It takes more than a few words to describe a complex individual like myself so I will just say that “I like pie”. As for what I do at ES, I do some web work, ban malicious players, present the communities needs to ES.

I started working for game companies when I was 18. My first job was at id software working on Quake II. After that I went on to GODGames, UDGames, Barking Lizzard, and had my hands in probably about 20 different titles. Then I finally came to my happy home here at ES. :)

Since how long do you work for this company ? Can you tell us about your diplomas and your professional career ?

I have worked at ES for 2 and half years. I went to school at University of North Texas and dabbled in Film and Art.

How many hours do you work per day and what is your daily schedule ?

Generally 10 hours a day. Sometimes 12, sometime 8.

Is it hard to do this job via the internet ? because on some forums people talk to you very friendly and other just disrespect you… What are your feelings about that and how do you manage it daily ?

LOL. The job is not hard, but I think that is also because I love to do it. It is all about mind set. I like the people I meet online. I have made a few enemies online but I think that just goes along with the job and banning people sometimes upsets them.

How many guys are working for ES ? And what are the biggest department in the society (design, programmers,…)?

99 last time I checked. We are about to hit 100. The biggest 2 departments are Art and Programming.

Who are the guys in charge of the main departments in ES ? Well who is/are the big boss ^_^ ?

Well there is Dave Pottinger, Greg Street, and Lance Hoke who run our various departments. Then there are Producers like David Rippy and Ryan Harter. At the top there is Tony Goodman our fearless leader.

What games can we wait from you in the next years ? MMORPG, RTS like AOE III, sport simulation ?

You will have to wait and see.

Let us speak about the human facet of ES. Are you all friends now or just “work” friends ? Can you tell us which atmosphere reigns in office ? Do you have any restriction in the office ?

I have lots of good friends here, more so than most game companies. The office is very pleasant and I would definitely jump on a grenade for my team. A lot of us hang out after hours and watch movies and drink beer. Not to mention play poker, football, go to parties. There is always someone to hang out with and have fun with and there are a lot of good people here :)

Questions from AOC_Tacticien : What is the history of your online nickname (D4KU) ?

D4KU comes from Dakuwaga the Fijian shark god. He’s kind of a comical jealous character that will bite you.

AOM : past and future

Recently you talked about an AOM patch which could be release just after the launching of AOE 3. Can you give us more details (balance, bugs, hacks, date ?) ? Is this really serious or did you just say that to calm down all those stupid flamers on AOTS ? You can answer honestly, no one will read this interview I promise you :P

We are talking about doing a patch for AOM after we ship AOE3. It is not something we are doing just to shut the community up though. Otherwise we would not even mention it because it would just make things worse for us down the line. It is something we are considering seriously. I believe AOM and Titans will continue for years just like AOEII has.

Can you tell us about your AOM experience ? Like the god you love, the game play you love/hate, favourite strat, your highest rating, how many hours you played per day/week….well basically about your AOM history.

Isis and Thor are my favourite gods/goddess. My highest rating was 1800. I used to play an hour a day, but as AOE3 has ramped up I have been playing less. When I started work on AOM it was about 9 months before Titans would ship. Since then I have gone through multiple strategies but I am most comfortable as a Boomer with a strong econ on fishing maps.

Can you tell us some facts about AOM ? How many copies did you sell all over the world/in France, how many designer/people worked on that project, numbers of hours needed for each unit or map, how many days you didn’t slept because AOM was driving you crazy ^^ ?

I think we are nearing 3 million copies sold of AOM, and AOM Gold still sells well. It’s hard to say what each individual asset in our games takes time wise. Each of our games takes years to make and we constantly play and make changes through the whole process. Levels get scrutinized quite a bit, but so do all of our assets. Many of the art assets will go through 10 revisions before being finished and then they still get touched up.

What are your thought about the online AOM community ? and what do you predict for AOE 3 ? Bigger community ?

