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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 13</font></b></font></p>
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              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8">Blue 
          and Levelord Get Drunk!</font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT"> 
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        <p><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Blue</font></b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">: 
          I want to ask you about that. I'd be lying if it didn't seem like your 
          recent .plan update about Sin going gold didn't display a certain degree 
          of...burn out is not a fair word...is it burn out?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Well, imagine...you 
          can appreciate this, I'm with an office full of twenty year olds. And 
          they keep just going, and going, and going...and so naturally for someone 
          like me, the next logical step is just to do something like the Romero. 
          </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: To become the 
          'designer' of the game?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: I just want 
          to do a couple of levels, and let them all do the rest of the...well, 
          when you see<b> Sin</b>, I guarantee you, most of the cool stuff will 
          not be mine. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: This is just 
          continuing the trend of you being one of the most modest people ever 
          to name themselves something like "<b>Levelord</b>".</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: It kills 

          me to say that...I hide it well, but it kills me to say that. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Are you modest, 
          or are you an egotist? You named yourself <b>Levelord</b>, didn't you?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Yeah, oh 
          yeah. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: That wasn't 
          like people saw your levels and said, 'this guy is the lord of levels.'</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: No...that 
          was way back with <b>Blood </b>before I had even gotten hired to do 
          <b>Duke Nukem</b>...but it just sounded cool.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: It does sound 
          cool. But I think it sounds cool because...you don't come across that 
          way. It seems sort of surprising that you would name yourself that.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Well, the 
          word "lord" itself, it's not like 'almighty,' it's not like 'god,' it's 
          'lord'. It's high stature, but not...too high.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: A humble form 
          of egotism, if you look at it that way. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: It's funny 
          to me to look at it...egotism for level design...why is that? Think 
          of all the big ego game designers you know, barring a few, that are 
          level designers. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Why is that? 
          Why is there this megalomaniac egotist thing?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: I have no 
          idea, there's just some correlation. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Maybe it has 
          something to do with that being God, creating reality out of nothing 
          kind of thing.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: It might 
          be, it actually might be. Also, up until now, and now it's not legitimate 
          to say this, but up until now, the level designers really were the 'game 
          designers'. We did everything that brought the game together, we were 
          like the director, the producer, we were in there making everything 
          happen...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Most first person 
          shooters don't seem to credit 'game designers'. They have level designers, 
          and modelers, and programmers but there's nobody who's like, 'it's my 
          job to make the game itself'. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: At Ritual, 
          we'll never have a 'game designer'. Because that just takes away the 
          credit from everyone else. Like I said, all the members of Ritual, they 
          have a lot of input into my levels, and it's not fair to have some producer 
          or game designer say, "I made this game." No you didn't, <i>we</i> did. 
          </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: There's no hope 
          for talentless schmoes like myself to come in and grab all the glory?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: No, perhaps 
          it's just an egotistical title that bothers us. We have a project manager, 
          the person who keeps everyone in place, and tries to keep the project 
          on its feet.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Well, that implies 
          that the project manager's managing a project, not necessarily that 
          they designed it. They didn't design the project, they're just keeping 
          it on track.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Correct. 
          And I think you would really hurt yourself as a company if you had one 
          person, think of it, one person, coming up with all the cool ideas? 
          That couldn't happen.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Interesting...on 
          one level you can say that it's one person responsible for all the ideas, 
          but then on another level it's one person responsible for the flow and 
          the feel and the continuity. Is it hard, being a collaboration, establishing 
          that continuity?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Oh yeah...yes. 
          Not in the game industry, but look at all the great Monty Python skits. 
          If you ever read anything about when they were a group, there were different 
          factions. The ones that came from Oxford, the ones that came from Cambridge, 
          I forget who was who. But they just bitterly fought, and had egos -</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: - and it comes 
          across as smart.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Yeah, but 
          none of them are worth anything to me. Together...The Beatles, there's 
          just a whole bunch of examples where together they were brilliant, and 
          they just <i>hated</i> each other. I mean we've got some internal conflicts 
          that you wouldn't believe.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Well, this leads 
          to a segue, you guys started as the pilgrims leaving oppression to conquer 
          the new world -</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Nah...I 
          feel so bad for that. Actually, it's not like that at all.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: No, but in a 
          sense it was just a bunch of guys who were striking off on their own 
          to do their own thing -</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: - It's egos 
          that wanted to go somewhere else...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: But now, it's 
          like you're revolving doors turned the other way...you've got a lot 
          of guys going out the out door.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Most of 
          the guys who left, like Charlie [Brown] and Gary [McTaggart] who left, 
          those were top notch ace programmers, I wondered from the very beginning, 
          why are you here, working for us? Why aren't you out with your own company? 
