This week marks the first week of my job as an employee of EA Mythic working on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Though I've, of course, interacted with developers both at GameSpot and when working on the publisher side at Acclaim, I was surprised by how very much there is to learn about the specifics of working at a game company. And it's been really exciting so far.

My job title is "content developer" which is a division of the design department. One of the things I didn't know before is how many different kinds of design positions there are. There are big picture designers who organize how all the game systems are going to work, and there are writers who write the game, and then there are the implementers who actually make them happen. I'm an implementer. So while using other people's guidelines and making sure you're staying true to the IP, you have to kind of figure out scenarios in the game and how you want them to work and how you want people to approach them, and make them good and fun.

This week, aside from learning about tools and filling out paperwork, I've been putting stuff in Warhammer. So far I've put in a bunch of mobs and made them do stuff like walk around and do various animations. I put in a quest and made it work. I've put in spell effects on different objects. After I do each one of these things, I raise my hands in the air and go "OMG I JUST DID THAT LOOK OMG!" because it's really kind of thrilling the first time you see stuff that you put in a game.

So yeah, I feel really fortunate to have been given this opportunity, because it's been a lot of fun so far. I'm really excited to see what comes of all this, and I hope to stick around and talk about it here, although I might spend more time talking about points than anything else, because... well... points are hell of rad!