Participants

 

Stainless Steel Studios:

Rick Goodman
Lead Designer of Empire Earth
Nickname: Mr. Grinch

Gordon Farrell
48 years old,
resident of New york City MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, professional playwright and screenwriter. 10 years on the faculty of New York University teaching playwriting, screenwriting, Theatre History, and Greek Drama.
In the gaming industry:
- Scenario designer for Empire Earth (designed the Tutorials, the Greek Campaign, and the Napoleonic War scenarios in the British Campaign)
- In the online community, designed a 26-scenario saga of the Persian Wars for AoE that was distruted by PC Gamer Magazine on their Extended Play 2 cd. Four of these scenarios won PC Gamer's Best Add-On Levels of 1999 award.
- Designed scenarios for AoK that won awards at AOE2.com, The King Arthur's Court Website, and Ensemble Studio's "Heroes of the Ages" Contest. They were written up by Computer Gaming World as being among the best add-ons available on the web.
- Just finished a chapter on "The Theory of Scenario Designing" for the Empire Earth Official Strategy Guide.

Chris Theriault
Scenario Designer for Empire Earth
Nickname: Eggman
I create and otherwise supervise the production of scenarios for SSSI.

 

Wings Simulations:

Teut Weidmann
CEO of Wings Simulations, also Designer and Producer
last title: Panzer Elite

 

NEON Studios:

Falko Löffler
Nickname: Falko
Game Concept Writer

Steffen Itterheim
Lead Level Designer
Games I worked on as a professional at NEON Studios since July '99: Armorines (GBC - Level Design, Scripting) Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (GBC - Scripting, Level Design) Superman (GBC, cancelled - Scripting) Die Maus 2 (GBC, for german market only - Scripting, LD) Santa Claus Junior (GBC - Scripting)
So the job description Level Designer doesn't quite fit because I do a lot of scripting/programming, too. In the above games that mainly meant scripting enemy behaviors (you could even call it AI ) as well as scripting frontends and game logic in general.
I did playtesting for Balls of Steels and Shadow Warrior (both Apogee/3D Realms) when i was CoSysop in their Compuserve Forum. I also contributed to various Level Design Books (Duke3D, Quake, Deathmatch Manifesto), made several FAQs (mainly on Duke3D) and held courses on ZDNet about Duke3D Level Design. I was generally very involved in the community since '94 until i started working full time at NEON Studios in '99. Back then I was better known under the general nickname "The Addict" (or: Duke Addict, DooM Addict).

Peter Thierolf
Technical director

Marc Kamradt
Programmer

Marc Müller
Programmer

 

Lionhead Studios:

Andy Robson
Testing Manager

Aaron Ludlow
Quality Assurance
I work in the Quality Assurance department for Lionhead Studios (who recently released Black&White). I have been here now for just over a year, when I joined after completing a weeks work experience with Lionhead. I am a avid games player who has been playing computer games since the age of five.

 

Full Sail:

Liam Hislop
Instructor of Gaming Project at Full Sail
Nickname: Doright
I currently live in Orlando, Florida and instruct a class in our Game Design program. Our class helps students take their skills at the school and transform them into a game that the students can apply them in a team oriented game team. I have been here for a little over a year and am very excited to help young people translate their love of games into the gaming industry where they can make a living doing what they love. I am currently working on a couple of independent game and writing projects. I have previously worked on the west coast as a Vice President of an ISP as well as sat on their Board of Directors.

 

eSofnet Co., Ltd:

David Kim
Age: 25
Location: Seoul, S. Korea
E-mail: voltaire@esofnet.com
Profession: Scenario Design, Level Design
Started in the game design business from TRPG publishing, I've done some freelance TRPG design and worked for TSR(now WoTC) in ther U.S. Currently in the process of finishing up a MMORPG called Dragon Raja Online where I was in charge of Scenario Design and did support design for just about every aspect of the game. I've been studying the Asia market while working with servicing partners in countries/areas like Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India. Currently I'm working on a independent project to provide better game developing info-sharing site for Korean developers.

 

 

Heavengames.com:

Rasher
Moderator of Aok Heaven's scenario design section

Zen
Forums administrator

Akavish (former Jerusalem)
Head reviewer

bobT
Cherub at Zeus Heaven

 

SCN Punk:

Mark Stoker
Webmaster / Scenario Designer / RMS Designer
E-mail: mstoker@excite.com
Voted the best mapmaker by the AoK Punk members, it’s Mark Stoker! Mark's long list of accomplishments include "Tamerlane Prince of Destruction", "Nyctophobia", "Ottoman Onslaught", and "The Spanish March (MS Scenario Contest Finalist)". He’s been with the team since April 2000 and is now the Webmaster of AoK Punk. [taken from the SCN Punk staff page]

