olop the dwarf

Ah, now the mystery is unraveling. Won't be much to figure out in season 2.

What about the fact that she also confirmed that "their are no monsters on the island"? And what about the other 16 holes of the golf course? What happened to them?

That's the cool part. It seems like every episode so far, there is this obvious thing they need to accomplish, which intermingles with some personal secret backstory or some facinating new item. It's pretty cool.

Yeah I thought that was pretty funny too. If your codes not getting stolen, you must not have a good game!

**SPOILERS** A woman was drowning and Jack went to save her. While swimming he discovered, that "goodie-goodie" kid, trying to save the woman as well. Since Goodie was drowning, Jack took him to shore, in hopes to save the woman on a return trip. No such luck, she died. He realized he had never spoken to her (maybe that's because she was going to die in episode 4!) Mr. Goodie was pissed and blamed Jack for trying to be the leader and thinking he was all that. It was obvious Mr. Goodie was jealous and wanted to be cool like Jack. Hurley, the fat guy and Dom (LOTR guy) told Jack they were almost out of water and decided to hide the water from the group. Locke went off to find more water. In the mean time, distraught for not saving the girl, Jack keeps seeing the man in the suit. Of course no one else sees him. He keeps having flashbacks of being a child and disagreements with his dad. While Jack takes up noble causes, like defending his friends from bullies, despite being pummeled himself, his father insists that Jack needs to just give that up. That peopel die, things happen and just let it role. His mother, in the mean time blames Jack for not being understanding of the stresses in his father's life (his father is a chief doctor of some hospital or something). You find out that Jack was going to Australia to find his father, who seemed to be on a bender. Well it seems the man in the suit is his dad so, He goes chasing after him only to almost fall off a cliff (preview from last week). Locke of course, comes out of no where to save him. When asked what he was doing, Jack explains he's going crazy. Locke suggests he's not going crazy, crazy people don't know they are going crazy. Instead, Locke explains that the island is magical. Locke also suggests that Jack accept the role of leader, since everyone treats him as such, despite Jack's insecurities on the matter. But first, Locke tells him, you must find what you are searching for. So Jack goes back to looking for his dad, only to find a cave tunnel to fresh water. Along side the fresh water is plane wreckage and a coffin. See, Jack's dad died in Australia and he was trying to get his body back for a funeral and the personal closure. Feeling releived, that seems, in a twisted way were making sense, Jack opens the coffin only to discover it empty. Crap on a stick. Back at camp, the pregnant woman fell down. In the process of taking care of her, they realize someone stole the water. Hurley finds out the Asians have water. They go to beat them up, only to find they got it from the redneck. They follow him to his secret jungle stash, in the hopes of beating him up, but he has no water either. He had traded the last of histo the Asians, but he didn't steal it. The Mr. Goodie is found trying to sneak the pregnant girl some water. So the troup realizes he stole it and decide to kick the crap out of him. Jack returns. He tells them, "Quit fighting. We got to work together. Nobody is coming. I found some water, we'll get it next episode." In the preview for the upcoming episode, the Asian guy gets handcuffed to some wreckage and the guy from matrix 2 tries to hit him with an axe. Don't miss it. I love this show. ** END SPOILERS **

So I'm looking at development and I see alot of people without degrees. Especially in my chosen area, design and production. Progammers and artists seem to more often have degrees, but in their obvious profession, Computer Science or Art. As far as designers and producers, it seems that everyone I run into started some college and then...(enter story about how college doesn't mean anything). A few have degrees, in history or english. And then the occassional random person has random degree (Heh. You know, like Bioware). Now, I received my BA and I am considering an MBA program. Here are my pros and cons: PROS As a aspiring producer, understanding business and project management, law and ethics, marketing, etc. seems to be a pretty good idea. Especially if I succeed, since success seems to lead to one of two directions: becoming the head of a division at a successful publisher or starting a development company. More and more companies are requiring or preferring degrees. The BA helps, but the MBA may put me over the top in a competitve market. Higher profile companies may allow me in the door where they wouldn't before, just because I have an MBA. CONS It takes time and money. The money is between 20k and 60k and the programs take 2-3 years. I would be attending a "fully-employed" program which would assume I was working full time for a game company, but "fully-employed" would not necessarily recognize the unique challenges of "crunch time". I could potentially throw my money away, by not having the time necessary to meet the requirements of the program or not meet the demands of my employer, limiting my chance of promotion or worse be terminated. With an MBA I may end up pricing myself right out of a job. I may intimidate a developer, walking in the door with a shiny MBA badge. They would assume I thought I was the shizzle or that I was a college dweebie with no real understanding of games. Thoughts and opinions? Other pros and cons?

You sound a lot like me, with the exception, you actually like programming. I taught myself programming when I was ten and wasn't offered anything challenging until college. And there, I was talked out of taking a CS degree because you didn't work in C until year 3 which seemed like a waste.(Also, very few hot chicks in the department and that seemed like a reasonable priority at the time) I spent alot of time doing web development starting in 91 so I've worked in a ton of languages, other than C. And it has really helped as many of those languages have been incorporated or replicated as scripting languages. As for teaching yourself, it's always best to keep a goal in mind. Identify a solution that needs to be met and decide how to approach it. It sounds like you are already doing that with your NWN stuff. Not having a degree definitely makes it tougher to move to being an actual programmer, because self taught does miss out on opportunity for some basic mental cheat sheets when problems arise. Also the big difficulty is standards. If you are self-taught, you don't always do things the "right way" as for formating or mem management, etc. You might do what works for you. And that is tough, as even small teams now have multiple people working on the same code bits. You can make it as a programmer without a degree, probably starting out as a scriptor somewhere and moving up as opportunities permit. It is tougher though, and in the fast paced competitive game industry, it may pay off to take some night classes and get some sort of degree. But it sounds like you got your head in the game, your a doer, and you've actually got some things done, which is more than most aspiring game developers do. So hang in there, your shot is bound to appear. And nail it when you get it! That's just my two cents.

