SOE Staff - Who is Who? And Where are they now?

Disclaimer: I've just recently came back to EQ about a month ago. So bear with me on anything that it common knowledge or something that I may have missed. I've been awfully wordy and posting today. You'd think I was at a job with nothing to do.

1. What is the current staff for EQ1? Not asking anything like company info that isn't common knowledge, or a hierarchy chart to complain to, or something. Just curious who is who these days. The last time I played for longer than 30 days was in 2014, which you can see from my outdated signature. But I'm happy to see some names still around.

Like I know Prathun has been in a top position for quite a while now.
I think I recognize the name Roxxyl.
Also, you'd have to pretty much have never played Everquest to not know who Absor is. In fact, Absor, if you see this, isn't your name Alan, and you started off as a guide or a community manager at an MMO website before getting hired at SOE? I think the community manager (or some similar title) you replaced in 2000 (I think?) also had a handle that started with an A.
Also who was Brenlo? Because that name sticks out in my head.
Who was it that coined "Working as Intended" or "The Vision (c)" lol.
What happen to these people?
Who was it that played a bard and was the joke/reason why we had Bards who were plate and dual wield? Was that Brad? I really don't remember, ah the bard's name was Aradune I think?

Just curious who is still with DBG that has been there for 10 or 15+ years, possibly 20 for some? I wish there was more names I could remember off the top of my head right now.

For others who see this, is there a link/chart, or some kind of forum common knowledge about the community manager people, as in apparently Mepps is important with his title. And which dev handles which class or item?

This probably would be a better thread for a patch day, but just was curious. I started to google some old EQ news, and I was like, I bet the forum regulars who haven't taken a bunch of breaks lately already know best.

Ngreth has been around for quite a while. Started as a player IIRC.

I recognize that name too! It's amazing how long we've had some of these dev's. If anything this thread can possibly give credit where it's due.

Jonathan "Prathun" Caraker, Lead Designer of EverQuest - Lead Designer.

Roxanne "Roxxlyy" Sabo - Community Coordinator at Daybreak Game Company.

Alan "Absor" VanCouvering - Assistant Lead Designer... Concentrates on the basepop/quest/mission/raid/story side of EverQuest. Raids. He knows the systems, just not as well as the ones assigned to those.

Alan "Brenlo Bixiebopper" Crosby - Senior Director of Global Community Relations, Community Relations Manager (2003 - 2005) - No longer works at Daybreak.

Information from http://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Developers - Note that the information at that link is not up to date.

It would sure be nice to know who is currently working at Daybreak on EQ. However, Daybreak doesn't usually give out much information. The best we can do is see who is still posting on the forums.

Oh, also it is not SOE staff anymore, it is Daybreak staff.

Ah you're a good source, thank you for your website Fanra.

I may be confusing the Alan's. I remember in 2000 an announcement about one of the Alan's taking over community relations, and such. I hate appearing clueless on this, but it's been 20 years.

Producer
Windstalker

Community
Mepps
Roxxlyy

Technical Director
JChan

Code
Hludwolf - Lead
klanderso
Mr. Froo
niente

Design
Absor
Aristo - Spells
Dzarn - AAs, Code
Ngreth Thergn - Items, Tradeskills
Prathun - Lead

Note: There are artists too. I don't think they have forum accounts though.

I use Waterfox as my browser, and for some reason when I try to edit, none of the text appears. So I can't fix any sloppy errors or typos. Also, I'm lazy and don't proofread until I hit post. That being said, I don't think I can edit the title to say DBG instead of SOE anyway. If a mod would, thank you.

Nniki, that's perfect, thank you! Going to bookmark this, did you just create this on your own, or is there a link to a staff page I was ignorant too?

I threw together the list just now. There's no staff page that I'm aware of. There are credits available for the latest expansion with the game installation. The list in the credits may be slightly out of date with the latest set of layoffs, unfortunately. The people I listed do all still work there afaik.

Are you thinking of Abashi? He was from from way back in 99/2000 I think.

Pretty sure Ngreth's wife ran EQTraders.

I use Firefox. When I hit edit, it launches a popup that has no text. I then hit the more options. That makes the page look very similar to how it did when I first made the post and includes all of the text for me to edit. There is, however, a time limit for a person to be able to edit their own posts.

That sounds like what I'm seeing, thank you.

Ya, I just read that long Ask-a-Dev thing to Absor that Fanra linked, it was Gordon/Abashi I was thinking of. I didn't know he was generally disliked beyond just the fact that he was the one who had to "answer for" the nerfs. I don't know why I'm remember Absor coming from a gaming community website before joining the team here. Maybe I first heard the news he was replacing Gordon on ZAM or something, back when ZAM posted hot news, and somehow that's how I got it mixed up in my head.

Looking at that 2011 interview, I remember Piestro now, and I think it was Roshen who replaced Piestro. Also, wasn't there a community manager who's name was with a Z? That might have been eq2, I'm thinking of a Dark Elf avatar or whatever though. Zi..Za...oh I don't know.

For anybody who didn't click the link Fanra listed, and missed it in the past, it's a good read. Alan, if you see all of this, it was really interesting hearing about the whole "Rockstar Dev" meets "lowly CM" stuff. I wasn't here for the MUDs and UO, so EQ was the start of all this for me. While I was 20 when I found EQ in 99, I still had not experienced anything beyond some pen and paper when a group go together, or Final Fantasy and it's clones. Things like "mobs" and "trains" and "nerfs" and other mmospeak had to be taught to me. I always smile when people say "ding" in newer MMOs. Some of these terms (like Trains I imagine) were probably invented by EQ, I believe Ding was also, but nerfs probably came before EQ.

But back to the "lowly CM" stuff. I don't know what was out there for community managers before EQ, but actually having a game company change stuff and respond to feedback blew my mind. As I mentioned, whether PC or Console, I was use to the concept that devs/programmers etc didn't read or care about the user's comments. DAoC did a pretty good job with their community relations, with Sonya, and its a combination of EQ's blueprint for a community manager, and her own past EQ experience that made DAoC good at their relations. I imagine a "lowly CM" gets paid much better today at a gaming company than would have been acceptable 20 years ago.

Zatozia

I just realized I referred back to a link multiple times that I thought I clicked on from Fanra, but I guess I had it as open tab already. My bad for the nutty confusion.

Here's the link/article/interview I was referring to:

Absor - Ask a Dev --> https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-52355

I miss jchann.

She used to do this thing where she would pick a bug to fix and do it on her lunch break.
We got some good stuff out of those 30 minute sessions.

had some nice email chats with jchann.

The list put up above, and the list over at Fanra's wiki has some really great names. It was a lot of "OH YA!" moments when I looked at the list of people who had moved on.

Lebounde

And now for something completely different:

"There is a hobbit called Brenlo.
He seems like a decent fellow.
He got poked in the eye.
Then someone stole his pie.
Man, can that little guy bellow."

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ve-some-haiku-how-about-some-limericks.50801/