Tag Archives: Facebook Friday

Facebook Friday Week 5 – Christina Norman

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by Evil Chris Priestly

This may come as a shock to some, but there ARE women in the games industry! *GASP* And what is even more shocking, they can be just as “nerdy” as the men. *GASP GASP*. Now, before you go and get all “over gasped”, you should also know that they’re not only nerdy, they’re also really talented. I’ve been really fortunate in that I have been with Christina when she has talked with the press or with our fans and she is among the most knowledgeable people I know. I will say one thing though, when I took the pictures with Christina she would only stand to the left of the pictures as she’d accidentally spilled coffee on her shirt this morning. I mention this as no matter how knowledgeable, smart, nerdy or whatever you are, we’re all human.

Name:
Christina Norman

Where are you from?
Ontario, Canada

Favorite movies:
The Crow

Favorite TV:
Right now I’m enjoying the Anime “Hellsing Ultimate”

Favorite books:
That’s a hard one! The overwhelming theme has always been fantasy.
• As a child I loved the Freddy the Pig series as well as the 30+ books in the Oz Series
• As a young adult I enjoyed anything by Piers Anthony or Margaret Weis
• Recent stuff I’ve enjoyed includes the Wheel of Time series and Labyrinths which are kind of on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Favorite pizza toppings:
BBQ Hanar

Job or title at BioWare:
Lead Gameplay Designer

How long have you worked for BioWare?
5 of your “earth years”

What does a Lead Gameplay Designer actually do?
My team builds all the gameplay systems for the Mass Effect series of games. What is a gameplay system? It’s basically anything you can do in more than one place, like fire a gun, or level up, or use a power, or enter cover. We micro-polish each of these activities until they are ridiculously fun!

What is your average day like at the office?
The great thing about being on the gameplay team is every day there is something new and interesting to review. Whether it’s changes to our cover mechanics, or a new combat animation, a new creature, a new power, or a new programming system for weapons every single day I see something new and awesome that will likely make it into our next game. I tend to spend more time reviewing work done by others and providing feedback, but I also manage to sneak in dev time on my own features.

Favorite BioWare moment Game related/thing you are most proud of at BioWare:
The improvements we made to weapons and cover for Mass Effect 2 are probably my favorite accomplishment. That was a big change for Mass Effect 2, and it ended up affecting the gameplay of the entire game, but I’m incredibly proud of the work my team put into those changes and the end result.

Favorite BioWare moment not game related:
I love hanging out with other developers at BioWare and discussing games in general. For me games are not just my job, they’re a way of life. If I’m not building games at work, I’m playing games at home, and then talking about that with friends at work. I also enjoy playing games with other BioWare employees, like doing random Starcraft 2 team laddering.

What do you do to relax/do you have any hobbies:
I’m very interested in social networking. My name on twitter is truffle, feel free to follow me!

What game are you losing sleep for right now (that you are not working on)?
Fable 3 and The Old Republic (which I’m an alpha tester for) are my main obsessions right now. I also just finished playing Game Dev Story a really awesome iPhone game.

What is the most “nerdy” thing about you?
Wow what isn’t nerdy about me? I spend all my time playing games, posting to twitter, watching anime and programming.

If you didn’t work in video games, what would you be doing?
The fun answer would be to be a writer, I’ve always enjoyed writing short stories, novels, and fiction.
The practical answer is I’d probably be building internet based software which is what I did before I got into games.
I think I’ll stick with games.

What do you want people to know about you?
I love talking with the community so feel free to send me a message on twitter or social.bioware.com. I can’t reply to everyone but I read every message that is sent my way!

Facebook Friday Week 4 – Fernando Melo

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by Evil Chris Priestly

Hello BioWare fans, and a Happy Halloween to you all. This week I wanted to do an interview with a Wolfman or some Creature from Beyond the Stars, but they aren’t on staff (yet). So instead, we have Fernando Melo. Fernando is the opposite of monstrous as he’s a great guy, but he does work as hard as 8 vampires and a Frankenstein. Fernando, among his many duties, is in charge of DLC plans for Dragon Age: Origins and is someone I enjoy going to conventions or events with (as seen below, he often takes the abuse in my stead). Anyways, that is enough from me, let’s hear from Fernando.

Name:
Fernando Melo

Where are you from?
I was born in Lisbon, Portugal. But my family moved to Canada when I was very young – I grew up in Toronto most of my life and consider that ‘home’.

