D2 Years 3 & 4

For D2's second expansion, I become the sole full-time designer on the fledgling "Player Journey" team. This team initially consisted of myself, two testers, a producer, and a narrative lead.

Due to the spread of work on the team, I became the de facto team lead, working in tandem with my producer, test partners, the creative director, and various other discipline leads to build the expansion's player flow and all related pursuits and economy elements. I was the only investment designer directly on the project, so I had a hand in pretty much every aspect of the project.

This expansion was built in under six months in a new development org -- a task I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. But we delivered a new destination, a compelling (if short) campaign, and a pursuit ecosystem with many more hours of compelling gameplay over the weeks following the initial expansion launch.

After Shadowkeep, the Player Journey (PJ) team became a full-fledged area and I was promoted to  Area Lead to guide its growth. The team expanded to two small teams: Activities and Pursuits. As part of the area Leadership Team, I helped determine what the team's mandate was, what goals would guide its members and determine success criteria, and ultimately what features we'd build.

For the next expansion, Beyond Light, the Activities team would focus on building campaign missions and a set of replayable Hunt activities that would form the backbone of the post-campaign ritual, alongside the new Europa destination itself. The Pursuits team would build the campaign quest flow, which would include side quests, a power climb, reward rollout, and the introduction of post-campaign pursuits. The team was responsible for supporting the overall destination ecosystem with bounties, quests, rewards, triumphs, etc.

This project was my first as a lead and mentor, where I spent more time on product design, alignment, goal-setting, and cross-team communication than on actual IC work. I learned a lot about good (and bad) leadership styles. We focused heavily on establishing what shape a D2 expansion needs to take, and creating "frameworks" for content standards and sustainability for future releases. 

I still maintained an IC workload to keep my skills sharp, and helped load-balance from overburdened members of the team as needed, especially with bug burndown during closing.

Like many in spring 2020, we navigated the intense uncertainty surrounding the global pandemic, including the move to permanent work-from-home during this project. I'm extremely proud of our team for maintaining momentum during this time and still creating a worthy expansion in the midst of so much adversity and unknowns in the world.