TheGameNarrative

TGN: Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

MA: I’m from Derby, in the middle of the UK. My school was Mount St Mary’s College, near Sheffield (recently closed).

TGN: What games did you enjoy in your childhood?

MA: The first one I remember was Block Blitz, on my parents’ BBC Micro:
[Link]
It wasn’t until the late 90’s that I got my hands on a computer that could play more contemporary games, at which point I spent a lot of time on Civilisation II and the original version of Worms. Though I obviously saw a lot of games that other people were playing, during the era of the Game Gear and later the PlayStation, and I was particularly interested in the long-form games with stories, even if I never actually got to play many of them first-hand.

TGN: When did you first have the idea of entering the game industry?

MA: Early 90’s, when I found a book about how to program in BBC Basic and started having a lot more creative fun with that BBC Micro (model B), writing my own text-based adventure story and things like that, and programming it to play tunes. I was pretty sure as a teenager that I’d wind up working with computers in some way, though not necessarily for game development.
In retrospect, I don’t think I chose my degree course well. Moving to Cambridge meant that I met the Gower brothers and heard of RuneScape, and that’s what steered the next ~24 years of my life (including meeting my wife through RS) but maybe I should have studied something more computer-oriented than Materials Science & Metallurgy! Actually, Andrew Gower once commented that the Computer Science course in that era was not very focused on practical programming anyway, though it’s obviously changed a lot in the decades since then.

The practical idea of applying to Jagex came from Andrew himself. One of our group of friends was getting married in the summer, so a replacement guy was needed to fill the vacancy in the house some of them were sharing. This was just before I graduated, so they offered the space to me, and I commented that I’d better look for a job in Cambridge, whereupon Andrew suggested that I apply to Jagex’s Support team. This was very appealing, since I was already a forum mod for RuneScape, so I’d understand its customers’ Support needs, and I imagined there’d be scope for advancement into other teams – which there certainly was.

TGN: Was Jagex your first job in the industry?

MA: Yes, starting 2 weeks after graduation. I had previously worked in a residential home for adults with learning difficulties, so Jagex wasn’t my first job, but it was the first involving computers.

TGN:  When did you get hired at Jagex, and what were your first roles as a new employee?

MA: 12th July 2004. As a member of the Support team, I’d review account recovery requests, ban appeals, general query tickets and things like that. A couple of months later, they let me work on the forums, reviewing the forum moderators’ reports and applying permanent forum bans where warranted. As I had been a forum mod myself, this was precisely what I’d wanted from a role in Jagex’s Support team, and I was very pleased!
However, this didn’t last long, since the company was growing fast, and by the start of 2005 I’d been promoted twice. The first move was to QA, investigating players’ bug reports, and the second was to a new role that we called ‘Upload Manager’, overseeing the build process for every update. So that’s how I got into the development team.
Funny story – the move to QA was triggered unexpectedly, when a previous member of QA was fired for gross misconduct in the fullest sense of the word ‘gross’. It should go without saying that staff in almost any workplace oughtn’t to send unsolicited dick pics to the customers, but apparently some people need to learn…

TGN: What has been your favorite project of RS/OSRS that you have worked on?

MA: ‘Making Friends with My Arm’, a quest I launched in 2018. Jagex gave me a vast amount of creative freedom there, letting me own its narrative, implement its code, write its dialogue, even write all its music. The dialogue in that quest is some of my favourite writing, and I was really touched to see players actually advising each other to read it instead of spacebarring through the whole quest.
[Link]
Taking on the audio work meant that I could write a shared motif into most of the quest’s tracks, presenting it as a plodding troll-like motif in ‘Lumbering’, as an upbeat dance in ‘Troll Shuffle’, as an aggressive boss track in ‘Mother Ruckus’, and finally as a love duet in ‘Snowflake & My Arm’. I like when music uses motifs that way.

TGN: Least favorite?

MA: They asked me to convert all the combat code in 2010 to make Hitpoints 10x bigger, so there’d be more granularity. I didn’t really want it done to the game, and I certainly didn’t want to have to spend my time (including evenings) trawling all the combat code to make it happen.
It amused me that the merch store was selling t-shirts with a big ’99’ hitsplat, at the time, since 99 lifepoints would no longer have any significance once the project launched.

TGN: What is your favorite part of your current role at Jagex, and what are some of the daily tasks you perform, when not working on a large project?

MA: I enjoy getting an hour here & there to just trawl social media or chat-channels to see what’s on players’ minds, and occasionally write back if I’ve got something to say on the topic (or if I think it’d be funny enough).
A lot of my time is spent in meetings about various aspects of the team’s work, such as reviewing what future projects we should do, liaising with other teams who are implementing work for us, things like that. I don’t actually like meetings, but it’s important to me to ensure player perspectives are presented, whether or not that’s what determines the ultimate decisions.

TGN: What is your favorite set of armor in the game?

