About the Author
Hi. I’m Sara Jensen Schubert, and I’m an MMO designer. My background is in web design and complaining at Lum’s.
In 2002, I shipped Shadowbane as a data entry flunky. I moved up to design in about a month, and continued to manage all game data and all game balance, and I also got to write the occasional system. I’m particularly proud of the resource system.
In the following years, I shipped two expansion packs; one of them earned me one of the MMO business’ only “balance designer” credits. After the second expansion, I moved up to lead designer and had a grand time managing all the patch plans and writing most of the systems, while continuing to manage all data and game balance. I also wrote a pretty cool metrics suite, one of the only ones at the time in the whole MMO world.
From 2006 to 2008, I was a senior designer at Spacetime Studios, writing systems for our massively multiplayer space shooter, and occasionally doing interesting research on player performance in twitchy games. I also learned about balancing shooters.
I’m currently a systems designer at Sony Online Entertainment, working on DC Universe Online.
Conference Presentations
- May 2008: “Design for Longevity,” ION Game Conference, Seattle
- April 2009: “Data-Driven Systems Design,” IMGDC 3.0, Las Vegas
Social Network Stuff
- Runner+ (RunningAhead is my run log of choice — it’s best on the market — but I don’t share the data)
- LibraryThing
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