Developer profile Josh Kurtz
From Stargate Worlds Wiki (SGW)
JK: Hi I’m Josh Kurtz and I’m the lead world builder on Stargate worlds
JK: I was working at another studio here in Phoenix, and I had a Friend who I had worked with at blizzard entertainment on Worlds of Warcraft his name is Stu Rose and I was talking to him and he said “hey why don’t we go and have lunch“ and we went and had lunch while we are sitting there eating we finish up and he like “hey why don’t you come by the studio and talk to some of these other guys” and I came by the studio’s and about a week later he called me back and said “hey why don’t you come down and talk with some more guys” and it kinda snowballed into this big thing and I ended up working here
Bo Bell (World Builder: Well lets see I met him in 99 or two thousand am not sure actually when, at blizzard working in a cubical as temporary employee’s we both got hired on, to work on WoW as level designers or world builders.
JK: Basically I managed the team that builds the environments and I make sure they have everything need, I make sure they have all the training they need, I sit down and do little pointers and suggestions and thoughts, make sure everyone in kinda consistent level art work and design, make sure the tools work, make sure the tools are design in a way that gets what we need and they work in the way we want them too, in general I pretty much act to facilitate the world building teams needs, to go forward and build the worlds as they need to, that includes everything from scheduling to process to everything else, given where working on a Sci-fiction game, the ability to do crazy things is kinda at the tips of our fingers.
(note: at time index 1:47 to 1:55 actual in game footage on the computer Josh is working on it is dark and small but you get the see the game running looks to be a human running towards a structure with a small/medium staircase)
JK: You know we could make a floating city in the middle of space we can make thousand foot tall waterfalls that cascade threw ruin’s into a jungle, these kinda things are things we can do.
Steve Garvin (Story Editor): Most of the times the meeting we have we talk about what we are doing in the worlds or whatever, think Josh always comes in with a prospectus that clearly cultured he knows what he’s talking about, he builds on things, he works with what obviously our content, he works with what were trying to go for, he trys to facilitate that and expand on it I don’t really think you can ask any more.
JK: My favourite part of world building is to build the spaces and see other people play threw these spaces, and see these people go hey that’s cool just sitting there in the back room like a fly on the wall and watch someone running threw space and saying “that’s really cool I like that the way it lights up, I really like the space draws you in further” whatever they have to say but they get excited about it, that really make me excited about it, especially if I worked on it, and that ties into the hardest part of this which is looking at all these really cool spaces that everyone else gets to work on and going Awww I wanted those, I want to build that but you know, there’s actually a lot of good feeling and pride when one of my people make something and someone else goes that’s really awesome, and I can say cool.
(Note: at time index 3:01 to 3:03 there is a shot of the game, Josh is playing the Human he was playing before the Human is wearing all black armour / suit and standing in an Orange stoned cavern with indentations on the floor with yellow lighting coming from the indentations)
BB: Back at Blizzard we used to do little pow wow’s around each others desk’s and we all had waveform tablets with pens you can draw on and that’s how we did our work, so when Josh wasn’t looking one day I took my pen and added to his tablet hit “ok” and the next time we have a pow wow around his desk I just happen to have my pen in my hand and Josh used to keep his tablet off to the side when he wasn’t using it , pushing it way off the side of his desk, and so were all around his desk and I bent over and put my hand on the tablet with the pen just off to the side, he was trying to show us stuff on the screen to he lost control of the pen it went crazy on the screen he didn’t know what’s going on, and then I’d move it off and it would come back and he was about to reboot and I had to stop him cause I was like, he didn’t really appreciate that and I’ve gotten a couple of people here with that too so far.
JK: Everyday is exciting and you come in and you’re not dragging your feet you wake up in the morning I get to go to work today and I get to work on a project that’s really cool and you come into these meeting and you go threw your meeting‘s discussing all what you gunna do for this design problem and that design problem, and you come out of them you’re even more excited then you where going in.
SG: I think the thing is that you know its collaborated art there really no, with Josh there’s distinctively collaborative feeling.
JK: I actually have a fairly large team for a design team, my team is 5 or 6 people now and am still adding a couple, everyone on my has strengths and weaknesses in different area’s, and that actually intention able, I’ve been intentionally add people to my team that fill area’s where we are a little light on or maybe a little weak, making sure in other area’s we are stronger.
SG: He brings his idea’s, he lays them in there, but he also works trying to get everyone’s idea’s facilitated which is great, and he calls out lousy one’s, that’s the idea.
JK: what I like about it as a Stargate fan myself, is it really does capture kinda the feel of Stargate, you play some of these games were based on a movie or book or based on a cartoon or based on whatever, and it doesn’t have this same emotional feel as the show does or the book does movie does and I think with this Stargate game we’ve really nailed that emotional feel, not only does it look like it, it actually feels like it , you jump in there and its “I’m going threw the gate that’s cool”, we’ve finished preproduction were moving forward and where actually constructing worlds, were actually building the worlds people will play when they buy the box off the shelf take it home and install it, create an account and jump in, we are creating the spaces that people will play threw, we are creating the spaces where people will kill monsters in and fight for the freedom of the galaxy in and these spaces are actually coming online, am really excited to see what gets created on a day to day and week to week basis and am excited to fire up my build in the morning and look at the work that was done previous week and previous day, and go threw there and say “wow that’s really really interesting” so I think that’s what I look forward to most of all next year is getting more people into these spaces and getting there feedback and just seeing more of these spaces coming out
(Note: at time index 6:07 to 6:10 it looks like Derek “Bizarro” Sunshine is building what looks to be an Iris for the Stargate)
[Note: this to me means beta will not be till next year but am hoping it will be 1st quarter of 2008]
Transcription by FreejackeR Source SGW Video cast – Developer profile Josh Kurtz.[1]
