In a few weeks we'll be announcing our next expansion and its challenge league. As you know, with the announcement we usually release a new set of league supporter packs, which means the current Delirium Supporter Packs will be removed from the store forever.

There are two pairs of Delirium Supporter Packs available in the store, the Fateweaver and the Darkseer. Each of the two pairs is designed in its own style and has different contents, so you can choose whichever one you prefer (or both). You can upgrade from the smaller one in a pair to the larger one. All of the microtransactions from the Supporter Packs are exclusive and will not appear in the store again.



If you're interested in getting one of the Delirium Supporter Packs but you're not sure you'll be able to do so in time, we'd recommend setting up a payment plan which can reserve a pack for you for up to three months after the commencement of your plan. Just email us in advance at support@grindinggear.com, we'll be happy to help you!



Additionally, if you have purchased any plain points packs since February 25th (PDT), you can use this in an upgrade to one of the Delirium Supporter Packs! You can credit up to 80% of the value of your desired supporter pack towards an upgrade. For example, if you purchased a $10 point pack you could then upgrade to the Fateweaver or Darkseer Supporter Pack for $20. You'd then receive the remainder of the contents of the pack, excluding the points you already purchased before the upgrade.

The Delirium Supporter Packs on consoles will be replaced with the new ones alongside the launch of our next expansion.

Thank you so much for your support!

We know many of you are eagerly waiting for an update about when to expect our next expansion announcement and launch. This news post will let you know the timeline that we're currently working to but also explain the tricky nature of predicting when the expansion will launch.

As many of you are already aware, we have completed 8 of the 13 weeks of this development cycle from home which is a significant amount of lost time in terms of face-to-face and group collaboration. Our team worked hard to quickly adjust to the new work paradigm but there have definitely been some difficulties in working this way that have made development a little slower. Due to this, we have already internally delayed the expansion's launch by one week from its originally-expected launch date.

It is very important to us that we release a high-quality expansion in June, and we will take the time to do this if we feel that we need an additional week or two. While we tried hard to achieve this within our regular 13 week schedule, development certainly has not been business-as-usual over the last few months.

We are currently planning to announce the 3.11 expansion on June 2 at 2pm (PDT), roughly two weeks from now. This means that we're working toward a launch date of June 19 for PC and June 24 for console. However, it's extremely important to note that more so than any past expansion, it's very possible this launch will be further delayed.

The pandemic has made safely predicting the release date of this league very difficult. There's currently a reasonable possibility that the expansion will be delayed by an additional week and a low chance that it will be delayed further beyond that.

We usually prefer to only make these kind of timelines posts when we're more sure of a date but feel that as more time passes, the more people would become frustrated with not knowing what to expect, so it feels important to at least make you aware of the tentative nature of these things.

In good news, for this announcement you can expect our usual trailer, development commentary, journalist coverage and announcement page. However, we're spicing things up just a little bit! When our announcement goes live, ZiggyD will be streaming our trailer, his inside coverage of the expansion and then hosting a live Q&A with Chris Wilson about the upcoming content. This is an hour-long event that you'll be able to view live on Twitch! More details to come.

Continuing with our developer interviews, we took a moment to talk with Skyler, one of our gameplay programmers who joined the team last year. Check it out below.

Hi Skyler! Thanks for taking part in the interview. Please introduce yourself.
Hi! My name is Skyler and I'm a gameplay programmer at Grinding Gear Games since about October of last year. I was born in Alaska where I grew up, attended college at the University of Utah, and now I'm here in NZ learning how to be a proper kiwi.

Could you tell us a bit about your current role at GGG?
As a gameplay programmer I pretty much do anything and everything programming related that has to do with gameplay: implementing unique items, hooking up new stats, making skills, and more.

When did you find out about Path of Exile?
I started playing Path of Exile about 7 years ago when I was in highschool and 1.0 came out. I had a good friend who told me about it and I had fond memories of D2 as a kid so I gave it a go. Been playing almost every league since.

What was the moment that got you hooked on the game?
I think for me it was a combination of two things.

First was definitely the theorycrafting. I've probably spent as much or more time using offline skill tree planners and the wiki as I have actually playing the game. Before Path of Building (thanks OpenARL!) I would be in class writing down numbers from the wiki and the offline skill tree and doing manual arithmetic on paper to estimate the total DPS of some build idea. I'd spend hours on this stuff, sometimes being unable to go to sleep until I planned out a build idea floating around in my head.

