by Jason "Aeston" Rosa
Nothing here will come as much of a surprise for the more venerable members of our community, but there are many younger people in the Realms to whom I would like to impart a little bit of our shared history.
But mostly, I’m writing this article to celebrate the success of one of our own, Joseph Piepiora.
Again, for the benefit of those who never knew him, I’ll give you some interesting historical notes about Joe. The character he played was named Sir Elwick Dragonsburrow, Knight of the Eternal Flame, though when he started out he was instead known by a nickname he would later eschew, Rebel. Like so many outstanding people in our game’s history, he began as a member of the Barony of Bancroft, where he met some of the adventurers that would stay close to him his entire Realms career and beyond.
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| Elwick in 2003 |
By the time I met Joe we had both been playing for 2-3 years and we immediately hit it off. We started questing together all the time and were joined by other young Realmsies (none of whom are very young anymore, but several whom are still around) mostly participating together in a plot run by Carrie Dolph, known colloquially as Carrie Plot or Kathrani plot. Mostly though the evolution of that plot Elwick became the lord of a plot-driven nation called Tuath Fusach and was joined there by a couple of the friends that were with him in all the way back in the Barony.
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| Elwick and Zula at Green and Gold. Elwick was well known for that full helm. |
Joe was one of the most accomplished and appreciated event holders of his era. It certainly helped that his mother’s house abutted a state forest in Sandown that he could use to throw quests. He had many feathers in that cap over the years but, other than the Ace in the Hole series, he was certainly most well known for Illinar plot, something he planned and executed over the course of many years and something that resonated with almost every player of that time period. The Battle for Banecroft II, when that nation was reclaimed in a day-long battle of attrition against endless waves of soldiers, had many moments that are burned forever in my perception of what makes for a great war event.
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| Elwick being knighted a Knight of the Eternal Flame at Feast of Chimeron in 2008. |
What drove Joe’s passion in many ways was story-telling. And certainly he did that expertly through Realms. But even when we were both in our early 20's playing Everquest and LAN Starcraft games together, he always espoused that the thing he wanted to do most was make video games. I remember him using the RPG Maker of the era (a very early version, for sure) to put together a Realms-based JRPG just to practice creating.
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| A screenshot from Joe's Realms JRPG made in RPG Maker |
Speaking of video games; I’ll add here, for lack of a better place in this article, that a very considerable number of Realmsies that are still around today started playing WoW together in a guild captained by Joe and myself, Remorse and Retribution. Yes, we were alliance. No I will not listen to your explanation of why Horde was better. Sound off in the comments if you were on Crushridge with us!
Of course if you know anything about the video game industry, you know it’s tough. Tough to break into, tough to survive in, tough to advance in. But Joe was tough too, and he was driven and passionate enough to make it through all the steps and stages he had to to work his way up. He started out nearby, in MA, doing QA at Carbine. After sweating it out for over three years in testing he eventually proved his worth to the point that he got to do some item designing in Lord of the Rings Online. When 38 Studios became a thing in RI, Joe really started being a game designer in earnest and was part of the team that shipped Kingdoms of Amalur. By then many of us had moved on to playing SWTOR together and rumor has it that R.A. Salvatore (Amalur's head writer) was in our guild under an alias no one but Joe knew.
Somewhere in there, coincidentally enough, Joe married one of my best friends from my time at WPI, Corrie. I honestly can’t remember if I introduced them or not but I vividly remember officiating their wedding ceremony in Maine years afterwards. By then Joe didn’t have much time left in his schedule for Realms anymore. That's the kind of grind needed in his industry. And it’s just as well because after 38 Studios folded the opportunities for him to continue his career called him and his new family out west.
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| A bunch of us at Joe's wedding |
Moving to California, Joe joined Carbine Studios in 2013 and stayed with them for several years designing parts of and launching the MMO Wildstar. There was a small stint in Texas after that and some independent design work, but ultimately Joe would move back to California and get hired by Blizzard to become a lead designer on Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA.
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| We visited Joe at Carbine Studios back in 2013 and wielded this cool prop. |
After settling in there, of course, we get to the point of this whole article; Joe was moved onto the team working on Diablo IV. In the years that that game was in development Joe took on larger and more important roles on that team, from systems designer to principal game designer to, ultimately, an associate director of Diablo IV. Thats the title he holds now as the game ships to millions of people across the globe.
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| Joe's very professional headshot from Blizzard |
So after that meandering journey through Joe’s career and his time in Realms, what I’d really like to do is publicly congratulate him. Moreso, if I can be so bold, I’d like to congratulate him on behalf of our entire community. In a very real way, Joe got his start designing games here, with us. When he drew up NPCs or wrote quests, or thought up interesting mechanics, he was practicing the skills that would take him to the very zenith of the video game ecosystem, shipping a AAA title with one of the largest developers in the world that will continue to be played for years, decades, into the future.
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| There he is, in the credits! |
Congratulations Joe. All your old friends are deeply proud to have been a small part of your journey.
And because it’s me writing this article, I would be remiss if I didn’t try to elude to a larger theme. If you look at the tale of Joseph Piepiora it’s obvious, but for a great number of us older folks it remains true as well. Realms is more than just a game, it’s more, even, than a community. I’ve said for as long as I can remember that Realms is a place where all of us have the opportunity, surrounded by like-minded friends, encouraged by the fruits of our labors, to learn how to become the best versions of ourselves. Elwick Dragonsburrow certainly did that.
Selfishly, I hope I get to throw a Realms event with Joe again, someday. After all, we threw Attunement to the Core together. I can only imagine what kind of trade secrets he could tap into when we throw Ace in the Hole III inside the Diablo universe.
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| Joe designing the Ragnaros outfit (with Bud inside) |
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| A finished Ragnaros at Attunement to the Core |