by Mark Arsenault
Everquest 2, from Sony Online Entertainment, has been running strong for
almost three years now. There have been numerous expansions and patches that
have enhanced gameplay, added classes, new zones and raised level caps. With
many years of experience, and many MMO titles under their collective belts, SOE
is a dominant leader in the industry. I recently had the pleasure of
interviewing Emily Taylor, SOE's new EQ2 Tradeskills game designer. Her work
encompasses much more than just tradeskills, as there are a multitude of other
game related factors that either directly or indirectly have an impact on the
big picture.
Mark: Where were you working before this, and why where you shifted to
this new position? I heard you speaking to a few of the folks at the recent SOE
block party in San Diego, and you seemed to have a good grasp on the problems
they were having from a player's perspective. I assume you must be as much of a
player as you are an employee?
Emily: Prior to this position, I was working as Lotus Notes Developer for
a small company building custom database solutions. Previously, I have worked as
an I.T. manager, an email administrator, database developer, and helpdesk
support/administration. This position allowed me to transition into the computer
gaming industry, a move that I had been hoping to make for some time as it's an
area I've always been fascinated with. I played the original EverQuest since
2001 and have been heavily involved in EverQuest II since it was released, so I
am definitely a devoted player and very familiar with the world of Norrath.
Mark: Do you have any plans for any major overhaul to the entire crafting
system, or are you strictly making changes as needed? Are the changes you
typically make driven from above, or primarily from player feedback?
Emily: "Major overhaul" is a subjective term, what one person
might consider major, another might not, so this is a difficult question to
answer. From my point of view, at this point I am only making changes as needed,
but some of the needs are quite large, so that can still involve a significant
degree of change. The driving force behind any change varies, depending what it
is. I have been an active member of the EQ2 crafting community since release,
and so I came to this position with already a long list of changes that in my
opinion needed to be addressed, and I started working on these right away. Other
changes have been requested "from above" for various reasons, and of
course, the crafting community has also been quite vocal with their suggestions,
and sometimes if I see a particularly good one I will add it to my list. Quite a
lot of the requests and ideas that I've seen come from players have actually
already been on my own to do list, or are even already under development, so
there's a lot of overlap. Just because a player posts an idea on the forums and
then it happens a little later, doesn't necessarily mean cause and effect. The
best scenario is when the suggestion comes from me, from the players, AND from
above -- that means it's a change that everybody wants, and everybody will be
happy when it happens!
Mark: Is working with trade skills the only thing you will be doing, or
are there other aspects of the game you are involved with? Do you foresee adding
any new trade skills in the future, or just making enhancements to existing
ones?
Emily: As I rapidly discovered after starting in this position, there's
no such thing as "working with trade skills" only. Tradeskills is
actually a very broad area that requires sticking my nose into all sorts of
different aspects of the game. It can cover everything from itemization of the
equipment to be crafted, to artistic decisions such as what graphic to assign to
which armor or what furniture to give to carpenters, to creation of recipes,
design of quests, placement of items in the world, manipulation of raw data such
as harvestable drop rates, creation of factions, faction merchants, balancing XP
gain numbers, and a huge amount more that I haven't even started to get involved
in. Although it's almost bewildering to me how many diverse areas I can dabble
in, and it's very challenging to learn such a broad range of skills and tools,
it's also a great experience for me because I get to do all sorts of different
and interesting things all the time, which designers who are more focused on
just one task might miss out on.
In a game that is already well established with a dedicated fan base, the best
any company can hope to do is maintain their current subscriber list and hope
for the occasional friend or co-worker of an existing player to be drawn into
the fray. Keeping things fresh, making subtle tweaks and improvements to the
game over time (coupled with the occasional expansion), is the best way to
ensure longevity and continued success. In my opinion, it is people like Ms.
Taylor working on such details behind the scenes that are ultimately responsible
for maintaining a certain polish to the game, keeping existing players
interested while also giving newcomers something to be impressed with. Thanks,
and keep up the good work!
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