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We have a new Lead Game Designer: Bill Trost
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
From Linkedin:
Here's what I've found about his career:
After over six years at Amazon Games, working with several awesome teams on quite a few exciting projects, especially New World, it’s time for me to embark on a new adventure!
I’m happy to be able to say that I’m now the Lead Designer on Ashes of Creation at Intrepid Studios!
I’ve known Steven Sharif, the Creative Director on Ashes, for over seven years. We met as fellow gamers through mutual friends, and I vividly remember one of our early conversations where he laid out his detailed vision for this crazy ambitious MMO he wanted to build. I’ll admit, at the time I was skeptical.
But I watched with growing excitement as the team Steven has built at Intrepid Studios gained steam, blasted through my skepticism, and started to deliver on his vision! The beautiful, deep world, the gamer-first attitude, and the openness of the team were all things I wanted to be a part of and so when the opportunity arose, I jumped at it. It’s also an opportunity to get to work with several awesome folks who I’ve known and worked with before, when years ago we built another world, that is still thriving today. So, in many ways it feels like a homecoming.
Ashes is an ambitious game and there are tons of challenging problems to solve, but that is the fun part of game design. I can’t wait to be able to get lost in the world of Verra with all of you.
Here's what I've found about his career:
- New World (Windows, 2021) - Additional Design
- Landmark (Windows, 2016) - Additional Design
- Defiance (Windows, 2013) - Creative Lead
- Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code (PSP, 2006) - Lead Designer
- Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (PSP, 2005) - Lead Designer
- EverQuest II (Windows, 2004) - Additional Game Design
- EverQuest: The Scars of Velious (Windows, 2000) - Designed by
- EverQuest: The Scars of Velious (Windows, 2000) - Lead Game Designer
- EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark (Windows, 2000) - EverQuest designed by
- EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark (Windows, 2000) - Lead World Builder/Game Designer
- EverQuest (Windows, 1999) - Designed by
- EverQuest (Windows, 1999) - Lead World Builder/Designer
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Comments
That would be really cool actually.
I must admit, one of my biggest concerns with Ashes always has been the game changing direction due to the masses giving PVE / carebear feedback or new hires wanting to make a PvE themepark game instead of delivering the PvX experience we were promised - and with every new release like NW or TL, and crossplay PVE game announcements this concern increases, however,
I feel like ever since Jeff left and we got more info on things like the open sea pvp, caravans, nodes ruins alongside with Steven's reassurance about PvP being a core part of the game, all this has been very exciting and gives me hope that they will deliver what we backed and not whatever is more popular or makes more money.
Good luck Bill.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
He is quite literally the guy that made the MMO genre what it is - or what it was. He designed the original EQ - the game Blizzard developers saw and said to themselves "we should have a go at making one of these". A game that is getting close to being live for a quarter of a century.
My hope is that Bill can keep Ashes PvP in tact as it is now (he wont be able to change that), but add to it the PvE meat that the game needs.
Do you want to go on an adventure, or would you like to play a game?
Anyway, good to have the spot filled.
I cut my teeth in EQ and have some of my fondest thoughts about late night, all day gaming in one of the first majors of its time.
PS Thank you Mr. Trost for deciding to join AoC.
🙌🙌🙌
Carry on!
This feels very on-topic. Not sure why it would be removed other than censoring certain views.
Anyway, regarding this point, people learn more from their failures than from their successes, so I'm hopeful.
Overall I think it’s a super positive thing that they filled the role, and Steven has an outstanding track record in the people he hires. He’s very thoughtful and selective. Plus I think Steven will keep the game on track with his vision.
Welcome Bill. Super excited for the game.
My comment wasn't off-topic and was also moved. I don't understand what's the point of editing topics/moving comments from discussions that are not created by staff, is it really necessary?
I wanna say more, but I think I've said enough. Anyway, I will repost my comment and hopefully it won't be moved.
I have no idea if Bill is good at developing games or not, but from his resume it seems he's worked on many awesome games, so that's good to see.
I hope that he wasn't very involved with New World though. I don't expect him to talk shit about that game, but whoever made some of the design decisions for New World should stop making decisions. I'm not sure if saying you've worked on Amazon Games or New World should be something you're proud of.
I certainly hope some of you don't operate in real life like you do online. Jesus, What a disgustingly rude thing to say. I would be hugely proud to have worked at one of the biggest studios in the world for one of the biggest companies in the world, to create a New IP MMO that has sold 20 million odd copies.
An example that readily comes to mind are some of the actors in the Rings of Power series. The series is shit. However, some of the acting is superb. Dont blame the actors for the shit work the writers did. Same with the last few seasons of Game of Thrones - the acting and effects were great, it was only the script that let everyone down.
New World had a lot of good things going for it. There were just a few decisions made that ruined it. Thise decisions though, they were only made by a handful of people - everyone else that worked on the game probably has reason to be proud of their work.
My point is, unless Bill was the secret architect behind all the bad choices they made with NW, including rushing it to release a year too early, don't blame him for the failure it was at launch. And even if he did make a mistake in NW somehow, let's hope he learned from it. If we find out what it hypothetically is, we can give him some crap about it to make sure he does learn from it, without being mean about it.
Yeah gathering was (is?) a very good thing in NW and we must admit that they did a good job. The graphics are also nice.
Pity that all the rest was crap : Crafting system, bad economy, PvP, PvE, balance, gameplay, cheat, bots, artificial boring progression etc etc etc...
In my opinion, Intrepid is doing a mistake with this choice of implemeting gear accoring to level. I don't like the gear which become crap because your gained levels.
According to me gear should be usable according to stat points.
I prefer the higher level you are the better the gear. Either way if you are doing it by stat there will still be artificial level on gear progression. Unless you remove all vertical gear progression which that is just boring.
Well, people like to hate on NW
EQ was successful, but do any of you know the PSP games? The two Untold Legends ones. I never owned a PSP.