Second was probably the community. I've been checking the Path of Exile reddit multiple times daily for about the last seven years. I just absolutely love the builds people come up with and learning more about the game through others. Plus those few weeks leading up to a league launch are always pretty magical. The hype train is infectious.

You knew Chris prior to joining us. How did you meet?
I was actually extremely lucky in meeting Chris. I was just finishing up my senior year at University of Utah in 2019 and was attending the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. A friend let me borrow their VIP pass and encouraged me to go to a talk. I noticed Chris was one of the speakers and this piqued my interest. After the talk I asked him about job opportunities and he gave me his email and discord. I was shocked to say the least. I'm also a bit ashamed to admit, but I definitely got a selfie with him to show the friend who introduced me to the game all those years ago hahaha.

When did you know that you wanted to work in the video game industry?
I had decided I wanted to make games since about my junior year of high school, so it was definitely a long term plan for me. I was always very keen on the old adage "work a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life". Of course every job will feel like work sometimes, but I generally feel very privileged to have been able to pursue my passion.

How did you end up working at GGG?
After meeting Chris at GDC I poured my heart into a cover letter and resume, emailed him, and crossed my fingers. After many back and forth emails, we set up a technical interview with Jonathan where I shared my screen and tackled a programming problem live. However, while my general programming was quite strong and I immediately knew how to solve the problem, my C++ was very weak (I’d been heavily using Unity and C# in the last few years). I was certain I had bombed the interview when Jonathan said “Well… your C++ clearly needs a lot of work.” But he followed up, “However, it’s clear you’re actually a programmer. You think like a programmer. We can work with that.” I just about flew out of my chair, somehow managing to hold my composure for the rest of the interview.

You are working on skill mechanics. Would you be able to give us an overview of the process of your involvement in the development of a new skill?
Sure! The first step is just getting a minimum viable prototype. Just something that functions so we can feel out if the idea has any promise. After that it's an extremely iterative back and forth between me, the designer, and the effects artist. Obviously the designer has final say in most non technical decisions, but I thoroughly enjoy trying to contribute my thoughts and opinions. Generally I value trying to make skills that are interesting to theorycraft since that has always been my favorite part of the game.

What is the most challenging aspect of programming Path of Exile gameplay?
Definitely the sheer size of the game. I like to joke that I get paid to fix bugs and to make more bugs to fix later. The codebase is absolutely huge and it's very easy to miss small details or not consider niche edge cases. Thankfully having a good understanding of the game has helped me in considering these edge cases, but it can still be very hard to catch everything (Bless QA for catching so many of my bugs).

What is your favourite thing you've worked on for the game so far?
I think it has to be implementing The Saviour. I really enjoy the wide open possibilities the sword offers. It's been extremely gratifying watching videos of people testing all the different skills that can work with it and reasoning about what's best and how they could build around the different options.

Do you have any advice for aspiring programmers?
Your education is not enough. It's sad, but it's definitely true. If you want to stand out you cannot simply rely on your classwork. You have to always be experimenting with side projects, working towards internships, and building a well curated portfolio. This is especially true if you want to get into the games industry. Find projects that interest you and put the time in. The only way to get better at programming is to program.

What can the community look forward to in terms of things you're working on at the moment?
This league I've been working a lot on an older skill category which hasn’t seen major changes in quite a while: revamping the original skills and making quite a few new ones as well. I’m a bit limited on what I can reveal at this time (we have news posts coming soon), but suffice to say I think the changes will enable some interesting builds and breathe life back into truly ethical forms of gameplay.

We're continuing to share screenshots of Path of Exile bosses from Act One. Have a look at them below. If you're interested in seeing more screenshots, check them out here and here.








This weekend we're running a sale on a huge selection of weapon skins, weapon effects and shields with more than 150 cosmetic effects available at discounted prices, including the Darkprism Weapon Effect, Celestial Shield, Heartseeker Weapon and more. Please note that this sale excludes some of the weapon and shield microtransactions introduced since the launch of the Delirium expansion.

The sale will run from the time of this post until May 19, 2020 4:00 PM (PDT). Check out the full list of specials by pressing M in game.

Thanks for your support! Have a great weekend everyone!

In today's news post, we're taking a look at all microtransactions from Path of Exile's beginning to see which microtransactions in each category have sold the most and discussing the various factors that contribute to this.

