July, 2021 - [
No Link]
Q: Out of all of your contributions to AC (game mechanics, quests, lore, etc) what are you most proud of and why?
A: It's hard to pick which specific aspect I'm the most proud of. I still have my original notebook where I sketched out the map of Dereth, the Olthoi, and the first mention of Asheron (who was initially called Aiden). I guess I would have to say that shipping the game is the thing I'm the most proud of. I can't really describe how ambitious Asheron's Call was at the time. When we started, people were still connecting to the Internet using dial-up modems and paying per hour to access services like Genie and Compuserve. And while we would eventually launch alongside other great games like Ultima Online and Everquest, we had no idea those efforts were underway. We felt like we were doing something unheard of. Creating a 3D graphical MUD felt like science fiction. Building a fantastic team, attracting investment, gaining the support of Microsoft, and ultimately launching one of the first 'games as a service' was and remains an epic achievement for a group of college-age kids that had essentially no professional development experience.
