Interview with Marsh Lefler (Mythos Programmer/Quest Writer/Etc.)
MythosGuru: What all, exactly, do you do for Flagship Seattle?
Marsh Lefler: Well most of the time I show up in my silk robe, and sit with everybody on the deck. We chatter a bit about politics, family, movies before moving onto more important matters Mythos. After a few hours of banter and surfing the forums we discuss implementations for the game, such as crafting, bosses, third zone, PVP, quests and so on. We split up the tasks and we do what we can. My specialty is programming. Currently I’m helping to design the crafting system and implement PVP. After that I’m moving onto new types of quests.
In the past I’ve written quests, created bosses, helped design monsters, made new classes and stayed away from programming our UI system as much as possible.
MyG: How did you first get into the gaming industry?
Marsh: I’m one of those people who grew up playing video games. I was a total nerd I still have level designs/sketches of entire games I created in elementary school. By high school I was creating/programming my own games. I bring this up because that’s how I got into the industry - creating my own games; having something to show.
I did go to college and afterwards resumes were sent. Of course I got no replies, so I finally marched myself down to the only gaming company I knew anybody in, and showed them the games I had been working on since I was a kid. Got hired that day.
MyG: How did you get hired by Flagship Seattle?
Marsh: Travis IM’ed me for lunch one day. Asked me if I wanted to help him open Flagship Seattle of course I said. Flew down to San Fran, met the crew down there and that’s about it.
MyG: What other games have you worked on in the past?
Marsh: I’ve never shipped or worked on a triple A title before until I came to Flagship. However, the company I worked at made online games ( Wildtangent ). The games weren’t the typical flash online games, they were fully 3D and usually pretty impressive for being almost free. Most people know Fate, which was Travis’s last game at the company. My last game was a little puzzle game named Penguins you know for kids. In all I probably shipped over a dozen games ranging from FPS’s, Racing, Multiplayer Cart racing, puzzle games and just about any genre you could imagine.
MyG: How long have you been programming? What was your first language?
Marsh: I started programming in Middle School using GWBasic. From there I went to the more advanced and powerful QuickBasic ( oooooo ). Java and C\C++ after that.
MyG: If you hadn’t gotten into the gaming industry, what would you be doing instead?
Marsh: Movies more specifically cinematography.
MyG: What advice would you give to those trying to make it in the same field as you in the gaming industry?
Marsh: Make something. If you want to be an artist, make a model or design a level. If you want extra credit, make the model or level playable in a currently released game the unreal engine is great for that.
Reels are great too just make your reels stand out a bit more than a character walking in a straight line. One of the best reels I ever saw was of a character getting shot, falling down onto a beautiful lush forest. As the character laid there everything around him started wilting and dying, glowing life forces shot into the dead corpse and in the end revived him. It was great and it showed animation, artistic style and it was just amazing to look at.
For programmers, same thing. Make a game, mod a game who cares. Show that you understand how resources work in games; show you understand design and feedback.
MyG: What other games do you play regularly, or have played regularly in the past and thoroughly enjoyed?
Marsh: Oooo lunch time conversation! I JUST finished Call of Duty 4 - Great. Got to mention Hellgate Stonehenge is awesome! I was a huge fan of Diablo. Most of my childhood was sitting around playing any RPG I could find. Huge fan of old school Ultima( IV-VII), Y’s, Final Fantasy( I-VIII ). Favorite types of games are action RPG’s. Got to mention Zelda, and who hasn’t heard of Golvellius! After I get done here I’m going to go play some Mario Galaxy. Oh and have to mention Monkey Island.
MyG: A rather odd question, but what’s the story behind your given name, Marsh?
Marsh: I wish I had a really good story to tell you, but I was named after my grandfather. He has a really cool story though. He got shot down over Germany in WWII on his first mission. Somehow evaded the German army for days, snuck back across enemy lines and walked back into camp a few days later but not before my grandmother was told he was dead.
MyG: Grimby gave us a little insight into what “Zardon” is…can you elaborate for us further?
(Grimby’s text: All you really need to know is that Zardon is a fun in-joke for us
and people will definitely learn who he is at some point. Think “cow level” minus the bovines. I look forward to explaining it once he’s unveiled.)
Marsh: I think they made a movie about him. I think it was named something like Zarzon or Zarzoz? What’s funny is when the idea came to use - none of us had seen the film or even heard of it. So maybe Zardon is more real than we thought. Perhaps he subconsciously is manipulating the world, trying to persuade people to believe in him. When he gets enough people, he can emerge and take his place in dominating all of mankind.
Or maybe he’s just a really cool character in the game.