Before we begin, it's worth noting that all microtransactions featured below are ordered by quantity purchased rather than how much they contribute to overall sales.

Let's start with Armour Sets. Released in 2015, the Infernal Armour Set became an absolute hit amongst the community, holding the top position even five years later. Interestingly enough, while only two out of the ten armour packs in this list can be considered as relatively new, both represent the most popular microtransaction themes, Celestial and Stygian. It's also worth noting that these stats skew towards older microtransactions simply because there's been a longer amount of time to purchase them. More recently released microtransactions are at a disadvantage for appearing in these lists as there has been less time to purchase them.

Armour Sets

• Infernal Armour
  
• Demon King Armour
  
• Seraph Armour
  
• Celestial Armour
  
• Arcane Armour
  
• Stygian Armour
  
• Elite Pack
  
• Arctic Armour
  
• Ghostflame Armour
  
• Vampiric Armour

Looking at back attachments, we can see that the majority of players who purchase cosmetic effects prefer actual wings and wing-like attachments (the bigger the better!). The Exile's Essentials Back Attachment is in third place which is most likely a result of it being the very first back attachment we've released alongside its low price. Another microtransaction from the early days of Path of Exile, the Seraph Wings, remains popular even now, which is quite interesting as most of the old cosmetic effects tend to taper off in sales over time.

Back Attachments

• Gloom Wings
  
• Seraph Wings
  
• Exile's Essentials Back Attachment
  
• Tentacle Wings
  
• Dragon Hunter Wings
  
• Celestial Wings
  
• Ultimate Chaos Wings
  
• Phoenix Wings
  
• Seraph Spirit Wings
  
• Celestial Hooded Cloak

Now onto Character Effects. With the Celestial theme being so popular, it's not a surprise that Celestial microtransactions made it to the top in almost every category. However, many people also enjoy bloody and dark character effects for their Exiles (Bat Swarm and Ultimate Chaos effect in the top three).

Character Effects

• Celestial Character Effect
  
• Bat Swarm Effect
  
• Ultimate Chaos Character Effect
  
• Sin Character Effect
  
• Fire Character Effect
  
• Arcane Character Effect
  
• Seraph Character Effect
  
• Innocence Character Effect
  
• Arctic Character Effect
  
• Bone Aura Character Effect

Just like with Armour Sets, the Infernal theme prevails in the Footprints category. Yet again, the majority of microtransactions in this list have been released a long time ago which is the most likely cause of them being so high in the list.

Footprints

• Infernal Footprints
  
• Ultimate Chaos Footprints
  
• Lightning Footprints
  
• Ebony Footprints
  
• Necrotic Footprints
  
• Celestial Footprints
  
• Ghostflame Footprints
  
• Radiant Footprints
  
• Sin Footprints
  
• Fire Footprints

A preference for visually impressive microtransactions is pretty clear under the Weapon Skin section, with the massive Crypt Sword and the Colossus Sword being on the first and second place respectively. The recently released Darkprism and Void Emperor Weapon Skins can be applied to a wide variety of weapon types which explains their popularity (in addition to being made in celestial style).

Weapon Skins

• Crypt Sword
  
• Colossus Sword
  
• Seraph Dagger
  
• Adder's Claw
  
• Darkprism Weapon
  
• Seraph Sword
  
• Void Emperor Weapon Skin
  
• Warlock Dagger
  
• Kacha Axe
  
• Dragon Hunter Sword

Let's look at Weapon Effects. The majority of microtransactions in this list have been available since the beginning, their prices are relatively low which make it easy to add them to your collection. Additionally, most people get weapon effects from supporter packs nowadays which is very likely the main reason for the absence of modern weapon effects in this list.

Weapon Effects

• Turquoise Weapon Effect
  
• Extra Gore Effect
  
• Infernal Weapon Effect
  
• Emerald Weapon Effect
  
• Crimson Weapon Effect
  
• Ebony Weapon Effect
  
• Azure Weapon Effect
  
• Celestial Weapon Effect
  
• Acid Weapon Effect
  
• Arcane Weapon Effect

Stash Tabs are continuing to be popular no matter what, no surprises here. The upgrades are most likely the most popular due to people upgrading their initial four stash tabs. Also, Extra Stash Tabs have the appearance of being more popular but considering the Premium Bundle contains six tabs which count as a single purchase, you'd see more of them in reality than regular Stash Tabs.

