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Senior Designer: World Builder - DDO
1 year ago
ABOUT OUR STUDIO
Standing Stone Games is a gaming studio based in Needham, Massachusetts (right outside of Boston!), staffed by people who have been passionately working on MMOs for decades. We're proud to develop and operate our two free-to-play MMOs: Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online! We enjoy sharing heroic stories with our players that create a lifetime of memories. We invite you to explore our games, which hold the promise of depth, scope, and unlimited imagination!
Find out more about our studio at https://www.standingstonegames.com/.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Standing Stone Games is seeking a Senior Designer of World Building to join the Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) team. DDO is built on the backbone of hundreds of complex handcrafted instanced dungeon adventures, and large regions of landscape that consumers can explore. This position is responsible for designing and building more of those landscapes and improving the look and feel of the DDO world. Reporting to the Producer of the DDO team, this position will be responsible for:
- Landscape Content Creation & Decoration
- Designing and implementing instanced landscapes, and the encounters found within such landscapes.
- Crafting the environmental story telling of new landscape areas using décor, lighting, architectural objects, and terrain.
- Working with Content team members to craft appropriate dialog, points of interest, and encounters found in such landscapes.
- Iterating on your landscapes once live in response to performance indicators and customer feedback.
- Public Area Space Creation & Decoration
- Designing and implementing the physical environment of non-combat player gathering zones (“Public Areas”), as needed.
- Crafting the environmental story telling of new Public Areas using décor, lighting, architectural objects, and terrain.
- Modifying existing Public Area spaces as needed to adjust to events in the larger world story, or the appearance of new content that may necessitate smaller
- World Beautification
- Assisting other Content Designers with decoration of Dungeon instances and Public areas of the game world using décor and lighting to ensure that the spaces are thematically appropriate, visually appealing, and enjoyable from a gameplay
- Ensuring a cohesive look and feel to the “world” of Dungeons & Dragons
- Adhering to Content creation requirements & best practices
- Learning proprietary tools quickly, and working within a complex asset development pipeline.
- Ensuring that your creations are consistent with the established game lore and meet the overall story goals of a given release.
- Working closely with an internal team of artists, quality assurance testers, and other disciplines to ensure that your creations meet quality, performance, and licensor
- Collaboration with remote peers & managers
- Collaborating remotely with the Art team to ideate new objects of architecture, décor, or terrain needed to best visually communicate the biome and story of a given release.
- Participating in remote team brainstorming sessions around overarching story themes that will be used to draw inspiration for your work.
- Collaborating remotely with team members who will place dungeon entrances and
NPCs in Public or Landscape areas you’ve created.
- Working remotely with coworkers on creative problem solving and troubleshooting during the development process.
What craft expertise you’ll have:
- Tools/Technology /Knowledge
- Required:
- Strong general computer skills and you are comfortable working with computer software tools, including learning proprietary tools
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite, specifically Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Teams
- Experience with 3D game tools, such as Unity, Unreal, or Maya
- Proficiency with file version control platforms such as Perforce or similar
- Some proficiency with Project Management platforms such as the Atlassian suite or similar, specifically Confluence and Jira
- Desired:
- Familiarity with concepts such as heightmaps and biome tools
- Craft Design Experience
- Required:
- Proficiency with visual arts principals such as color theory, composition best practices, and/or cinematography
- Demonstrated RPG/MMO level and area design
- Good sensibilities around environmental psychology and the flow of foot traffic through 3D spaces.Ability to receive feedback on regions and environments you’ve made, as well as respond to requests and needs from other team members whose work interfaces with your own.
- Ability to provide constructive feedback for instances created by other team
- Highly motivated and self-directed, with a desire to perform well and take initiative on tasks.
- Desired:
- Familiarity with the tabletop Dungeons & Dragons
- Eye for good visual design and
- Experience with custom
Other Criteria
- Years of Experience, Education, and/or Certification…
- Required: Degree in any of the following disciplines: Game Design, Fine Arts, Film, or at least 6 years of comparable experience.
- Desired: Experience developing content for a live game service or SaaS product, especially a stable project far past its initial launch.
- Additionally, you should possess
- Strong communication skills that contribute to a positive and uplifting team
- Vivid imagination, particularly around art or visual storytelling. We invite you to get in the game with us and help us make exciting experiences!
ABOUT OUR COMPANY
Daybreak Game Company LLC is a recognized worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games. Best known for blockbuster hits and franchises such as DC Universe™ Online, PlanetSide®, EverQuest®, and Dungeons and Dragons Online®, Daybreak creates, develops, and provides compelling online entertainment for millions of gamers worldwide. We are the game publisher for Darkpaw Studios, Rogue Planet Gaming Studio, Dimensional Ink Games, and Standing Stone Games. To top it off, we are making games in three of the coolest cities in the United States: San Diego, Austin, and Boston. We make games that bring people together and build lasting communities and are totally devoted to delivering the ultimate gaming experience! Find out more about our company at www.daybreakgames.com.
Be Aware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities
Daybreak Game Company will never ask applicants to provide their social security numbers, date of birth, bank account information or other sensitive information in job applications. Additionally, our recruiters do not communicate with applicants through free e-mail accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) or through online messaging apps (WhatsApp, Hangouts). We will never ask applicants to provide
payment during the hiring process or extend an offer without conducting a phone, live video or in- person interview. Please contact Daybreak Game Company’s People & Culture team at people@daybreakgames.com if you encounter a recruiter or see a job opportunity that seems suspicious.
**Daybreak Game Company, LLC. is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to Diversity in the workplace.**
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