          Especially programmers. Those are the <i>truly</i> elite. You can get 
          any schmuck to do levels, you can get any schmoe to do art, but it's 
          the programming, the <i>engine</i> programming -</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: I know what 
          you're saying...it's a rarefied air, Gary and Charlie are sort of in 
          that Carmack realm of engine programming -</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: So their 
          leaving was to me obvious, and I was upset, and it's like, why did you 
          guys even come here, when you knew that you would go eventually. And 
          why did you play with us like that. And again, a few people have come 
          and gone, but most of it was egos, not fitting in.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Finding that 
          balance in the collaboration.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: And [a] 
          recent leaving was Charlie [Wiederhold]...I met him at a Fort-Worth 
          Duke marathon thing about three, four years ago, with these eyes, like 
          'how can I do levels?' But he's dying to do Duke Nukem...if he gets 
          paid three cents, he'll be happy.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: But that struck 
          me...considering that most of you guys left Apogee/3DRealms, to come 
          to Hipnotic at the time, and now Ritual, and there was definitely...I 
          don't know if it was bad blood, but there was certainly some comments 
          made back and forth between you guys -</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Well, I 
          still am begrudged at my name being taken off my work. That really to 
          me, is not cool. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Now, this was 
          for work on<b> Duke 3D</b>?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: There were 
          four levels in <b>Duke</b>. And one of them was my very best<b> Duke</b> 
          work, and it has someone else's name on it. And to this day, you go 
          out and you buy the CD, and my name is not on it.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: For the record, 
          what are the levels?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: My favorite 
          one was Pig Sty.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Pig Sty?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Yeah, Pig 
          Sty was my ultimate...and Stacey’s Triple X...and what were the other 
          two? I don't remember now...I don't know the names...don't know if the 
          names have changed. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: So you guys 
          leave Apogee/3DRealms, and there's some angry words back and forth, 
          and now Charlie leaves Ritual to go back there, it's like a 'man bites 
          dog' story.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: It'll be 
          interesting to see what happens with Charlie over there. Well, I’m sure 
          they've changed over there...when I was with them, they didn't have 
          money, like they do now. They've got <i>tons</i> of money. And a lot 
          of my grumbling was simple ergonomics. My desk, I thought, was a piece 
          of shit. As I looked across at a whole empty office, thinking why am 
          I sitting here at a doorway, with people going back and forth every 
          fucking minute. Breaking my concentration. And little things like that...I 
          had to ask three times, for a ZIP drive, and I never got one. Just so 
          I could take work home to work on the weekends, and I had to go out 
          and buy my own, a $200 ZIP drive. But most of it, I'll be honest, was 
          professional, obviously. I wanted to own my own company. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: So you're one 
          of the owners of Ritual?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Yeah, there's 
          seven, and then Beau is another...eight. He's got part ownership. Beau 
          has been there since it started, and he gets everything done before 
          we even ask for it, and he's there seven days a week, so if we see that 
          kind of dedication, well, we want to reward it. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: So it's not 
          a closed deal where if you weren't here at the beginning you can't get 
          in.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: Right. Especially 
          if it grows. We hope to spread out, especially with the egos. A lot 
          of us want to go different ways, and once we get big enough, we'll be 
          able to have three or four teams, something like Ion Storm. Working 
          on different things, and they'll have a piece of that game that they're 
          working on. </font></p>

        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: Now as we go 
          off into this future, does part of it entail this retirement that you 
          dream of?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: I plan on 
          retiring at 45. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: 45? And you're 
          how old now?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: 40. I'm 
          going to be 41 next month. So yeah...four or five more years. What I’d 
          love to do is have enough where life is a hobby. Like, do the Romero. 
          And I still miss the east coast...New England. If I had my way, I’d 
          move to like Westchester Country, Greenwich in Connecticut, open up 
          a little shop, and just...like a hobby. I don't care if I make money, 
          I’m just spitting out levels, or whatever it takes. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: A lot of people 
          who get transplanted down here, a lot of northeasterners are not happy 
          about living in Dallas.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Levelord</b>: It's October 
          31st, and it's 80 degrees down here.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Blue</b>: It's warm. It's 
          <i>damn</i> warm.</font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp;</p>
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    <td><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
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      Heaslip and Richard Gray. All other content is &copy; 1998 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
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