William Wallace's Letter to the Community

Salutations. I'm William Wallace, although pilots and shipwrights know me better as Darth Platypus. I am a game designer and scripter on the Galaxies team, a job that is a happy midpoint between a programmer and a writer. I have worked primarily on game systems and professions, including shipwright, space mining, and the implementation of most of the starfighters and space loot in Jump to Lightspeed and Rage of the Wookiees. I've worked on some other stuff too, but historically I've been primarily a "space dev".

SWG entered my life about 4 years ago when I started work at SOE as a design intern, doing small tasks to help out the designers on the project, and working a bit on sound implementation in the game. It was only a part time gig though---in the mornings, I was finishing my senior year of high school, but in the afternoons and evenings I was immersed in the world of game design, learning the ropes and doing what I could to help out. I became a full time designer on the project in December 03, just in time to start working on the design for the JTL expansion. It may sound clichi to say something like "it's been a long strange trip" or "it's been an exciting ride", but with a game as huge and epic as Galaxies, I would feel remiss not including a statement like that. So here it goes...*deep breath*...it has been an exciting ride!

Here's a little more about what a game designer does, because I only touched briefly on it in my intro. Any new system or content starts with an idea written on paper. Before the first line of code is written, we should have at least a good idea of where we are going with it, and what we want to accomplish. Does it sound like fun? Is it feasible? If the answer is ever "no", then we iterate on the idea and the document again. I probably rewrote the design for shipwright 3 times over the course of development until I got an iteration that made me happy and that I would have fun playing. If I don't have fun building and testing a system, then...well...chances are good other people won't have fun playing it.

After we finish the design document, then we can start scripting it. Designers tend to code more of the front-end of a system, while programmers provide the crucial back-end code that we need to do our work. I love design work because it really is the best of both the creative and technical worlds. We get to be hands on with new content from conception to execution, and that is ultimately a very satisfying experience.

As a space dev, I feel compelled to say that I'm an Imperial pilot on live, but in testing and development I've flown every ship in the game extensively---my weapon of choice out of all of them is my TIE Interceptor, although I've been known to show up in a TIE Oppressor occasionally. I will almost always take speed and maneuverability over brute force, because if I'm constantly tailing your ship, all the missiles in the world won't do you any good. J

Galaxies will continue to evolve and forge ahead---and the future holds some very exciting things for the game that I probably can't talk about here without getting in trouble ;) I look forward to continuing to help make SWG the best game it can be.

Oh...and...uhh...while I'm doing the whole clichi thing...may the force be with you all!

Post Release Archives
William Wallace's Letter to the Community
James Pratt's Letter to the Community
Sheri Graner Ray's Letter to the Community
Jonathan Hanna - Community Director
State of the Game - Closing out 2004
Daniel Wilhite
Diane "Tiggs" Migliaccio's Letter to the Community
Gordon Walton's Letter to the Community
Jason Ryan's Letter to the Community
Thunderheart's Promotion
Jeff Dobson's Letter to the Community
Cinco Barnes' Letter to the Community
State of the Game
Kurt Stangl's Letter to the Community
Gary Gattis's State of the Game Letter
Kevin "Q-3P0" O'Hara's Letter to the Community
Gary Gattis's State of the Game Letter
Chris Mayer's Letter to the Community
Jake Rodgers' Letter to the Community
J. Allen Brack's Letter to the Community
Rich Vogel's Letter to the Community
Kirk Black's Letter to the Community
Haden Blackman's Letter to the Community
Gary Gattis's Letter to the Community
A Welcome Letter from the Executive Producer

Pre Release Archives