Back To Meet The Devs

1. What is your name and/or nickname?

Chris "Laughing Boy" Pierson (game designer)

2. How did you come to work at Turbine?

A friend of a friend pointed me at the company (back when it was Second Nature), and I hopped on a bus from Toronto, headed down here for an interview, and was hired that day. Ah, the early days ...

3. What other jobs have you had?

Before this, I was staff writer/editor for the Toronto International Film Festival. I've also been a freelance (i.e., mostly unemployed) arts journalist.

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

I'm an author, working (and working and working) on my third novel for the Dragonlance series, and under contract for two more over the next year and a half.

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

My pet thing is two-handed weapons. I want to be able to wade in with a flaming Great Axe, and start chopping heads. In the game as well.

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

Back in the early testing days, I did some intensive examination of teleportation and falling damage. Teleporting the local cow a few hundred meters above some unsuspecting fellow designer's head -- bammo. What a rush.

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

I'm not currently playing AC (work plus writing equals very little down time), so no.

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

I played a bit of UO and a bit of EQ when they first came out. I'm not really champing at the bit for any upcoming MMPs. Again, the no-time thing.

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

We have some gangs playing Counterstrike and Starcraft, but I'm generally home writing by then. I've tried to do some LAN-based Diablo II, but for some reason it's refusing to work.

10. Favourites:

Music: The Tragically Hip. Why you Americans haven't caught on to them is one of life's great mysteries.

Film: Yeah, like there's just one. Among upcoming releases, I have four words that will change your life -- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Food: The suan le chow show at Mary Chung's in Cambridge. Honorable mention to a good dosa.

Sport: Baseball, despite the Yankees.

Computer game: No real favorite. Recent ones I've liked are Deus Ex and Nox. Maybe it's the "x" on the ends of their names.

Author (since you didn't ask): Guy Gavriel Kay, and not just because he's a fellow Canuck. If I write a book someday that's half as good as his work, I'll be able to die happy.

11. What was the first computer game you played?

I'm not sure I remember. Probably some educational thingy on the Apple II.

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

Not gonna answer. It would sound too much like begging if -- oh, what the hell. Send DVDs!

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

Nope.

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

You assume I'm wearing pants.

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

James Todd, because he's already a mutant.