Ex-T
Head of SCN Punk / Scenario Designer
E-mail: scnpunk@hotmail.com
His name used to be DeKont but now he’s Ex-T, but you should really just call him Punk. He’s da boss, the leader, and the one we look up to at AoK Punk. If you don’t know what I am talking about I mean the founder of the best scenario design team out there. He’s from Canada too except this Punk is from Toronto the metropolis of the second largest nation of the world. He brought you AoK PUNK Massacre, RotDF, and RotDM. He’s been in the team for the longest that is since September 1999.[taken from the SCNPunk staff page]

Tsunami Studios:

Dan "Inquizative" Bayne
Age: 28
Location: Trumbull, Connecticut
Profession in Real Life: Travel Technologies Specialist Started designing scenarios for Age of Empires Heaven late in 1999. Moved on to Age of Kings/and The Conquerors at the release of these titles. Came in First place in the Planet Age of Empires Japanses Civ Scenario Design contest and Won First place in the Ensemble Studios "Make Texas Beautiful" contest. Founder and Emperor of Tsunami Studios, Founder of The Tsunami Group, Co-Founder of Tsunami Online and Co-Founder of the Tsuniversity Titles of Works: Age of Empires: Kidnapped Age of Kings: The Forbidden City; Gaiku Airashii and "The Deadening: Soil of the Scorned".

 

 

ZZICT Entertainment:

Tane Piper
Lead Designer
I am the lead designer of Lost Legion (current working title), at ZZICT Entertainment in The Netherlands. Website is http://www.legiongame.nl Appart from being the lead designer of the game, I am also a hardcore games player and feel I have a good idea about what makes a good game and bad.

 

 

GamersUnitedNetwork - GUN

Robert Fliegel
Editor
Nickname: Bob Craven
I am Robert Fliegel, "Editor" of a german independent and noncommercial gamesite called GUN - GamersUnitedNetwork. Together with ex-gameprogrammer Andreas Kemnitz (who did the C64 Game "Vermeer") and a staff of ambitious gamers we try to create a fullservice gamesite without any hypes and suggestions. Most of our writers/testers play games since the early 80s and are true gamefans. We are different from the various other gamesites in many ways: we play & test only final release versions (not because we wont't get any previews), we play every game until the end before we even start writing - and we do everything just for fun, we definitely have no aambitions to make money with our site, we still believe in the old internet-community idea of sharing information without any dotcom-business stuff in mind. in just one year of being online our team reviewed 120+ games (more content than most other german game-sites) and though we can't affort any advertisement we now have 300k pageimpressions a month with average growth of 10%. i won't say i am a journalist (my main profession is typesetting & layout in an advertising agency), i am just a very interested consumer who played so many games in the last 20 years so i think i can really give some input on how the gamer thinks about game balancing, interface, motivation and other relevant aspects beside graphics - aspects game designers often forget because they are too deep "inside" their product.

 

 

Various:

Craig Noggle
Nickname: Shadows
Age: 17 - Scenario Design and Story Writer - Webmaster of Empire Earth Punk. A scenario design based site. www.scnpunk.com/eepunk - Creator of the Shadowmind Series(Age of Kings). A series which was rated into the Best Of AoK at HeavenGames - Creator of The Swallowed Realm Series(Age of Kings:TC). Another series which was rated into the Best of AoK at HeavenGames - Creator of "Where We Have Arrived" Scenario ( Age of Kings: TC). Rated into the Best of AoK at HeavenGames. - CO-Creator of AoKasino(Age of Kings). Rated a perfect into the Best of AoK at HeavenGames. - Creator of the Overworld Series(Empire Earth)...which has yet to be released. Preview--->

Sebastian Kaulitzki
Nickname: Eraxion
E-Mail: eraxion@gmx.de
Leader of the modelling team Dimension Arts
Actually writing a level design book

Ingo van Thiel
Age: 29 Location: Cologne, Germany
Profession in Real Life: Editor/Journalist
Fan level designer for Age of Empires and Age of Kings. First came to the HeavenGames network in 1998. One of the more active designers in the HG fan community, with several top rated campaigns. His work was featured in a few magazines, among them Computer Gaming World (USA) and PC Action (Germany). One professional work so far: Age of Kings Add-On "Von Kimbern und Teutonen" by German company Computec (published in Germany 2000/2001).
Titles of Works:
Age of Empires: Tai Gun I + II, Budonian Tales, Mago, Ghengis Khan, The Two Brothers
Age of Kings: The Quest, The King’s Best Men, Gyda's Challenge

James Hills
I have been an avid gamer since the mid 1980s with various consoles and more of a PC gamer in the late 80’s with the Sierra “quest” games. Currently I am returning to consoles with a great interest in new games like ICO. I have also been working in the games industry since 1996 as a PR person focusing on smaller independent companies and I spend my free time working on various game ideas as a hobby. Currently I write for GameSpy.com where I cover alternative platforms.

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© 2001 Arno Scherhorn - email: arno.scherhorn@arcor.de