I spent nine years at Turbine, helping to design its first MMO game, and owning content design for its last one. Learning to build games of this magnitude was one of the greatest challenges of my career.

The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Who I Was: Lead Content Designer

What I Did:

• Oversaw eight designers and one writer in the development of hundreds of quests across fourteen regions of Middle-earth.
• Developed qualitative and quantitative style guides, establishing best practices for expressing Tolkien’s themes, delivering character through limited quest mechanics, and constructing hundreds of hours of minute-to-minute gameplay.
• Built exemplar quests and instanced content to inform team efforts and prove out the quest toolset.
• Prioritized development backlog of quest tools work during production.
• Hired and mentored content design team members.
• Programmed early text-based character generation prototypes to help explore alternate creative directions after project reboot.

“It is a major achievement of interactive storytelling, the first game truly worthy of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ franchise and a must-play for just about anyone with an interest in Tolkien or the future of online entertainment.” — The New York Times

Asheron’s Call Dark Majesty

Who I Was: Creative Director

What I Did:

• Oversaw development of the first expansion pack for Asheron’s Call.
• Led a small team in adding features and content on a parallel track with the existing live team.
• Delivered a successful expansion on budget.
• Built one fairly embarrassing quest for the game in my spare time.

“Asheron’s Call: Dark Majesty has lived up to its hype and is a wonderful addition to the game.” — IGN.com

Asheron’s Call

Who I Was: UX Designer/Live Lead Designer

What I Did:

• Designed all UX for the shipping game, in collaboration with the UX artist.
• Helped rehabilitate dev practices at the studio, facilitating new processes for code/art/design collaboration.
• Took over as lead designer as the game went live, and shepherd the development of the game’s first live event and event toolset, kicking off over a hundred monthly episodes.

“If you have the money then I certainly recommend this game, but I also advise you to have a lot of free time, because otherwise this game will destroy your social life.” — Eurogamer.net

Unreleased Titles

Who I Was: Lead Designer

What I Did: Developed GDD documents and oversaw prototype work for two unreleased console-based MMO games.