Favorite movies:
Off the top of my head, if I knew I’d be stranded on an island (with a decent dvd player and big screen tv), I’d take with me… Star Wars V: Empire Strikes Back (all the cool stuff, without all the fuzzy furry stuff), Aliens (when you absolutely need to nuke something from orbit), Blade Runner (no other reason needed), The Matrix (skin tight vinyl & guns – lots of guns?! Yes please!), Airplane (not that I have a drinking problem), Peter Seller’s The Party (maybe not his most known, and possibly the most politically incorrect these days, but the waiter scene in that movie is probably still the most I’ve ever laughed watching a movie), Bruce Lee’s The Game of Death (where else will you find Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Kareem! It’s like a triumvirate of awesome), Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life (just be sure to hang on to your liver).

Favorite TV:
Usually I’ll get hooked on shows like 24, Lost and The Event – only to wonder what the heck is going on after missing a show here and there and ultimately give up until the box set is out. Occasionally I’ll watch something like Hell’s Kitchen for inspirational leadership techniques (joke). And having lived in the UK for 5 years I have a soft spot for british wit and comedy including older shows like Rowan Atkinson in the Black Adder series (beware the Spanish Inquisition!).

Favorite books:
Douglas Adams – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (42 is the answer, after all). William Gibson – Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, and currently reading Spook Country (I noticed Jesse Houston already put Neuromancer out there – if you only read one of Gibson’s books, I’d start there). Donald Jack – Three Cheers for Me (second to Hitchhiker’s Guide, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder while reading a book).

Favorite pizza toppings:
Love Hawaiian pizza – ham & pineapple. If I’m making something custom, then roasted red peppers, feta cheese, black olives, and some type of meat will usually factor in there somewhere.

Job or title at BioWare:
I’m a Senior Producer at BioWare. And I work as the Online Producer for the Dragon Age franchise.

How long have you worked for BioWare?
Just over 3 ½ years now.

What does a Senior Producer actually do?
As the Online Producer, I help define the online features of the DA games and how these may interact out of game with the community, as well as generally most things that happen after launch: This includes the plan for DLC and other items (everything from pre-order items to expansion packs), post launch patch support, and in the case of DA:O – the public toolset. I also work closely with the web team on the social site features, the community team to support our fans, and a lot of different EA teams and external partners like Microsoft and Sony to make sure everything from legal, servers, bandwidth, content, etc all meshes in some sort of happy state for our players.

What is your average day like at the office?
Coffee. Check email, server traffic graphs, sales reports, social forums/PMs – usually undo whatever plan I had for today based off what new things may be on fire. Coffee. Daily DA2 play session with the senior leads – call out top issues for the day. Coffee. Then off to some stand-up meetings with some of the game teams. Coffee. Next deal with whatever needs attention – this can be a variety of things: meetings formal or impromptu, emails, phone calls, IM’s… try not to be too distracted by new incoming emails and calls (or adjust plan as needed). Coffee. Roll resistance check…fail…sneak a peek for any Steam deals today. Coffee. On a “light” day, actually do some proper work and catch up on documentation and feedback, non critical emails, review bugs, play the game and have lunch. On a “normal” day, usually I’m packed with meetings and conference calls – so scurry between these (with coffee runs in between), and gather up notes from all these throughout the day. Starting mid-afternoon, there is a similar daily ritual of meetings – a larger daily playthrough of DA2 open to anyone on the team where we pick up where we left off the character and call out issues as we go, followed by the daily bug triage with senior leads – a 1 hour fun-filled session of reviewing new change requests, new (and old) bugs, and breaking people’s dreams (sorry, no unicorns in DA). Coffee. Daily call with Victor Wachter on what’s happening on social & the community. It is now anywhere from 6-7pm – time to document all those notes from today’s meets, move calendar items around to make tomorrow pretend to be a reasonable day. Depending on the day – in the evening (after kids are in bed) pop by social and catch up on the PMs and forums, or play DA2, or play other games.

Favorite BioWare moment Game related/thing you are most proud of at BioWare:
Hard to narrow that down. Prior to joining BioWare I was a fanboy because of the quality storytelling, memorable characters, and plot twists – I can’t think of any other game company that has consistently delivered on that across their games.

