Rant n' Roll >> Official Introductions

In case you hadn't seen the recently posted Rants, I wanted to post that here, as well, officially introducing myself and Ross Watson:

Ross Watson: Greetings Programs! I'm Ross Watson and I'm the Senior RPG Developer for Dark Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay. I'm hard at work getting more great products for Dark Heresy ready for publication and I am super dedicated to making the 40K universe come alive!

When I'm not thinking about Space Marine Legions and the Golden Throne, I love to watch The Venture Brothers, catch up on cool new movies, or read some Jim Butcher novels. I moved to Minnesota from Maryland, so I came over 1,000 miles to work here — and I sure don't miss the DC-area traffic! Working at FFG is truly awesome and I look forward to more rants soon about the progress of Dark Heresy!

Jay Little: Oh yeah? Well I'm Jay Little…The other Senior RPG Developer – I'm going to be "senior developing" Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. But Ross and I will be working closely together on these product lines to make sure we do these licenses justice. I've got a lot of passion for roleplaying in general, as well as the Warhammer Fantasy setting and WFRP, so all the blood, sweat, and tears will be put to good use (hopefully only virtual blood and figurative sweat; I fear the tears may be real).

My family and I moved to Minnesota from St. Louis. The move has been bittersweet. I will miss my friends and gaming buddies, and the St. Louis Cardinals (the DH is an abomination, IMO)... but worst of all – I'm a diehard, lifelong Packers fan, so being in the heart of Vikings territory is painful; I feel like I'm a traitor to cheeseheads and Wisconsinites everywhere. [Don't worry, there are other Packers fans here, too… - ed.]

If you frequent the online gaming community, you may have stumbled across me on some other site or forum before. I'm an avid boardgamer as well as roleplayer, and have been active on popular gaming forums and sites for a long time. In fact, more people probably know me by my online nic "ynnen" than by my actual name.

I want to welcome you to the post but its hardly appropriate this late in the day. ;o)

Y... You didn't surprise anyone!
AAHahuhuauhahuahuhuauhauhauhauh

At least some attention.
Welcome on board! Don't turn warhammer into D&D or WFB and we'll be lifelong friends!

Ah ha! So he finally reveals himself!

Congratulations on getting the job, I wish you the best of luck at it (considering the rabid WFRP fans, you might need it). Also, it's very cool that you're from St. Louis, as I'm from the St. Louis area (though not the city itself, as you can see by the location under my avatar). If I may, do you have any prior experience writing and/or developing roleplaying games professionally?

Sythorn wrote:If I may, do you have any prior experience writing and/or developing roleplaying games professionally?

I have worked in the game industry in one fashion or another (off and on) for many years, with a variety of both freelance and full-time work and experience with RPG and boardgame development. I've been an avid gamer for 25+ years, and like to think I have a well-rounded RPG background -- I've got a collection of well over 800 RPG products, games and systems, and enjoy reading a good rulebook like other folks enjoy reading novels.

I like to think I'm open-minded, level-headed, thoughtful and creative. Hopefully the tenor and content of my posts here back that up.

ynnen wrote:
I like to think I'm open-minded, level-headed, thoughtful and creative. Hopefully the tenor and quality of my posts here back that up.

I don't know, you tend to start a lot new topics that are rants and lead to more ranting...

Welcome

At least we know that you are willing to ask what our thoughts are on subjects, but any chance you can give us some information on Tomb of Thieves and Shadows of Empire, as well as future plans in regard to releases.

Cheers Y!

Somehow it doesn't feel right anymore to use England's dialect when writing to WFRP guys.

Lemme rephrase.

Congrats Y! All the best to your efforts.

ynnen wrote:In case you hadn't seen the recently posted Rants, I wanted to post that here, as well, officially introducing myself and Ross Watson

Just as the Great Necromancer has forseen.

From what I've seen of your activity here on the forums, it seems you'll do a great job. But I'd like to wish you best of luck anyway

Soo... how's that website going?

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Good day old chap (I'll keep the english in wfrp as long as I can :p)

Looking forward to any news you have and any initial ideas you've got concerning where you want to take the game

ps: Did I mention we need more news?

Congrats on the jobs! The great thing about you being active on the boards is, that well, you're active on the boards! Nice having a steady FFG-employee trawling the site on a regular basis!

So cheers with the new job!

Hello and congrats to both of you!