Stash Tabs

• Upgrade To Premium
  
• Extra Stash Tab
  
• Currency Tab
  
• Premium Stash Tab Bundle
  
• Map Tab
  
• Premium Stash Tab
  
• Premium Quad Tab
  
• Divination Tab
  
• Essence Tab
  
• Fragment Tab

The Skill Effects section represents the meta of the past with Seraph Spectral Throw in third place (thanks in part to one certain streamer). In general, the high popularity of older effects can be explained by their prices which become even lower during our big weekend sales. By this point you're probably not surprised to see Celestial effects at the top again.

Skill Effects

• Blue Cyclone Effect
  
• Celestial Herald Effect
  
• Seraph Spectral Throw
  
• Ethereal Stars
  
• White Cyclone Effect
  
• Black Hole Frostbolt Effect
  
• Water Nova
  
• Automaton Arc Effect
  
• Blue Flame Incinerate
  
• Celestial Aura Effect

In the Shields category we see a dominance of the shiny and epic-looking cosmetics yet again with big and colourful Celestial and Yaksha Shields in first and second place respectively. The presence of the Zenith Shield in this list is quite interesting. Recently released, this shield stands out from other cosmetics with its futuristic design, which is very likely the reason for its popularity alongside other microtransactions from this series (although there are no Zenith cosmetic effects in other categories, this theme is popular enough and we would expect to see it potentially rise through the ranks over time).

Shields

• Celestial Shield
  
• Yaksha Shield
  
• Badge of Skulls
  
• Seraph Shield
  
• Demon King Shield
  
• Carnage Shield
  
• Arcane Shield
  
• Radiant Shield
  
• Zenith Shield
  
• Innocence Shield
  

Despite a huge assortment of portals of all possible kinds, the list below shows that players tend to prefer relatively simple effects for their portals. Most of the portals featured here were released a long time ago which is probably another reason for their high popularity - back in the days when players had a limited number of effects to choose from. With the introduction of the random portal option and a range of portals we have available now, we're likely to see a different situation here over time.

Portals

• Black Hole Portal
  
• Shaper Portal
  
• Demon King Portal
  
• Orange Portal
  
• Steam Powered Portal
  
• Ultimate Chaos Portal
  
• Arctic Portal
  
• Fire Portal
  
• Dragon Portal
  
• Malachai Portal

The Weta Pet has conquered the top of the Pets section, being the most popular choice for a purchase when we run our 'Get a Free Mystery Box' promotions due to its price (or there are an enormous amount of entomologists in our community). A high demand for cats doesn't need to be explained, but we didn't expect to see the Sin Sword Pet and the Innocence Sword Pet in this list. Perhaps, you'd like to see more variety for this type of pet?

Pets

• Weta Pet
  
• Frog Pet
  
• Celestial Cat Pet
  
• Scorpion Pet
  
• Blue Frog Pet
  
• Sin Sword Pet
  
• Black Cat Pet
  
• Innocence Sword Pet
  
• Blood Guard Pigeon
  
• Ghostflame Swarm

The Polaris Mystery Box has beaten all previous records and become the most popular Mystery Box of all time, which was expected considering the ever growing number of players and awesome design of these cosmetics. It was also released alongside a large expansion which would have boosted its sales. With the release of the Chaos and Order Mystery Box we introduced the concept of competing sides in mystery boxes for the first time. We have also significantly improved the quality of Mystery Box contents by adding 38 completely new microtransactions (instead of reskins or microtransactions that were already in the store). The contents of the Chaos and Order Mystery Box were received so well by our community that you can find individual microtransactions from this box in various lists of the most popular microtransactions.

Mystery Boxes

• Polaris
  
• Chaos and Order
  
• Sin and Innocence
  
• Fairgraves
  
• Glimmerwood
  
• Apocalypse
  
• Fire and Ice
  
• Thaumaturgy
  
• Classic
  
• Oriath

The following microtransactions can't be attributed to a specific category, but we thought you might be interested in how they rank relative to each other.

Miscellaneous

• Skin Transfer Single
  
• Extra Character Slot
  
• Skin Transfer 10 Pack
  
• Invisible Buff
  
• Vanishing Dye
  
• Guild Member Slot Bundle
  
• Witch Dance
  
• Skin Transfer 50 Pack
  
• Shadow Dance
  
• Ranger Dance

Finally, the hideouts. The top three microtransactions in this category - the Falling Leaves, Wide Light Beam and Rain decorations - are the oldest cosmetics of this type, available with a low price and look good in almost every hideout. The Celestial Nebula in this list shows the continued popularity of the space theme, and the Hideout Music Player just had to be here because who wouldn't want to listen to the Legion soundtrack over and over again in their hideout?

