone, listened to the offer, told him I needed time to consider the offer, hung up, and started to scream at the top of my lungs. Needless to say, I called him back shortly after calming down and immediately accepted the offer. One moving truck, a pizza, and a few beers later, and I had moved to Fairfax, VA. This is my first gaming industry job and hopefully my last. I've been with Mythic 5 years now and the people grow on you and have become my extended family. I've done a lot of growing up here, as many can attest to. I even met my husband through EA Mythic, and we now work together on WAR. What was your "welcome to the game industry" moment when it hit you that you were really making games for a living? Oh man, where to begin! Let's see... the first few months at work were typical software development without the strict blouse and skirt dressing requirements. Believe me, I was relieved to be able to wear jeans and sweatshirts to work! It was when I was allowed to attend E3 that first year that I really got my first dose of the gaming industry as an employee. In my awkward teenage years, I used to rush to the store to pick up the special E3 editions of my favorite gaming magazines to see what was going on. I remember feeling like I was on the outside looking in. It was when I actually attended the event that I realized I was now on the inside and had a really special job. What excites you about the Warhammer property? What makes it perfect for an MMO? What cool things in the Warhammer universe do you hope to bring to life? Warhammer is just an all-around fun IP to be a part of. The existence of so many warring races is a wonderful background for the Realm versus Realm (RvR) system. As an avid player of Dark Age of Camelot, I was heavily involved in RvR gameplay and really look forward to it being more entrenched in the game world of Warhammer Online. WAR is about battles and armies, and I hope that the guild functionality I'm working on will bring players together to crush their enemies. What are your hopes/goals for the game? It is my greatest hope that the guild and social mechanics of our game will fit a variety of play styles, and provide players the means to network and prepare for battles. MMOs are nothing without the players. It is my belief that if players are able to effectively communicate, then the MMO will thrive. The Community Systems team is really striving to create the functionality needed to make a living, breathing community in our game. What your key influences when making the game? Anything besides Warhammer? Believe it or not, by my family is a big influence on my work. My mother is a die-hard DAOC fan and very involved in RvR on her server. With roughly 15 max level characters now, she is a big influence on how I make guilds and alliances function. After all, it's hard to communicate battle plans and raids with your guild if the functionality is half-baked! What is the biggest problem with current MMO’s you hope to fix with WAR? I think the current, active MMOs drop the ball when it comes to guild and community support. There are so many things that have changed in the past 5+ years that influence how players interact with each other. Guilds have gone from just a large group with a persistent chat room to conglomerations making money, winning loot, and controlling vast areas of land in a fantasy setting. It is so sad to see the lack of support for the community backbone in many of the current MMOs available to us today. 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? My absolute top game would be Earthbound (known as Mother 2 in Japan). That game was awesome, and I was deeply saddened to see that Nintendo wouldn't localize the Nintendo DS version for North America. Fuzzy Pickles! Right now I'm playing a little bit of World of Warcraft, Everquest2, and Team Fortress 2. It depends on my mood and how much graduate schoolwork I have on hold. I think my professors secretly hate me, hence all of the work. If you're not playing Team Fortress 2, go pick it up! It's one of the few FPS games I've played in 10 years that doesn't make me go completely crazy and trash talk whenever I die. What music are you listening to right now? A mixture of Trance and JPop... yeah, I have funky taste. Is there a recent movie you’ve seen or book/comic you read that you’d recommend to others? I was pleasantly surprised by 28 Weeks Later. I wasn't too impressed with the first movie (28 Days Later), but we rented 28 Weeks Later this past weekend, and I really got a kick out of it. I like gore-filled zombie movies, so the lineup this month was very delicious. It sounds sadistic, I know, but I really do like the gore. Planet Terror is actually another good zombie movie with a swanky 70's feel to it. Anything else you want to add? I'd like to give a shout-out to my mother, without whom I would never have endless amusement at RvR drama on my old DAOC server (not to mention, it was hilarious spending the first few months getting crazy phone calls from her asking about how to play the game). To my family, for not chastising me when I said I was moving five hours away to make video games for a living. To the wonderful people I work with on the community systems team: without you, I wouldn't be able to get half of the work done on these big features. Game development is fun, but it's a tough kind of fun. You have to put more than just your hours in. You need to give it your soul. Making games is a very creative job, so without an abundance of patience, good ideas, and fervor, you can't possibly get the job done.

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