eddyfate

There are a number of open positions at for our various video game projects at CCP (where I work). Right now, the fastest way to be considered is to apply online at  www.ccpgames.com . Descriptions can be found on our website for these openings, but some links are below.

(Note: I'm just forwarding this on from Human Resources. If you have questions, go to the website and send them there -- I'm just a writer monkey.)

 

Senior Programmer	Atlanta, USA	Programmers
Programmer	Atlanta, USA	Programmers
Concept Artists	Reykjavik, Iceland	Art
Animator	Atlanta, USA	Art
English Game Master	Shanghai, China	Game Masters
Database Administrator	Reykjavik, Iceland	Operations
Senior Game Designer	Shanghai, China	Content & Game Design
Senior Web Developer	Reykjavik, Iceland	Web Development
Senior QA Engineer	Atlanta, USA	Quality Assurance
German speaking Game Master	Reykjavik, Iceland	Game Masters
QA Engineer	Atlanta, USA	Quality Assurance
Senior Graphics Programmer	Reykjavik, Iceland	Programmers
Graphics Programmer	Reykjavik, Iceland	Programmers
IT Manager	Shanghai, China	Operations
QA Engineer	Reykjavik, Iceland	Quality Assurance
Programmer	Shanghai, China	Programmers
Programmer	Reykjavik, Iceland	Programmers
Action Script Programmer	Shanghai, China	Programmers
Artist / Graphic Designer	Reykjavik, Iceland	Art
QA Tester	Reykjavik, Iceland	Quality Assurance
Customer Acquisition Manager	Atlanta, USA	Marketing
Senior Game Engineer	Shanghai, China	Programmers
Game Designer	Atlanta, USA	Content & Game Design
Senior Animation Programmer	Atlanta, USA	Programmers
Technical Director	Atlanta, USA	Programmers
Associate Content Developer	Atlanta, USA	Content & Game Design
QA Tech Lead	Reykjavik, Iceland	Quality Assurance
Content Manager	Atlanta, USA	Content & Game Design
Engineering Manager	Shanghai, China	Programmers
Senior/Lead Character Modeler	Reykjavik, Iceland	Art
Quality Assurance Engineer	Shanghai, China	Quality Assurance

Things have been pretty busy 'round here lately. A couple of weeks ago I took on some new job responsibilities[1] which have involved a lot of learning new things. It also involved moving from an office with a Mac computer to a cube with a Vista computer. It's really exciting, and I'm enjoying the challenge, but man, shit be crazy trying to stay on top of things right around now. As an example, something that I thought would only take me a few hours over the weekend pretty much took up most of it. I'm still managing to keep a lot of balls in the air (like Whitechapel), but some other things have had to be put on hold for a bit while I settle into a new routine (like the White Wolf Blogcast).

When I've had a moment to reflect here and there, I've been poking around with more old-school gaming. NetHack and AngBand have been an entertaining distraction, and the sheer unrepentantly wacky fantasy has been surprisingly refreshing. Elf ninjas mixing it up with cyborg barbarians is just so unabashedly and unrepentantly fun. Sure, I still prefer games with strong narratives and deep immersion, but memories of Final Fantasy VII[2] and Thundarr the Barbarian[3] remind me of a time when I thought wearing sunglasses and a trenchcoat while wielding a katana actually was cool, and not just a stereotype.

So I've been flipping through everything from retroclone games like Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy to loving parodies like Encounter Critical to actual classic game experiences like Rifts and red box D&D. Playing in a D&D 4e game at work has been helping to scratch that itch a bit, but I admit I'm not entirely sure if I really want to break out a new game to recapture the fun of wahoo fantasy, or if the idea of such a game is more interesting than actually playing one. Nostalgia is a fickle mistress.

I've also recently (and somewhat coincidentally) been watching a lot of comedic sci-fi: Red Dwarf, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV show), and Red Vs. Blue, which have been leading me to some ideas for a new fiction project... but that's later. Probably after Whitechapel is done.

Speaking of nostalgia, I've been slowly reconnecting with some of my old elementary and high school friends on Facebook. I mean, most people talk about using Facebook to find old classmates, but I didn't really look any of them up. They just kind of found me. And it's been a weird (but very pleasant) experience. It's all been coalescing into a stew of contemplation.

