Bio

Brent Knowles is a writer, programmer, and game designer.

He has been living in Edmonton, Alberta for the last ten years, and is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s computer science program. He worked at the role-playing game studio BioWare for ten years (Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age), during most of which he was a Lead Designer/Creative Director.

Now he writes full time.

He has been published in a variety of magazines including Neo-Opsis, On Spec, and Tales of the Talisman.

In 2009 Brent placed first in the third quarter of the Writer’s of the Future Contest with his story ‘Digital Rights’.

Read here for a bit more about Brent.

You can read reprints of Brent’s stories at Amazon, Smashwords, and AnthologyBuilder.
You can contact Brent via Twitter, Empire Avenue, or through his contact page.

Free Story Reprints
“The Prophet” Amazon or Smashwords (Kobo, Sony, iTunes, Nook)
“The Monastery” Smashwords (Kobo, Sony, iTunes, Nook)

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  • Pingback: Everything you need to know about Brent (not really) – Brent Knowles

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1271917602 Becca Betty

    Please, please, come back to game designing!!!!! 

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  • http://blog.brentknowles.com Brent Knowles

    Oh, maybe one day. Thanks :)

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  • Michael Davis

    Thank you for NeverWinter Knights.  I completed that game 4 times.  And DAO I. 

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  • http://blog.brentknowles.com Brent Knowles

    Glad you enjoyed them Michael! Happy Gaming!

    - Brent

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000797032516 Michael Morris

    If you ever do pick up game design again, I hope you can reverse the trend of over-simplifying RPG games.

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  • http://blog.brentknowles.com Brent Knowles

    Sadly I’m not that ambitious :)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000797032516 Michael Morris

    That seems to be a common attitude in the industry these days.

    I do hope you find much success with your writing, however :D

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  • http://blog.brentknowles.com Brent Knowles

    Thanks!

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  • Alderon

    Baldur’s Gate remains the greatest single player RPG experience I’ve ever had, easily rivaling best-selling novels in term of escapism and wonder.

    If you had a hand in that then you sir, are my hero. Though after playing a bit of SW:ToR I can see why you left…

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  • http://blog.brentknowles.com Brent Knowles

    Thanks. I worked on Baldur’s Gate 2, so I can’t take any credit for the first (and really, not much for the second since I was just a junior guy… though a couple of my plots did make it into the game).

    I’m curious about your SW:ToR comment. I don’t play MMORPGs so I have not seen the final game but I was enjoying the in-progress version of it I tested a bit while I was still with BioWare.

    Curious about what specifically you don’t like about SW:Tor?

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  • Alderon

    It’s incredibly bland. I talked about how the Baldur’s Gate series gave me a sense of escapism and wonder which to this day they still have the power to invoke. Dragon Age also did this, albeit to a lesser extent in my personal opinion, but the point is, I still felt like a hero on a grand adventure.

    SW: ToR feels… empty. Meaningless. The voice-acting was hailed as a momentous break through in the genre but I really didn’t feel that the actual writing was up to par. Every time was a variation on “kill these droids.” And at the end of my personal quest line? The game had nothing left to give, the multiplayer aspects just weren’t up to the standard of other games in the industry.

    Again, this is all my opinion and others will vehemently disagree with me. But gone are the golden days of Bioware in my eyes. They need to recapture the magic of taking their consumers on an adventure to another world. This involves high quality writing, musical score, environment art and memorable characters. Baldur’s Gate had all of these, SW:ToR had none.

    Out of curiousity, which of your plots made it into the final BG2 cut?

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  • http://blog.brentknowles.com Brent Knowles

    Thanks for your insights. Hard for me to comment since I have not played the final game but the points you raise are generally why I avoid MMORPGs — very hard to feel like *the hero* when there are a few million other heroes running around.

     As for the BG2 plots most of my involvement was rather limited but a story I had written and submitted as part of my application was added onto the  ‘serial killer’ plot (the skin dancers). As well I did some writing for the Planar Sphere.

    In general most of my work was simply assembling the rather complex plots the writers came up with (I’m looking at your Mr. Gaider and your Drow City) and making them actually feasible. I also got to flesh out the dungeon under the Copper Coronet and a few other empty locations with various encounters.

    I’m sure there’s more but its been years since I’ve really went back to it.

    Thanks again and take care.
    -Brent

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  • Alderon

    Thank you for responding. Wish you all the best in future projects.

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