GameReplays: Hey WaCkO, thanks a ton for taking some time out of your schedule to talk to Gamereplays.org and the Age of Empire community! To give a little background to our readers, Wacko was an avid Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors player in the community. He moved on to Age of Empires 3 with a bang in the Ensemble Studios-hosted "Warrior's Path" Tourney. Because of his play in this tournament, he won a trip to Ensemble Studios headquarters in Dallas, Texas. After several months, he was hired onto the balance team there at Ensemble Studios, where he still is today.
So WaCkO, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got the job? Was the opportunity a surprise to you? What was your major in college? Did you study anything with computers or gaming, or did you just get the job offer at ES and decided you just had to take it?
WaCkO: They chose me out of the group of players that were invited down as a part of the ‘Warriors Path’ tourney in the summer of 2006. Apparently I conveyed that I was not only skilled at the game, but also was capable of giving solid feedback while also taking into account what is most important in the end for a game, having fun.
The opportunity really wasn’t that surprising although it was awesome. When I saw this tournament I actually thought to myself ‘If there’s ever a chance to work at Ensemble this is the chance’ as I would now have a face to the people with whom I which to work with. At the time I was working at UPS to help pay for school (3am-8am shift rocked) and they didn’t want me taking 2 weeks off. However, I knew there was opportunity here and I’m not a big fan of having those ‘what if?’ types of things looming in the back of my mind.
I was majoring in Computer Engineering at the time they offered me the job. I had just finished my Associates degree in science before moving down here. I’m currently in no rush for my Bachelors as I am very happy working here at Ensemble, but I do plan on pursuing either a degree or some sort of programming education to hopefully help to further my career here.
GameReplays: Most of the people know that you’re doing something with balance, but they have no idea what exactly it is you're doing. Before your trip to the Ensemble Studios headquarters, and before you accepted this job, you most likely didn’t know exactly what to expect either. However, I’m sure you had certain expectations - did those expectations come true? What is different? What does a balance tester do, exactly?
WaCkO: There’s a lot more to being on the balance than I expected at first. The most difficult thing in my opinion is coming up with sufficient proof to get changes in and being able to back those changes when confronted by a ‘Devils Advocate’ point of view. There will almost always be a flaw in any argument and being able to constructively debate your point is a skill that definitely helps with the job.
As a balance tester we do what you’d expect us to do. We play the games a lot, discuss them a lot, have meetings about the game a lot, and mock each other after each win. We have a group of players here each with his own playstyle so it’s actually pretty fun to see what each person can come up with.
