TentamusDarkblade

Thanks I bought it so i could start modding, kinda getting inspired by you and the fanout crew (yup, even volourn).

come on visc, i know deep down there is a touchy feely huggy person just dying to bust loose I looked at doing a 7.1 system, but with my gaming style and my apartment setup, i figured that i wouldn't get to really enjoy the positional audio. So i went with loud instead.

how so?

how about a hug...i'll trade you a hug for "Spies like us"

oh, the joy of basking in the love of fellow forum regulars :D

I've finally got myself a good computer. AMD Athlon 64 3400+ ASUS K8VSE-DLX mobo 2 x 512 Kingston ddr400 RAM Seagate 200GB SATA 7200RPM 8MB hard drive ATI Radeon 9800 pro 256MB Spiffy ANTEC run quiet case Klipsch Promedia 2.1 speakers Total = $1197 Next: 19" Acer LCD monitor Ok, just had to share...it's not as much fun getting new toys if you can't brag about it

My personal perfect game would be one that put horror, modern settings, and solid art and audio design together with a great CRPG team.

umm...3 sith lords? I thought there could only be 2 at any time, a Master and an apprentice.

why would you say yer whoefully underqualified to be in design? all it takes it the ability to use tools, a good creative mind, and solid gaming knowledge. The hardest part of becoming a designer is that most designer job opening require previous experience as a designer (good catch-22, you have to be a designer to become a designer). Most of the designers i know got there start in a different area, such as in QA or as an web designer and just slowly try to drift over to the design side

well, writing on a game depends on the type of game. A FPS or an RTS would most likely not even have a dedicated writer. A MMP would most likely have 2-3 dedicated writers, depending on how story driven it was. Same would go for RPGs i'd wager. I've only seen the staffing for a FPS and an MMP, so those are the only one's i can really comment on. I can say though that the parts you like of the story will generally be an amalgamation of a couple different writers. On the MMP i'm working on we have a couple writers. One is our lead writer, who is creating the arching storyline and the mini-story arches. We have our Content writer, who is filling in NPC dialogues for our mission specific NPCs and plot specific NPCs. Then we have the rest of the design staff, who all pitch in some writing. Like, the guy who creates the abilities systems also is doing the in-game descriptions and the text strings when the abilities are used. The mission designers are writing the mission descriptions, plotting the missions (using the details provided by the Lead story writer), and adding in random NPC comments and dialogues. Same would go for the item designers as well. So, the writing in a game comes from just about everyone involved with the design. The most story intensive games, such as RPGs or MMPs will have a dedicated Story writer, but most other games will just rely on the design staff to put the details in under the guidance of the creative director/lead designer.

well, i've been doing QA for 3 years now. I'll give ya a break down on how it's not "playing games for money" Currently i'm working on testing abilities. I use dev tools to add all abilities to a character and then use each one, in order, and verify every aspect of them: do they cost the correct amount to use, do they play the correct animation, do they play the correct effect, do they do the correct status effect/damage/healing/etc....ad nauseum. When i finish with that pass then i'll start over again. On previous projects i would actually spend days running around an empty (enemy-less) world just verifying collision on the navigation mesh. A couple folks get really lucky and end up working as critical path testers. They actually do get to paid to play games. They are the guys who runs through the game and makes sure that you can go from start to finish without dev tools. Those are the guys who can beat games in like 20 minutes and know every exploit out there. I critical path tested a couple titles, which is alot of fun (although if i ever have to play Deathrow on xbox again i'll die) QA is alot of fun, it gives you a chance to get your foot in the door in the industry, and you learn alot about the industry while doing it. But have no illusions, it is work, it does have it's days that suck to the eleventy billionth degree, and it usually doesn't pay much. Getting into it is also a challenge. It generally requires knowing someone or wandering into the right spot at the right time. If you live in the seattle area it's easier, since there are a couple temp agencies with contracts with Microsoft for both PC and Xbox testing and they do have positions for folks with no prior experience. I'm fairly sure that cali has similiar temp agencies and i'd wager taht Austin and Vancouver both have something or will have something like that soon.

Roughly how big is obsidian now? I know alot of smaller dev houses that have at least 2-3 QA testers/engineers on staff to do spot checking and fix checking. It wouldn't be crazy for obsidian to have folks like that in the future. Also, have you all checked in your local area for temp agencies that handle software and tech industry positions? they usually are the main source for QA testers to get a foot in the door and get some experience. Anyone in the western Washington area can PM me and i can hook them up with some contact information about getting into testing.

thanks for that link, i remember it being based on a true story but i hadn't been able to read any more about it.

not to rain on any parades, but Kotor failed to meet it's projected sales goals. It was considered to be "too heady, not enough action" for a broad appeal. It was Critically acclaimed, but not consumer acclaimed. Reaching broad audience bases is a great idea, but it makes you walk a very fine line. Too much action and you loose the strategic players, too much story and dialogue interaction and you lose the action crowd, etc. I think games need to cater to a genre and do that well. Instead of answering to 2 audiences and try to make a action/rpg hybrid (or what have you). you'd be better off making an Action game that delivers eveything the action crowd wants. You have a smaller sales base, but sales over time will show a profit. just my 2 cents

and he responds with such mature and reasonable comments. If someone says anything bad, call them a liar. Brilliant. you win Volourn.

i think making Volourn a mod would be a poor idea. He generally responds to anyone who disagrees with him with flames and patronizing crap. He tried forever to get mod status at the Interplay boards and it wasn't given to him, with good reason.

anyone remember seeing an older horror movie called "The Entity"? nice and creepy ghost story, along the lines of Amityville Horror.