I’m flabbergasted to see my name on there; I certainly have no special expertise to offer.
Mostly, though, you wouldn’t know this: I suck at paperwork deadlines. Let me post what I feel like when I feel like it and I might be prolific or I might go off and do my own thing for a few days. Make it a regular reporting requirement and I’ll just flake out or get resentful and stressed
I looked at what was involved and realized it just wouldn’t suit my low energy, even though I now have lots of free time, have no intention of moving 3000 miles to try to work for ANet, believe I could be objective, and know I could handle the confidentiality requirements. I am amazed I can manage my low-end guild officer duties as it is; our GM had to sort of trick me into accepting an officer position when we founded the guild.
As to infractions, I don’t know if it counts but I have gotten one warning (made me sick to my stomach when it came) when trying to be helpful to warn someone she might have been hacked, because I named her character as doing shady things in game. I might be disqualified right there!
So thanks for the encouragement, but I won’t be applying. I hope some of those on your list do step up for it, though.
Tobias is more on the right path here to my way of thinking. What novels draw me in the most? The ones with fully realized worlds, with complexity of interaction. Peter Hamilton, Lois Bujold, S.M. Stirling, they all have a gift at making worlds where while there may be central characters, the whole world keeps on going on its own. They delve into the economics, the demographics, the politics, all without losing any impetus of action.
“Adult” doesn’t have to mean grimdark sex and violence. It just has to assume the person ingesting the story is not an idiot and can handle multiple threads.
Now, I read an essay — by Bujold, I believe, or by Connie Willis maybe? — which said that a good book leaves some of the story up to the reader. That in fact the books we love the most come out that way because we collaborate in it. She spoke of a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser story with one of them eating a fruit while sitting on a ship deck, and how immersed she was that she could taste that perfect fruit, feel the wind and sun. So in that respect, we the players are providing our own share of the imagination — I know that I let the smallness of LA, the scattered civilians in the burning wreckage, I let all that translate in my mind to the lore-appropriate 35K dead, 5K survivors, and what sort of impact that level of tragedy would have on my characters and on the world.
Too bad the world didn’t react as strongly. Economic impact from the obliteration of the trade hub of the continent? Zilch. Massive amounts of NPC discussion of it? Nada. The NPCs in the Salma District to this day talk about the LA caravan being late. Think about the US and world reaction to 9-11 and multiply that hugely and you’ll have an idea of how drastically Tyria should have been affected.
And we have five interacting races, each with their own agendas, each with their own threats diverting their resources. We have a minor introduction of prejudice against Sylvari. Why are these things not factors wherever we go?
I know it is a phenomenally difficult job to revise all the dialogue of all the NPCs we encounter, especially the voice acted ones. Yet surely we could get some reaction to world events visible as we travel the world? Have multiple fronts of action?
Yes, all this has to take game play and development time into consideration. I understand that, and likely am just daydreaming here about having a fully complex world to run around in. At least through RP I can form a small consensual reality where the global events do have global and individual impact, and let my imagination fill in the gaps. I just wish the gaps were a tad smaller