We took down our favourite questions we received from players over the years and sent them out to the team! Questions ___________________________________________________ What's your go-to snack while working on a game? Name: [ATA] Will Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Community Management Answer: It has to be Peanut Butter filled Pretzels! Those things are so seriously addictive that I have to hide them from myself or they will be gone in a day. The bonus is that when I find them it’s a nice treat for future me from past me Name: [ATA] Claptrap Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms of Heckfire Department: Community Management Answer: Miss Vickies Salt and Vinegar chips. There is no other chip. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos but I have to eat them with chopsticks so the keyboard doesn’t get all nasty. Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: When they conduct my autopsy, they will find my arteries clogged by mini eggs. Name: [ATA] Barton Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Design Answer: Chocolate darker than my soul. That is, 85% or darker. Name: [ATA] Yoshi Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City Department: Design Answer: Sour gummy candies. Bonus points for sour bubblegum bottles Name: [ATA] Frog Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms of Heckfire, Witch Arcana Department: Narrative Design Answer: Sour cream and onion chips. Every time I finish writing a line of Party in My Dorm dialogue, I get to eat one. In this way, JD and I are one. Name: [ATA] Jace Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: Popcorn, mostly for when i'm looking at world chat Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: All Department: Product Answer: Sriracha Name: [ATA] Hedgehog Game(s) you’ve worked on: Behind the Scenes Department: People Team Answer: Cheese. All the cheese. ___________________________________________________ If your life were a video game, what would the title be, and what genre would it belong to? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: It already exists. It’s called Desert Bus. You drive a bus in the desert in real time for 8 hours, constantly correcting the steering or you crash and are towed back to the start. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Whopper Waifu: A story-driven visual novel where you are a burger and date other burgers but it has a morality scale where the bad ending is the player becoming a burger eating cannibal. Name: [ATA] Jace Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: It would be an open world RPG filled with plenty adventuring, beautiful landscapes and deep characters, but Im just focused on beating my high score on the fishing mini-game Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: All Department: Product Answer: Old House of Books and Naps - you have to keep your old house from falling apart long enough to enjoy a good book or a nap, when it rains things get really spicy. ___________________________________________________ Can you share a funny or memorable bug from a game you've worked on? Name: [ATA] Yoshi Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Single City Department: Design Answer: The “Cryptocalypse” in Heckfire. During a regular Tomes from the Crypt event, something went horribly wrong with the gathering node spawning and the ENTIRE WORLD MAPS filled up with crypt nodes. Players couldn’t teleport or do raids because the map spots were filling up too fast. Y’all had a great sense of humor about it. Name: ATA-Ermine Game(s) you’ve worked on:Smash Monsters, Kingdoms at War, Single City, Department: Engineering Answer: On Smash Monsters players started suddenly seeing monsters they didn’t own, it was pretty clear they had access to monsters from their clan members. The monsters couldn’t actually be used in combat, but it caused quite a stir. A game designer looked right at me, and asked me if I’d accidentally swapped users when sending messages back from the server. I was so confident I actually bet him that wasn’t the issue. Turns out… yea… I’d swapped users whenever they helped each other with timers. I lost that bet. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: One time I accidentally deleted all the Heckfire competitions that were running at that time. My story is that I spilled mustard on the computer and I’m sticking to it. Name: [ATA] Dennis Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, FC, Party in My Dorm, The Meego, PD, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana Department: Engineering Answer: I misconfigured some item data in The Meego and as a result, players could get them unlimitedly for free. Oops. Name: [ATA] Jace Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: One time on Kingdoms at War when we released a new emoji spell, some players were reporting seeing a Banana instead of the intended emoji. This confused our team but apparently it was related to a long forgotten banana emoji that had been made with the text “There's always gold in the banana stand”. That then led us to create the Victory Banana emoji spell given out for top finishes in Competitions ___________________________________________________ What's the most unusual inspiration you've drawn from, for a game idea? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: Some of the best ideas I’ve ever had came to me in strange dreams I can’t quite remember. Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: All Department: Product Answer: A lot of the trade economy and furniture is based on my experiences playing Diablo and Everquest and dropping items in front of people to trade. We wanted to create a unique experience where people had to be socially connected to trade to recreate that feeling of connecting with another player rather than a dull and mechanical auction house. ___________________________________________________ If you could swap roles with any video game character for a day, who would it be and why? Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Being Cooking Mama for a day sounds great. Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: All Department: Product Answer: I’ve really liked the world universe building in Starfield so far and I think it would be a cool place to exist. ___________________________________________________ Tell us about your most epic gaming achievement outside of work. Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: I finally beat Alien: Isolation on Nightmare difficulty! Also getting to 3k trophies in Clash Royale was a big deal for me because I crumble like apple pie in high-stakes PVP. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: I was top 2% of Lucios in Overwatch for a while. LET’S DROP THE BEAT! Name: [ATA] Strange Game(s) you’ve worked on: Heckfire, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: Finding a bizarre broken team combo in the early days of Guild Wars 1 that more or less deleted the entire enemy team if you executed it correctly.. The combo was necromancer's mark of pain and warrior's hundred blades. If you could cluster the enemy team and coordinate the marks to all be on different targets, then everyone presses hundred blades at the same time. Poof. We held the hall of heroes until we collapsed from exhaustion. I think they patched it soon after that. Name: [ATA] Jace Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: Competing in the Pokemon card game World Championships as a kid, I didn’t end up winning like Ash finally did, but one day I’ll be the very best, like no one ever was Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: All Department: Product Answer: I had never played LoL, missed the whole era of MOBAs for reasons (a story for another time), so I picked up iPad version (Wildrift) and spent a lot of time learning how to play and made it to Grandmaster in a few months. This was a particularly noteworthy one for me because it was personally very challenging and I had so much to learn. I think I could go higher if I had more time to devote but other games are calling. ___________________________________________________ If you could bring any in-game item or ability into the real world, what would it be? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: Sleeping immediately whenever you want to. That would be sooooo nice. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Eating cheese wheels during a fight to regain health. UFC would be so much more interesting. Name: [ATA] Frog Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms of Heckfire, Witch Arcana Department: Narrative Design Answer: Fast travel as a thing. I am really sick of the plane ride back to my hometown. Why do I have to repeat it again and again? Poor world design 0/10 Name: [ATA] Jace Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: Quick save and quick loading so I can try all the bad ideas I have Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: All Department: Product Answer: Mech suits from Anthem ___________________________________________________ What's the nerdiest thing you've ever done or are proud to admit? Name: [ATA] Claptrap Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in my Dorm, Kingdoms at War Department: Community Management Answer: Camping out for the release of Halo 3. My friends played Halo 2 all the time so this was a big moment! Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: I recently went to see a Neil Breen movie in the theater! Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: I flunked college trying to beat someone else to #1 on the realm leaderboard on a social game I played. And now here we are, so I guess it was meant to be! Name: [ATA] Frog Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms of Heckfire, Witch Arcana Department: Narrative Design Answer: For a while I had a very popular Tumblr account where I made lovingly crafted memes about a certain RPG. That’s as specific as I can get before my pride turns into shame. Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: all Department: Product Answer: I have a pikachu tattoo ___________________________________________________ Share a favorite gaming-related meme or inside joke among your team. Name: [ATA] Jace Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: KKKAAAAWWWWWWWW deer ___________________________________________________ Do you have a gaming-related superstition or pre-game ritual? Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Gotta break everything and punch the wall over and over before the Overwatch round starts. ___________________________________________________ What's the most challenging part of game development that players might not be aware of? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: No game has a monolithic community of players. For all the strong passion and great ideas one player has in one direction, another player will feel the exact opposite. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to satisfy people with very different goals and desires, and not letting an update for one type of player hurt another player’s experience. Also to make sure not only the loudest voices are heard. It’s a super difficult balance, we’re constantly making mistakes and learning from them, but we’ll never stop trying. