Developer Spotlight - Meet Moorguard!

Discussion in 'Developer Roundtable' started by ARCHIVED-Amnerys, Oct 26, 2012.

  1. This week, we are continuing with the introduction of members of the Vanguard Saga of Heroes® Development Team through special Developer Spotlight features. Next up is Moorgard!
    [IMG]
    Moorgard


    Name: Steve Danuser
    Job Title: Creative Director

    How long have you worked at Sony Online Entertainment?
    I started at SOE in 2003 as Community Manager on the EverQuest® II team. It was an awesome learning process to see how a massive MMO gets developed, and interacting with the players was a fantastic experience. I eventually transitioned into game design, working on live game updates and expansions (for example, I worked on Echoes of Faydwer from concept through to completion). I left SOE in late 2006 but have recently returned, and I must say it's great to be back. Seeing so many old friends and colleagues again, it feels like coming home!
    How did you get into the game industry?
    I loved video games ever since I was a kid breaking joysticks on the Atari 2600, and my favorite genre was fantasy adventure. It was the Ultima series that opened my eyes to the potential for telling great stories that could sweep you up in virtual worlds.
    When MMOs came along, I immediately gravitated toward this new frontier of gaming. My friends and I became devoted EverQuest® players, and we decided to create a website that offered news and opinions about the game. We founded Mobhunter.com to do something a little bit different from all the rant sites that were popular back then. I tried to think through problems and offer solutions rather than just complain about what I didn't like.
    This approach caught the attention of the developers at SOE, some of whom reached out and gave me peeks behind the development curtain. I was invited to a fansite summit and got to meet a number of the devs I'd been exchanging emails with, and I felt like a kid in a candy store. The possibility of a Community Manager position on EQ2 came up, and soon after I was offered the job. To this day I feel tremendously fortunate and honored for the opportunity given to me.
    Do you play Vanguard? If so, tell us a bit about your character.
    I've played Vanguard® on and off since beta, though I tended to roll a lot of new characters rather than stick to just one. Since joining the team I have been playing a lot, and it should be no surprise to anyone who knows me that my newest character is a monk. Moorgard was a monk in EQ and EQ2, so it was inevitable that I'd return to my habit of feigning death!
    My intent is to take my newest character to max level. That's the only way you really feel the pulse of an MMO. If you look around and listen, the game will tell you what it needs to make it grow and prosper.
    What do you like best about Vanguard?
    I love that Vanguard embodies so many of the qualities of classic RPGs. Most MMOs feature large worlds, but Telon is truly extraordinary in its breadth and depth. There are so many places to see and explore that it's a challenge to do it all on one character. The fact that it's a world without boundaries, where you can see something cool in the distance and run all the way to it, sets the game apart from the on-rails experience you find in many MMOs.
    What exciting plans do you have in store for Vanguard?
    My goal is to realize the massive potential of Vanguard while ensuring the game stays true its original spirit. We have an expansive world full of stuff to do, and we need to make clear and accessible paths to get to it. Our players feel a great sense of pride and accomplishment in overcoming challenging content, so we want to give them more to do while expanding our audience of new players.
    Our number one goal is to improve the Vanguard experience for everyone. That means working hard to optimize how the game runs across a variety of hardware, as well as improving our server performance to improve responsiveness. We're also committed to fixing bugs, some of which have been in the game for a long time. We ask for your patience as we undertake this effort; many of these problems are buried in old data and code, so it will take time for us to unravel these very complex issues.
    Our expanded design team is a great mix of veterans who've been around since the early days of Vanguard development, along with some, like myself, who are new to the project. We're leveraging this diversity to freshen up older content while simultaneously working on brand new stuff for our veteran players. We feel improving older content is important as new players find the game for the first time, but we're committed to providing new content to those ardent fans who have loved the game for years and continue to stand by it.
    For those in the high levels, City of Brass will (finally!) be rolling out in November. This is a gorgeous zone which introduces new challenges for groups and small raids. In the months to come, you'll see several low and mid-level zones freshened up with improved quest flow and rewards. Expect continued tweaks to the Isle of Dawn and other starting areas so that we keep our new players (and those rolling alts) engaged and entertained.
    One of the things I'm most excited about is the chance to open up parts of the world that players haven't seen yet. Even as massive as Telon is and the crazy number of dungeons you can find in the game, still more are waiting to be populated with mobs, quests, and raid bosses. The potential is truly staggering, and I can't wait to show players what this team is capable of achieving!
    Do you have any funny stories to tell everyone about working on Vanguard?
    I'm pretty new to the team, so I don't have a lot of funny behind-the-scenes anecdotes (yet). Instead, I'll take the sentimental approach and say that it's a real honor to work on a project that has such vast history behind it. We've got a great team that is committed to making Vanguard awesome, and helping to lead that effort is very gratifying.
    I'm sure I'll soon have all kinds of stories to tell soon enough...probably about how I broke the build or some other craziness!
    Have players ever surprised you with using a strange tactic to defeat an encounter that you created?
    Every newly minted designer believes they'll come up with content that outwits players and pushes them to the limit. What I soon realized was that my puny skills were no match for the combined effort of thousands of gamers who chew through content in ways I never even dreamed of! It's a humbling experience, but it makes you realize that it's not about proving how clever you are as a designer. Rather, your job is very simple and clear: keep your audience entertained. Once you achieve that understanding, it's immensely liberating.
    Do you play solo or play with others and why?
    I play both ways, depending on the circumstances. I love that I can jump into modern MMOs and solo if I want to, but the best games make it obvious that investing in a group will result in better rewards and a more engaging social experience. Vanguard is really good at this; you can be wandering in an area doing a solo quest and you stumble upon an entrance to a scary dungeon that makes you want to group up and explore it.
    What other games do you currently play?
    MMOs remain my first love, so I'm always checking out the latest and greatest such as Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and of course PlanetSide 2. I also love epic RPGs like the Mass Effect series, which I finally recently finished. I also find myself playing a lot of mobile games on the iPad, an activity I love sharing with my daughter. We're both excited over the upcoming Angry Birds Star Wars game!
    Thank you for joining us for the Developer Spotlight. Stay tuned for more highlights in the near future!