I finally picked up a copy of Shadows Over Baker Street after seven million people[4] expressed disbelief that I hadn't read it yet. Overall it's been enjoyable. Plus, right now it's a bit easier to read a short story in between things going on instead of trying to stay on top of a 2,000 page novel from George R. R. Martin.

Eh, that's that. Brain's dry.

Footnotes

Footnote 1: No, I can't really talk about them at the moment.

Footnote 2: Swords that shoot bullets and have magic gem slots in a cyberpunk world? FUCK YES.

Footnote 3: Ditto for laser swords and sorcery.

Footnote 4: Give or take 6,999,993.

Shit be crazy, yo.

Since GenCon, I've been running pretty hard. Getting the second episode of Whitechapel written and up, trying desperately to finish a short story for consideration in an anthology, going to a company retreat for a day, and going to see Alton Brown and Chris Hardwick live all kind of fell in at the same time. (Both shows were awesome, by the way -- just happened to be that the tickets we got months in advance had them both on the same day, so it was a full day going to see them both.)

Somewhere in there, a couple more podcast interviews made their way into the world:

• The Bear Swarm! podcast did an episode with an "interview" with me (really me just talking about Whitechapel and bring a writer in this crazy business of ours).
• The Darker Days podcast had me as a guest host for their eighth episode, as well as doing a lengthy Q&A with me.

In the craziness, I did get a chance to watch the first season of Leverage, which wasn't bad. It took me a bit to get into it (after the really intense drama of Dexter), but when I mentally approached it as "The Italian Job, The Series," my appreciate for it jumped a lot. It's a fun show, and I'm looking forward to season two.

This week, things calm down a bit more, which will be a nice change of pace before they start getting crazy again in October. (Except that I volunteered for a rush company project -- whoops.)

I have a lot to cover (even though it'll be bullet points), BUT FIRST I want to point out two relevant podcast episodes were launched while I was at GenCon:

The Basics of the Game talked about City of the Sand, the Mind's Eye Theatre: The Requiem SAS.

I was also on the Saturday, 5pm episode of This Just In From GenCon!.

There are some other podcast interviews I did at GenCon, which I will post as soon as I know they're up, but there's over half an hour of audio for your listening pleasure.

So, Eddy, how was GenCon?

• It was insane. Previous years I had a chance to work the booth and walk the floor for at least a couple days. This time, I had two panels, three podcast interviews (and two that I ended up being on even though I wasn't directly part of the podcast), two "Play With A WW Writer" tabletop games (using New Wave Requiem), helped out with Storytelling two LARP sessions, one award ceremony, two meetings, two business dinners, five business parties and one business lunch (which I completely forgot about). With the exception of Saturday, I wasn't at the booth for more than an hour, and I wasn't able to walk the sales floor for more than two hours overall.
• It was humbling. Previously, I've offered to do signings and the like for books, and the response has always been kind of an "oh, okay." Since I joined White Wolf, people seemed excited to talk to me, but more because I work for White Wolf rather than any particular interest in me specifically. This time, I had a lot of people who were wanting to talk to me specifically. Peers and fans both wanted to talk to me about things I'm associated with, thank me for specific projects that I worked on or wanted to discuss business opportunities that I would particularly be interested in. I finally feel like I've arrived.
• It was friendly. Like every year, I go into GenCon full of a year of Internet rage and vitriol, which slanted my view of the fanbase. And like every year, I was blown away at how awesome and amazing our fanbase really is. I can't count the number of times people came up to thank someone at the booth for our hard work, or a fan patiently worked with us when things went wrong, or a customer was excited to listen to our sales pitch about Geist. One particular situation sticks in my mind: a woman came up to the booth with her two kids. She is an avid Vampire fan, and wanted to look into a game that she could run for her kids. They decided on Scion, and asked politely if I could sign the Scion Companion. I was so blown away to find someone actively wanting to pass on the hobby of tabletop gaming to the next generation that I made sure to get as many of the people in the booth who worked on Scion to sign the booth as I could.
• It was too long. By Sunday, I was exhausted, but I still had a whole day to go. I slept like a rock last night when I got home, and I'm still tired today. I'm not sure if it's the pace, the hectic schedule or just me getting old (or a combination), but it wiped me out.
• It was too short. There were a lot of people I just didn't get a chance to talk to (and one that I even scheduled a meeting to talk to, but it ended up not happening, much to my regret). This happens every year, and every year it frustrates me.
• It was inspiring. While I barely got a chance to look at some of the hot new releases like Eclipse Phase, it was great to see so many people returning for this GenCon, despite a tough economy and GenCon's rocky financial issues. The RPG "press" of podcasts and bloggers just gets bigger and more professional each year. The ENnie awards showed a slate of amazing games that were released last year. Things just seemed more optomistic overall, and it was amazing to be able to touch a small part of that.
• It was fun. I had a blast.

