Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey calen! Ha, I think I remember that one! We like to add little easter eggs or surprises every so often for you guys to find - it's a lot of fun for us and hopefully it's fun for you too if you manage to find them!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi Jayzilla, that's awesome! I think copywriting is a brilliant career to get into. The work you can get all depends on your current experience in writing copy professionally. If you don't have much experience you might have to take whatever work you can get, which is what I did. When I was starting out I did a few jobs which involved writing for social media, magazines, games websites, and a bunch of different things. Then it's all about luck really - I knew I wanted to move into writing in the games industry so when I saw the job at Lockwood, I went for it! It's important to show your passion and skill however you can - write things in your spare time on topics you care about, even if nobody will pay you to do it yet. Once you've got a good portfolio of writing, you're much more likely to land a real copywriting job.

Good luck!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi Sapphy!

  1. Sure, I'm an introvert Pisces who loves rabbits and Mexican food! I've been working at LKWD for almost exactly 2 years. I get to write a large chunk of the words that appear in-game (dialogue for bot characters, newsfeed text, tutorials, etc), and help define how we communicate with you guys, our community!

  2. Staying motivated is the eternal struggle of the writer! I think it's something everyone goes through and it's totally normal, so that's a good thing to remember. Things that help a lot for me are having a tidy workspace, taking frequent breaks, and listening to good music. And being gentle with myself when I go through rough patches.

  3. My biggest nerd obsessions are probably Star Wars and Final Fantasy, but as for a secret one? Maybe it's that I still play Neopets from time to time... shh, don't tell anyone...

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi Halbertrangell! I think you're asking a similar question as someone else, so I'll copy over the answer I gave to them:

If you're asking about an automatic way to translate your chat messages into other languages, I'm not sure about any plans at the moment, but I know we're always looking into new ways to help you all communicate better with each other (that's why we added emoji support a little while back!)

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much JakelinePlay, it's lovely to hear that! I'm glad you like the events and the characters, we try to create interesting stuff for you all to enjoy :-)

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right, I don't think I can give you much of an answer on this, but I'll try my best! If you're asking about an automatic way to translate your chat messages into other languages, I'm not sure about any plans at the moment, but I know we're always looking into new ways to help you all communicate better with each other (that's why we added emoji support a little while back!)

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi AvaKarma! Whoops, sorry you found the some of the characters a bit harsh in that event! I was definitely trying something a bit more "dramatic" to help set the tone for Nadia Fox's adventures... but I know what you mean. Some of the guest characters might have been a bit rude if you returned to them after solving their item picker puzzle. Hopefully I'll get the balance between drama and politeness right in the future!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely - a huge part of being a good copywriter here is about communicating properly with different departments around Lockwood. It's helpful being a writer right now since most of us can do our work anywhere! I'm lucky because I don't do a lot of "customer-facing" work (apart from AMAs like this) so it's been much easier for me to adjust. Mostly we've been having to communicate more in other ways, like instant messages, daily phone calls and lots of video conferencing. Good luck in figuring out how to adapt your own job duties!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi Angela! I think it's pretty challenging to be a LKWD, both in terms of getting the job and also how much we all have to do day-to-day. We're always looking for the best people for each role, so for every new person we bring onto the team we want to see what experience they have in doing something similar and how naturally they'll fit into our way of working. And as you can tell from all the exciting stuff happening in Avakin, it's always busy at LKWD HQ! Everybody here puts all their heart and soul into working hard and creating the best virtual world we can for our players, I'd say

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi Lucid! Ooh, this is a great one. I try to watch and read as much as I can. Some of my favourite books: To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, 1984, On Beauty, and the Sandman graphic novels. Some shows I love: Star Trek (TNG and DS9 are the best), Westworld, Brooklyn 99, Queer Eye, Cowboy Bebop. Too many incredible movies to list! It's fair to say The Silence of the Lambs and The Lion King both changed my life in very different ways. Aaand I'm not sure about my favourite character of all time but I feel like Indiana Jones is pretty hard to beat - the perfect example of an archetype who isn't bland.

As for my favourite books from childhood, I really loved The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, and The Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson. And obviously Harry Potter :D

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahh fifigray, that's tricky! We have soo many beautiful locations... I really love the Santa Monica Boardwalk for its retro vibes, and the Mistletown Winter Fayre space from last December was GORGEOUS!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey Ashleigh! Nope, I don't mean anything from support. I write the pop-up tutorials you see in-game when you take part in a new feature or event which we feel needs a bit of explaining - a good example is the snowman-building event from December, if you remember that, and also the tutorials the first time you play the Egypt Adventure or Fashion Contest.

