Hey sorry Wicht. Saw your quote, but not your question. I'm Paul Hebron. I had the pleasure of working on D20 Modern, Star Wars Miniatures and a few other fun brands. Don't get me wrong, WOTC can be a fun place to work... especially when compared to other corporations. When I first started there, it was unreal. The only place I know of where HR gave you a Nerf gun on your first day so you could protect yourself when walking down the hallways. Like a lot of companies, WOTC has changed. It baffles me sometimes why they do the things they do.
Anyway, I've done some freelance design for them since I was laid off. Most of what I've been doing has been away from gaming. Me? I expected to get laid off. I knew for about 10 months that we were not going to renew the license with LucasArts. I couldn't tell my artist who counted on me giving them a certain number of pieces of illustrations per release. It made me feel like crap. Several of them kept asking when the next release was coming out and I could only say I haven't been given additional assignments.
With Mari and Jon working on D&D, Jeremy on Magic, others on the brands they knew well... Better than me. I saw the handwriting on the wall. Most of the time, it's not that way at WOTC. I'll be having lunch with Mari this week. I'm sure she'll end up at another game company. Wizards has a lot of talent. A lot of talent left Wizards one way or the other. I've seen some great game concepts never get released. We use to say that Wizards has more good games in the graveyard than most companies have in the marketplace.
Anyway. That's me. Just another geek art director in Seattle trying to do good work and have fun.
