The Sad, Lonely Life of a Trash Mob Designer

It's 7:43pm on a Friday and Michael Ohara is still hard at work in his office. To even call it an office is a stretch. Three nineteen inch monitors take up the majority of his six square foot desk that is only separated from the outside world by a single four and a half foot partition. His workspace is in the farthest corner of the lowest sublevel of his company's satellite building, a brisk twelve minute walk from the parking garage. For the entirety of his eleven year career, Michael Ohara has been a trash mob designer.

Trash mob designers are responsible for Molten Giants
and the six billion other trash mobs in Molten Core

Trash mobs, or spawns as Ohara prefers to call them, have been around as long as MMOs. The original purpose of these NPCs was to add life, vibrancy, and longevity to a game's boss encounters. Seen as an essential part of the PvE experience, they can be seen in just about every dungeon, adventure, and instance that a boss is present. "I really love the variety of content I get to create. One morning I am working on a level fifty nightworm that protects the keeper of the eastern swamps and by the afternoon I have moved on to a level fifty one nightworm who blocks the entrance to the northern swamps. My work is experienced by more players than most of what is done here in the office. Regardless of if you are on a raid, running quests, or just trying to mind your own business, you can't avoid spawns, which to me makes all of the long hours worthwhile."

Michael Ohara's cubicle, as seen in "Western Cubicle &
Animal Storage Emporium Catalog" (3 wall model shown)

Unfortunately for Ohara and his team, trash mob design is not all glitz and glamour. Around the office, they are treated much like the in-game ceatures of their creation. Karl Oberland is a dungeon designer who often questions the need for people like Ohara, "Are these trashcans even worth the hassle? All they do is take up space and take away from the content we bossmen are trying to create." On more than one occasion, claims Oberland, office parties have canceled due to the trash mob design team. "We had a birthday cake for one of our lead devs, but since the trashchans' desks are closest to the break room, they were first to arrive. If anyone wanted a piece of cake, they had to get through them first. After almost an hour of trying, the lead dev called it and we just went back to work."

Outside of the office is no different. Rarely are the likes of Ohara and his team invited to social gatherings such as trivia at the local pub or joining the company kickball team. They are ignored, left to toil away at their desks while the others are off journeying across the world on adventures that will be told at water coolers for years to come. The developers and other content creators have even gone so far as to attempt to rearrange the office so no one has to engage with the trash mob designers unless they want to. "We have tried to come up with ways to get to meetings without being hounded by them," Oberland says, "but no matter where we put them or how we try to reach the conference room, we get pulled into talking to at least one of them. Yes, we've seen the change you made to the mob's spear handle. No, we don't think having each piece of trash have a three second stun on a four second cooldown is a good idea."

Undeterred, Michael Ohara believes his work is meaningful and will continue to try and earn the respect of his co-workers despite it being an uphill battle. "Do you know what the slang term was before they were called 'trash mobs' before?" Ohara asks, leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling with a single tear cascading down his cheek. "Neither do I... neither do I."