Petroglyph Interviews
 Chris Ainsworth (Driph)
Hello there Driph, welcome! As our new Manager, would you care to answer a few questions for the community?
Hi community! Sure thing.
1) Firstly could you please tell us your real name and where you’re from?
My name is Chris Ainsworth and I was born and raised here in Las Vegas, Nevada. One of the few 2nd generation natives around, both of my parents were born here as well. Yeah, that’s pretty much my claim to fame.
2) How did you come across the job as Community Manager at Petroglyph?
Saw the listing in the Gamasutra newsletter (good stuff, I’m a regular reader of both Gamasutra and their alt.gaming blog offshoot, GameSetWatch), got in touch, interviewed, and here I am.
3) How much previous experience do you have with a Community Management role?
Professionally, I’ve spent the last half-dozen or so years working in ecommerce design & development, a field with a bit of overlap experience-wise. I also played a role in the design and administration of kuro5hin.org, a tech & culture discussion site started by Rusty Foster in 1999. At its peak the site was receiving over 7 million hits a month, and last time I checked had just over 71,000 user accounts.
I ran a moderately-read blog for several years from February of 2001, but then again, who didn’t?
4) Driph seems an unusual name, what is the story behind it?
I was 11 or 12 years old and had discovered a wonderful thing called the BBS (much to the dismay of my family, whose attempts to pick up the phone and make calls would be met by my yell from across the house). Chose ‘Drifter’ out of the blue, had some sort of Mad Max type roaming through the desert imagery in my head, I think. It evolved into ‘driph’ from there.
For what it’s worth, the name has nothing to do with the racing sport of drifting, recently all the rage with the import car crowd, although I did at one time own a 1990 RX-7.
5) Do you have any favourite RTS games previous to what you've encountered with Petroglyph?
As it was for many others, Dune II was my introduction to the genre, and will always have a place in my list of favorites. Even today, it’s still quite playable.
I’m a huge fan of Herzog Zwei, going so far as to have ripped mp3s from the line-out of an original Genesis. C&C: Red Alert was a blast. The Myth series was another all-time favorite of mine, although technically I guess you’d call them real-time tactical games. Still, the story, gameplay, and mod scene were all there. I will admit to being a bit of a Bungie apologist, having enjoyed most of their games since the release of Marathon (even Oni, axed multiplayer and all).
Warcraft was the first game I bought for my Powermac 7100av, and I’ve loved the series (as well as Starcraft) ever since, although these days you’re much more likely to find me playing Warcraft III custom maps rather than ladder games. On that note, consider this my open challenge for someone to create a DotA-style custom game for Universe at War.
6) If you could pick a role model or hero who has helped to influence the person you are today, who would it be and why?
You know, not only did Ben Franklin do that whole electricity and bifocals thing, but the guy was also a skilled artist, diplomat, writer, inventor, and musician. And if that wasn’t enough, he was known to be a competent lady’s man. As we share birthdates, I’d always held a casual interest in the history of Franklin, but the more I learn about him, the more he impresses me. Seriously, go read his autobiography.
What I take from his story is that if there's something out there you want to do, something new you want to try, take the leap and go do it. Who knows how many things you might be at. Information is so accessible these days, all it takes is a bit of drive, an internet connection and some moderate ability with google.
Staying within the industry, I’d have to say that Sanya Weathers (of Mythic fame, and formerly known as Tweety) and Frank O'Conner(Bungie’s Frankie) have both been major influences on the way I approach community. Both of them are genuine and clever, with an emphasis on honesty and openness in the way they communicate and respond to fans. I like that.
7) The departure of SageKing, (our last community manager) in mid- game development was a shock to all. Many have seen him as to have dropped the Baton. How will you pick up this Baton and run with it?
In other words, how will you attempt to continue where SageKing left off?
As a result of all the work he put into the community, SageKing leaves as his legacy a community site, a great team of forum moderators, a series of informative audio and video podcasts (with more in the hopper!), and a friendly and active fanbase.
A great position to start off from, if you ask me!
8) What are your major plans for the community?
There are two things I consider to be my highest priorities, things that will dictate the majority of my activities leading up to and beyond release. The first is the sharing of information, letting everyone know about the game and what’s in store, fostering the care and growth of the fanbase, and keeping the developers close to all of you. My second priority is to listen, address your thoughts, praise, and concerns as players, sleuth out answers to your questions, and just generally keep my finger on the pulse of the community at large. This will be especially important post-release, once all of you have had a chance to really dig into and enjoy Universe at War.
Beyond that, I plan to aggressively support our fansites and modding groups, restart and reinvigorate past events such as the Petroglyph Game Days, and develop and hold entirely new features and events for Petroglyph fans.
9) How tough has it been to learn the ways of the force… er, I mean the Petroglyph work ethic, and how easy/hard has it been to catch-up on the development of Universe at War?
I’m a lot busier now than I was before joining Petroglyph Games, but I’m having a lot more fun. That feeling you get when you are surrounded by passionate gamers all working hard on something they love… sure makes it easy to come into the office on Monday morning.
10) What are your impressions on Universe at War in it’s current form?
Easy answer? I love it.
Detailed answer? Very few RTS games have had that sense of, I dunno what to call it, heft maybe, or fullness, to me, that sense of an actual new experience. That solid feel when everything fits together, a mix of familiarity and cleverness, things that work in new ways, things that make you lean back in your chair and just say, “Oh, now that’s cool.” Universe at War gives me that feeling. From the hulking Walkers thunk thunking across the battlefield, to the eerie Defilers spewing toxic matter over the landscape, to the sounds of laser fire cutting into a hull, everything about this game is an experience.
Yeah, I love it.
11) From a personal perspective, can you tell us how the relationships with your colleagues have been going so far?
Are you crazy? They read these things.
12) The community and even his colleagues love Frank Klepacki, to many, he can be perceived as the Music God among all men. What do you make of his sheer talent and the soundtrack for Universe at War?
I’ve always been a fan of game soundtracks, from the early 8-bit sounds to modern orchestral compositions. For my money, the current Gods of Game Music are O’Donnell & Salvatori, Jason Hayes, Nobuo Uematsu, and Frank Klepacki, and having the opportunity to work just down the hall from one of those guys, well, that’s icing on what’s already a really awesome tasting cake.
The Universe at War soundtrack is the best Frank Klepacki I’ve heard. Take the freedom of composing for an entirely new property, extend that out to three completely different factions, and then combine the results with an impressive library and years of experience. Mmm, that’s good cake.
And that third faction, oh wow.
I’ll do everything I can to push more samples out into the wild shortly and give all of you the chance to hear for yourselves.
13) Thank you for your time Chris. Any last comments for the community?
I want to thank all of you for the warm welcome I’ve received since coming on as the Petroglyph CM. Ya’ll are a great crowd of gamers, and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Also, just so no one wonders where driph went, I’ll be out of the country for two weeks following the 4th of July holiday (any Petroglyph fans in Vietnam? Send me a note), but I plan to hit the ground running as soon as I return. Stick around, it’s going to be an interesting summer.
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