Hideouts

• Falling Leaves Decoration
  
• Wide Light Beam Decoration
  
• Rain Decoration
  
• Wisp Swarm Decoration
  
• Celestial Nebula Hideout
  
• Hideout Music Player
  
• Shaper's Hideout
  
• Glimmerwood Hideout
  
• Fireplace Decoration
  
• Energy Dome Decoration

That's it for this round of statistics for today, we hope you found it interesting. All the data mentioned above represents our community's willingness to support the development of Path of Exile and enable us to keep launching new content like our upcoming June expansion and of course, Path of Exile 2. We really appreciate it! Thanks so much for your continued support!

When working on a new league, finding a way to integrate its story into Path of Exile's existing lore is always a challenge. Nick, one of our narrative designers, has written an article to give you a behind the scenes look at the "Day Zero" rule they keep in mind when introducing a new story into the current lore.

Who remembers Talisman League? While not one of the most popular leagues, Talisman was a turning point in Path of Exile's league design philosophy. Prior to Talisman, Standard and Hardcore each got a separate league mechanic, with the mechanic designed to be a layer that sits on top of Path of Exile's core gameplay. There was a time when a league could just be some new monster mods!

But Talisman changed that. It introduced a new set of items, a progression, an endgame boss, and a story. After Talisman, every league was to feature these things.

When we're working on a new league, finding a way to integrate it into Path of Exile's expansive lore is always a challenge. Here's why:

Unlike your typical MMORPG, Path of Exile features regular 'resets'. When you create a character in an MMO, you're stepping into a living world that could have years of real-time events already built into it. But in Path of Exile, when you create a character, you are entering a very specific moment in time; Dominus rules Oriath with an iron (or golden?) fist, and you have been exiled to the shores of the forsaken continent of Wraeclast.

Kitava has not risen. The Elder and Shaper are at war, yet to be conquered. Past leagues may exist, but their big bad bosses haven't been bested by the Exile yet because, well, the Exile is currently face-down in the sand. Every league's story must begin from the player's Day of Exile.

I call this the "Day Zero" rule. We often bump up against this rule during league design. People are eager to build upon previous league lore, or have characters reference the events of a past league, but in almost all cases, doing so would cause chronology issues. I'm always the most adamant proponent of the rule. It may sound nitpicky (and it probably is!) but, to me, it serves some very important purposes.

For starters, it ensures there's no weirdness with characters acknowledging things that the player has not yet done or encountered. An NPC discussing the purging of the Blight before the player discovers Cassia is bound to cause some confusion.

It also forces us to be friendlier to new players. With every league, we have some number of players who have never before tried Path of Exile. In addition to all the complex mechanics they have to learn just to enjoy the main story, they typically have a B-story to follow (the current league). Throwing references to past leagues into the mix muddies the waters.

The most recent example of us encountering the Day Zero rule is Delirium. The Strange Voice begins talking at a certain point during the Campaign because the events immediately preceding allow it to do so. The cost of adhering to this rule was that the first 4 acts didn't also contain the Strange Voice.

The lore of Conqueror's of the Atlas also had to wrestle with chronology. The defeat of the Elder happens between the time that you, the Exile, defeat Kitava, and the time that you then find yourself in the Epilogue. A lot of story ideas had to be nixed because they violated the Day Zero rule, requiring that certain things happen (or had already happened) when the timeline shouldn't allow for it.

I'm excited for Path of Exile 2 not just because of all the cool stuff it contains, but because of what it allows us to do narratively. With Path of Exile 2, we can at last acknowledge all the events of Path of Exile (including the leagues!), and build upon them.

Let me know in the replies what you most want to see continued in Path of Exile 2!

We're always happy to show off the talents of our players to the wider community. For today's news post we gathered several pieces of recently submitted Path of Exile fan art. Check them below!

Young Golemancer by KungFuPanda2


Nine-Tailed Fox Pet Air Brush by Cocaneman


Strange Voice and Voices Fanart by HoldimProvae


Solaris by yellowsubmarinedude


Strange Voice Fanart by Doranex


The Twilight Strand Painting by recoilwhenyouwake's Mum

As you know, sometimes we hire talented people straight from the community. James (aka viperesque), a subreddit moderator and long-time community member you may be familiar with, joined our team a few months ago. We recently asked him to share some insight about his background and time with us. We hope you enjoy this interview.

