Terry Alan Davis, Jr. Interview: Live the Legend

Hello guys, and welcome to my blog's first ever interview! The person who was kind enough to let me conduct this interview is Terry Alan Davis, Jr., the creator of Jurassic Park Legacy. I know what you might be thinking, "But David Orr already interviewed Terry about JPL." Well, this interview is going to be a little different from the LITC one, in that it focuses on a specific aspect of JPL, and that is Live the Legend, a text-based role playing game hosted by the site. I'd explain it further, but that's what this interview is for. Enjoy!

Me: First off, for those who don't know, what is Live the Legend?

Terry: Live the Legend is a text-based RPG that was started in about 2004/2005 about what it would be like to play a dinosaur in the Jurassic Park universe. It was actually originally a "Dragon RPG" planned by Jeff Venancio, T-Rex_Master as such. I liked the idea and a previously established "Free-Roaming Dinosaurs" text-based RPG existed. We merged the concepts, created the territories, and there you have it. We wanted something within the film-canon though and even serve as a supplement, an expansion to the storyline.

Me: What do the players do in LtL?

Terry: Players play on a variety of three different islands and the mainland from the continuity. Isla Sorna (Site B), Azores [now renamed Isla Lagarto] (The abandoned JP:Europe park), Isla Nublar (a recovering ecological ecosystem), and the mainland (Costa Rican Village). Players can choose to play as a dinosaur and live life essentially like the dinosaurs did in the films. I've always envisioned LtL as a Walking with Dinosaurs spin on the Jurassic Park franchise. Generally though you play as a dinosaur where your main focus is survival and you sort of create your own story while reacting toward GM events such as weather, human interference, or the beast known as Rancor an animal from the Jurassic Park Chaos Effect property.

Me: What are some of the species players can play as?

Terry: Players can play as a wide arrange of animals and such. Mostly you play as dinosaurs - essentially the ones in the films you see, but other possibilities have opened after time as with Isla Muerta where you can play as now Cenozoic and Paleozoic life forms. Eventually we plan on bridging another gap in the canon to include Chaos Effect animals.

Me: Can you tell us a bit about your characters?

Terry: Sure, I've played a lot of characters so far in the game. There's my first character, Solitaire. He's a Tyrannosaurus and among the first to be cloned on the island. His mate was the Tyrannosaurus you see in the first film - their offspring is also the female that you see from The Lost World. This technically isn't canon, but I liked the idea of there being this huge T.rex that is the parent and mate of the ones we see in the films. He's kind of the protagonist/hero of the RPG. Something that hunts within the laws of the jungle. I kind of give Solitaire a rule of nobility despite his huge size. His size is what drew me to now making him a Sauropod hunter.

Then we have Alouqua, Alouqua is a "Velociraptor" or Deinonychus from a secret inGen/US Military venture to create basically "intelligent Raptors for war" a bit of a stretch on the imagination. This works into our eventual Chaos Effect story line trying to fit that into a realistic universe setting.

Now Rancor, Rancor is also from that Chaos Effect storyline and he's an Ultimasaurus, which if you don't know what that is exactly then it's basically a Tyrannosaurus body plan with Ceratopsian and Thyreophora features along with sickle claws on the feet. His temperament is the exact opposite of Solitaire and it draws them into confrontation quite often. He's been deemed the "Icon of Sin" by the staff due to how he just is generally antagonistic in his relationship to the island.

I have Praxia a Triceratops and I used to have a Centrosaurus named Gluskab. Then I have my human characters I'm figuring out for Jurassic Trackers when we bring humans to the island.

Me: Who are some of your favorite characters, aside from your own?

Terry: I actually liked Noose, a Carnotaurus played by Veritas. Giggles, if he reads this is going to rub it in my face, but I kind of like Red Fang [a Giganotosaurus]. I've enjoyed Rick [a human stranded on Isla Sorna], Nezbit [a raptor of the JP3 variety], and Sanguis [a raptor of the same type as Aloqua]. In truth everybody spends a lot of time with their characters and developing them. I even liked TyAe's characters and was sad to cull them per policy. I'd love to find a way to bring him and his characters back to the LtL game personally.

Me: How has LtL changed since its original inception?

Terry: LtL has expanded for one. It was actually a one thread-one island deal that expanded to multiple territories interacting with one another. It's gone from that now to the multiple playable islands it has now with the Azores, Nublar, the Five Deaths, the Costa Rican Mainland, some aspects of the mainland, and a few other locations being tossed in later in game. It's a constantly evolving game. Personally I'd love to see LtL evolve from a text game at some point to 3D engaging world where it plays similar to WoW in some aspects, but different objectives of course.

Me: Well, thanks a lot for doing this interview. Is there anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?

Terry: No problem. As for anything else please be sure to join up on the site!