38 Studios hires World of Warcraft UI, King's Quest music vets

by Jason Dobson { Nov 4th 2008 at 12:45PM }

When filling the ranks at his game development brainchild, 38 Studios, it makes sense that MMO-fan Curt Schilling would look to his pastime of choice. The company announced that it has hired former Blizzard UI maestro, Irena Pereira, as 38 Studios' senior UI designer, bringing her interface grinding expertise not only with World of Warcraft, but The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King to the fledgling company as well.

Additionally, when setting the mood in its secretive MMO project codenamed Copernicus, the dev will look to the musical styling of newly hired composer and sound designer, Aubrey Hodges, whose familiar tunes can be heard in such adventure game greats as King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory and Conquests of the Longbow. Hodges is credited as one of the chief pioneers of in-game MIDI music, and also helped make us jump with his ambient tracks heard in both Doom and Quake.

Both Pereira and Hodges are just the latest seasoned vets to join 38 Studios, following the hiring of former Everquest designer Travis McGeathy and THQ artist Thom Ang, making us all the more curious just what the company is working on behind that curtain.

Tags: 38-studios, burning-crusade, burningcrusade, copernicus, curt-schilling, curtschilling, kings-quest, sierra, world-or-warcraft, worldofwarcraft, wow, wrath-of-the-lich-king, wrathofthelichking

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Shagittarius @ Nov 4th 2008 12:55PM

The man is certainly making good choices in hiring talent. I just hope he's not afraid to try something truely different with his MMO project.

I would make a great deisner asset Curt, tag me I'll send you my resume.

theturtle363 @ Nov 4th 2008 1:04PM

wow, this guy is basically hiring everyone he wants to make the perfect game for himself. Damn, isn't that just about every gamers dream?

Huey2k2 @ Nov 4th 2008 1:09PM

Jesus, hopefully the game they produce is as good as the talent making it.

AwesomeTown @ Nov 4th 2008 1:24PM

The Space Quest theme is music perfection.

SuckItTrebek @ Nov 4th 2008 2:10PM

Blizzard UI....maestro?? I guess for people who don't know about, can't figure out, or are too lazy for add ons (or maybe have no other MMO experience) the WoW UI might be kind of nice....but it's certainly not good. Best thing Blizz did with the UI was open it up for developers to put in all the hard work that Blizz should have put in.

Alex @ Nov 4th 2008 2:53PM

Play some other MMOs. See how easy Everquest or EVE is to get the hang of, and I bet lots of other popular ones I've never played. You gotta remember that WoW was a revolutionary game at the time in some ways and has been out for 4 years now.

Blizzard has been incorporating users' ideas and allowing them to basically rewrite their interface if they so desire. Hopefully it was this guy's idea and he'll to the same for this 38 studios game.

When I play WoW, the only interface changes I make are to the bags, quest log, and by adding TitanPanel. It seems to me Blizzard got just about everything else right. I'd say the only thing that's absolutely terrible is the quest log.

SuckItTrebek @ Nov 4th 2008 6:10PM

Everquest 1 and 2, check. EVE, check. City of Heroes/Villains, check. FFXI, check. LotRO, check. Star Wars Galaxies, check. Ultima Online, check. Anarchy, check. Simpler and more user friendly it is, but that doesn't make it good or effective.

Here are some simple mods you might want to try in addition to those-some kind of minimap mod such as SimpleMap or SexyMap, put it in a lower corner or centralized and see how much easier it is on your eyes. DoTimer, so you can track timed effects without memorizing a zillion icons. ArcHUD, so that you don't have to look away from what you're doing to see you or your target's health/mana/etc.

Though not as simple, Pitbull is great for freeing up space, too-do you REALLY want to see the portrait for all your party members? Do you REALLY need to take up an entire side of the screen for 5 party members when you could fit a full raid data there?

Here, this is pretty close to my UI, notice how much more information there is with far less viewing space taken up?

http://www.wowinsider.com/photos/reader-ui-of-the-week-special-3-0-2-edition/1095696/full/