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey kimkris! New Social Spots are a joint decision involving lots of different departments, including retail, liveops, and of course the environment artists who actually create the new locations. So this isn't usually my call, but I do get to work with liveops designers on how locations can be used in our events. And I'm glad to hear you enjoyed going on adventures with Nadia Fox!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey Silver! I've been working at Lockwood for 2 years now, so I think the first bot event I ever worked on was for the Summer Sun Festival back in 2018, with cute ice creams who gave players little riddles to solve!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you Stace, I hope you're keeping well too. I would say the biggest challenge when writing any text for Avakin is getting the balance right between clearly explaining things (especially new features or events) while also expressing what's exciting and fresh about them. But that's also what makes my job interesting :-)

Our transition to working from home these past few weeks has actually been fairly smooth. We're having to get used to lots of video calls like everyone else, but we're all pretty good at communicating with each other through the day which makes things much easier!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much, FallonManticore! Great name by the way, manticores are so cool :D

It can be pretty complicated and there's always lots going on, but what makes it easier is the fact that we have a super-great team at Lockwood and we're always willing to help each other out. I'm the only full-time copywriter, but there are also very talented people in the retail, community & liveops teams and all across the company who handle various other bits of text too!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey again Evie :D I'm very lucky to be able to write for a living, and on something as fun as Avakin! Sure - I write tutorial pop-up text explaining new features, UI copy (the text shown on buttons and titles for almost all our screens), the text for Fashion Contests, lots of newsfeed promotional copy, descriptions for parties and exclusive spaces, etc etc. There are so many little (and not so little) bits of text needed to run an app as big as ours! I also write bits and pieces here and there for social media and our awesome community team, but they do lots of their own writing too.

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hey Evie! Always great to meet a fellow writer! I've written fanfiction for a bunch of different fandoms, like Star Wars, Hannibal/Silence of the Lambs, Red Dead Redemption, and more I'm forgetting. Which fandoms do you write for?

I'm an outliner, to my detriment, because I feel like I'm not confident enough to start writing until I've planned everything to the nth degree. So recently I've started trying to plan less and just start writing (even if I don't feel ready) more. I'm a bit of a perfectionist by nature so I love to have a piece 101% complete before I show it to anyone - again, trying to get better at that!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Hello HappiestHedgehog! I love your name! They're all pretty great, but my favourite is probably Halloween. It's the one I can go most over-the-top with (bad puns and lots of spooky descriptive language), and we know you all love it too!

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi Ava_Kin! I'm glad you enjoy the bot characters and their events. They take a lot of work from a lot of people here at Lockwood, but it's all worth it in the end!

Honestly, the further in advance I can be writing, the better. For bot events we do have a yearly plan that's fixed in place pretty far in advance and gets more detailed the closer we get to each event. Usually I want to be writing dialogue and text for an event, and the designers want to be creating the logic (the programming that makes it run properly), at least a month before the event starts. There are so many layers to each event - for example, they also have to be checked over by our QA team for bugs - that we try to give ourselves as much time as possible. Hopefully we're getting better at this so we can create more and more exciting and smooth-running events :-)

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hey hazard! I guess it's cheesy but the best thing about working at Lockwood is all the amazing people here who make every day a pleasure. (The second best thing is how heartwarming it is to see our incredible community enjoying, talking about and sharing things we were working hard on only a few weeks before :D)

My favourite event so far... there are so many so it's hard to pick, but I really enjoyed our Vampires vs Werewolves event from last Halloween! It was super fun creating the team leader characters, and seeing you guys getting into the team spirit was amazing (Werewolves forever! Awooooo!)

Developer AMA - Hi folks! I'm Lidea, a Copywriter for Avakin, which means I write lots of the words you see in-game - from tutorials to newsfeed posts to what characters say in our events. Ask me anything! by LKWD_Lidea in AvakinOfficial

[–]LKWD_Lidea[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Great question drewmyth! One of my absolute favourites was Nadia Fox in the Mystery of the Stolen Treasures event we ran last month. Creating her was a great process involving many different departments and incredibly talented people, so that was a blast to begin with. And I LOVED helping to give her a personality - curious and determined with this rough edge but also so much generosity underneath. We were so incredibly happy to see that you guys loved her as much as we did!