Interview: Carrie Gouskos & The Deathly Forums

We at WAAAGH! threatened many a baby seal for a good interview about patch 1.2, and only Carrie Gouskos cared enough to save their lives. As the Production Lead for the Tome, UI and Forum development, it seemed like the perfect time to ask her about the changes and additions to these systems -- and what might be coming down the pike in the future!

THE TOME OF KNOWLEDGE

WAAAGH!: I want to kick off with a few questions about the Tome... are you still involved with that?

CARRIE: I am yes, I took a short break after launch to regain some level of my sanity -- and also I should point out, that we have an entire team that does the work on Live Events, so I can't take credit for any of that.

WAAAGH!: Duly noted! If you can cast your mind waaaaay back to when you did a ChaosCast interview with us, you hinted at something special you guys were developing for the Tome. I'm just curious if we've seen that feature yet or if it's still to come.

CARRIE: Oh wow, good memory! Nope, it's *in* the game, but it has not been revealed yet. We got to this point near the end where we were just trying to get the backend for things in at launch so if we couldn't or didn't want to reveal them all then, we had them ready for another date.

WAAAGH!: That might or might not tie into my second question, which is on the rewards page for the tome, there's a section called "Cards" that nobody seems to know anything about... care to elaborate?

CARRIE: Nope! WINKYFACE

WAAAGH!: Haha... yeah, figured.

CARRIE: I mean at this point, I think it's pretty fair game for speculation, but I'm hoping that it's cool enough that you won't even be able to speculate it...

WAAAGH!: That sounds like a dare!

CARRIE: Actually yeah, I take that back, you guys have come up with some pretty cool stuff. Not to segue for you but... I've been spending a scary amount of time in our official forums. It's astounding how the community thinks and works.

WAAAGH!: Do you guys ever feel overwhelmed when it comes to thought output... it's a limited team over there vs. hundreds of thousands of us?

CARRIE: All the time, every day.

WAAAGH!: Okay, let me ask one more question about the Tome. Since the Tome is more PvE-oriented, it does have some gaps when tracking PvP is concerned. Will the Tome expand in the future to track scenarios, oRvR and "grudge lists", a la Book of Grudges mod?

CARRIE: Yes, it was something we put off past launch, but won't be any longer. The Book of Grudges mod is really really beautiful, big kudos for that, but we obviously have some things we can focus on, as we get a lot more information than a modder has access to. So we're going to concentrate on that. That's our next big focus for the Tome, coming up with even more meta stuff, and how it relates to RVR in particular. We've got a ton of really neat new little features we want to add that are more persistent than your typical tome unlocks... so I think in the near future people will be seeing the tome evolving and doing more things that hopefully will bring them to it in new ways.

WAAAGH!: Awesome! I can't wait to see it, really.

OFFICIAL FORUMS

WAAAGH!: So with 1.2, as you mentioned, we saw the launch of the forums... how's that going so far?

CARRIE: I really couldn't ask for it to be going any better. I was worried, of course. I've worked with forums before, in several capacities, I used to be a moderator at the counter-strike forums ages ago, and then at GameSpot. When I worked at GameSpot, I would read them all the time, and even now reading non-official forums about Warhammer... and people are really really... well, mean.

WAAAGH!: And you haven't lost your faith in humanity?

CARRIE: You have to grow a really thick skin, and I have. I took about a year of reading posts about how I'm ugly or stupid or fat before I just didn't care anymore. And now maybe a year of posts of people telling us that we aren't working very hard, or are all morons, or terrible things about the game when I know the opposite to be true, so you just have to get past that. Our official forums so far have been extraordinary for feedback and bug reports. I spend all my time trolling the bug forums, and it's interesting to see what people experience, in particular with the UI on their different machines and set ups. It's exponentially more than we can test! So I've been using those reports to help focus what it is that I think the UI team should be working on. If there are a million reports about the AH, then we're going to be looking at that, for example. Not that we don't know some of this stuff anyway, I know allllll the problems with the UI, believe me! But I often forget the things that players will forgive, because I don't have that perspective anymore, so an issue that I thought was a huge deal, is actually not one people are complaining about, and I need to let go of it and work on the things they are.

WAAGH!: That has to be one of the most persistent issues for MMOs, that players don't have enough information or first-hand experience to see it from the devs' perspective, and devs grow to have a different perspective based on what they do and see, so it gets possible to detach in a way.

CARRIE: Yeah, but I mean, at the end of the day, the players don't have to see it from our perspective. We're asking for your attention, your time, your money. I do hope people understand how hard people here are working.

WAAAGH!: Speaking of which, my $20 is in the mail... don't see why you guys had to blackmail me...