Favorite BioWare moment not game related:
I think the one thing that consistently impresses me most about BioWare (apart from its story telling) is its appetite to continue to evolve and improve its art form. It would be easy to knock out quick sequels or to rest on the prior successes – but just as there is a kind of unofficial quality bar that everyone instinctively attunes to, there’s this drive for not simply taking the easy road but rather to do the right thing. Having worked in different industries, game publishers and developers, for me this is one of the things I’m most proud of the folks here for (even if many of them don’t even realize it to be such a special thing).
What do you do to relax/do you have any hobbies: Most of my free time these days goes towards raising wife faction points as well as my kids. However, I love flying – and one day will continue my pilot’s license training – in the meantime however, I would say my main hobby is to fly the virtual skies on MS Flight Simulator or a variety of air combat sims. Whether other folks consider that relaxing or not is another story.

What game are you losing sleep for right now (that you are not working on)?
As things are ramping up for DA2 I’m finding less time to play other games – so currently my stack of ‘to play’ boxes is increasing. But on weekends and some evenings I have been playing Civ V, Medal of Honor, whatever oddities I pick up on steam sales, and all sorts of game demos.

What is the most “nerdy” thing about you?
I suppose I fall into two distinct “nerdy” camps – I’m a game (and particularly rpg) nerd, but also a bit of a plane geek. On the gaming side – I keep an old PC complete with DOS to play all my retro games on as they were meant to be played (although I also use DosBox emu on newer PC). On the plane side – I have detailed plans for one day taking over a small portion of our basement and building a home cockpit.

If you didn’t work in video games, what would you be doing?
Well, my first love was flying actually – the first thing I wanted to be when I grew up (I think I was 5) was a fighter pilot, and I got pretty close. I only discovered my love for computer games in my teens and ultimately deciding that’s what I wanted to do. So if I wasn’t working in video games I’d probably have been pursuing some kind of flying career. Although these days I keep telling myself I should just quit all technology and go plant potatoes somewhere.

What do you want people to know about you?
Not sure what else people would find interesting actually – I’ve been told I’m a fairly stereotypical Capricorn whatever that means. For the rest of us, I’m usually on social answering random threads and helping folks over PM – feel free to say hi. I can’t promise how quickly I can respond as it varies but do try to keep up at least weekly (although that may get worse closer to DA2 launch).

Other than that, I’m really proud of the work we did on Origins, Awakening and the DLCs – we certainly did stumble here and there along the way but we also learned a lot and I firmly believe DA2 will be all the better for it. In the meantime, if you haven’t already tried the additional content – have a look at the DAO Ultimate Edition we just released. This was something a lot of players were asking for throughout DAO’s DLC releases so I’m very pleased we were able to deliver this and at such an awesome price.

Lastly, I’ve had a few players asking about what happens between now and DA2 – hopefully we’ll have lots of DA2 goodness coming at them, but one thing I’m trying to spend more time on along with Victor Wachter and Chris Priestly who are llooking at DAO mods. If you’re on the PC, there are some pretty impressive community mods out (and a lot more blooming) so we’re going to see what we can do to help raise awareness for those but I’d highly recommend checking some out – start with the DAO General forum on the social site where a great thread exists on released player mods, or select Projects from the tabs at the top of the site and sort by popularity or recent updates.

Facebook Friday Week 3 – Stan Woo

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by Evil Chris Priestly

Hi BioWare fans. Another Friday is upon us and we have another staff profile for our Facebook Friday blogs. This week, we peer deep into the soul of one of BioWare’s strangest creatures, the rare and effervescent “Stan Woo”. The Woo is a QA tester, ninja, singer, and spokesman for the Moose Jaw Tourism Bureau . Stan and I have worked together for a decade now (time flies when you have a ninja) and we take turns being each others side kick, getting into improbable adventures that usually result in us pulling the mask off the swamp monster to reveal it to be Old Man Horner. Anyways, that’s enough from me, I turn you over to the wit and wisdom of Stan Woo, QA ninja.

Name:
Stanley Woo aka QA Ninja aka the Worst Ninja Ever aka Wootabaga aka The Woo

Where are you from?
I was born and raised right here in Edmonton, Alberta.