Each year is better than the last. I'm looking forward to 2010.

Vote however your conscience dictates, but the products I worked on are:

BEST ADVENTURE: The Rose-Bride's Plight (with jesshartley)

BEST ELECTRONIC BOOK: Collection of Horrors: Razorkids (with David Hill and greebotrill)

That subject still feels a little weird to me, but it's true -- I have people who are fans of me and my work. For some reason, a lot of it all came in this week, and in a variety of forms.

Eddy Webb, I Envy You: A blog post by Daniel Perez of Highmoon Media about how he covets my job.

Collection of Horrors: I got a LiveJournal letter from jim_hague about the Collection of Horrors. As this was a pretty big gamble for me, I'm glad it's being received so well.

( Private Message )

Podcast: I'm also starting to hit my stride with the White Wolf Blogcast, and a few people have said some really nice things about it. Here's an email I got this week.

( Email )

I do not often take a moment to enjoy praise -- very often I deflect it onto my co-workers and freelancers who do an amazing job taking my hair-brained ideas and making them into an awesome reality -- but this kind of feedback really helps to keep me going.

You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for sticking with me and supporting me over the years.

No, it's not spam. It's "Chat with a Developer" over at RPGBomb.com. I'm going to be hanging out and answering questions, starting at 9pm tonight. Here's the link for more info:

http://rpgbomb.com/news/view/id_111/title_chat-with-eddy-webb-tonight-on-rpgbomb/

Here's a sneak peek at the latest Exalted product I've developed:

ExXxalted: Scroll of Swallowed Darkness

(Not safe for work. Or human consumption, probably.)

The past month or so has been challenging. Most of it has been revolving around work, my main hobby, or the incredibly murky gray area between them, with a few personal things that have nothing in common with either of the previous two things (except for the fact that I really can't talk about them). This week has been closer to my usual level -- closer to fifty hours a week instead of the seventy hour weeks that have been going on. Plus, work has swung back from "shit that needs to be done" to "shit that's fucking awesome to work on," which always helps. And the haters seem to be growing more and more incoherent and hilariously paranoid, which means it's moved from being sincerely upsetting to something closer to watching your dog try to catch his own tail. Especially when it doesn't have much of a tail. Or neck, for that matter.

So, I figured I would take a moment to do some catching up on my Media Whore segment.

Reading: While in Canada, one of our hosts let me browse through a bookstore, and I managed to pick up a copy of Spade & Archer, a prequel to The Maltese Falcon. Apparently it's still fairly new (the book had a 2009 copyright date), which I take as an indication that Canada likes me. While the book doesn't have as much Archer in it as the title would imply, and the plots are far more convoluted than Hammett did, the writing and feel are very close to the original. I also picked up Black Dahlia by James Ellroy, which I'm still working on. Apparently it surprised Russell that I hadn't read Ellroy before.

Television: Yes, I watched the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. In Canada, even, with about six other people. I've also been watching the first couple of episodes of MI-5 (Spooks in the UK), which is a lot of fun -- a bit like a British version of 24. I've (finally) started watching Burn Notice as well, so apparently I'm on a modern spy kick right now.

Video Games: Not a whole lot, but I am picking up Mass Effect again once in a while. I might poke at another game for a bit in the near future.

