Doug Noel

Doug is a quality assurance professional with 10 years of experience testing computer software. He has tested e-mail security systems, e-commerce websites for companies such as Musictoday and Rosetta Stone, and spent 5 years in the testing trenches of the video game industry for companies that include Electronic Arts, Maxis and Kesmai Studios. Doug has been published in Worldforge Magazine, an online gaming magazine.

As a member of the Neverwinter Nights online community, Doug found a place on the staff of the online persistent world, Avlis. While with Avlis, Doug worked to design, program and debug various new systems including a shapeshifting player class, a customized magic system, a crafting system and an enchanting system. He then became the Executive Producer of Avlis and launching the Avlis 2 team which created a brand new world using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. Doug retired from active duty on the Avlis team in 2007.

Doug is an avid gamer, preferring Role Playing Games, first person shooters, real time strategy games, and good old fashioned platformers. Though a dabbler in many Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Doug prefers to work on online games than play them. Also an avid pencil and paper (PnP) gamer, Doug has been a Dungeon Master for almost 20 years. He has run campaigns in his own homebrew D&D worlds, three incarnations of the Shadowrun universe, multiple modern and futuristic settings, and a number of anime worlds including the world of Cowboy Bebop. He professes to enjoy a number of gaming systems, especially any that allow focus on the story being told.

Doug holds the black belt rank of sondoja in the martial art of Soon Suh Koo Doh (which means "Method of the Nine Ways"), a variant of the Korean martial art of Tae Kwon Do. He teaches both children and adults. In addition to writing articles in his spare time, Doug is a junior at DerVry University. He is working on his bachelor's degree in Game and Simulation Programming .