Favorite movies:
The Star Wars trilogy that begins with A New Hope, Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part I, anything by Pixar, the Matrix trilogy that begins and ends with The Matrix, The Impostors, Inception, Big Fish, Spider-Man 2, Ong-Bak, Fifth Element, Iron Monkey, Wheels on Meals, Anchorman, District 9, Transformers: The Movie, The Karate Kid (original), Noises Off, Batman Begins, Memento, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Favorite TV:
Hell’s Kitchen (US), Top Chef (+Masters, +Just Desserts), 30 Rock, Modern Family, The Mentalist, Flashpoint, Bones, NCIS, Human Target, Castle, Robot Chicken, Sanctuary, Dr. Who, JAG, Three’s Company, Golden Girls, Dexter, Clone High, Monk, Life on Mars, Better Off Ted, The Wire, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Corner Gas, Futurama

Favorite books:
House of Leaves, Neuromancer, Altered Carbon, On Basilisk Station, Ender’s Game, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Kitchen Confidential, Lamb, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Storm Front

Favorite pizza toppings:
Meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, and anchovies. Also, meat.

Job or title at BioWare:
Quality Assurance Design Analyst

How long have you worked for BioWare?
10 years in April. I was hired a couple of weeks after “Evil Chris” Priestly, and despite the occasional attempt on my life and the voodoo curses, he is still one of my closest friends here at the company. And he didn’t even have to pay me to say that.

What does a Quality Assurance Design Analyst actually do:
The QA department at BioWare is split up into two separate streams: tech and design. QA design analysts deal primarily with issues involving plot, dialogue, characters, cinematics, story flow, and above all, fun.

What is your average day like at the office?
We’re assigned certain plots to be “experts” in, so we have to play them as much as we can. While playing, we look for obvious problems such as crashes, plot flow problems, and holes in levels, as well as more subtle problems like journals not updating when they’re supposed to or a discrepancy between the voice-over and the text or a very specific way of playing through the plot that prevents it from being completed.

While we’re playing our plots, we’re also keeping track of whether that plot is on track to be completed and polished according to our schedule, so we’re filling out checklists, talking to the designers working on our plots, clarifying certain story elements with the writers, or checking in with producers to see when certain assets are expected to appear in the game.

And, as you would expect, filing bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug, then verifying bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug after bug when they’re fixed.

There are a couple of new tasks for design QA this time around. One is content submissions for the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board). We go through our plots and detail anything that might require some kind of content warning like you see on games sitting on store shelves—things like swearing, different kinds of violence, innuendo, drug use or other criminal activity, and, of course, nudity and sexual content. This is one way the ESRB determines what kind of rating and content advisories the game gets.

The other new task for design QA—well, for me, really—is I get to help out the translators for our game. Any questions the translators have about context or noun genders or about the speaker or listener of a line comes to me first. I answer the questions as best I can, and anything I can’t answer goes to our Editors. It’s quite a lot of fun seeing what kinds of issues come up when someone is reading and translating our dialogue and text with a lot of the context removed.
And finally, whenever I have a few moments to spare, I also like peeking in on the BioWare Social Network to see if anything needs moderating, as I am also a BioWare online community moderator.

Favorite BioWare moment Game related/thing you are most proud of at BioWare:
Dragon Age: Origins was the game that made me the proudest I’ve ever been as a BioWarian. It was a huge project, one I worked on for 2 ½ years, and to see the critical and commercial success of that game makes me very happy. Having been at BioWare through both good (parties, events, nacho day) and not so good (crunch time, deadlines) times, through big (hello Electronic Arts!) and not so big (vending machine chocolate is $1.25 now?) announcements, nothing made me feel as good as seeing Dragon Age: Origins succeed and become such a big hit.

Favorite BioWare moment not game related:
Back in the days of Neverwinter Nights, we were working many long days, far into the night. Back then, the entire QA department was stuffed into a single room with all its multiple computers and monitors and consoles and televisions. Plus an army of powered fans. Plus a Habitrail of A/C ducting made entirely of recycling bags and coat hangers. It was a very warm place to work. Anyway, late one night, QA updated to a game build that rendered the starting area as a rainy, 2×2 grass field with the player and an armoire on it. Every area we tried to jump to had the same 2×2 grass field and the same armoire.

So QA went investigating to see if every area of the game was the same way, and every time it came up, we would shout “Armoire!” Next area? “Armoire!” The next? “Armoire!” I think at one point, we were on speakerphone with Programming, who’d hear the occasional “Armoire!” joyously shouted in the background. While Programming fixed the issue and assembled another build for us, we in QA decided to take a break and walk a few blocks to the 7-11. There we were, a half-dozen giddy, sleep-deprived, insane-to-begin-with QA guys, traipsing down the street yelling “ARMOIRE!” at 2am. A police cruiser drove passed us a couple of times so we tried to keep it down to a dull roar.

