Meet the Team, Vol. IV

Greetings Dev-Log Readers,

This week we talk with OneST8, also known as AlteredST8, AnotherST8 and ST8. We managed to fit in a quick interview with him this week to get a few details from the little known man of various states! Please take note of birthday information and send well wishes on the upcoming day!

rowana: So first question then: How old are you?

OneST8: I'm 31... 10/10/77/

rowana: Wuu! Shall I post the birth date also? Hehe

OneST8: If I say it, you can share it :)

rowana: Alrighty! Where do you live? (non-specificness understandable here!)

OneST8: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

rowana: And for the first long one!: Who did you play in NWN Layonara, and do you have any fun memories that stand out from your play time here?

OneST8: oh my, *chuckles*... let's see, my early days of Layonara were spent with Elrond Anwamane but that was loooooong ago... I can say I was one of the original "Red Caps" but dropped offline due to a divorce and two close family deaths (my father passing in particular), when I returned to Layonara some time after my sabbatical on life I knew more about myself you could say

rowana: Oh gosh, sounds like a pretty rough patch.

OneST8: Prior to my departure I had been part of the GM team as well as an active coder on the project team. I wrote the original wizard/druid teleportation systems as well as the bird messaging and of course I wrote the LORE wiki engine completely from scratch and implemented our automated means of accessing the BIC data for LORE's character pages.

Now here's the thing, when I came back to Layonara after that patch. I knew something key about myself. I don't want to play games anymore; they're not really for me. I want to make a game. So that's what I told Leanthar when I came back, basically: I'm a programmer and I don't want to play anymore can I just skip the application process and be on the project team again?

rowana: That's a pretty big shift!

OneST8: Indeed. Life tends to teach us about ourselves and those lessons are hard to learn; the lesson I learned? I get a bigger kick out of making something other people can enjoy than by playing a game myself. Granted I still love RP and will always hold on to the fantasy of me finding the time to GM again. As you can tell from the scheduling of this interview; I'm kinda busy these days :)

rowana: Yes. A bit! Hehe. Regardless, that will be something for the rest of us to look forward to, I think.

OneST8: Agreed!

rowana: So then, can you tell us about what you are working on for the MMO team, generally, in part or otherwise?

OneST8: I'm just orth's shadow. I don't really exist per-se... No, just kidding, I'm believe-it-or-not supposedly called the Lead Programmer or some such thing however, there is no real "lead" on our team; we're all "doing what we're best at" and there's very little overlap. Specifically though I make things work in those fundamental ways that end-users never really "see" but rather just "use" without even knowing.

rowana: Hehe. Still very important, of course!

OneST8: So for example, in our definition of what makes up an inventory screen, I make it easy for the person implementing that definition in code to just focus on the 'inventory' part and let the system manage the 'screen.' So, for all you people listening in out there, if you like the way vague and fundamental things work; I've probably had something key to do with it, if it doesn't work for you. I'm almost 100% positive I had nothing to do with it at all and it's probably the other guy to your left's fault. *shifty eyes* Yeah. That's it, yeah... *blank expression*

rowana: I see where the 'shadow' part comes in. Hehe.

OneST8: Oh, something important and directly visible to everyone. I'm not letting us release without Linux, Mac and Windows native platform support! And in particular, I'm in charge of everything mac, from testing/fixing to packaging and patching.

rowana: Ah, I do believe there will be some overjoyed folks out there to hear this.

OneST8: The artwork for the installer will of course be in the realm of the artists on our team so you don't have to fear my awesome "programmer art" skills!

*OneST8 draws a big box with a small X in the top right and declares it "done".*

rowana: Heee. There might be some folks out there glad to hear that as well!

*OneST8 grins*

rowana: To get a way from 'business' and end on a fun note: If you had any one super power or skill, what would it be and why?

OneST8: Oooooo. I'm not sure really, let me think about it for a minute, I've been asked questions before like, "Which would you rather have; x-ray vision or the ability to fly," but to choose any power? That's a fun one for sure.

rowana: Take all the time you need! Hehe

OneST8: Actually I think you just hit the nail on the head there. I was just thinking about time. My "super power" would be to go forward and backward in time at will. Even if limited to just a day forward or back would be just fine. Yep. Either that or my ability would be to not ever require sleep.

rowana: Hehe! Sort of the same in a way!

OneST8: True enough, true enough!

rowana: Alright thank you for the time again! I'll let you back to programming for now. Having a bunch of fun with these interviews so I may hunt you down later on for a follow up!

OneST8: Sure, we can do an followup anytime, time permitting ;)

Thanks all for coming by this week! Next week will see another random interview from one of the MMO team members.

~row, on behalf of the writing team