alanschu

What school offers a specific "Computer Games Programming" degree? Speed has always been a large priority in my CS program. So much so that you actually lose marks on projects if they don't run fast enough. The situation was emphasized even more in my AI courses, particularly because the course teaches you about heuristics, and wants you to use the heuristics to speed up your search. Getting the correct result in the end was essential, but if you did it too slowly, you lost marks. We also have courses designed specifically around 3D graphics applications. The most recent project that course had was to actually build an FPS style game. It seems as though it may be more of a "your mileage may vary" when dealing with CS degrees from a variety of schools. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In any case, for the original poster, from what I have heard directly from John Buchanan, the University Liaison for Electronic arts, is that most "computer game programming" schools are, to quote, "garbage." He did mention the odd exception, and while I don't remember which one exactly, he did state that it had a Masters program. So maybe it is DigiPen. Their experience was that for the most part, students from these schools did not perform as well as students with "just" a standard CS degree. At the same time, he also mentioned that Electronic Arts has significantly higher standards for applicants coming out with a Graduate Degree rather than as an Undergraduate degree. If they don't consider you to be an expert in whatever field you choose (Computer Game Programming seems a little vague. You'll likely need to narrow it down a bit to have an idea on what you'd want your thesis to be about), you would not be hired. The reasoning behind this is that if you weren't an expert, you didn't spend your time effectively enough while going for your degree. Having said that, if you do well in getting your Masters, you probably will be an expert. Just don't necessarily expect an advantage in getting hired over an applicant with just a BSc because you have an MSc. Especially considering applicants with just a BSc are typically willing to work for a lower wage. Again, it may be a "your mileage may vary" depending on the game company.

Don't worry too much about the language that you are learning in. Java is a little more straight forward of a language to learn, partly because they take care of a lot of things for you and have more failsafes to prevent stuff like memory leaks. The first few courses you'll take will be to just get you familiar with programming methodology. Learning how to program though, goes beyond just knowing the syntax of whatever programming language you learn to use. My data structures course was taught in Java, but it doesn't mean that I can't take what I had learned from that course and apply its principles in C++ (or any other language). Learning a programming language is relatively easy. Learning how to program (and program well) is much more difficult, and transcends any language. As for Java, the entire structure was based heavily on C++, as their goal was to get C++ programmers to move to Java. You'll learn little things later about pointers and whatnot, but making a transition from Java to C++ is really not that hard at all. And the only real transition you'll make will be syntax. Learning how to implement the programming ideas that you learn requires no transition. You just need to learn the syntax to get the program to do what you want it to do.

I didn't find enemies any harder to kill.

Out of the 4 endings I played, I still prefer the epilogue of the "solo" ending the most. Anarch's is very similar, but a bit different naturally. The Camarilla and Kuei-Jin endings certainly aren't your typical endings.

I really enjoyed the game. As for people finding it too easy because you can run through MG fire...play on a harder difficulty setting.

Just harass some OE poster here until he gets nervous breakdown and he

AFAIK you don't install your games onto the Hard Drive (excepting demos), so 11 GB is still a lot of room too.

Exactly. If OpenGL was superior to DirectX, OpenGL would be used. Kind of like how OpenGL (and Glide) were much more popular back in the day.

20 GB is plenty of space. It's those 0 GB systems that got the shaft. Developers tend to develop to the lowest common denominator, sooo....

Is it? People have long since not bothered with the Macintosh as a gaming machine, and Linux isn't exactly winning over anyone that isn't a geek in terms of usage.

Sorry...I haven't played that one.

What about if you ignore upgrades that become obsolete?

Is it still bad when the proprietary format is free to use? Glide required licensing, and was limited to a single company. Microsoft works with game developers and card manufacturers with DirectX. It's come a long way since the Direct3D days. Obviously Microsoft is doing something right with DirectX, otherwise companies would just continue to use OpenGL.

I want verbose impressions afterwards. Planning on getting the xpac? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I like it so far, even if I still suck at the game. I always end up ignoring military research and naturally it comes back to bite me in the ass. I used a converter to export my EU2 game into it, which makes for an interesting layout. Really ahistorical naturally. Austria is huuuuuuuuge. Though it's entirely possible for some goods to not even be manufacturable, given that the industry generation is random, based on production size and the existence of manufactories and whatnot. Victoria seems to be a much larger focus on economics than any other Paradox game. I'm looking forward to the expansion as well. Seems as though it's coming WITH a converter to HOI2: Doomsday. Should be interesting.

The same reason why people buy dual-graphics cards to run in SLI.

I can hardly wait for the waves of T-34s you're bound to get. Though I don't think they're technically available yet, timeline wise. It was funny, because one of my units identified one of your BT-7 tanks as a "T-34?" at one point. I was confused as to how the heck he would even know what a T-34 is! Next thing you know he'll be thinking the tanks are IS-2s or something silly.

I wonder if Volo would even bother posting if there weren't Edmonton fans' buttons to push on these boards.

Yeah. Remarkably addictive. I haven't played Football Manager, but I have played Eastside Hockey Manager.

Heather changed, as in talking like a Malkavian? That is because she consumed the blood of one, she may not get deranged like a Malkavian but she will get close to it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't remember that.

I just got Victoria.

The biggest boondoggle IMO is the HDD situation. Some have it, some don't. Boo-urns.

I think specialist is the one just below silent assassin.

What tech is it based on?

So you're saying that the simplest explanation isn't that Al-Quaeda just decided to crash a plane into the side, but that the US government was involved in some way? Certainly seems much more simple.