To this day, though the number grows smaller and smaller with each passing year, you can still find the people who were there that night by checking their reaction when you yell “Armoire!”

What do you do to relax/do you have any hobbies:
Relax?! What’s that? I do have some things I do when not at work, if that’s what you mean. Besides not being able to play as many videogames as I’d like, I’m also unable to play as many board games, pen-and-paper RPGs, and Warhammer miniatures as I’d like. The Warhammer miniatures is a new (very expensive) hobby, so I’m hoping to get a lot of mileage out of it.


I sing in an a cappella group called Apocalypse Kow, so that takes up a lot of time. We do the occasional conference or wedding or non-profit event, but our main performing season is during the Edmonton Fringe Festival in August, where we sing every day of the 10-day festival. I also enjoy getting involved in theater. My last show was in December (a farce), and I’m hoping to audition for a couple more show this spring. While theater can be stressful, it’s a fun kind of stressful that’s negated by all the applause, anyway.

What game are you losing sleep for right now (that you are not working on)?
Lord of the Rings Online went free-to-play recently, so I’m getting back into that. I played for a while when the game was new, but with all the other games and MMOs coming out, it’s impossible to keep one for very long. Not if you want o see what else is out there, anyway. But now that it’s free, my roommates have picked it up, so getting a group together won’t be as difficult anymore. Aside from that, I’ve discovered that you can spend a surprising amount of time on Facebook games, too.

I am a little concerned about a few games coming up that will take up a huge chunk of my life, though. Fallout: New Vegas, BioShock Infinite, Civ 5, and DC Universe Online are all games I want to play the bejeebers out of.

What is the most “nerdy” thing about you?
Aside from all my geeky interests and hobbies and working for a videogame developer, you mean? Well, how about Pure Speculation? The Pure Speculation Festival is Edmonton’s annual science-fiction and festival. We bring in special guests from all different worlds of geekery, have a complete schedule of panels, presentations, and discussions, hold costume contests and charity auctions, and have all manner of fun times in October. Previous guests of honour for the festival include author Robert J. Sawyer, game designer Monte Cook, and television producer/writer/actor Rick Green. The 2010 Festival includes author Tanya Huff, a musical based on a Robert J. Sawyer book, the Aurora Awards, a nanotechnologist, live-action role-players, and lots more!

Of course I have to hype it. Not only do I sit on the board for the Pure Speculation Festival society of Alberta, I have also been the festival’s Events Co-ordinator for the last few years.

Okay, still not nerdy enough? How about being part of the choir that has performed for Video Games Live! and Star Wars in Concert here in Edmonton?
No? How about appearing in Alina Pete’s Weregeek webcomic?

No? How about… nope, that’s all I got.

If you didn’t work in video games, what would you be doing?
I would more than likely be trying to eke out a living with acting, particularly voice acting. I’ve been acting since high school, and I’ve always been interested in the power of vocal communication, such as through theatre and singing. Voice acting seemed to be the next logical step. I’ve taken a couple of voice acting classes and have been told I have much potential in that field. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I’ve never been able to pursue it full time because of my wonderful full-time day job here at BioWare Edmonton. I guess that also means I would be working somewhere else in the meantime in order to afford rent, food, and more voice acting classes.

What do you want people to know about you?
I am as much a presence online as offline. I’m not going to add random folks to my Facebook, but you can find me on Twitter (@worstninjaever) and my blog (http://worstninjaever.blogspot.com). I talk about all sorts of minutiae of daily life, but won’t be revealing any unannounced work secrets. Thank you, and be excellent to each other.
End of line.

Facebook Friday Week 2 – Jesse Houston

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Hello BioWare fans.

In this week’s Facebook Friday update, we have profiled Jesse Houston from the Mass Effect team. Interesting fact: Jesse didn’t want to let me take his picture for the update as he is growing his mustache and beard out for Movember. However, I convinced him to give us one picture (for those curious, the lovely baby on his monitor is his 4 month old daughter) as our fans want to know what our staff look like in case they meet some day.

Name:
Jesse “GTez” Houston

Where are you from?
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, EH!

Favorite movies:
Aliens – Totally cliché but really, this movie rocks.

