Everytime y'all see a Red Name in World Chat you pull out your books of 20 questions so we took down some of the favourite over the years and sent them to the team! Question 1 - What's your go-to snack while working on a game? Name: ATA-Will Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Community Management It has to be Peanut Butter filled Pretzels! Those things are so seriously addictive that I have to hide them from myself or they will be gone in a day. The bonus is that when I find them it’s a nice treat for future me from past me Name: ATA-Jace Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Design Popcorn, mostly for when i'm looking at world chat, Name: ATA-Mark Game(s) I've worked on: All Games! Department: Product Sriracha 🔥 Name: ATA-Barton Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Design Chocolate darker than my soul. That is, 85% or darker. Name: ATA-Claptrap Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Community Management Miss Vickies Salt and Vinegar chips. There is no other chip. Question 2 - If your life were a video game, what would the title be, and what genre would it belong to?? Name: ATA-Ripley Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Live Operations It already exists. It’s called Desert Bus. You drive a bus in the desert in real time for 8 hours, constantly correcting the steering or you crash and are towed back to the start. Name: ATA-Burger Game(s) I've worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Kingdoms at War, Single City Department: Narrative Design Whopper Waifu: A story-driven visual novel where you are a burger and date other burgers but it has a morality scale where the bad ending is the player becoming a burger eating cannibal. Name: ATA-Jace Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Design It would be an open world RPG filled with plenty adventuring, beautiful landscapes and deep characters, but Im just focused on beating my high score on the fishing mini-game Question 3 - Can you share a funny or memorable bug from a game you've worked on? Name: ATA-Burger Game(s) I've worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Kingdoms at War, Single City Department: Narrative Design One time I accidentally deleted all the Heckfire competitions that were running at that time. My story is that I spilled mustard on the computer and I’m sticking to it. Name: ATA-Jace Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Design One time on KAW when we released a new emoji spell, some players were reporting seeing a Banana instead of the intended emoji. This confused our team but apparently it was related to a long forgotten banana emoji that had been made with the text “There's always gold in the banana stand”. That then lead us to create the Victory Banana emoji spell given out for top finishes in Competitions Question 4 - What's the most unusual inspiration you've drawn from, for a game idea? Name: ATA-Ripley Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Live Operations Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had came to me in strange dreams I can’t quite remember. Name: ATA-Mark Game(s) I've worked on: All Games! Department: Product A lot of the trade economy and furniture is based on my experiences playing Diablo and Everquest and dropping items in front of people to trade. We wanted to create a unique experience where people had to be socially connected to trade to recreate that feeling of connecting with another player rather than a dull and mechanical auction house. Question 5 - What's the most challenging part of game development that players might not be aware of? Name: ATA-Ripley Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Live Operations No game has a monolithic community of players. For all the strong passion and great ideas one player has in one direction, another player will feel the exact opposite. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to satisfy people with very different goals and desires, and not letting an update for one type of player hurt another player’s experience. Also to make sure not only the loudest voices are heard. It’s a super difficult balance, we’re constantly making mistakes and learning from them, but we’ll never stop trying. Name: ATA-Burger Game(s) I've worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Kingdoms at War, Single City Department: Narrative Design Keeping track of the 10,000 browser tabs you have open constantly as a designer. Name: ATA-Mark Game(s) I've worked on: All Games! Department: Product Designers are trying to make the game fun for as many people as possible but there are always thousands and thousands of people trying to exploit and break the game. There are so many mechanics I think would be fun and would love to build that won’t work in a multiplayer game where people will find ways to break the mechanics. It’s so hard but also more fun when it comes together. Question 6 - Describe the most memorable reaction you've seen from a player enjoying your game. Name: ATA-Ripley Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Live Operations Someone wrote and recorded a song about a game I worked on once! It was really sweet of them, I still remember the lyrics. Also players finding each other and getting married is always really affirming about the type of games and spaces we’re trying to create, even if we were only a small part of it. Name: ATA-Fog Game(s) I've worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Kingdoms at War, Party in my