Definitely a bigger, more centralized, and solid community.

Well let’s end this section with maybe the biggest question (and for sure you can’t answer but oh well) : Is there any chance to see an AOM 2 in the future (even in 2010) ?

You will have to wait and see for that one :)

AOE III

Ok the big section for all the fans, the AOE 3 questions, here they comes.

Biggest question so far even if you can’t answer : the release date. So I will make it simply I don’t ask for a day, but just a month. So in France we have to go to the shops in : October, November or December ? (if it’s later than December just don’t answer cause you would have to run fast to escape the fans ^_^).

All I can say is “Holiday Season this Year”.

How many game modes are gonna be available ? Can you talk about them (especially supremacy and deadmatch) and tell us if there is something new compare to the AOM ones ?

2 right now. Supremacy and Deathmatch.

Can you talk about the main strats that the ES guys do right now for each civ ? Who’s gonna be the “Loki rusher”, who’s gonna be the “Isis whore”, etc…And also who is the number one in the ES office ?

Certain civs are better for doing certain types of strategies but I don’t want to spoil all of that. Half the fun of playing the game is coming up with new strategies and the homecity lets you do just that. Also anything I tell you is likely to change as we balance the game.

Right now all of the balance guys are really good. Sheriff and Matty both are at the top many times, but so has the rest of the team.

Let’s talk about the decks/cards system…wow very cool thing it seems. First maybe you can tell us some facts (number of cards per civs, number of decks for each HC, etc…) ? Also a lot of people are scared about the balance system. The believe that if you gain some card you will have an huge advantage in the games (let’s say you collect cards to improve the cavalry, after some game you will have like the Odin jarls in AOM really over powered). Can you explain the balance system or how the cards are gonna give you any advantages ? Finally, it seems that you can choose your deck after the begin of the game…but when exactly ? first minute or maybe only after 0 minutes ?

There should be a large number of cards and you can use 20 per hand. We balance the card by only allowing you to use them in certain ages. So you can’t send you 20 units of super strong cavalry in the first minute of the game. You will have to wait until you are in the 4th Age. Also the card system itself adds a new level of strategy because you can make decks for specific maps or strategies. So you can choose your fishing\pirate deck on water maps or your boom\farm deck in the desert.

You can stack your cards to help certain strategies but you are going to have to choose either more cards in early or late game. You can try and put 5 for each age but let say for instance I want to rush hard in the second age. I am going to skip using too many of those first age cards which will slow may slow me up if I am going again a person sending all econ techs the first age. Then I am going to have to save up all of my homecity shipments (which you earn by fighting) and then send over a bunch of units in the second age right away. If my opponent is aging up near the same time or before then he can counter me with defensive cards or units of his own.

We heard about only one nickname/CD key and a lot of gamers are bitching about that. But it seems you can change that name as often as you want and also that you have a lot (unlimited?) of HC. So how is this gonna work ? If I change my nick will I still have my friend list, will my friends know that I changed, can I smurf as I want, etc...?

There will be one account per CD-Key for playing on ESO. Certain things you will be able to change but others you will not. This should fix most of the smurfing complaints and also allow us to ban malicious users easier. One of the problems right now is that AOM is so cheap that a user can just go out an buy another key for really cheap. This is also an industry standard for the last few years and more games will continue to do this. We are by no means the first ones to do this and I don’t think we will be the last. I don’t really think it should stop people from playing on the same account in a household unless it is a family that hates sharing. :)

ES told us that a special team is working on balance and another is dedicated to ESO2. So if I understand well, that means you will release patches very fast if a bug occurs or if a civ is OP. Am I right ? And also can you describe those 2 special teams (numbers, names,…)?

We will be working on data changes very quickly for AOE3 to make balance changes or in the event we need to patch. We will have a team dedicated to doing this. The numbers should make this one of our bigger teams, but I don’t want to give out names for the sake of my friends privacy.

