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TentamusDarkblade
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Posts posted by TentamusDarkblade
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Tree frog on my chest - I got it while in Australia and its a permament reminder of life at that point.
Dragon on my right shoulder - Got this one when i turned 14. It was one of the few times i really got along with my step-dad when i was younger.
Tattoos are living reminders of where you've been. They don't have to signify your interests now or have any deep symbolism, they just offer a glimpse of who/where you were when you got it. I think of them as character defining moments that just happen to be displayable.
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what...you make them bare-knuckle box till just the last ones standing?
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i got my picture taken with Bruce Campbell at a booksigning he did, plus i got a couple posters and his book signed.
I got my new Dune books signed by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson and i got to make them un-comfortable by asking about how they felt taking the original Dune series in a more action oriented direction.
I got to meet Danny devito, Kathleen Turner, and Michael Douglas when they were filming War of the Roses. They came into my folks video store and signed a bunch of video cassettes and posters.
Myself and a couple other guys at Monolith got a private showing of the Half-life 2 video at this years E3 by Gabe Newell himself. It was pretty cool.
I got to meet Greg Rucka at a booksigning event he did here in seattle. Anyone who doesn't know who he is needs to pick up one of his books or go read some of the issues of Batman that he did.
I own one of the keys to the alamo. It's got a plaque and everything.
My wife is an amazing book hunting ninja. She can walk into a used book store, find a rare advanced reader copy woth $500, and walk out only spending a buck. It's mystifying.
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d'oh, you're right...i looked it up and seattle proper ranks somewhere in the middle. It isn't up there with San fran, New York, or Hawaii.
The point still stands that you can start at the bottom and work you're way up without that much of a financial sacrifice. I play games for a living and my wife stays home and keeps everything running smoothly. If the cost of living were more, then she'd go back to work. But at no point would i be suffering because i want to work in games.
If people want to spot a downside to working in the games industry they could easily point at the insanely long hours, the fickle nature of "Game fans", or the attrition rate of studios.
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i started doing contract text work, making roughly 20K a year. Last lasted about 6 months. I've steadily moved up the test ladder over the last 3 years and now i'm at 35K a year, which keeps both my wife and I comfortable. I'm not sure about the figures, but i think the Seattle area is in the top 5 most expensive places to live in the states.
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not totally true. I'm working towards a design position by going through QA. I haven't had to sacrifice anything. I make enough to not only support myself and my wife, but to keep us in a beautiful apartment overlooking puget sound.
The whole "starving artist" thing is pretty much hype. Sure, you won't get rich this way, but if you're in it for the money then you don't belong anyway. There is no reason why you can't be comfortable while pursuing a career in design.
Your other points are solid though. Create mods, do some writing, have something to show you can do the job. The best way to get into design is to design something and be able to show it to someone. The best way to show someone is to already be part of the company.
And for the folks who are considering the "game design" courses at a local collage, be prepared to not get hired once you get that degree. They're good for teaching you the fundamentals of design, making contacts, and creating a body of work to show you can do it....but these are all things you can get by interning or getting a QA job and doing alittle reading on your own time.
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crazy!...and you're moving up into the design world of Monolith?
yeah, i just got to do some NPC dialog write ups for our mission system and some NPCs descriptions for the Story bible. I'm hoping for a shot at a junior design position when one comes open in Dec/Jan.
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i was 21 and had just got out of the army when i started being a part of the BIS boards. I got my first testing gig when i was 22 and i'm 25 now.
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it's kinda funny, but i basically got my start on the Black isle forums. I got interested in Icewind dale 2 and got involved with a fansite with other board members. I got to know Damien Folletto and Tex Yang from BIS and they helped direct me to get into the industry.
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i was with the xbox cert team for a bit, then i worked at MS on teh Fable project, now i work at Monolith productions on the Matrix Online project.
Monolith is awesome. I work with designers i've grown up reading and playing there games, so it's pretty surreal
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yeah, i've been in QA for 3 years and now i'm starting to transition over to design. That's where most of my advice has come from for ya, not my guesses...what's worked for me so far to get here.
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i found a template that Chris Taylor made. It's pretty good and it details what needs to be used. I used this template for my first design.
Now i use my own format, which is an amalgamation of Taylor's and other design doc's i've seen. One of the huge perks for working at a game studio is the access to design docs in progress, so you can see how they're formed.
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do you use a template format or one of your own making?
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priceless... about the only thing you really learn in highschool is social skills..... I didn't even go to highschool more than half the time my first three years,...
Ah... now I'm beginning to understand.
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also, I'd recommend just straight out designing stuff. Write write write.
I've written a couple design docs just to get the feeling down on how to format them, what to include, etc. Mostly they're just great mental exercise about getting an idea and following it through to it's completion...then tearing it apart for balancing, fun factor, and technology limitations
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I'd recommend classes on
creative and technical writing
Sociology, phsychology, or philosophy (gives you good insight into character creation and player mindsets/reactions)
History (best stories already happened, look into them)
Excel and Word classes
I'd also suggest playing with scripting tools and become familiar with learning new scripting languages. It helps when learning new tools used in design.
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i'm sorry, but his portraits - for a CRPG - suck. He puts too much character in the portrait, not leaving alot of room for the player to impose his idea of the character into the portrait. I have that gripe with all of the IWD 1 and 2 portraits.
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a design credit in either Pen and Paper or in games. Some folks get it though mods, but they're generally massively successful mods.
It's a catch 22...you have to be a designer to become a designer.
Internships or side stepping into the role is a good way to get into a jr. design position. I'd recommend the side-step method, because it gives you a better exposure to alot more elements of game creation (plus the interns i work with do all the crap database work)
Hope that helps
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wait...you mean that doesn't work?
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are you kidding...anyone who's been a regular around the BIS crew must have the patience of a saint. I mean, who else could put up with years of Gromnir's orc-speak, Visc's doom-predictions, you ever-popular anti-whining spam, and the other assorted loose nuts eccentric qualities :D
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i found a 10 dollar copy at Walmart. Generally, i say screw walmart and don't shop there...but it seems to be the only retail outlet still carrying it.
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no no...i'm harmless. If i haven't killed Visc after all these years then i'd say any murderous desires i might have are well controlled.
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whats this "would-be" crap
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i want his head on a Pike.
He's butchered episode 1 and 2, and is poised to do the same thing again with 3. Somebody needs to stop him before it's too late....
How do you become a producer
in Developers' Corner
Posted
the best producer i've ever worked with worked in QA and in design before taking on the Producer hat. He has such a solid grasp of the importance of solid design and having a great test team that it just makes the whole process remarkably easy to be a part of.