Get to Know a Dev

This month's Get to Know a Dev is all about Associate Game Designer Julie "Ellie" Burness!

The only picture of Julie in existence where she is not talking

I'm a born and raised native of San Diego, CA, and have lived here most of my life.

Okay, so this may sound like a repeat of Doug's intro. Contrary to popular beta-tester belief, Elidroth and Ellie are not the same person, though we do share a lot of similarities. For instance, we're both taller than 90% of the EverQuest team. We both have worked on Vanguard (though in very different roles), and we both got to ride in Brad McQuaid's Ferrari. (Okay, so the last bit's not true, but maybe Brad will read this and decide to let me take it for a test drive? Brad, whaddya say, hrm?)

I do originally hail from San Diego, but spent about 9 years in Springfield, Illinois, where I first found my love for EverQuest. But let's rewind to the early 90's where it all began! I spent my hours afterschool in front of my IBM 286, getting advice from Dr. Sbaitso and playing King's Quest. I found a few BBS's that I loved, including H2H where I played a lot of Doom (though I admittedly sucked at it!) My real passion would be found in the fantasy world. I came upon a BBS called Chatterbox, which ran Legend MUD and hosted up to 24 people at once! My brother had "God" access, and within weeks I was sneaking onto his account, designing new dungeons and items that stuck out like a sore thumb. (Hopefully my design skills have matured some since then!)

I found EQ during the Velious expansion, and spent my time in-game doing various things, including high-end raiding. (My guild and I worked our butts off to get our server's first Quarm kill!) In all the years I played EverQuest, it never occurred to me that I could make a career out of being a game designer. I held the game and its design team in such high regard, that I imagined landing a job like theirs would be like winning the lottery. (*Pinch*, it still feels that way!)

I came back to San Diego to finish my Journalism/Political Science degree at San Diego State with very little cash to my name. I desperately needed money to support my gaming habit. A fellow gamer pointed me to the listed SOE internships, so I applied. Luck must have been on my side that day, as I was hired on to be the Community Relations intern. I spent two semesters as an intern, before I was hired on to be the Vanguard Community Representative. It was a very fulfilling job (and it allowed me the opportunity to meet so many past and current EQ players!), but I had an itch to do something else.

Free Realms was starting to ramp up at the time, and they needed a writer. (Hey, I had a journalism degree and they say most newspapers are written for an 8th grade audience, what a perfect fit!) I jumped right in, and had a blast. While I worked on a ton of content for that game, I'm most proud of the work I did for the holiday events, such as Snowdays, Festival of Hearts, and the Super Spooktacular.

After a year and a half of "whimsical" content for the kiddos, I was very excited to hear that EverQuest wanted some help on their expansion, House of Thule. Needless to say, my first few quests were rather sadistic and brutal (Halfling torture, anyone?) Now well after the launch of HoT, I can't say that I've really gotten the "evil" out of me. I still spend most of my time working on content: raids, quests, missions, rares, and the general story and layout of zones.

Outside of work, oh boy, is there an outside of work? Where is it? ;-) I have a wonderful (unless it's time to do homework) daughter who shares my love for gaming (though she's still honing her healing skills, or maybe she just likes initiating me into the purple club?) I play the piano, I garden, I game, I do quadratic equations; what else is there, really?

I love my job. I love my fellow players, and I can't imagine doing anything else!

Fun EQ-Related Facts:

  • The longest straight EQ play session I had lasted just over 32 hours.
  • I have called into work so I could raid before. I used the excuse, "I need to kill a dragon, so I cannot come in." No one ever questioned me (yet I am sure they questioned my sanity).
  • I just finished work on some stuff for the Living Legacy events this year that'll help you escape the summer heat!
  • My first and only petition happened not too long after I started playing. Someone gave me a bunch of super-cool items, but they disappeared after the server restarted at 3 a.m. It was then I learned what "NO RENT" meant.
  • The first character I ever made is still my main today, though she's been through many name changes!
  • My first day on the EQ job, I looked up mobs like the Ancient Cyclops to make sure they actually spawned (much to my disbelief, he is not actually spawned by using Illusion Dark Elf at exactly midnight and facing the northern edge of the desert /sigh)
  • I've been to 8 Fan Faires, 4 as an employee (I even got 3rd place in the costume contest once).

So now that you know a bit more about her, let's get started with the questions! Please post your questions for Associate Game Designer Julie "Ellie" Burness to the appropriate thread on the forums. Submissions will be open until 11:59 p.m. on April 17, 2011, at which point we will select the best questions and have her answer them! The results will be posted on the forum and website.

Let the questioning begin!