CARRIE: Haha! Actually the reason I took a little break from the Tome and UI after launch was because we haven't really slowed down on our end from a development perspective. The 1.2 patch felt a lot like launch for us. So I needed to take a vacation and get my head back on, and now I'm back working crazy hours again, which actually... I very much love.

WAAAGH!: Lots of people are saying that exact thing, that 1.2 is kind of a "relaunch" for WAR, with the full set of classes, 10-day trial, forums, etc.

CARRIE: Man... that's so funny, because for me 1.2 feels small compared to 1.3!

WAAAGH!: dum dum DUMMMMM

CARRIE: I mean, on a team by team basis, I can't speak for the other teams, but I'm so stoked about some of our 1.3 work, we're fixing some things that I'm frankly sad are still in the game, and doing a couple really cool new things as well.

WAAAGH!: Going back to the forums, one of the ways you guys are trying to combat trolling and overall cesspit-making is by giving posters incentives to post usefully and thoughtfully... can you elaborate a bit on that special program?  Have other MMO forums tried something like this?

CARRIE: Actually, I can't answer that for you, since our community team runs that, so you'll have to hit up one of those guys. the part that I did is literally just work on the actual development of the forums, how they're used is all up to them. though I suppose if someone wants to give away an in-game title, they need to ask me.

WAAAGH!: Well it definitely looks and feels slick... one request? More avatars!

CARRIE: Oh definitely! We always have this pie in the sky idea about having your actual character -- so the gorgeous and beautiful Syp would be there. It's just sooo hard to do.

WAAAGH!: Yes! She is beautiful! (grumbling about slanderous remarks concerning her looks that are out there...) Work to reward ratio has to be considered.

CARRIE: Yeah and I'm not sure people even care, and I'm also not sure how many people even want that, you know they might want to post anonymously and such. But we're always accepting feedback, so I'll send "more avatars" down the chain.

WAAAGH!: My last forum question, and perhaps this is also outside of your sphere, but after the recent layoffs, people are wondering about the additional manpower and time that have to be spent running official forums while also keeping track of the community... did you guys form a special team for that?

CARRIE: I'm actually not sure how that works, I mean I spend a lot of time in the forums, so there's just additional manpower from me! I do see that there are moderators, I have no idea where they came from.

WAAAGH!: So they're not Skaven? I heard they were Skaven.

CARRIE: They could very well be, I haven't actually spoken to any of them, but like, our QA department is in there all the time, the community team, all the team leads. We are all stretching more.

USER INTERFACE

WAAAGH!: I know you're pressed for time, so let's finally head over to the UI... 1.2 saw a LOT of UI changes... what are your thoughts on them, and what are your personal favorite additions?

CARRIE: Hands down, it's the improvements to the open party system and the addition of LFG. It was funny because we didn't even really think about needing LFG once we got open parties in. I mean we had it on a to do list, and then we were like... do we really really need this? And the fact of the matter is yes, for dungeons in particular, we definitely do. I'm just sort of in love with all the bits like you can see if someone in an open party is in your guild or alliance or on your ignore list or friends list. I just think that adds an extra layer of information that people really want to know.

WAAAGH!: Lots of people like the fact you can peruse for parties while you're currently in one as well.

CARRIE: Yes, it was a strange side-effect of having that button where it used to be, in the group window, and we just didn't have time to change it before launch. Oh, also I love all the fixes for party management and warband management as well.

WAAAGH!: As for me, I totally love the map changes... more info on the map = complete win!

CARRIE: Ahh yes, and we have even more of that (and a little visual cleanup) coming for 1.3 -- oh that's your only teaser!

WAAAGH!: That's like my tenth teaser! Okay, so last question about the UI... as you witness how people mod the game, what's surprised you -- in the best possible way -- to see folks create?

CARRIE: Well I mean, hands down it has to be Dammaz Kron, the Book of Grudges mod. It's not only really well done, but it's really beautiful as well. I think I called it that already.

WAAAGH!: Yeah.

CARRIE: Actually, I think our entire modding community is brilliant. One of our most prolific modders, Aiiane, is someone we're now working with frequently to help us support modders better. This was a big deal for Mark Jacobs, so we have people dedicated to working with modding and that community. We have some cool stuff coming up soon for that!

WAAAGH!: Spiffy! Well you're a busy woman, so I'll let you go... thank you again for talking to me and the WAR community on these exciting changes.

CARRIE: Absolutely anytime. And if anyone has any questions, tell them to drop by our official forums and drop me a line -- I'll be there! Or chained to my desk... or both.

WAAAGH!: Just like the cast of Friends...

CARRIE: Or Cheers, but unfortunately not enough beer.