Podcasts: I think I stumbled across it by accident, but Two Minute Danger Theatre is an entertaining send-up of old radio serials, and you really can't beat the time investment. I got caught up on the 60+ episodes on my flight to Toronto. I also finished up the first season of The Takeover, which was entertaining.

Bad news: NCRE is now off the table -- the reasons work needed me to go are no longer valid, so I'm not needed for that trip.

Good news: I might be flying to Reykjavik a couple of weeks before Fanfest to do some work stuff, and maybe run a LARP for the guys at the Iceland office. It's all still up in the air right now.

Here's my updated itinerary.

So recently, my company released a huge change to one of their games that has some people upset, some people happy and many people talking....

That's right, the EVE Online: Apocrypha expansion released today.

I'm actually excited about this because I contributed a handful of missions and some other content support to this release. It's my first video game work, and I'm really excited to see how it looks "in the wild." I'm installing the expansion now. It was a very different experience from my usual work, and I'm not used to working creatively with such a large team, I learned a hell of a lot from it.

So, if you find yourself playing in a series of missions hunting down a rogue drone, I likely had something to do with that. :)

http://atomicarray.com/scion-aa016

An hour episode about Scion and the Scion Companion, where I pretend to be John. I also flip the hosts off (which is impressive, because I was in a different state at the time).

Edit: Listen after the closing music -- there's an easter egg of when we all just completely lost it before the interview even started.

First off, the cover for New Wave Requiem is at the White Wolf LJ. I am so in love with this cover.

For those who don't know, New Wave Requiem is our third AP-exclusive book[1], and the second one I've both developed and written for (Block by Bloody Block I developed, but that was all Chuck Wendig). It's a book about running a Vampire game in America of the 1980s, which is an idea I've had for a long time. Like all upcoming Vampire books, it'll be full-color. The Vampire Art Director, Craig Grant, did a new layout for the book which is just oozing with 80s flavor.

Man, I could go on and on about this book. I'll probably whip together some developer's notes once the book is live (later this month). But it's really cool that once in a while, I still get that intense thrill out of seeing something I've worked on come to life.

Footnote 1: To be clear, this is actually a full-color PDF. We're going to try to get a print-on-demand version once we sort out our PoD program, but that'll likely be black-and-white with color covers. I'm just in the habit of calling all of our products "books."

Here's my current convention and travel schedule for 2009. As with last year, this is an attempt to (hopefully) stem the tide of "will you be at [X Con] this year?" I'll be putting a link on the left side of my LiveJournal as well. This might change over the course of the year, so check back when it gets close to your convention of choice.

---

US South East Regional 2009 (Camarilla): February 26 - March 1, Atlanta, GA

Canadian National 2009 (Camarilla): March 19-21, Toronto, Canada

Wrestlemania XXV: April 3-5, Houston, TX

South Central Regional 2009 (Camarilla): April 16-19, New Orleans, LA

GenCon 2009: August 13-16, Indianapolis, IN

EVE FanFest 2009: October 1-4, Reykjavik, Iceland (plus LARP; all tentative)

International Camarilla Convention 2009 (Camarilla): October 29 - November 1, Atlanta, GA

A number of concerned people have been contacting me for the past few days about this:

Crisis claims Icelandic cabinet

I just wanted to remind people of something I posted a few months ago. Specifically, from our CEO:

“We have to do business with Icelandic banks here, of course, but we have offices in Shanghai, Atlanta and London as well. We are a global company, and our infrastructure is in place all around the world,” [Hilmar Petursson] says, “so we will not be affected by this credit crisis per se. The business rarely deals in Krona apart from for staff pay.”

It's unfortunate the amount of turmoil that Iceland is going through right now, but as far as I know, CCP isn't going to dissolve or explode or disintegrate into a million pieces. Really, the biggest problem I'm dealing with right now is recovering from a mysterious stomach illness and how I can get this sore from Whirlyball.