As DH fan and gamer I would like to make two questions/wishes to ynnen:

1- Please do come to the wh40k forum and offer your input, one of the best things this game had when it was released was the community involvement of its developers, offering the "Rules as Intended" view of the game can be very helpful for us mere mortals.

2- Are you going to leverage the former game developers as freelancers? Is there any plan for doing so? (and now the whish part) If you have any contact with them it would be great if you could have them participating in the forums again, I appreciated very much their input and ideas, and I am sure they would be very wellcomed. What about other popular community inputs (IE taking into account oppinions held by the majority of this forum population).

And then as final question/comment; Have you read the fluff novels? (I wish I could be reading ravenor at my office and when my boss popped in patted me in the shoulder and whispered, good job boy... go on with your reading, yours is the only job in the world where that might happen).

If you have, ruleswise will you follow Dan Abnetts fluff as an input? any other preference?

Now ill let you settle in, questions aobut plans, future releases and so on will come later.

Congrats man... so you're the person we bitch to about how much you're messing up our system and how delayed the books are... good to know...

Congratulations on finally being allowed to reveal yourself, Jay!

And best wishes for the future!

One question though, that the introductions left unanswered:

Apparently Ross is Senior Developer for both DH and WFRP. But you're only holding that position for WFRP?

Q1. Are you given equal rank, or do you report to Ross?

Q2. Does this mean us wfrpers get 1 1/2 developer and DH "only" 1/2?

Or will Ross focus on Dark Heresy; titles be damned?

Or, more succinctly, why was Ross given both games and you only one?

Best Regards,
Karl

PS. More by "ynnen" here: http://ynnen.blogspot.com/ (Jay, tell me if you believe that site is obsolete and I'll remove the link)

Capn', I think you need to look again. Ross is the designer for W40KRP not for WFRP.

I thank you for your time

Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

CapnZapp wrote:Apparently Ross is Senior Developer for both DH and WFRP. But you're only holding that position for WFRP?

I think you should re-read the section. I think you mistook Warhammer 40.000 Roleplay for WFRP

Ynnen wrote:Ross Watson: Greetings Programs! I'm Ross Watson and I'm the Senior RPG Developer for Dark Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay. I'm hard at work getting more great products for Dark Heresy ready for publication and I am super dedicated to making the 40K universe come alive!

Edit: Sorry Gorthuar, I didn't see your remark

Or spelled out: oops.

Thanks.

CapnZapp wrote:One question though, that the introductions left unanswered:

I think perhaps you simply misread the rants -- Ross and I were hired at the same time (and actually started within a day of each other). We are both Senior RPG Developers. Ross is charged with directing the development for DH/40k and I am charged with directing the development of WFRP. However, since we are both zealous gamers and work in close proximity, Ross and I will be working closely together.

EDIT: Hah -- looks like someone else beat me to the previous clarification...

Okay... at last you admitted you're the guy

I'm really glad for WFRP to have someone like you at the helm. Judging from your activity on the boards and your views on the WFRP world, I think you may really do Old World justice. I have to admit, when I headr about FFG takeover, I had my doubts about the people who would work on it now. Thankfully, it's not the case

One question though - are you, as a FFG employee, forbidden to frequent the boards and answer our questions (like many of you seem to be), or can we expect you doing the job of SteveD here?

Congratulations!! I would like to echo the sentiments of others here - I think that you've represented yourself as an able and sincere steward!

And I would also like to say thanks for getting me hooked on Battlestations. Your posts on the 'Geek sucked me in and unfortunately, while I haven't had much chance to play in the last year, the times we have played were a blast!

Good luck - and do us proud!

Great to see that the Head Honcho is one who's active on the forums too.

Best of luck with your job. Be sure that you'll hear from us when we like or dislike something

Welcome! It's a pleasure to "meet" you both.

Congratulations and good luck!

I can't wait to see all the juicy WH materials that will be coming in the future.

hedgewizard wrote:...and do us proud!

Or Else...

hedgewizard wrote:- and do us proud!

Or Else....

Well, welcome seems kinda weird when you were already here, but congratulations on obtaining what must be the most obnoxious (but devoted

) RPG-fans in the industry.

I hope you'll keep up the standards. And please, for the love of Sigmar, try to hire some of the previous designers; SteveD and Andy Law in particular.

Oh, and btw. I remember your sig from way back on the old black B.I. forums; was that you with a different nickname, or was that someone else with the same sig ("If life is a game -- I need new dice!")