shovelware

Hahaha! I love this question!

When we were initially playing through Act 3, we didn't have the visions of Azmodan at all. When we eventually got to Azmodan, we had gone through the act and encountered the siege breaker and the maiden of lust (who also had yet to taunt you before her fight), and folks felt like you were trudging along and eventually this boss fight comes seemingly out of nowhere and nothing in the story made it seem like Azmodan was a big deal (I mean, aside from that super sweet cinematic, but maybe that's just me). So I got a task to add in those visions of Azmodan all over the place, starting at the beginning of the act, and continuing on EVERY... DAMN... LEVEL... afterwards.

Now you shall never forget the Lord Of Sin.

Assuming your millions also bought us the entire code base for Diablo 3, and for some reason Blizzard was okay with it, and that was the only thing we were working on... Yeah!

If any of the above are not true, there's not a chance. :P

It's got a bunch of points behind it, actually:

• It's motivation to not make a terrible game. I don't wanna make it too easy for reviewers to say "I should've known this would be terrible, I mean, look at who made it!"
• On the same side, I hope people see it and think "Well, they obviously wouldn't call themselves that if they were trying to sneak us some crap."
• It's kind of a joke about the fact that our first game could EASILY be misconstrued as actual "shovelware." I mean, we made a mobile game that has zombies, match-3, and tower defense... some of the most shovel-tastic elements that exist today. I'm hoping it comes across that we obviously put more thought into it than slapping some crap together and kicking it out the door.

It was different at different companies. Mostly level design and UI design.

• Diablo 3 : Almost the entirety of Act 3
• Insomniac Games : Mostly UI design, some Mini Game Design, Level Design, and Scripting
• Champions of Norrath : I worked on everything that wasn't abilities or UI, there was only 1 other designer, he handled all the big decisions.
• EverQuest Next/Landmark : Designing ways to build that taught new players how to make things in 3D without being overwhelmed

You say that's easy, but it's like choosing your favorite baby!

Every game had its perks:

• Diablo was a lifelong dream, so that's probably the easiest choice.

• Working at Insomniac in general was the most camaraderie I've ever felt in my life. The crunches were insane and the talent of everyone else at that studio always pushed us to drive harder.

• Getting my foot in the door at SOE and working on EQOA was exhilarating and I knew from then on this was my career.

• Throwing caution to the wind and starting my own studio, being my own boss, and putting my money where my mouth is has an amount of freedom behind it that I've been craving for years.