Meet the Team, Vol. IX

Greetings once again Dev-Log Readers,

This week we interview a fairly well known GM and member of the MMO Team. Milty or Miltonyorkcastle is our interviewee this week and he gives us an overview of an interesting aspect of the MMO team projects.

rowana: So to start we'll get a little statistic! Where about do you live?

milty: Lubbock, Texas. Known for cotton, cowboys, and dust storms.

rowana: And car salesmen! Or at least that's what I hear. Heh.

* milty chuckles.

rowana: How old are you? We'll take vagueness, though the rest have been fairly forth right so you may disappoint!

milty: 27. Apparently one of the youngers.

rowana: Okay! Last statistic... How long have you been 'hanging around' this place we know and love?

milty: Oh, um, a while? since sometime in 2005, so four and a half, coming up on five years? Sounds right.

rowana: Long time! So, during that time who have you played on the server. As well, do you have a favorite memory to share with the readers?

milty: I've been thinking about this one, really, and I just want to mention so many, so many of which are from the Soul of a Lost Ancient campaign.... the Lumbral, Eon, Drezneb.... but I think.... the "favorite" memory that I often come back to when thinking about Layo is a time that Cole Norseman and Gulnyr the Grim sat on a bench in Hlint and debated which tree in Hlint was the tallest, like two geezers on the porch watching the adventurers run by on the road.

rowana: That sounds amusing!

milty: Good times.

rowana: But you choose to remain mysterious on players?

milty: Oh, right! So caught up in reminiscing I forgot about the first part of the question.... let's see... I think they're all listed on the forums, but I played Cole Norseman for a long while, and then Sahala, the dark elf sorceress. And now I play Steel, your favorite neighborhood mercenary. I had one other character approved, an early incarnation of Steel, but I had him deleted within a few days.

rowana: Quite a range of characters. On to the future of Layonara. Can you delve and share a bit what you are doing for the MMO team at present?

milty: At present, I'm working on item pricing, or more broadly, on the economy for the game. This has proven to be a much more daunting task than I had originally envisioned, even sending me back to "school" to get some more software/database education. I've spent a lot of time in research, actually and the system developed for determining item value is designed to take into account just how different a video game economy is from a real economy.

milty: Also, when the time comes, I'm hoping to continue work with what becomes the new LORE after we move away from NWN.

rowana: To back up just a little... You say you are working on the economy of items and things. Can you elaborate a little on the goal of this? One of the persistent issues in NWN is the economy and it's distinct separation between NPC and PC... Is this part of what you are working on?

milty: Ultimately, yes. Rhizome has some great ideas that pertain to those issues, and he's really the lead on the economy stuff, but when you look at game economies you see a waterfall trying to squeeze itself into a bathtub drain. Games build in so many arbitrary money sinks to deal with the infinite inflow of currency.

milty: We ideally would like to decrease the number of arbitrary sinks, in part for immersion, and in part because they don't really address the primary issue, which is, put simply is that instead of having a cyclical movement of money, games have a one way street: money gets generated, then gets eaten, ideally at the same pace, but in reality, that's never the case.

rowana: Well it certainly sounds like a large undertaking, since this is not only a problem that persists here on Layonara, but also in other more current MMOs. What then do you do in your 'copious' spare time?

milty: Hm... I troll the Layonara forums, inserting my opinion here and there, unwanted or otherwise... I update LORE... I GM a quest on the NWN side of things now and again.... oh, and I play on Layo sometimes, too.

rowana: Ah, so like so many: Layo is your free time, heh.

milty: More or less, yeah.

rowana: Well, thanks Milt for squeezing this interview into your schedule. I'm sure the readers will appreciate this quick glimpse into the work being done.

milty: Right on. It was fun. =)

We hope the time spent wasn't too costly, but we are happy to benefit from the shelling out of detail. Next week stop by for another drop in the bucket from the MMO team!

~row, on behalf of the writing team