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Keeping track of the 10,000 browser tabs you have open constantly as a designer. Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: all Department: Product Answer: Designers are trying to make the game fun for as many people as possible but there are always thousands and thousands of people trying to exploit and break the game. There are so many mechanics I think would be fun and would love to build that won’t work in a multiplayer game where people will find ways to break the mechanics. It’s so hard but also more fun when it comes together. ___________________________________________________ Describe the most memorable reaction you've seen from a player enjoying your game. Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: Someone wrote and recorded a song about a game I worked on once! It was really sweet of them, I still remember the lyrics. Also players finding each other and getting married is always really affirming about the type of games and spaces we’re trying to create, even if we were only a small part of it. Name: [ATA] Frog Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms of Heckfire, Witch Arcana Department: Narrative Design Answer: I love checking into the Party in My Dorm and Kingdoms at War forums to see our players working on detailed lore guides, character guides, beautiful fan art, and more. Every single time I see our players engaging with our games that way it makes me emotional! Name: [ATA] Hedgehog Game(s) you’ve worked on: Behind the Scenes Department: People Team Answer: A player sent flowers to the office for someone who had just recently joined the community team. That was pretty memorable. ___________________________________________________ What's the best piece of advice you've received from a fellow developer? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: Remember you’re not making games for yourself to play, get to know the people you are making them for! Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: A second monitor is never enough. Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: all Department: Product Answer: Nothing ever survives contact with the player. ___________________________________________________ Tell us about your all-time favorite gaming moment, whether it's a clutch victory or a hilarious fail. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: There are so many moments in Baldur’s Gate 3! Sneaking up to a boss and shoving them off a cliff, hitting an enemy then picking the enemy up and throwing it closer to your other party members, romancing Gale… Name: [ATA] Yoshi Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City Department: Design Answer: WoW, circa 2010 (Lich King era). Two friends and I (Horde - lv 29 holy paladin, lv 29 protection paladin, lv 21 firefrost mage) were rushing through Alliance territory to get to a dungeon. We ran into a lv 58 Alliance death knight that decided we were easy targets to pick off… but boy were they wrong! We couldn’t hurt them, obviously, but they couldn’t put us down either. I was blinking around as the mage, trying to get away, but the DK kept death gripping me back into combat. The pallies took turns setting lay on hands to prevent our deaths. After an arduous 30 minute battle, the DK finally gave up. Name: [ATA] Strange Game(s) you’ve worked on: Heckfire, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: Standing just through a doorway, making my back look as juicy as possible to invaders in Dark Souls, meanwhile allies are standing on either side of the door waiting in ambush. ___________________________________________________ What's your guilty pleasure game that you secretly love to play? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: Nanaca Crash, 100%. I go through phases of playing it endlessly and then not touching it for a while. It has a surprising amount of skill involved! Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: I’m not sure if it’s a guilty pleasure but I’m always hesitant to tell people just how many hours I’ve played Rimworld. Name: [ATA] Strange Game(s) you’ve worked on: Heckfire, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War, Party in My Dorm Department: Design Answer: Miracle Sudokus. ___________________________________________________ If you had to survive in a video game world for a week, which game would you choose, and why? Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Minecraft on peaceful mode so I can subsist on porkchops and play with blocks. Wait, did I just describe my childhood? Name: [ATA] Barton Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party In My Dorm, Kingdoms At War Department: Design Answer: Party In My Dorm lol you spend all your time partying and getting paid obscene amounts of money to do it! ___________________________________________________ In a zombie apocalypse, which game character would you want as your ally, and why? Name: [ATA] Ripley Game(s) you’ve worked on: Party in My Dorm, Kingdoms at War, Witch Arcana, Kingdoms at War Department: Live Operations Answer: My ally would be the real main villain of the story only finally revealed after 5 sequels. Being off-screen would be cushy. As long as I don’t betray them, I should be safe. Name: [ATA] Burger Game(s) you’ve worked on: Kingdoms of Heckfire, Single City, Kingdoms at War Department: Narrative Design Answer: Gordon Freeman would keep me safe all while not talking my ears off. Name: [ATA] Mark Game(s) you’ve worked on: all Department: Product Answer: Yoshi, can ride him all around, thick hide, eats zombies and jumps on them, is your BFF Fin!