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- Tell us a little about yourself, what have you accomplished in life?
I try to be as honest as possible and I never kiss ass. I also lie a lot.
- What are your favourite computer games/board games and why?
This is hard to answer as my tastes tend to change. The games I remember fondly (in no particular order) are: Marathon (series), Tribes 1, Chess, Backgammon, Arkanoid, Tempest, Robotron, Tron, Unreal Tournament (series), Torment, Fallout (series), Freespace, Descent, Warcraft/Starcraft, Checkers, etc., and so on. As for why I like them, that really depends. Some of the games I wouldn’t have liked as much as I did if it weren’t for the fact that I was playing them with friends. Others were just so good I had to like them.
- What hobbies do you have besides computer games?
Buh? What?
Seriously though, being a new dad means that any time I used to have for hobbies is now devoted to my wonderful son.
- What are your favourite bands/artists (music) ?
Right now my playlist has music from Mars Volta, NIN, Outkast, Depeche Mode, and Barry White.
- Tell us a little about your role in the making of Fallout 1/2/3 (Van Buren) ?
For Fallout 1, I briefly QA’d the patch for the Mac version. During Fallout 2 I was the QA guy for NCR, Vault 15, 13, and San Fransisco (yeah, I know). I also pulled a fast one and some how convinced Feargus to let me have access to Sourcesafe and the world editor so that I could place props and doors in some of those areas. For Van Buren (not officially Fallout 3 but it was (shhhh!)) I was the “lead” scripter and responsible for writing and designing how the AI scripts would be written and what the AI would do and so on and so forth.
- What’s your favourite Fallout memory?
Getting a follower with a minigun to NOT shoot the player in the back. I had wanting that since working on Fallout 2. Josh jokingly mentioned shedding a tear after witnessing the non-event. I actually did.
- What specifically inspired Fallout for you? What were the biggest influences?
I was never a designer so this is moot.
- Pop Culture played a big role in Fallout, what pop culture influences you?
As little as possible.
- How was it to be a part of the Fallout team?
Awesome, with the exception of the ongoing shit that was happening with Interplay. That tended to “harsh on my mellow.”
- Were there things that you wished you had added to either Fallouts?
I didn’t work on the first two in a dev capacity (save for placing tables, shelves and doors in 2). For 3, I really wish we would have been able to finish it. It would have been such a great game.
- What were you favourite places in fallout and why?
The Temple of Trials. Haha, j/k. The Glow. Easily. Up until that point in the game most places are inhabited at least a little bit. But The Glow hadn’t been touched in years. Corpses from a battle hadn’t been moved or touched since those people fell.
- What is your hope for future Fallout games? Would you like to be a part of a future Fo team?
I try to repress hope for future Fallout games. I guess I’m still bitter about F3 being canned after having wanted to work on it since 2. I’m not sure if I’d want to be a part of another team. That would really depend on who was doing it (the pub and the devs).
- Who would you bring with you in a future Fallout team and why?
Anyone I would want to bring would already be there.
- In your opinion, what are the key ingredients that every RPG should have?
Fun, ego stroking, and fun.
- Where do you see computer RPGs going?
Much like in the FPS genre, I see a blending of genres. RPG/Stealth, RPG/RTS, RPG/FPS, Squad Based RPG, RPG Platformer, RPG Light Gun game, RPG Pinball, etc. Honestly, I have no clue. I just made that up. Sounds plausible, though, right?
- How does the fan base hinder/help the projects that you’ve worked on?
They can be a create sounding board for ideas a dev may have, but that requires that fans have a clear picture of what you want the game to be. Since that’s never going to happen, everything they say has to be taken in the context that they’re commenting on something that they’re passionate about without having all of the necessary information.
- When planning the story how do you go through the process of integrating themes and story with the constraints on software?
There really isn’t much of a constraint on the story per se. However, what the player can and can’t do and what the designers can throw at the player during the game are definitely constrained by the limitations of the engine/hardware.
- If you could make any computer game that you wanted, which would it be and why?
Oh hell, I don’t know. I waffle on this topic all of the time. My “dream game” changes once a month.
- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
In 10 years I’ll still be apologizing to Avellone for not returning his Sopranos DVD set. Avellone will still say, “Don’t worry. No rush.”
- Any last word to the Fallout fan base?
Some of you are real assholes. Some of you aren’t.