Hunt for Red October – <chomp chomp> I’d give us, one chance in three, <chomp chomp> Sean Connery taught me everything I ever wanted to know about leadership in one two hour movie

Office Space – Something about smashing the bloody PC Load Letter and filing TPS reports really rings true to me ;)

Favorite TV:
I’m totally addicted to Big Bang Theory and How I met your Mother!

Favorite books:
Neuromancer – Gibson is absolutely brilliant, there is no better author in the world to me.

Favorite pizza toppings:
Pierogies with sour cream and cheese! I discovered this pizza after marrying my wife who is from a Ukrainian family.  Awesome! Trust me, try it!

Job or title at BioWare:
I’m a Producer on the Mass Effect Franchise.

How long have you worked for BioWare?
3 Years

What does a “producer” actually do:
I get coffee for the developers. In actuality I’m the front man for the team.  I’m a mix of leader, spokes person and responsible for the day to day activities of about 50 people.   Let’s say that a project needs ‘doing’, the Executive Producer will come to me, have me build a team, create the schedule and lead the team through the various development phases until it goes to market. This means that I am one of the Executive Producer’s right hand men.  I am responsible for Mass Effect 2 PS3 as well as the various other versions of Mass Effect 2 still in development.  I am also responsible for the GUIs for the franchise and a bunch of other unannounced things!

What is your average day like at the office?
I usually arrive before most of my team, grab a cup of coffee, and catch up on emails from the night before from the various studios around the world.  From there, we have our morning ‘stand up meetings’ where the teams all get together and talk about what was accomplished the day before, what they hope to accomplish today and highlight any issues that myself, my leads or other members need help unblocking.  From there, I meet with the rest of the production staff of the franchise and give a similar update.  Then it’s pretty free form with a mix of meetings, planning, documentation and content approvals depending on where we are in a given project.

Favorite BioWare moment Game related/thing you are most proud of at BioWare:
This will sound very minor, but the face code system in Mass Effect 2 is a personal pride thing.   It was the first system I personally designed and drove into development very early in ME2.  It’s also only there for our fans and they made a fantastic website to trade codes (http://www.masseffect2faces.com) which is really wicked to see!

Favorite BioWare moment not game related:
I had a fan come up to me at GamesCom last year and thank me for touching his life in a meaningful way with our stories.  It really opened my eyes to see how much of an impact we have on our fans and drove me to continue to push myself to make even better games for our customers!

What do you do to relax/do you have any hobbies:
I ride a chopper (and sometimes have the handlebar mustache to support it), I’m a street photographer as well as a Warhammer Fantasy and 40k fanatic.

What game are you losing sleep for right now (that you are not working on)?
Minecraft has stolen my soul.  As well I’ve been playing a lot of Civ 5 and Torchlight.

What is the most “nerdy” thing about you?
I secretly play board games like Carcassonne, Arkham Horror and Puerto Rico

If you didn’t work in video games, what would you be doing?
I originally was going to school to be a Nuclear Physicist but realized I wanted to do VFX for games (which led me to where I am now).  So I would probably be working at the TRIUMF lab blowing up particles for fun if I wasn’t doing this.

What do you want people to know about you?
Hmmm, to be honest, no idea.

Facebook Friday Week 1 – “Evil” Chris Priestly

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By Evil Chris Priestly

Hello BioWare fans.

We thought we’d show you that those of us who work at BioWare are regular people just like the rest of you. So we thought we’d start a series of weekly staff profiles where each week a chosen staff member will give you some details about who they are, what they do for fun and their job here at BioWare. The selected staff member will give you a little insight into their personality and their job here at BioWare.

Since it was my idea to do this, I get to be the first person for Facebook Fridays here on the BioWare Facebook page and BioWare Blog. In the coming weeks we’ll have more BioWare staff, some you may have heard of others you may not have, all of whom will give you a little look into who they are and what they do here at BioWare. We hope you enjoy these looks into our lives here at BioWare

Name?
Chris Priestly, known as “Evil” Chris

Where are you from?
Born in New Westminister British Columbia, but mostly an Edmonton Alberta native.

Favorite movies:
Blazing Saddles, LotR Trilogy, Raider of the Lost Ark, The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Knight, Touch of Evil, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Favorite TV:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Top Gear, Monty Python, Futurama and The Simpsons, WWE Wrestling, Deadwood, Top Chef, Dexter, 30 Rock, Boardwalk Empire, NFL Football. Really looking forward to The Walking Dead.