Hi James! Thanks for taking part in the interview! Please introduce yourself.
Hi! I’m James, but in Path of Exile circles more people will know me as viperesque from the forums, reddit or Discord. I’ve been working at GGG as a game designer since January this year.

Tell us a bit about your current role at GGG.
Before I started working to get this job, I didn’t really appreciate how many different tasks were involved in game design in Path of Exile! Turns out there are a lot of hats to wear. The roles which I expect people associate most with it are coming up with ideas and doing balance adjustments for items, skill and support gems, crafting systems, and so on. That’s definitely a big part of it, but for example, setup and scripting for monsters and encounters are also designer roles and end up being a significant portion of the job (though I’m only just starting to graduate from simple monsters myself). There are also things like bug catching, visual effects implementation, level design and preparing materials for announcements.

It’s also an extremely collaborative role — whether the initial idea for a feature or change comes from a designer or someone else, it almost always needs to go to another person (a programmer, animator, artist, level designer, sound designer, or anyone else) to be created, and then sent back to the designer to be implemented into the game. That’s been one of my unexpected favourite things about the position so far, because you get to work with so many people throughout the company and learn little bits about how they do their jobs.

How and when did you find out about Path of Exile?
A friend of mine had been a closed beta supporter, and told our whole group of gamer friends about Path of Exile when it went into open beta. So I first found out about it in February 2013, and have been playing regularly ever since.

What was the moment that got you hooked on the game?
It wasn’t a single moment. Even in 2013, Path of Exile was such a complicated game that it took months to fully appreciate it. That said, I can pick out a few exciting events. I remember I’d been wishing for years for more RPGs that took character customisation seriously without having turn-based or terrible gameplay, so that first time seeing the passive tree was definitely more of a “Hell yes!” for me than the “What the hell?” that I know many people experience. Getting my first real build (Marohi Ground Slam, already going out of style in early 2013 if we’re being honest) to endgame after two or three false starts made me feel like I was starting to understand the game, though I was so wrong. About 100 hours into Docks farming with Spork totems (now there’s the 2013 meta we knew and loved!) I was definitely hooked. At some point much later, the purpose of temporary leagues clicked for me, and that was when I realised I would be playing this game for years and years. Certainly never expected to end up here though!

You are known in the community as a Path of Exile subreddit moderator. How did you start there?
Whenever I get really invested in a complicated game, I tend to start semi-obsessively devouring information about it. I also sometimes start answering people’s questions about the game online, partly because it’s a fun and fulfilling way to spend bits of spare time and partly because the process of helping people and reading other people’s answers improves my own knowledge.

In the case of Path of Exile, I started on the official forums, then made a reddit account to answer questions there as well, then got really into the Discord server when that started. This got me noticed by the Discord mods (who at the time were mostly subreddit mods too), and I was asked to help out modding there. That eventually led to being asked to help with the subreddit too, since I was active on both. I actually turned down that request a couple of times because I was worried about the time commitment/potential stress based on previous modding roles, but eventually I said yes on a trial basis, found it was much less painful than I expected, and stuck with it.

What were the most difficult moments and the most fun moments?
The biggest difficulties always came from trying to reach a compromise between groups with completely opposite opinions or beliefs about how the subreddit should work. Reddit is weird like that I think — forums can be subdivided as much as you like, but subreddits mash everything together and you’re stuck with it all (and splinter subreddits rarely get much traction), so everyone has to put up with some content they don’t really care for and that causes friction. Having people on both sides of a debate accuse you of being biased against them is an unforgettable experience.

Most fun...well honestly, modding isn’t fun. Occasionally you get the satisfaction of handling something well, but otherwise it’s very neutral.

How did you end up working at GGG?
In a word, Bex!

Before GGG I was a research biochemist, and it was fine but never felt like a perfect fit for me. I was thinking about much less drastic career shifts — maybe pharma or government science. The idea that maybe I could apply to GGG popped up from nowhere one day and I couldn’t quite shake it. I know heaps about the game, I’m active in the community, I lived in Australia long enough to get citizenship and my partner is Australian so we could dodge New Zealand’s overseas hiring regulations...I thought it was kind of a silly dream, but I knew I’d regret not following it up. Luckily I was already on good terms with Bex because of communication about subreddit issues over the years, so I asked her whether it would make any sense for me to apply for a community role at GGG.

