Jason Ryan's Letter to The Community
The most recent Star Wars Galaxies Letter to the Community is from the Star Wars Galaxies Events Manager Jason Ryan.
information
07/28/2004
Findar
Hi there. My name is Jason Ryan and I am the Events Manager for Star Wars Galaxies. I always adapt that statement a bit by adding "Online" to "Events Manager". Otherwise it sounds like I plan banquets for SOE sales meetings and order the cake for birthday parties. I really need to get them to change that on my business cards.
The reality is that I get to help organize various in-game Dev events and help with player-run events within Star Wars Galaxies. If you've been around the Theed palace when it's overrun with droids, or minding your own business on Tatooine when suddenly seventy Tusken Raiders decide to invade the capital building, it is probably the Event Team behind the virtual wheel. If you've attended a player event and found faction banners and Lambda Shuttles scattered around, it was the Event Team helping out with extra decorations.
I have been with the game since shortly after launch, making it a full year in August. Before that I was reading the forums for three years and even finagled my way into beta, so I was on the whole "When will it be done" bandwagon with everyone else.
A Gamer Is Born
As a kid I lived within biking distance of a great arcade. I lived thru the golden age of Space Invaders and Lunar Lander, watched the advent of Pac Man and Donkey Kong and was wowed by the graphics of Tron and Dragon's Lair. I couldn't get enough. At home we had a Coleco Telstar Alpha - Model #6030 (also known as "Pong"), then an Atari 2600 then a Commodore 64.
Thru college and the first years of life after college I had a Mac Classic then a Mac LC which limited my gaming to Dark Castle, The Fool's Errand and Tetris. All brilliant games. While I was not one of the MUD crowd, I did spend a lot of time typing long tales into various Sci-fi Listserves and online role playing forums that were similar to the stories in our current Role playing forum hosted by CompuServe (how many of you remember life before web pages?). During this whole time (and for years before) I played a lot of table-top RPG's from horror to fantasy to sci-fi. I love building and playing inside imaginary worlds.
I switched from Mac to PC for one reason only: EverQuest. I loved being able to group with others and the ability to explore was awesome. My love of MMORPG's was born (and for FPS games, but that's another story). Here was a place I could role play a character and have the (virtual) skills to back them up. Here was an entire world with stories and monsters and heroes all waiting to be discovered. I joined a semi-RP guild and had a great time. Even if I never advanced very far in levels during the years I played, I met lots of people and spent a great deal of time helping out newbies.
Something SWG This Way Comes
So how did I end up on SWG? My career path has thus far been very odd. Whenever people ask me "How did you break into the video game business" I usually respond, "It's a long story". The short version is that I worked in the film industry for many years before being able to take on some freelance writing jobs for a game company called NovaLogic. Those sporadic jobs turned into full time work (and a health plan!)
After almost three years working full time at NovaLogic, a friend let me know about the Events Manager position on SWG. I jumped at the chance to move to a bigger project. After submitting my resume, I was asked to fly to Austin for an interview. It was here that I proudly said things like "I've been a table-top GM for years." And "Yes, I have played the D20 version of Star Wars". My mother would be proud.
Of course you can only say things like that if you have some good writing samples and (hopefully) some job experience and quick ideas to back them up. I can't stress enough how important it is to have interpersonal skills and confidence in a job interview...and good writing samples. I was very excited to get the opportunity to work on such a great project. Little did I know that once you get a job, they actually expect you to show up and do stuff! Bummer.
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