Fallout - 10th Anniversary - Jason Anderson Profile @ NMA

Dhruin

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The next item on NMA's 10th Anniversary agenda is a profile interview with Jason Anderson, who was a very early part of Fallout and went on to one of the Troika three:
What specifically inspired Fallout for you? What were the biggest influences?

Leonard. Leonard was my biggest art influence on Fallout. I shared an office with him, so I suppose this was only natural. Leonard drove the look and feel of the art in the game and some of what he was doing with the game I was familiar with, but some of it he introduced me to. In regards to art style, I was truly following his lead as to the look and feel of the game. Although, after spending 3 years sharing an office with him, I pretty much nailed down the look and feel of Fallout. Ask me a question now - I know it all.
More information.
 
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It's good to see he isn't done with development yet. He is one of my heroes. I'd kind of like to do him. I wonder where the whole "working in real-estate" rumor started. I guess, from what he stated he did after the late, great Troika closed shop, you could say he was "working on real-estate," but it's still odd. It's like if I told you guys I was a hooker and a rumor started that I was a Captain of a pirate ship.
 
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roqua but you are a hooker
you grace us with your pleasures
and before you know it you're gone
 
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I thought I read that one of the Troika three was completely out of video games.
 
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It's good to see he isn't done with development yet. He is one of my heroes. I'd kind of like to do him. I wonder where the whole "working in real-estate" rumor started. I guess, from what he stated he did after the late, great Troika closed shop, you could say he was "working on real-estate," but it's still odd. It's like if I told you guys I was a hooker and a rumor started that I was a Captain of a pirate ship.

What are you talking about? He is out of development right now, and does work on real-estate. Actually, he just does the handyman stuff, his wife Sharon Shellman:
So I got my realtors license and Jason and I bought a fixer upper to work on. He'd grown up fixing up old houses with his parents, so this wasn't new work for him. Just back to the old family business.

So that's where we are at the moment. Working on fixers, building this new business and spending pleny of time with our daughters. We do miss the game industry, but life is certainly a lot less stressful now! You can check out my website at www.nwPhoenixProperty.com


PS: doc kaz, you heard right, and that's be JD Anderson. Boyarsky's at Blizzard, Cain's at NCSoft.
 
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Yeah, he says he wants to work on mmorpgs, meaning he hasn't just stopped (he is just between jobs and seems to be actively looking).

And when he was asked what he's been doing since leaving Troika in this interview he stated, "I spent about 6 months rehabbing an old house - I had forgotten how hard construction was, but it felt great to do physical labor again. (Game development is bad for the physique.) And I just completed a project where I designed and built my own swimming pool and spa - a lot of hard work, but very rewarding, especially when you live in Phoenix. I've also kept busy designing curriculum and spending time educating my children, which is a reward in itself."

He could've said "rehabbing an old house so my wife can sell it." But he made it sound like he was just working as a nail-banger, which isn't working in real estate. I heard that he was in real eastate but I've never come across that quote you quoted. So I guess you win. I'm damn proud of you.
 
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I took the "Next? You'll just have to wait and see." to mean he might do something gamey again - perhaps Roqua did, too.

Perhaps. I've talked to both him and Sharon a bit. They do both strike me as wanting to return to the industry, vaguely, but didn't sound to me like either of them had any solid plans to do so.
 
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Boyarsky's at Blizzard, Cain's at NCSoft.

Damn that sucks. Those guys' creative talents will be comletely squandered there. I was hoping that they'd end up somehwere where they could at least add some flavor to the RPG world, even if they could never make the niche games that they would like to make. It looks like the only Troika-ish games we'll see anymore will come out of Germany and Eastern Europe (hopefully without the Troika-ish bugs and poor QA).
 
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Boyarsky is quite happy at Blizzard. Blizzard and BIS used to be pretty close, geographically but also in the fact that they seemed to swap employees every now and again. Right now, some big Fallout/BIS artists at Blizzard are Eddie Rainwater, Leonard Boyarsky and Gary Platner.

Platner is always faring well. Got a good art resume, if nothing else.
 
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Damn that sucks. Those guys' creative talents will be comletely squandered there. I was hoping that they'd end up somehwere where they could at least add some flavor to the RPG world, even if they could never make the niche games that they would like to make. It looks like the only Troika-ish games we'll see anymore will come out of Germany and Eastern Europe (hopefully without the Troika-ish bugs and poor QA).

Check this out:

NCsoft Corporation (Lineage, Guild Wars), has announced the formation of Carbine Studios, a new Aliso Viejo, CA-based studio in its online game development family, and adds that Carbine is currently working on an unannounced MMO project.

The studio is comprised of 17 former Blizzard employees including lead and senior developers from the World of Warcraft team. Carbine’s vice president of design, Kevin Beardslee, was a lead developer on WoW, while Tim Cain, Carbine’s programming director, was the producer, lead programmer and designer on Fallout, in addition to co-founding the now-defunct Troika Games (Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines).

- source
 
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