Some facts please. How many units ? How many cards (general and per civ) ? How many maps ? Max HC level ? Since when does ES work on AOE 3 ?

You are going to have to by the game for that one. :) All I can say is lots of maps, lots of units, lots of homecity levels and cards (more than 100 per civ). We have been working on AOE3 for 3 years now.

If you were the big boss (like bill gates) what is the thing you’ll like to remove from AOE III ? Basically what is the worst thing for you in that game ? (game is not bad, but in all games there is one or two thing that are not really cool). In the opposite which thing would you like to add id you had all powers and enough time ? (maybe a personal idea rejected from the ES staff ?)

I don’t think I would take anything out. I really like AOE3 and that is not just me trying to sell games. I have a hard time sometimes not playing AOE3 in my spare time. I play this game a bunch and I love it. The only thing that could make it better is if I could somehow download it my brain and could play while I slept.

So to end this I’m sure you are gonna give us a big big news, that no one, even Bruce Shelley, don’t know lol. Ok tell us :p (…ok I just tried, was free to try ;) )

AOE3 will sell at least 5 million copies…..and that is me underestimating :)

Question from SkWizZ_Amasis : Will the ES crew check the forums and answer to the fans after the release of AOE 3 ? Will ES listen to the online fans about balance and bugs ?

Yes. That will be part of making the community stronger and supporting everyone.

Question from Jo-Jo : How long will an AOE III game last ?Average, 20 minutes ? 10 minutes ? 1 hour ?

Depends on the players and maps we have been shooting for 20-30 minute games for 2v2s and it seems that most games last about that long. I have had a few games last an hour or more but those have been really rare.

Question from Sharkoux_ : What about the time to go to the first age ? And what about the resources gathering : are they gonna be the same as AOM or are your villies gather much much faster ?

The game speed is much faster than AOM. You can rush to the First age but it will hurt your Economy. You need to decide if the rush is worth it and when the best time to do it.

Question from VraiIBEN : What about the XP thingy ? Can you lose XP when you lose a battle/game or can you only win ?

No you can only win Experience. We don’t like to punish players for playing games.

Question from Sigwald : What about the water battles ? Are they gonna be big or is the water part really small ? How many types of ships will be available in the final version ?

Ships are huge. You won’t see the same number of ships as in our previous games but they will be very powerful and require sailing tactics as far as ship battles such as flanking. There are some civ specific ships and some mercenary ships. I think there are 8 or 9 different ships.

Question from Nimbus : Can you talk about the walls ? Are they gonna be a huge part of the game or really insignificant ? In some screens you can see units on the walls, so can you climb on walls or is it just a screen from the campaign ?

Walls will be similar to AOEII and AOM walls.

Question from AOC_Tacticien : Is there gonna be a “French” D4KU to communicate about the game for the French community ? (About the whole interview) And did you lie in this interview :p ?

There will not be a French D4KU as far as I know, although I am 1/16th French. We will try and help out our foreign friends as much as possible though. Did I lie in this interview? No. Was I supposed to?

Question de DDP_Zao : What about a beta ?!! Are you gonna release a private beta or a big one for everybody ? if yes, can you give us a date ?

We have testers right now playing the game. You will have to wait until we get closer to shipping for new on an open beta/demo.

Question from SkWizZ_Soji : What were you priorities for AOE III ? The campaign, the online game, ESO2, the balance, the sounds , etc… ? And for your future games ?

That is a hard question. Multiplayer has always been a big priority on this project. ESO2 is top notch and the balance team is working hard to make sure the game is fun and balanced for multiplayer. The graphics are very high quality. The programmers have worked really hard on a lot of the effects like water. I think the team has really pulled together in their areas.

So that’s it thank you for your time and your answers I hope AOE III will crash everything ;) cya around.

No problem! Good luck and have fun online!

Thx to ben for the interview and also to SkWizZ_Vekk who take contact with him ;).