Dorm, Witch Arcana Department: Design I love checking into the PIMD and KAW forums to see our players working on detailed lore guides, character guides, beautiful fan art, and more. Every single time I see our players engaging with our games that way it makes me emotional! Name: ATA-Hedgehog Game(s) I've worked on: Behind the Scenes Department: People A player sent flowers to the office for someone who had just recently joined the community team. That was pretty memorable. Question 7 - What's the nerdiest thing you've ever done or are proud to admit? Name: ATA-Ripley Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Live Operations I flunked college trying to beat someone else to #1 on the realm leaderboard on a social game I played. And now here we are, so I guess it was meant to be! Name: ATA-Will Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Community Management I also almost flunked a few courses when Skyrim launched. I think I hit over 80 hours in the first week, and ended a relationship over it. . . But alas we'll always have the time we spent in Whiterun! Name: ATA-Fog Game(s) I've worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Kingdoms at War, Party in my Dorm, Witch Arcana Department: Design For a while I had a very popular Tumblr account where I made lovingly crafted memes about a certain RPG. That’s as specific as I can get before my pride turns into shame. Name: ATA-Claptrap Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Community Management Camping out for the release of Halo 3. My friends played Halo 2 all the time so this was a big moment! Question 8 - Tell us about your most epic gaming achievement outside of work. Name: ATA-Ripley Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Live Operations I finally beat Alien: Isolation on Nightmare difficulty! Also getting to 3k trophies in Clash Royale was a big deal for me because I crumble like apple pie in high-stakes PVP. Name: ATA-Jace Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Design Competing in the Pokemon card game World Championships as a kid, I didn’t end up winning like Ash finally did, but one day I’ll be the very best, like no one ever was Name: ATA-Will Game(s) I've worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Community Management When the game Chrome Hounds launched for Xbox 360 back in the day, my friends and I quickly found a tactic of making lightning fast hovercraft builds that were loaded up with bombs. With all of us regularly using this build we could take out enemy HQ's within minutes and were the winning clan in the first season of the game!
I appreciate the post and all, but can y’all fix your warring system? Bring back all star war, bring back rancor wars do something plz
Straight to comments! If and it's a BIG IF ! If the devs are actually reading this and taking on board the things we are actually asking for I would like to add my thoughts! Please stop with the tinkering about with things that are not broken and fix the things that are broken! War, a failed shadow of its previous self, bring back lowland clan and stop the alts and moles throwing wars for a handful of charms, sort out clan loyalty, sort out an admin bonus of sorts! But please stop with the hoops we jump thru it's now dam annoying
What I’ve got from this thread is that y’all are all in an echo chamber, working on other games that are your priorities. Will concerns with warring be addressed? Lands? Eb’s? Account “security”. You’re missing a couple questions. But cool to see y’all’s favourite snacks.
Y'all use the term game developer liberally, you're only a developer if you're coding, Unity(C#) or whatever engine. If you aren't writing code you don't call yourself a "Dev". If you're a Community manager, level designer or an artist.. You aren't a developer. Code = development. Simple. Everyone in the industry knows that. - From an actual developer. 😘
Here’s another take….”grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate”. Definition of devolop. anything that contributes to the games advancement would be developing it. The person writing the scripts are just one part of the team that it takes to fully create the final results and grow the game…..so developer still applies to all involved really. Sounds like maybe those who strictly write code have a superiority complex🤓
Eh. Not really man. I mean that sounds nice, but that's just not how it is in Tech. You call a Software Developer a Developer because they write code. That's just how it works in Tech. You don't call an artist, community manager or anyone non technical a Developer. They have their own titles in the industry. Not really my opinion, but more of a fact. Code = Development. Just how it always is. You don't call a Nurse, a Doctor because the nurse helps in the whole process. I probably should have prefaced the earlier comment with how I used to be a Game Developer for two and a half years and then moved into Software Development. If I was an artist, I'd be called that. If I was a community manger, that's what I'd be called. A game designer, a game designer.. You get it.
that’s fair. Suppose the other aspects would fall into game design then. Seemed like a tomayto tomahto thing at first thought.
Why would we want to get to know the Devs when Product are the entities controlling the roadmap, feature requests, etc.? Unless, ATA does not have a Product team, which leaves the Devs controlling product (which in most cases, is never a good company structure). Happy KAW’ing 🤙🏻