    Thank you for joining us for the Developer Spotlight. Stay tuned for more highlights in the near future!

    Previously Released Developer Spotlights:
    Meet Silius
    Meet Wigin
    Meet Elionia
    Meet Ceythos
    Meet TLoch14
    Welcome Back Aradune
    Meet Gpx1000
  2. Welcome to the Vanguard team, Moorgard. Now less talking and more working. :)
  3. Amnerys wrote:
    This is good to hear. I am glad you are choosing to get to max level and get a feel for the end game, and on a monk no less. You do realize however that our last creative director who played a monk took his feign death ability a little too seriously. Everyone thought he was dead, then he never came back. RIP Gidoo.
    Are you a dragon monk or a drunken monk at this stage in your life?
  4. yeah whatever happened to gidoo anyway? /topichijack
  5. Thank you very much Moorgard for taking the time to address player issues in the forums as well as taking your time to brave the VG community face to face at SOE Live!!!
    Your handful of insightful posts and 2 or so hours of online video you have done more for VG player moral than anyone at SOE has done in the last several years. The feedback and interaction with the playerbase is wonderful and is probably going to bring back quite a few players as well as attracting many to the game :)
    VG got snubbed at Fan Faire the last couple of times and a lot of players stopped going because of that; you got off easy this time :p BTW your parent company Sony makes really nice high grade professional AV equipment as well as consumer grade stuff that is still overkill in quality for making a youtube video. Please consider using that sort of thing next year at SOE Live.
  6. Just to clarify about the videos made at SOE Live, that was done by me without any influence by SOE or the Dev's. The poor quality of the production lies at my feet, though I wouldn't mind seeing an SOE ran video series of the panels at next years event. I doubt that will happen though for then what would be the incentive to pay the money to attend the event.
    I wanted to get the info out there this year though because of how little love our community has gotten from SOE in the past. Plus I wanted to fill my role as working for the Vanguard Forever fan site which had fallen to the wayside with how the direction of the game has flopped around the last several months.
    I hope by the time the next SOE Live comes around to have new camera equipment. This year I had intended to use my HD Flip Slide Cam, but for some reason it kept shutting off the recording at the 5 min mark while trying to record the first nights keynote. So when time came for the first Vanguard panel, I had to revert to using my SD Digital Camera with limited storage and crappy sound. Then my batteries kept dieing while trying to transfer to footage to my laptop, to free space for the second panel. That left me with not having enough space to fully record the Future of Vanguard panel and had to juggle to get my Ipod out to try and get the last five minutes of that recorded.
  7. Moorgard wrote:
    Your communication skills are quite excellent, i can see how you could have talked yourself into a job at SOE :)
    Sometimes keeping things as simple as possible is the best approach - keeping your audience entertained will be enough to see this game flourish and grow.
  8. This feels like a repeat, but welocme to the team and game!!!
    Keep up the great work, confidence and hope is something we have been seriously lacking as players here for some time, its good to have it back.
  9. Welcome to Vanguard!
    You appear to be the shot in the arm this game needed. Time will tell, but so far I think you are making a good impression.
    I just need to know one thing....what does a "Creaive Director" do?

Share This Page