Favorite books:
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I have everything, including the maps. I am also a HUGE comic book fan with far too many titles to name here.

Favorite pizza toppings:
I’d eat anything, even anchovies, but I prefer a simple margherrita .

Job or title at BioWare:
Senior Community Coordinator

How long have you worked for BioWare?
10 years this coming March. I’ve been a part of pretty much everything BioWare Edmonton has done since Baldur’s Gate: Throne of Bhaal.

What does a “Community Coordinator” actually do?
I am part of the Community team here at BioWare which falls under the Marketing department. Mostly I am responsible for taking messaging from the Development teams and presenting it to the public on our forums and other Social Media outlets (like Facebook, Twitter, etc). I also take the feedback from our fans and present it to the Dev teams. I am the chief forum moderator at BioWare and am responsible for the fan forums, rules, etc. I also get to do things like help plan which conventions we will attend and what our booth will look like, work to promote items and help come up with ideas for the BioWare online store and I spend a lot of time playing our games and so I can accurately talk with our fans.

What is your average day like at the office?
An average day has me at work around 8 am. I check and respond to emails that came in overnight. I then head onto the internet and check over our forums, websites and Social Media pages. I read the new threads and responses since I last checked. I am also in charge of enforcing the rules, so I take care of that if any of that is needed. I usually attend 1-2 meetings per day with different teams (marketing, Dev teams, etc) and work out what is being talked about currently, what is coming up, how we should present the information to our fans. I continue to monitor our forums throughout the day, check out other Communities that discuss gaming or our games, read news sites for gaming related news and play the games we have in development. I’m usually done around 5pm, but I often spend a couple of hours online in the evenings on our forums reading and prowling.

Favorite BioWare moment Game related or thing you are most proud of at BioWare?
I’ve been with BioWare almost 10 years now and I have lots to be proud of. However, my number one moment was helping get John Cleese to be in one of our games. Back while we were making Jade Empire, I was asked by the writers to suggest some actors who could voice Lord Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard (I was asked as I am known to be a big film nut). Since the writing for Ponce, if played straight, would come of extremely racist, I suggested that we get John Cleese to do the lines as even though he could read it straight, his voice and inflection would bring a lot of humor to it. As a huge Python fan I was thrilled that we actually got him for the role and I got to “work” with John Cleese (even in this tiny tangential manner).

Favorite BioWare moment not game related?
Again, over the past 10 years there have been many great moments. We’ve had some great game launch parties. I’ve met some great fans at conventions and travelled a great deal showing off our games (although that may fall under work). I think one of my best memories was at a BioWare ski night. I don’t ski and neither does Ray, so he and I stood at the bottom of the hill, cheering on the others and smoking a couple of Ray’s rather expensive cigars.

What do you do to relax/do you have any hobbies:
I watch a lot of movies and TV. I am an avid comic book collector reading titles like Walking Dead, Chew, Invincible, Hellboy, Green Lantern, The Boys and more. I love to cook and consider myself a foodie. I’m trying to learn to appreciate wine. My wife and I travel when we get the chance. And I am an amateur poker player.

What game are you losing sleep for right now (that you are not working on)?
Well, right now (since I am not on the actual Dev team) I could say Dragon Age 2, but for non-BioWare games I am waiting for Medal of Honor, BioShock Infinite and Batman Arkham Asylum 2.

What is the most “nerdy” thing about you?
I can quote any skit from Monty Python from memory.

If you didn’t work in video games, what would you be doing?
I would love to be a travel and food blogger like Not Quite Nigella

What do you want people to know about you?
How I got the “Evil Chris” nickname. Back before being on the Community team, I was in the QA department here at BioWare and we were working crunch time (Crunch time is when the game is almost finished and we are trying to ship it to the publisher. This can mean lots of long days and late nights.) as we finished Knights of the Old Republic. We were working late one night after around 18 hours in the office and we were all tired and a little silly. We had recently added smilies to the old BioWare forums and I made a joking post of how I had snapped working late and was running around the office being “evil” to the other staff (using the little evil emoticon smiley liberally in the post). It was meant as a silly post that I did more to keep me and my barely awake coworkers entertained, but the fans enjoyed it more than I thought they would. That combined with the fact I am the person who has to enforce the forum rules and the nickname of “Evil Chris” stuck. Now I end all of my forum posts with the evil emoticon and I’m actually rather pleased to be known by it. The fact that I eat the occasional puppy has nothing to do with it.