Back To Meet The Devs

1. What is your name and/or nickname?

James Todd, also simply knows by my initials, JOT.

2. How did you come to work at Turbine?

I was at a party and I ran into a friend of mine who worked at Turbine. I was pretty unhappy at my current job and he told me to come by and check Turbine out. The rest is history.

3. What other jobs have you had?

Tech support, Solaris sysadmin and programmer, and a highly unfortunate 5 weeks when I worked for a phone company. :-)

4. Do you work on anything else besides AC (and can you tell us about it)?

Yes...And no.

5. If you could add or change one thing in AC, what would that be?

Track down the leather crafter and kill them.

6. What's the most amusing or embarrassing death you've had or witnessed in AC?

When I was doing some testing as an admin, I was teleporting myself hundreds of feet into the air. Without realizing it, a bystander had wandered by to my remote location and I accidentally teleported _them_ hundreds of feet into the air, only noticing when their body slammed into the ground next to me leaving their corpse! Oops. I apologized profusely.

Also when the white rabbit was buffed in October, I actually forgot that you're not supposed to examine it. I did so, and left a nice admin corpse on the ground. I went back to get my body, and accidentally examined it AGAIN while scrolling through nearby items! Corpse number two. This led to a thread on an internal list whose message was "Rabbit 2, Admin 0".

7. Are you in an allegiance and do your allegiance members know you're at Turbine?

I'm more of a loner in AC, so I'm not in any allegiances currently.

8. Have you played any other MMORPGs and are you looking forward to any upcoming ones?

I haven't played any others, although <plug>I'm looking forward to upcoming titles from Turbine</plug>. ;-)

9. What's the current in-office LAN game?

Most recently the old favorite of networked Starcraft has been rearing its head. But don't worry, my zerg minions will destroy all.

10. Favourites:

-Classic rock
-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
-Chinese General Gao's
-Baseball
-Blizzard titles, Final Fantasy VII on the PS1.

11. What was the first computer game you played?

It would have been back on my Dad's Apple IIe in the early 80s...I played a lot of games and I don't remember which one I played first, mostly because my brother started playing before I did and so the line between games I played and games I watched is kind of blurry. Zork? Might and Magic? Hmm, I'm not sure what the first one actually was. It was probably earlier than that. I DO remember playing a 2D scroller called Karateka a lot, along with Castle Wolfenstein.

12. What would you like appreciative fans to send as gifts?

Chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

13. Did you get your pre-patch Greater Shadow Armour in time?

No. :-/ But I felt ethically obligated not to get it.

14. Fasten and then zip or zip and then fasten?

Zip-fasten.

15. Because of the lead- and asbestos-lined walls at Turbine's offices, you all survive the apocalypse - who'd get voted Supreme Leader?

Dave Namerow. Or Ivanova from Babylon 5.