MA: Classic platebody, full helm, platelegs/skirt. For me, that is the RuneScape look.

TGN: Favorite weapon?

MA: Saradomin godsword, partly because it amuses me to heal off NPCs regardless of whether the sword can actually damage them!

TGN: Favorite original song from the game?

MA: ‘Yk’Lagor the Thunderous’ (RS3).
For OSRS, it depends on my mood a lot. ‘SoundScape’ is a good one. Maybe ‘Forlorn Homestead’, if a self-serving answer is okay!

TGN: Favorite food item in RuneScape, and favorite food item in real life?

MA: Kebab and kebab.
I’d also recommend the Poison Chalice in RuneScape, created in honour of a guy the Gowers and I hung out with who used to make weird concoctions out of all the bar’s spirits and give them to people.

TGN: You’ve become a well-known figure at Jagex, with players and fans alike recognizing you, some even describing your status as that of a RuneScape celebrity. When did you first realize your popularity was growing among the community? And did it feel strange at first to see yourself becoming a public figure within the world of RuneScape?

MA: This has been a little odd, yeah. I guess appearing on a lot of the OSRS livestreams in foundational years has had that effect. Though it felt more natural at the time; OSRS only had a team of 3 staff at one point, so it was unsurprising that anyone engaging with us online would learn which of us was which. And as we added more people gradually, it still felt natural that people would remember the original ones.
I think many RuneScape players understandably enjoy the stories about what goes on behind the scenes of their beloved game, and since I’ve been around for so long, I’ve told a lot of the stories, or turned up as a participant in other people’s stories. And that’s led to attention, including from content creators like Colonello who tell the stories to bigger audiences who weren’t around back at the time.
What’s strange is when people say hi to me in the street, or ask for selfies. Obviously I don’t mind – it’s flattering, and I’m happy to chat! – but it still seems odd to have this focus on me personally when the team has so many other people doing far more important things for the game. Hopefully my colleagues will get the same in time; they deserve it.
Oddest place a player has ever come over for a chat: A branch of Target in a non-touristy town in Florida. He seemed understandably puzzled about why there’d be a Jmod loitering there, of all places.

TGN: I have asked multiple other Jagex employees this very same question, but I believe most people will have different thoughts about it. Very few online games have lasted as long as RuneScape has. In your opinion, what do you think the key factor is behind its longevity?

MA: RuneScape changes continually, but usually gradually. Continual change helps keep it fresh; gradual change mostly avoids alienating the players with jarring changes. A lot of Designers on OSRS grew up playing RuneScape, so they’re well placed to understand what’ll appeal to long-term RuneScapers. There’s a lot of effort that goes into making long-term dedicated players want to stick around, making former players feel they’re still at home here when they pop in, etc. It goes beyond the game too, with players saying they appreciate seeing personal engagement from OSRS staff, while other studios might stick to more polished marketing drops instead of having staff who are up for chatting on places like Discord or Reddit. If one understands one’s customers, one can do better at retaining them for years as we’ve done, and if the customers understand the Designers’ intentions, they may appreciate them better.
Besides that, a lot of potential players drop in who aren’t familiar with RuneScape; it’s important that we’ve got Designers, Community Managers, Product Managers and analysts looking out for how they get on, so that they’ve got a good chance of wanting to join the community too. And thus the community can maintain itself, rather than trailing off as its existing members are inevitably winnowed by life events or even basic mortality. Changes to help newbies enter the game don’t have to undermine long-term players; they can be as simple as clarifying the instructions on Tutorial Island, or improving the installation process.
Abrupt changes do happen, though. Sometimes this is a good thing – RS2 was a smashing success, the split-off of OSRS succeeded beyond anyone’s dreams, etc. But there’s also the notorious EoC update, or (in my opinion) the initial roll-out of buyable Squeal spins in 2012, or the notorious removal of unbalanced trade and the Wilderness at the end of 2007. Obviously the successful changes were things the community of players wanted, while the damaging changes were not; that’s practically a tautology. Beyond that, though, I’d blame the mindset behind the unsuccessful changes – it wasn’t focused on the players. Whenever someone says “the players will complain, but we have to think about what the company needs here”, that raises a red flag.
I think RuneScape has been able to last a long time because staff – usually – really do care about making their plans revolve around the players, knowing that satisfied players keep playing and often bring in their friends and online followers. Meanwhile, whenever a decision is made that’s contrary to that ethos, the players may kick off significantly enough that it steers things back into a better path.
E.g. [Link]
Overall, RuneScape keeps running and flourishing because its players keep caring that it should do so, and on a good day its developers are able to identify and deliver whatever that requires. And, having ridden the Scapemobile a very long way as a player and as a Jmod, I’ll end this monologue by expressing my thanks to all the players and colleagues who’ve made it happen. Thank you very much.

TGN: Thank you Mod Ash for the interview. I enjoyed the chat! Really a pleasure.