As it turned out, the community team was full. However, Bex thought I might fit in more roles, encouraged me to send an open-ended application in anyway, and gave me a lot of advice for doing so. If it wasn’t for her I probably would never have sent anything in, and definitely wouldn’t have considered myself for a design role.

It turned out that Chris and a few other GGG staff already knew of me. A few emails and a couple of Skypes with Chris later I was being considered for a game design position. I made it through Neon's two hour interview/chat/gameplay session, flew over to try out in person, my partner was happy to quit her job, and next thing I knew we were packing up our household and moving to Auckland!

How has working with us been so far compared with your expectations? Have there been any surprises?
I didn’t really know what to expect until I started, so in that sense everything has been a surprise! When I first tried out, I had to make sure to prepare myself in case I hated it! It’s been great though. I feel incredibly lucky to be in this position and to have a job I really enjoy doing, and everyone in the office is so friendly. I guess one nice surprise is that game balance has a surprising amount in common with scientific experimentation, so I can apply a lot of my experience and training there. Sorry to people who’ve had to read my issue notes when I start treating them like a lab notebook!

It’s also been interesting to finally be able to learn about all the mechanics GGG keep secret, and how wrong I was in my assumptions about some of them. And while it’s not directly related to the job, going into Covid lockdown three weeks after arriving in New Zealand was definitely a surprise, and one we’ve only managed to handle by borrowing a lot of things from the office...

You were involved in the design of the notables for the Cluster Jewel system. What was the most challenging part in this process?
Firstly, getting my head around this crazy new system I’d just been told about on my second day on the job. Secondly, just coming up with all the ideas! There was never a specific goal for the number of notables to end up with, but we had to have enough so that every build we could think of had a decent number to pick from. Rory jokingly(?) suggested that we get to a list of 3000 and cull from there. We probably came up with at least 500, although to be clear this was a group effort and no more than a third of them were mine.

Do you have any advice for aspiring designers?
I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer this question yet! For Path of Exile specifically, I’d echo Neon's comments at ExileCon that the big thing you need is to know the game inside and out. Understanding how the game’s mechanics and calculations work, being able to quickly figure out use and abuse cases for a new item or skill, making sure you don’t repeat anything that has already been done, and knowing what metrics to use for balance are all absolutely vital. I’m being taught the rest as I go, though some aptitude for computers is obviously a plus. Also, this applies to any role and is a bit of a cliché but it’s so helpful to be visible! I was lucky that GGG senior staff were engaged with the community and noticed my years of answering questions to the extent that I could convince them to hire me, but if you’re gunning for a job from the get-go I’m sure you can think of a better strategy than that.

What can the community look forward to in terms of things you're working on at the moment?
Naturally I’m mostly working on 3.11 right now. In particular, I’ve been improving and reworking some of the less-loved unique items and buffing a few underpowered skills. If your favourite hipster build goes meta in 3.11, or a buffed skill/unique is still ignored and unused, you can probably blame me for it. I also have smaller roles in new skills and unique items for 3.11, and a bit of league mechanic setup. Looking further ahead, I’m taking point on a fairly large set of changes to some older content that you’ll find out more about later in the year, coordinating the finishing touches for Act 1 of the Path of Exile 2 campaign, and doing setup for some of the monsters from Act 2. Exciting times!

Earlier this week we concluded our Screenshot Competition where our players were encouraged to take screenshots of any in-game content they want. Having looked through hundreds of submissions, we managed to select winners and are ready to announce them today!

In addition, we're offering a special prize (Demon Parasite Armour Set, Demon Parasite Back Attachment, Blood Guard Character Effect, 2 x Thaumaturgy Mystery Boxes) to the most popular submission amongst our community. We uploaded all the screenshots listed below to this album in our Facebook group. To vote for your favourite screenshot, just hit the 'Like' button on it! The screenshot with the most amount of 'Likes' wins. We'll announce the fan-favourite submission next Monday (May 11th) at 1pm NZT in our Twitter.

Top Five Winners






Check out the rest of the winners here!

Last week we started a series of news with screenshots of Path of Exile bosses and unique monsters you encounter throughout the game. The first set of screenshots was received well by our community, so we're happy to keep releasing such images from time to time. Check out more screenshots of Act One bosses below.