@\NightandtheShape/@

I meant in RL... But Whatever grommy.

LMFAO No! :crazy: You can't really compare our jobs.

I know what I know from own experience, and through contacts in the industry, Core Design, Team 17, Smaller Developers such as Creative North. This is not to mention the people who also have input at canalside, having had a vast wealth of industry experience, as artists and coders, now sat in roles as lecturers and producers. Meaning no disrespect to SS, none at all, but QA is as low as you can get, and it is hardly demanding of the same skillset as other areas. QA can make a good game awesome, but every other department actually makes the product... Not that I don't value his input and perspective, (I do realise what your getting at), at the end othe day games development is one of those dream jobs, it's not like I wake up everyday and think "MY GODS, I HATE MY JOB", it's a job you can love, and that makes it easier in alot of ways.

QA isn't a hard job at all, you just get treated like crap most of the time... Not that that's a good idea QA is very valueable to games development, but it's also the easiest job going, and is hardly as difficult as design or software engineering hence the terrible wage they recieve, not that QA is a bad place to work.

What area of game development do you work in? If you found flooring and baby sitting difficult then, I suggest you don't have children and pay for someone to lay flooring instead of doing it yourself. Depends what you're doing... It really does, but from my experience in other jobs I wouldn't agree. To make computer games perhaps that's a motivation

Doctor or lawyer agreed, but accountant, I'm having flash back to that floor laying again OMG... ARGH KILL ME!

Dunno about that, after all the screwdriver is still the same screwdriver after the jobs begun and done, heh... Heck, When you work with cutting edge tech it changes, constantly, which means your constantly going over new and old ground keeping everything ticking, an engine update can make a huge difference to the state of a product before and after. This isn't inluding any new techniques that could have arisin... I'm sure there are similar things in other jobs, but I can't think what they'd be.. obviously they have very good business sense. Bio will have walked away from Interplay with atleast a working prototype, this has to have helped them in securing a future deal at atari, heck any developer could make a D&D game and pitch it to atari. Bioware most likely had one in hand.

LMFAO! OWNED BY A MOUSE! First Diablo is much better than 2.

Then you must be a very very successful person earning in the region of $70,000+ Look Trokia did the best with what they had to make the best quality products they could under the circumstance, business wise yeah they scrwed up, but that shouldn't be seen to tarnish the products as they're some of the best games I have played... Some of the stuff in there really is golden.

*Click* *Click* *Click* You can actually see the logictech stock increase as people play LMFAO.

ewwww Diablo... LOL, nah the randomness factor is cool, but oh how I hated the endless clicking.... *click* *click* *Mouse Dies* *click* *click* *Mouse Dies* *click* *click* *Mouse Dies* *click* *click* *Mouse Dies* *click* *click* *Mouse Dies* *click* *click* *Mouse Dies* *click* *click* *Mouse Dies*.

Do you know "Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth"? It's a action/adventure game (Splinter Cell type), but it's the best game around about the work of H. P.. Lovecraft. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I worked briefly with one of the coders who worked on tat game, just a random fact... It had a very strange name, phelamn or some crap, it was on an MMORPG called gyrps the team eventually went on to develop an engine, Gryps, phelamn or something I believe still works at that studio, he was a very talented engineer.

after much backtracking by some, we finally gots everybody to agree that troika were not very good at the business of making games. pretty much ends debate on actual issues. the "woe is troika" nonsense has been put to rest. now all folks have to talk 'bout in this thread is the tangential stuff. HA! Good Fun! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> *Sigh* but trokia made some nice games, hence the dispute. Sometime I really wonder WHY you have not tried your hand in the games industry in a manager role, after all, you make out like you know it all

Red Steel... I LIKE IT!

Hey guys can we try and keep on topic a bit... Geez.

I can, quite easily. Go install flooring, carpet is particularly strenuous and difficult. It has all the issues that game development has, AND physically intense. Doctor, lawyer, nurse, hell baby sitting is more difficult than game development. Get some perspective, game development isn't that tough. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ABSOLUTELY CRAZY MAN. Well except for the obvious Doctors, nurses crap, baby sitting tho' LOL, installing flooring LMFAO.

