Tabula Rasa Team Q&A #1

RPG Vault continues their coverage of Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa by posting their first Q&A with designers James Parkman, Susan Kath, Christofer Strasz, and Michael Moore.
Q: In terms of the work done by other members of the design team, what are one or two things you consider noteworthy?

Michael Moore, Lead Systems Designer: I've got to give props to two groups, the animation and effects artists, and the game system programmers. I've often had to ask the artists to make sacrifices for the sake of game pace, and in several cases, we have completely replaced entire weapons and abilities in the game after they'd completed the animations and effects. But they completely get it, are amazingly responsive to these kinds of demands, and quickly adapt their product to fit the game's needs while maintaining their very high standards of quality.

And the same goes for the engineers I work with. Those guys bring a lot of MMORPG experience to the table. Not only do they offer great insights into how to improve system designs, but they work very quickly and accurately, and are very responsive when I ask them for rapid (and some times contradictory) iteration on game system changes.