Our latest SAS for Hunter: The Vigil just went up on DriveThruRPG.com. It's called Spearfinger, and it's a creepy monster tale written by Jesse Heinig. I'm drawing attention to it not just because it's an awesome piece of work, but because it's also the first product that I did layout for. As my duties evolve and change, I'll start laying out some PDFs every now and then, and this was my first try at it (with some initial help from matt, and a ton of advice from the other art directors along the way). I also worked on the next SAS coming out for Hunter, which is Murder Will Out by Ben Counter.

I'm enjoying layout, to an extent. I'm still blown away by what matt and Aileen and Brian and Jess and Craig do, and now that I've had a chance to work at it, I'm even more impressed. It's also a very different creative process that stretched me in new and interesting ways -- after a long week of sweating over manuscripts, it's almost relaxing to move pictures and text around. I suspect, though, that if I did it all the time, it would be relaxing to write and edit after a long week of moving pictures and text around, but I enjoyed putting my creative energies in a new direction.

Person A: "Hey, I bought a copy of one of your books on PDF, and I want to print up a few copies at Kinko's to sell. Is that cool?"

Me: "No. You can print one copy for personal use."

Person A: "What if it's given away instead?"

---

Person B: "Hey, if you want free PDFs of old White Wolf books, just let me know."

Me: "Actually, those books are still being sold through DriveThruRPG and other affiliated stores, like FlamesRising. You can't just give copies of those away."

Person B: "Well, I wasn't going to give it to them. Just upload it to a website for them to download. I'm not responsible for who downloads it."

---

There's got to be a line between genuine cluelessness about PDF intellectual property rights and not taking five seconds to think about what you're saying.

Surprisingly, this year actually worked out about the way I expected it too. If anything, it was far, far better than I anticipated. Sure, there were some bumps, but I can honestly say that overall 2008 was a good year for me. Here are my resolutions for 2008. Let's look at the scoreboard.

Learn As Much As I Can. Oh boy, did I. I read a lot, I did a lot, I talked a lot and I listened a lot. I still feel some days like I'm learning, but if I got nothing else from my experiences this past year, I learned a hell of a lot. Exceptional Success

Improve My Current Writing and Design Skills. I didn't have as many opportunities to improve my writing as I thought I would, because honestly most of my writing is filling in gaps in projects as they pop up. On the other hand, the opportunity to just sit and talk with my peers about writing, design and other elements of the job has really helped me think of things very differently, and I'm already looking at 2007 and 2006 projects and seeing where I could improve. Success

Become A Better Manager. Well, only my freelancers can tell me if I'm a good manager, but I have certainly learned a fair bit about management as a skill, and some of the roadbumps I hit early on are old hat to me now. Success

Get To Know The People I Work With. Actually, most of the people I work with are pretty fucking cool. I can't say I want to hang out with every single one of them (more because I'm pretty introverted than any comment on them as people), but I can't count the number of cool conversations and good times I've had in the lunch room, let alone at company parties. But there are certainly lots more people I could get to know, and I look forward to getting to know. Success

Play More Stuff Just To Play It. For a while I thought this wouldn't happen, but I did get to play in a few short games (including a hella fun D&D4e game with some work folks), and I did manage to get into a regular Mage game just before the year ended. Success

Read More Stuff Just To Read It. I actually get bursts of space where I can read, and I got a few books read while I was in the UK on vacation. I'm currently juggling work reading with the Night Watch trilogy, in fact. Success

Improve My Health. Eh. I am, in fact, healthier than I was in St. Louis -- my dizzy spells have gone down considerably, and I'm generally not claiming as many sick days as I was in my old job. On the other hand, I do sometimes come into work or telecommute when I'm feeling blah. Further, I have noticed that when I get into a good exercise routine, I'll come down with a short cold or my ears will ache, and I'll have to stop. So, I'm healthier, but I'm still not healthy. Minimal Success

Total: Success

This year, I actually have to come up with four New Year's Resolutions for work. Rather than coming up with two sets of resolutions, I'll just put those resolutions here.

Personal Goal: Get out more. It's weird, given that I've traveled more this year than in any other year previously, but a lot of times it's work or work-related. Spending ten days just doing whatever came to mind made me realize that I should make more attempts to get out and try things more often, with real people.

