Dragon Clan/Stratics: With you having been active in so many different roles, like Quality Assurance Testing, Player Relations (customer service), Designer, and Lead Designer - which one has been the most fun and how do they benefit from each other experience-wise?

Paul Sage: For my personal taste, I think design, lead or not, is the most rewarding. There are various reasons why, but a lot of it has to do with being involved in really creating the experience. As far as whether my current position has benefited from past experience I would say, “Yes.” In Customer Service, there are often times where you are contacted by people who need something you aren’t in a position to offer. That impotence and the frustration it evokes sticks with you for quite a while, and it drives home the need to be responsive as a developer in a live environment. It also impacts the way you develop your game, hoping to limit designs that are going to cause your customers and CSRs grief while encouraging designs that will make them happy. From QA, the thing I learned is, “Shut up and listen.” The people testing your game know things that are wrong with it from their perspective. As a designer, you may not agree with their suggestions, but you should invest the time to get to the root of the problem and see if you can reiterate it. Of course, only the QA team and CS teams can tell you whether I have kept true to my roots.