Devinoch

Well, Gobalopper probably paged both of us down. I know he flagged me down online. I'm not that hard to find and Gob's an old friend. As for my opinions on Blizzard, I like their games and I've met several of the people who work for the company, including Bill Roper himself (who's a great guy). I think people like to percieve rivalries because it makes it easier to understand. But I think you'll find the guys at Epic and id have a mutal respect for one another, rather than some shared animosity. Bill and I chatted for nearly an hour at E3 (with our friends Greg and Erin there too) and we had a blast. I'm looking forward to seeing Worlds of warcraft (although I'm still not hooked on any of these MMORPGs) and I just finished Warcraft 3's single player campaign last week (been very busy, obviously) and it was loads of fun. ~d.

Our first submission is sort of a post-modern monster hunter story that's intriguing, but we'll see how it takes. Think Buffy The Vampire Slayer meets Clerks and you're on the right track. That one's in the middle of everyone working on it right now. The second proposal I'm scripting as we speak, and it's high fantasy. (I'd tell you what it's a mix of, but that spoils some of the fun...) ~d.

Heh. Well, I could say that I've left the industry entirely, but that's not true... ;D For me, I ended up leaving Westwood in July of this year, for personal reasons. While I could've stayed on and worked on Earth & Beyond, I had had my fill of Las Vegas and wanted to get back to where I call home, the Bay area. I'd only spent a year in the San Francisco area when CNet (who I worked for before Westwood, for those out of the know) laid my division off. I went to work for Westwood as something of a stop-gap solution, although I really enjoyed working there. But I hated the city. I can't lie -- Las Vegas and I never clicked. So in May of this year I informed Westwood that I wanted to return to the Bay area, but that I'd like to stay within EA if I could. For a while it looked like things were going to fall through, but then another Community Manager job opened up and I took it. I'm actually working up at Maxis now, working as the Community Manager of The Sims and SimCity 4 (but not The Sims Online). For me, it was more about getting back about the people who've become my family over the last six months. I've come back to the Bay area and am able to see my friends Greg and Liz, Erin and my best friend Joe and his wife Lara have since moved in with me. The bunch of us are working on a handful of new comic book proposals and hopefully we'll be working in that industry as well by next year. I liked Westwood as a company, but I liked San Francisco as a town more, and I liked my new family here most of all. Erin, Greg, Liz, Joe and Lara were more than enough reasons for me to want to get back to where I belong. The bunch of us had a housewarming party for Greg and Liz and their new apartment on Saturday and we're all planning our New Year's party, as well as making plans for our next big E3. All in all, my life's really come around from where it was when I was in Las Vegas. As of April of 2001, I was pretty miserable, simply because I didn't feel at home in Vegas, I didn't feel like I had many friends and I didn't feel like I was a part of anything. Here, the comic studio is starting to really pick up, my friends all love my company (they actually call ME sometimes, not just the other way around! Go f'ing figure!) In addition to writing for the comic studio, I'm also doing the project management and the business end, so once we get off the ground, I'll be even busier with that. Add that in to the fact that I'm writing an online serial novel (on our public blog/weblog/madness rant site The Touched) and the fact that Joe is trying to get an online comic off the ground with my help, and it seems like I'm always on the go anymore. I'm glad to see Emperor fans are still enjoying the game and you're all more than welcome to swing by my personal site, the Maxis site or even drop me an email (although please be patient if I don't get back to you -- I'm loads busy!) Lately, I've been playing Magic the Gathering: Online (yep, I am THAT Devinoch too), Metroid Prime, 007: Nightfire, Steel Battalion, Mario Party, Metroid Fusion, Vice City... and I'm teaching Erin stage fencing, writing for the comic, trying to pick up guitar again, doing some photography.... I kid you not, I'm lucky if I can breath some days... Good to see that all is well with you Chris! ~d.

He sent me a page. I'm not THAT unreachable, ya know... ~d.

Chris was laid off from Westwood during one of the rounds of layoffs that was publicized on many of the news sites. I don't actually have any contact email for him, but I did see him at the "Attack of the Clones" midnight screening when I was still in Vegas, before I moved back to the Bay. ~d.