Professional Goal: Try new things. I spent the past year learning and building my skill set. I've tried a tentative experiments -- many works, a few failed. Now it's time to push myself and my craft and really try to innovate within the space I have.

Fun-Oriented Goal: Run a game. All I've really run this year was a haphazard Hunter game at lunches over the past several months. It's been fun, but I've spent far more time playing than running, and I've got the itch to run again. Nowadays, it's the constant struggle with the ancient demon Scheduling.

Overall Life Goal: Write a novel. It's weird, but I've never really had the opportunity to do it, and I've always wanted to. I'm confident that I have the collection of skills to pull it off, but I'm not in a rush to crank one out. At some point in my life, though, I'd like to do it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21095070@N03/3147618065/

Me, emprint and autumnflame at the company christmas party. Probably my personal favorite pic from that party.

The past week have been a bit like a cartoon coyote: I've been running so hard and so fast that I didn't realize the ground wasn't under me until just now. I conceptually knew it was Friday, but it didn't really sink in that that means it's the end of the week until just now. I've been juggling my usual post-con workload combined with bad planning on my part and a temporary increase in my work responsibilities (which involves playing video games, so I can't complain) while struggling with a mild cold or allergy or something, so it's all been a bit of a blur. Let me catch up on a few things:

* Cruise went well. I had a better time than I anticipated I would, but unfortunately I didn't get to see too much of Mexico, as I had work obligations to fulfill. I did get sick near the end of the trip, but I got over it pretty quick, so I'm not sure if it was sea-sickness, my usual vertigo combined with the rocking of the ship or just something I ate. My biggest regret was having to bail out on a LARP theory roundtable on Friday night to talk over "Killing Sacred Cows" because of said illness. I still end up being a little anti-social on these kinds of trips because I miss my family, and this was a particularly long one, but from an objective (i.e., me not being a whiny bitch) level it was a good time.

* Recently I've been really hooked on the Rain-Slick Precipice games. I didn't expect to like them, but it seems to hit a sweet spot with me between old-school computer RPGs, fast reflexes, inside jokes from a variety of sources, and just plain adolescent vulgarity. The Xbox version of episode two seems a little glitchier than episode one was on the PS3, but when I'm not playing video games for work, I'm pretty obsessed with these right now. (Especially since I'm stuck as hell on Gears of War 1.)

* Finished Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman while I was on the cruise. It was recommended to me after my review of Playing For Keeps (buy it buy it buy it buy it), and there's certainly a similar vibe here, down to a very prominent hero not making an appearance until late in the book. It loses focus a few times, and there are some plot elements that don't seem to be adequately wrapped up, but it was a fun read on the Kindle, and worth picking up if you like superhero fiction.

* Speaking of media, check out the Scam School video podcast. It's tagline is "social engineering in the bar and on the street," and it's a surprisingly entertaining look at card tricks, bar puzzles and other kinds of party jokes. Some of this stuff isn't new to me, but seeing people's reactions and hearing how the various elements are designed to "socially engineer" the audience is fascinating.

* In my gaming life, my new Requiem PC G.T. is settling in nicely. I accomplished my core goal of having a new PC that has lots of reasons to attend the Atlanta game, and a side benefit of getting some decent global play going with him. It's also been entertaining to try to re-learn a game I know very well just from other players. Meanwhile, the victorian age Mage tabletop game is being scrapped and replaced with a modern Mage tabletop game. I have a couple of ideas for characters. I've also been consistently smacking down the urge to run a game of my own.

* I've also been consistently smacking down the urge to write fiction again. Just when I think I have time to spend maybe an hour a week poking at some fiction, something happens to suck up my free time. I know that if it gets too bad I can just re-prioritize and give myself the time to write, but at the moment I've convinced myself that I don't have the time, and that seems to be keeping the muse at bay somewhat. Part of the problem is that I don't know WHAT I want to write -- every time I see a good movie or listen to a good podcast or read a good book, I want to write, but it's a different idea each time. I have about fifteen million worlds kicking around in my head, but I haven't sat down and worked on compelling characters or interesting stories yet. (Part of the problem is that when I DO get a neat story or character idea, I can find more immediate use for that at work.)