In 2004, Ziets was hired at
Turbine, Inc. and was credited as a designer on
Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (
LOTRO) and
Dungeons & Dragons Online (
DDO). Ziets relocated to southern California in 2006 to become a designer at
Obsidian Entertainment. He was recruited during development of
Neverwinter Nights 2, and after the game shipped he was promoted to Creative Lead on the first
Neverwinter Night 2 expansion,
Mask of the Betrayer (
MotB). Ziets was responsible for
MotBs overall creative vision, including characters and story.
MotB shipped in 2007 and received mostly positive reviews, winning praise for its story and narrative elements. Ziets left Obsidian in 2008 and spent a year at
ZeniMax Online Studios, but he returned to Obsidian in 2009 to serve as Creative Lead on
Dungeon Siege 3 and its expansion,
Dungeon Siege 3: Treasures of the Sun. He expanded the fictional canon of the
Dungeon Siege world, producing a 100-page sourcebook that was used as source material by the development team. At some point during the development of
Dungeon Siege 3, Ziets also contributed to the writing of
Fallout: New Vegas. In 2011, he shared a
WGA nomination for Best Videogame Writing with the
Fallout: New Vegas writing team and attended the 2011 Writers Guild Awards in Los Angeles. He left Obsidian after a project got cancelled in 2012, however he returned soon after as a freelance writer on
Pillars of Eternity. In March 2013 it was announced that Ziets would join the writing team at
inXile on
Torment: Tides of Numenera, and he later joined inXile as a full-time employee in April 2014. Ziets left inXile in July 2019 to found his own studio, Digimancy Entertainment. ==References==