merry andrew

It depends on the studio and the publisher. Look at a game's credits to get a general idea of who is ultimately responsible for what. It seems to me like the development team has minimal influence on marketing.

If you plan on college, get a degree in English/Literature, or something like that. The game industry seems to be about what you can do, not what schooling you've had. The nice thing about school, though, is that the teachers might show you stuff that you would've otherwise passed over, AND you'll have something to do just incase you don't end up in the game industry. For now, just learn as much as you can about writing scripts, study the scripts that you read through in games, write a bunch of scripts... scripts. Scripts.

So the difficulty modes affect your character's ability to move?

Sweet. I wish I could go, but that conference costs like $4 billion dollars, so I'll go in a few years.

That's a good summary of my experience with IWD2. I played through it with a party of four, and from the first big battle in the defense of Targos, I knew that it was in my best interest to know my characters and utilize them to the best of my ability.

Everything that you can The plan that you currently have sounds pretty good: high AP math, AP computer science, and physics. One thing that you may want to consider is taking classes at a nearby college. I know that my high-school had a program that allowed students to take college classes for free (usually for their junior and senior years). So perhaps during your junior or senior year, instead of taking AP calculus or AP physics, you could take calculus and calculus-based Physics at a college. It seems like you do well with course material that a programmer would generally have training in, although it definitely takes more than programming to make a game. If you're a freshman, you have plenty of time to figure out what sort of job you'd like, so just keep looking into it and you'll be set.

Eh, I posted this on RPG Codex's forums a few days ago, not that it's very informative or anything, but here are my impressions: I only played solo (with NPC henchmen), but I kinda want to buy this game. I played as a Ranger/Monk, and I thought the combat was pretty fun. One of my first battles was against a priest monster. We each kept healing ourselves between attacks, so after couple minutes of this one-on-one combat, I noticed that it was using an area-of-effect heal on itself, so I got in closer to let it heal me whenever it healed itself. Over the next couple minutes I slowly defeated it. It only got better from there. And it seems so... balanced. Sure, you can take three NPC henchmen with you, but you'll get less experience than if you had less henchmen. You can level up and get more skills (and more potent skills), but if you don't go into a combat area with the skills to survive, you won't survive. And if you want to increase the benefit of some skills more than others, you're pretty much forced to specialize, which at that point makes the character progession system seem like it allows some pretty diverse builds. Even exact duplicate characters might not even play the same because combat is ultimately based on player skill and seems to require a very active participation... I don't recall ever initiating an attack and feeling safe to direct my attention elsewhere. The henchmen are pretty smart too, as are the monsters. I basically took a healer, a tank, and a mage with me, and they all did their respective jobs quite nicely. I also noticed the monster tanks trying to take out my healer while I was trying to take out their healer. I dunno, maybe I just haven't played enough into other MMORPGs, but the AI in this game seems really well done. I also really liked the instanced atmosphere. Sure, it sorta takes away from the fun of running into other parties while on a mission and such, but seeing other people doesn't always make for a good time. No more camping, no more kill-stealing, no more overall competitive-shopping atmosphere. If you miss the competition aspect that camping and such brought, there's always the PvP, which I plan to experience during the February Beta Weekend. Yeah, I'm impressed.

I read somewhere that it can run pretty good on dialup.

That's cool, I didn't know about that. Still though, you'll be paying a monthly fee, so if you happen to play the game for at least 4 months or so, you'll still be paying as much as a client for a big, new MMORPG.

It seems like the game is more about learning to use skills than leveling up. Even so, the expansions offer new content and skills, just like other MMORPGs, except that this game will probably add skills that have been thoroughly tested and balanced, not to mention that it'll cost a flat fee, as opposed to a seperate fee in addition to the monthly fee. In my experience, everytime an MMORPG adds a new expansion or patch that adds/modifies skills, the PvP crowd has to work around these changes, as they render certain classes virtually useless while making others blatantly overpowered. You want to have high level players with better equipment gank you in PvP? In the MMORPGs that I've played, new content and new plots come in expansion packs, which you have to pay a separate fee for (usually $30), as well as the monthly fee. I'm not sure what you mean by client, but the game has to be initially bought, just like any other game, such as Everquest II, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, etc. That depends on which content you're referring to. Most MMORPGs offer new content in expansions, which you have to pay for, just like Guild Wars. Except that MMORPGs also require a monthly fee, and Guild Wars does not.

Ha, same here. We can be friends if you don't find anyone to play with before next weekend. I only played during the first beta, for a total of 5 mins or so, so this is all new to me. I have a lot of reading to do!

Hmm, that's the weekend before school starts again. Thanks for the heads up, I might have to try this.

I had a lot of fun with that game. Very memorable.

Is it Rashemen tradition to place your intellect within a small animal companion, thereby expanding the animal's influence on your everyday life?

Yup. I think that's pretty much expected.

Companies hire people without any commecial game titles under their belt, but they just generally like to have people that have done so, or that have the experience that they're looking for.

This is from their website: As long as you meet and hopefully exceed the GPA requirements, you probably shouldn't have too hard of a time getting in. I got in having taken some Calculus, high school physics, a JAVA course, and some high school computer applications classes. I also took a Logic course (usually offered by the Philosophy department), although I'm not sure how much of a factor that was.

I get the feeling that the game industry really doesn't care how old you are as long as you can meet and exceed their expectations. So yeah if you wish, pick a goal and get your act together. It's not too late

Farscape: The PeaceKeeper Wars Looks like they're dumping a lot of money into this project. I really really really hope the series can survive.

Religion has probably gone the way it has because of the exploitation of faith. Faith is necessary, but only after one has thought something through as much as one can at the time. Faith is what allows us to act in the face of uncertainty (once it has been recognized); but nowadays it is what allows us to act with minimal, if any, meditation/thorough thinking.

Not that I dislike the scene, but how do the rocks relate to her father? I just thought she brought them to help give the guys with her courage Just like you said, her father used the costumes to instill fear, so she used the magic rocks to instill courage. Same tactics, different result.

I liked it as well. A lady behind me immediately said "well that was stupid" or something to that tune as the credits began to roll. I'm mostly hearing people make the comment that it was not a horror movie, as they feel like the trailer expressed such. I think a lot of people are also turned off because they were able to guess how the movie would end, and this somehow removes all value from the film. I'm still not sure how they were able to guess everything that happened (from the very first scene), so I'll most likely be seeing it again . Many professional reviewers seem unimpressed by the movie because they dislike the director, spending entire writeups discussing how slow-paced it is and how Shayamalan isn't Hitch****. One of the things that has irked me about the reviews that I've read is the mention of how an example of the movie's ridiculousness is the scene involving "magic rocks". Few seem to be able to figure out that she was merely attempting to imitate her father.

Wow that trailer shows a movie that might actually be really good. Totally not Batman!

If it makes you feel any better, Mos Def has been acting professionally a lot longer than he's been rapping.