Medical proffession... Agree'd that's one hell of a job. It's interesting but all the jobs you've currently mentioned have been in regards to that of risk to personal safety and other folks safety. I don't discount that one bit all those jobs are tough jobs. In many ways. I really was thinking more about the talent involved, the dedication and concentration required to make a successful product, the business side is very much like any other in alot of respects. The hard part of the games industry is keeping up with an ever evolving always progressing, and always changing hardware/software enviroment. There is alot to learn and just as you think you crack one thing a new thing exists... Someone has to give a developer a break first then, possibily they will earn alot of money. PC and Console development are different... Different hardware setups of PC's impact software dramatically. Bioware acted in a sensible manner they had a certain percentage of a product, and the ability to take that product elsewhere, to Atari. Due to the fact Interplay had funded development already it was a WIN WIN situation for Atari, it really did work out great for the involved parties. Bioware were in a good position, had atari turned them away they would have been in a whole other position... But that was very unlikely due to the success bioware had, had... They're indeed one of the success stories of the games industry.

You guys crack me up...

Perhaps so, but then again PC's are rather complex setups, each usually different. Why would you? It usually comes down to the developer either signing to do the work, or shutting it's doors... That's not weak willed, that's staying in business. Not every developer is lucky enough to be on that kind of footing with a publisher. Worms 3 i believe it was, switched publisher half way through production, very lucky that for Team 17. Who's making excuses, if the game is flawed beyond it's bugs then it's flawed period. True in some ways, doesn't make their products bad. LMFAO! (w00t) Somebody lives in fantasy land, developers are at the bottom of the food chain man, they don't always have much room for moving, especially not at first. If you knew anything about development, you'd realise that even with all the planning in the world, it's going to change dramatically upon execution, it's different everyday. I don't know of many jobs that are harder...

I've played pleanty of products which I have been able to finish in an unpatched state without any issue. Naturally patched products are in a better state, more complete. Things, problems, may not show there existence till such a date. I really wished you understood that a developer cannot stop a publisher from releasing what is technically belonging to the publisher if they have financed the project.... All depends on ghey legal stuff. The publisher has so much power over developers, even to the point of forcing insane design changes. It's a crazy business. Team 17 would love to develop a game that didn't involve any worms, sadly whenever they approch a Publisher they expect a worms title, Alien Breed was remade for the PS2, publishers wouldn't touch it, deemed too risky. Thus some very talented people churn out some more lovely and amazing worms games... *Sigh* It really doesn't matter to you guys if I present facts as to how screwed up the games industry is, as a business. Developers want to make money, but they also want to make great products... Publishers just want to make money. The publisher can be deemed, but not always there are good publishers, but they can been deemed as a freaking parasite. I'm a big fan of steam, it pretty much cuts out the publisher, problem is that finding funding to make a game ain't easy. Endless cycle... in the end the developer comes out worse of all, and the real winner is the retailer.

A finished product is one where a users can get from A to B without hinderance by bugs, or common occurance of CTD's. Atleast in my humble opinion. A product which a user can complete without hinderance by bugs or common CTD's could be considered to be complete. That is the ideal situation, naturally products get released earlier than this stage and are fixed at a later date IF their contractual obligations of the developer is to do so. All Troika games can be considered unfinished despite their release, release does not mean a product is finished, it may have been deemed finished to a publishers satisfaction, this could quite easily be based upon the assumpt of cost to produce and expected sales revenue. I would also consider NWN 2 upon release without patches to be an unfinished product. It suffers from terrible technical issues, bugs, graphical courruption etc... Because the Design is done, doesn't mean it's finished, especially if those features are not functioning correctly within the product. Naturally design features are removed, and added as required. The design document becomes a great doorstop! If the artwork is not satisfactory then the product isn't complete. Naturally there is a certain standard required before it can be considered complete, it must fulfill certain properties... What they are, can vary from project to project, usually a list of required assets and animations. If the code don't work, then the code clearly isn't complete. It's hard to tell if something is going to fall down when it's grows into the kinda beast a game engine is, it may work, be lovely and stable for months, then it becomes apparent that the new feature screws with the system, if that new feature is required then it all needs reworking, if not then it can be a simple as a version revision to it's previous state. Grommy seems like a very smart businessman, but he is no game developer.

Vologic determines Beta to equal a finished product. I remember being told that TSL lacked some artwork towards the end, Textures... That screams unfinished... But I'm not certain on that. ToEE needed a good few more weeks of testing, perhaps a month... It also need varification of data input, and refining of data input. Many games are released unfinished, but in a working state, and many games that are finished are never released, funny little thing that, anyone ever play BG on the PSOne? LOL

TOEE was unfinished... And SL's I came across a bug in the XBOX version, and so many people complained about the ending... People were extremely disappointed as the end, which is clearly unfinished by there accounts, I haven't seen it personally.

It's only as accurate as your own ability allows you to, that's in terms of the wii atleast. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What games have you got/played? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> CoD3, Red Steel, and WiiSports, all are excellent.

It's only as accurate as your own ability allows you to, that's in terms of the wii atleast.