Editing User:Bdevoe

Bill DeVoe is a software engineer and entrepreneur based in Centennial, Colorado. He was '''Clifford''', the main coder (both soft- and hard-code) from BattleTech 3025/26 MUSE and was '''Greene''', president of the Federation, on Star Trek TNG MUSE. He has worked at several companies along the Front Range of Colorado, including [http://www.hp.com Hewlett-Packard], [http://www.anark.com Anark Corporation], and [http://www.hidcorp.com HID Global]. He was the chair of the [http://www.siaonline.org/standards/sc_apc.cfm Security Industry Association]'s Access Point Controller subcommittee and was responsible for several aspects of the HID VertX and Edge product lines.

He is currently the president and lead developer of [http://www.ottovon.com Otto Von Productions, Inc.], an independent game developer. The company's first title, ''Wizards'', is scheduled to be released for the iPhone and iPod Touch this summer. A future BattleTech-themed fan project is also in the works for the future.

His character, Joseph Paul Clifford, is a 1st Leutnant in the [[12th Star Guards]] 7th Regiment, based on [[Lyons]], in the [[Lyran Commonwealth]] in [[3026]]. He has been writing a novel about Clifford's adventures before the Fourth Succession War.

==BattleTech Background==
Bill began playing BTech in college (1987) and immediately fell in love with the game. His focus has been almost exclusively on the [[Third Succession War]] and the universe of the [[Inner Sphere]] in 3025/26. Given his character's position within the 12th Star Guards (company commander), he spent a lot of time learning about mercenary unit management for the Third/Fourth Succession Wars.

===BTech 3025/26===
{{main|BattleTech 3025 MUSE}}
Given that love of the game, Bill started BattleTech 3025 MUSE in 1990. He believes that it was the first multi-player game based on the BattleTech universe. He played the character '''Clifford''', leader of the 12th Star Guards mercenary unit in the Lyran Commonwealth. The game went public in 1991 and was opened before the battle system code was completed, partly because he wanted to have community involvement in creating the game, and partly because he had no other way of attracting talented coders. He had cut his MUSH/MUSE coding skills on TinyTim and thought it would be possible to soft-code the entire combat system. About six months into the project (the beginning of 1992), however, Bill realized that a hard-coded system would be required and began working on it with the help of two talented coders ('''Hound''' and '''Shroom'''). However, in late 1992 several factional disagreements began to sour the development efforts and then he found out that the computer system that had been hosting the game would no longer be available. He found a willing host who also wanted to take over the entire project. In early 1993 the project moved to a Canadian host and, unfortunately, passed away not long after that.

===Novel===
Bill has been working on a novel about his character, Joseph Clifford, for numerous years off and on. He hopes that within the next year he will have a version available for people to read, but he's been hoping that for many years now. He has, however, recently been working with his brother-in-law on his brother-in-law's novel and has been re-inspired to actually get something done. Time will tell. The novel takes place in 3025/3026, before the Fourth Succession War. He will look to describe the 12th Star Guards efforts during that conflict in future novels.

==Expertise==
Bill has played 3025/26 almost exclusively and therefore has a good understanding of the weapons and [[BattleMech|'Mechs]] of the Inner Sphere from that era. He also learned more than most of his friends about [[Jumpship|Jumpships]] and [[Dropship|Dropships]] of the era. As a result, he was extremely excited when the Inner Sphere planetary map systems came out. Bill has all of the House books from that era, the ''Dropships and Jumpships'' book, the ''Mercenary's Handbook'', and several of the ''Technical Readout'' source books.

==Projects==
Since most of the other members are doing a great job with the [[BattleMech|BattleMechs]] and such, Bill has a couple of areas that he's focusing on for contributions.
*Vehicles from 3026
*Personal Equipment from 3026
*Background data, especially pre-[[Fourth Succession War]]
**Providing Planetary Data
***<strike>Davion</strike>
***Steiner
***Kurita
***Marik
***Liao
**House Books from 3025 era
***<strike>[[House Davion Sourcebook|Davion]]</strike>
***<strike>[[House Steiner Sourcebook|Steiner]]</strike>
***[[House Kurita Sourcebook|Kurita]]
***[[House Marik Sourcebook|Marik]]
***<strike>[[House Liao Sourcebook|Liao]]</strike>
*Cleaning up vandalism (becoming more of a full-time job now)

Generally, he looks forward to providing copy editing for the articles and adding a lot of the background information, especially as it pertains to the Third and Fourth Succession Wars. He leaves the Clans and Dark Age stuff to those who know it far better than he does.

==Contributions==
*For a complete list of my contributions... ''[http://www.sarna.net/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=bdevoe click here]''.
*For a count of my edits... ''[http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate?username=bdevoe&site=www.sarna.net click here].

==Contact Information==
Email: 
* Home: bdevoe at ottovon dot com

[[User:Bdevoe|Bill]] 21:22, 26 July 2009 (UTC)