Who's your favorite character? I love the big guy, Jorge Garcia. When he faints over the blood. And when he turns down the raw fish, that was classic. I'm also a big Harold Piraneau fan. Loved him in Romeo and Juliet, Oz and was the best part of Matrix 2 and 3.

I wasn't, everyone else was. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, it was just me. Having lived in Southern California and having had friends live in the San Francisco area, and considered relocating to Chicago and priced cost of living, and found it would be difficult to imagine supporting a family on 35k in those areas. It is certianly a fair assessment of my money situation, to say I'm not very good at it. Aside from that, entry level designers should be looking at a budget somewhere between 30-40k to start, with some sort of warm up period, either as an intern, QA or other job mentioned. Check the cost of living in the area and with your family, to ensure that you can support your lifestyle within that budget.

Well, I guess it depends where you live. Entry-level salary (from Game Developer Magazine) for a designer is 33-40k a year. In Puget Sound maybe you can support your wife on that. In Southern or Northern California that's practically impossible. And considering, that most people starting out needing to show "tangible" evidence of skill. They are probably going to need to put in 6 months of work doing something else, interning, mod development for free, or QA. QA is interesting because it tends to be hourly and if you are smart with your money you can make alot with overtime. But personally, I like sleep

Honestly, I think it's cool so many people on these boards are concerned about writing. But seriously, when was the last truly great game story? I can't think of one. The story in KOTOR I loved. I mean I thought it was great. As far as actual literature goes, it was just Oedipus Rex. In fact, most good stories tend to be rip-offs of some classic. Maybe that's why they want literature majors. It's not the writer's fault, but game fans don't really want a complex story, because complex story often takes away from the action. As for who comes up with it, my observation has been, it's a team effort. Producers, big shots, visionaries, get the discussion going, game designers/writers pick up the ball, level designers smooth it into a playable game. As for shoving producers back into a hole, some developers can. ID. Bioware. Maybe a few others. But the bottom line, the producer has to way, the number of dollars generated from being a unique game versus the cost it will take to reach that vision and the risk that uniqueness may impact the market place. So take my current favorite game to rip on Fable, it was pushed out before it met the unique requirements it set for itself. Alot of people would sit back and say, "Stupid publisher/producer/distributor making them ship the game before it was done". But they had four years to develop it and they were just WAY to ambitious. They should have had an earlier vision meeting and started cutting some of those ideas. But the bottom line, someone pitches and idea, it's greenlighted and the story roles down through the filters of development from there.

Getting into design, is probably the hardest of the development areas (programming, art, design) because there just isn't an easy way to gauge the talent in a prospect and compare them to others. That combined with the fact that there is no shortage of people who want to be designers. So as a prospective designer, you need to do everything short of painting yourself yellow and dancing naked in front of the developer's office to get noticed. Ask anyone in the game industry and they will tell you, when someone finds out they are in the game industry, the next statement is "oh, I got this great idea for a game, this guy is attacked by an army of SPAM, it's a first person shooter, like GTA, but will be cooler because you'll be able to fly into outer space and play with all your friends even if they don't have the game or you don't have any friends!" The truth is, getting your foot in the door is the first step. Get a QA gig, get a scripting gig, get an art gig, get a programming gig, get a systems admin gig, a forum moderator gig. Whatever your skill set is, use it to get a game gig. Then start angling for the design position. If you are looking for FPS games, be a modder. If you are looking for RPG games, make sure you have strong writing skills. Demonstrate that you have the gumption to put in long hours for no pay. That's the other thing, I have a friend who would be a great game designer. Yet, he has no experience, a wife and a house. He will never be a game designer, because he can't sacrifice his style of living to get his foot in the door. It's really a shame, but it's the truth. For game designers, you are going to have to sacrifice money and/or time to get a position. Make mods to show your creativity and your ability to complete a project. Be sure you have stong writing skills and diverse background. Depending on the company, they may require you do ALOT more than write up some design documents. The more value you can bring the better. And lastly, have a positive attitude. If you work hard and have talent, you will find a place. It's like actors. There are a million of people that want to be actors. Only a few are willing to work hard enough and have the talent to actually make it. Olop

carnival clown midgets vs. romanian female gymnastics team

Can't you have a little carnival style, "tall-thin gungan" shooting range? I would play it for hours! If not that, what about an R2-D2 mole-thumping game?

Chris Avellone is by far my absolute favorite game designer/writer of all time. I will buy every game he ever creates and I hope some day to be as good as just a strand of hair on his head. Other than that, "writing" of the script in the game industry really depends on the game and the developer. The initial seed is probably going to come from the guy with the money and end up in some vision doc. Probably a page or two. From there, an RPG may be scripted out in length, or again, may be summerized by area and then broken up into groups of writers. In general, it's a very living document during the lifetime of the project. Much more similar to television sitcom writing than film writing, if you are familiar with those types of professional writing. In general, it's going to be written, put in place, tweaked to work, retweaked as various elements come together and then rewritten. And after that, someone is going to look at it, say it's crap and have some other guy rewrite it. At least that's what I've heard.

Look at the studios that do sound in your favorite games and try to contact them. Also, you may want to mention you are interested in doing other sound related things outside of music, such as editing and soudn efx. If you are good/popular enough, they will find you. Otherwise, your going to need to send alot of demo tapes or better yet, provide stuff on the web.