For most computer gamers, we love to hear about the men and women
working on our favorite products. Thankfully the developers at Cryptic
Studios are more than willing to share their exploits with the general
public. Their latest interview is with Champions Online Lead Content Designer
Zeke Sparkes, who answers his questions with flair and panache, and the
Ten Ton Hammer staff has posted it for you to view! Enjoy!
style="font-weight: bold;">Q: What do you do as the lead
content designer for Champions
Online?
A: I lead a team of awesome designers that are tasked with
planning and implementing the persistent and instanced content for the
game. That includes designing big outdoor zones, smaller interior game
maps, critter AI and behaviors, scripting missions, populating maps
with spawns and hooking up events.
It usually starts with us talking with our writer, John Layman, about
what types of things and stories should be going on in a particular
area of the game. Then we sit down and sketch out a map of the physical
play space and what we want to populate it with. After that, we work
closely with art to make sure they can take what we're planning and
make it look good without working 120-hour weeks for two years
straight. Depending on what the chunk of content is, we'll either
provide a quick white box in game for the artists, or work with them
directly to make a more detailed white box. At that point, the team
starts placing scripts, missions and spawns down on the map, while art
turns it into a snazzy looking environment. Afterwards we clean things
up to match the final art and then we play it, play it, play it, play
it, and play it some more to make sure everything feels good and is fun.
It's pretty much the job I've wanted to do since I first started
playing computer games on my 8086.
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Zeke Sparkes
Q: How long have you been
in gaming, and what did you do before working on
style="font-style: italic;">Champions Online?
A: I've been in computer games for three years, but for
about ten years before that I did game design and writing for the
pen-and-paper game industry. I also did freelance graphic design for
about five years, working with some pretty varied properties from local
yoga studios to the Official Authorized Quarterly KISS Magazine.
Q: You've worked on some
RPG supplements. What are some of the games you've designed for?
A: I started out working on the style="font-style: italic;">Babylon Project (a
Babylon 5 RPG). After that, I moved to Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment
and worked with Millennium's
End. Later on I wound up working on the style="font-style: italic;">Deadlands and style="font-style: italic;"> Savage Worlds lines
for Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Most of my work in the industry has
been for Pinnacle.
Q: What aspect of
Champions Online are
you most looking forward to?
A: I am really looking forward to getting together with
all my buddies from back east, forming a team and kicking some badguy
ass! Also, not to be evil or anything, but some of the high-level zones
we haven't announced yet have wicked cool concepts and designs that I
think people are really going to enjoy.
Q: What do you have
planned to make the content of Champions
Online memorable?
A: One of the things we're trying to do is make sure the
environments we design are all distinct and offer different feels from
one another. We're also making sure we spice things up with really cool
events and situations that break up the typical game play from time to
time. So if you're walking along and all of a sudden the ground shakes
and hot lava rains down from the sky, it's a special gift from me to
you. Hehehe.
Q: Who is your favorite
Champions
character?
A: I have to go with Black Mask. I'm a sucker for
generational stories and love the fact that the hero has become greater
than the man (or woman). If I had to pick one of the many incarnations,
I'd go with the first one. There's just something about a super in the
Revolutionary War using hit-and-run tactics that actually live up to
all of his folk tales that I really like.
Q: What is your secret
superpower?
A: I can tell the difference between SPF 35 and SPF 50
sunscreen. Trust me …
Q: What do you like to do
in your free time?
A: I play tons of games (video games, board games, minis
games – anything really). I love painting minis for style="font-style: italic;">Hordes or style="font-style: italic;">Warmachine. I'm
also usually up for grabbing a few beers with my friends and watching
movies or going to some live music.
Q: What was the last book
you read?
A: That's hard to say. I typically read two or three books
at a time and just switch them out depending on what mood I'm in. I
recently finished Neil Gaiman's American
Gods and Anthony De Mello's style="font-style: italic;">The Song of the Bird.
I'm currently reading Gaiman's Fragile
Things, Phillip Pullman's style="font-style: italic;"> The Amber Spyglass
and Charles Henry Whedbee's
Outer Banks Mysteries and Seaside Stories.
Q: Pirates, ninjas or
…?
A: Dinosaurs!
Q: What is something
interesting about you that players would be surprised to know?
A: I got into the old time music scene in the mountains of
Virginia, picked up a fiddle and pretty much haven't put it down since.
A little fiddlin', a little dancin', a little brown jug all on a nice
cool night in the Blue Ridge with friends and family is where it's at.
Q: What advice do you
have for someone who wants to become a game designer?
more games, then after that play even more games. Don't just look at
games as an individual player, but try to figure out what the designers
are doing and why they're doing it. Think about how long it would take
to work on a part of the game and how much it adds to the play
experience.
Q: Do you have anything
else to add?
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