Games All Designers Should Play

[Ghostly_Substance]

Lol its a nicely done Submarine Sim game its just the timeline cant be changed. Its almost like the crew is alive and the world. I'm stationed at the top tip of France near England, easy hunting there even killed a plane when I wanted to kill a boat but I killed a plane instead and headed to Brest like ordered. Wasn't in the mood to spend 3 hours going in silent mode.

edit: And if your introuble you can read up on my logs and see if you can learn from my mistakes I tried to join a multi game its not very friendly with me, the people or the server.

 

Nice picture editing there cain. What are those troopers called ? Half Royal guard and half stormtrooper, since when does the Empire have short supplies

 

edit: I accidently press the submit button. Well the pirates game I haven't read up on but was told it was a great game. I'll do that now

[Cain]

Hey I got a feedback on my mod for Rebellion today

 

I got Protectorate up and running and I deffinately like what I see... I started with the rebels ('cause I am a rebels type of guy...) and I liked how the Empire started out with a fairly decent size fleet + SSD haulin' ass at Hoth... The look of the Galaxy threw me of a bit but was deffinately a nice surprise. I loved how the earlier rebel warships were at least somewhat comperable to their Imperial counterparts... Absoulutely adore that Millenium Imperium... The changes in the fighters were ok too... I was a tad bit surprised to see Ozzle on my side and frankly I didn't really trust him so I've pretty much kept him on a low risk planet... See Luke come back with a Darth Vader Helmet and an Imperial Uniform was a bit of a switch... Oh and what is up with those Spy missions for the rebellion? Thought it was kool 1st time around but got a little annoying faily soon after...

 

But overall this is an Outstanding TC... deffinate thumbs up here...

 

You also said you had a patch to this game? What does the patch do? Bug fixes, AI improvements?

 

 

- I feel good

[Cain]

BTW look what I found a picture of you :

 

http://www.siddus.com/eaw/brett.jpg - were was that ?

[Ismael]

Nice photo I think there he was at a meeting with Mike and Joe.

 

Sorry for disturbing your chat but I wannted to say that Mike just joined our forums ! COOL ! Cain has Brett so now I have Mike !

 

He is in the first forum

[Cain]

Super ! I already said Hi to Mike I'm glad that you are happy Ismael

 

Hey Katran look what presentation I made for you :

 

http://swempireatwar.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=409

 

If this not convinces you to try it ... then I give up moding

[Ghostly_Substance]

Ah, more big boys are joining the forum, wow nice

 

A very nice mod Cain, I tried getting Rebellion from EB Games but that failed. To bad I cant try out that mod of yours Cain since its nowhere in stores. Maybe I could find a ripped version (Am forced to now) or could try to borrow Marus's copy. Or could get Petro to get a pre-ordering idea of Rebellion shipping out to those who ordered EAW Doubt that would happen Since I couldn't find Rebellion I got Command &Conquer Generals instead. Nice game just weird futuristic stuff with EA feel to it.

 

Well sorry to ruin anything said above, you could just ignore me

Anyways dont want to ruin anything so i'll finish my post

[Katarn]

lol. Yeah great photo. That was an interview with GameSpot back in Feb at Petroglyph's conference room. They interviewed both Mike and me. (Joe prefers written interviews over live)

 

Ok, Cain you convinced me...I'll try your Mod. But I honestly don't know where I have my copy of Rebellion packed away. I have over 2000 games in my library.

 

btw: Congrats the positive feedback on your mod!!!

 

It's good to see Mike posting on the forums. But knowing Mike he's been looking at these forums all along. I'll go over to that post and say hi to him. (btw: Does he know who katarn is?)

 

Regarding looking at the feedback... Here's the problem. It's very dangerous to say that you used or even looked at anyone's feedback on a game currenly in development. There are a bunch of money hungry leaches out there just waiting to sue a game developer for stealing their idea. I wish people could give feedback freely and developers could openly acknowledge their contribution but that is not the way of the world.

[Katarn]

Cain, it’s clear that you never stop thinking about design and your head is full of interesting and cool ideas. That will serve you well for the GD position. The "what if" idea is always fun because it establishes a core with known facts and then turns those facts upside down. My concern with any WWII game is that it's been done a million times. Why not WWI? The what ifs for WWI could be very interesting.... What if the war lasted another 10 years? What type of weapons would they have designed and built? Would they evolve to be like WWII weapons or some sort of mix between WWI & WWI? Where would the war have progressed to? How would the fighting tactics of trench warfare evolved if the war continued? Would they continue to use gas warfare? What would the tanks, guns, ships, planes, etc... look like?

 

 

As for Petroglyph's next game I believe they are already working on a design proposal. I can't speak to that all since it's their property. But I can say that it's a very cool idea and as soon as someone hears the idea they respond by saying it sounds like a very fun and original idea.

 

Best of luck with your two interviews. I only suggest that you don't pressure Ubisoft too much. Let them know that you are VERY interested in the position but I wouldn't talk about the other job offer during the interview unless they specifically ask you about it. However at the end of the interview that's when you should politely remind them that you do have another job offer and if they are interested in hiring you then you like to hear back from them sooner rather than later.

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

On forums I go on people are "sick and tired" of so many WW2 RTS games that so companys make. Haven't had a WW1 game in a while or ever but I do remember a game that features WW1 and WW2 warfare and its Rise of Nations.

-Russian submarine got stuck in Chinese netting, gonna go check this out

[Cain]

On forums I go on people are "sick and tired" of so many WW2 RTS games that so companys make. Haven't had a WW1 game in a while or ever but I do remember a game that features WW1 and WW2 warfare and its Rise of Nations.

-Russian submarine got stuck in Chinese netting, gonna go check this out

 

 

Interesting .... maybe we can think something about WWI useing the same key features like abouve Loll - we will have to let people create alot of defences on the maps

[Ghostly_Substance]

I cant remember but wasn't blimbs used in WW1 ? Also so many Biplanes and the Red Baron.

 

Whats this mini tank to the left ? I know its French but the date wasn't mentioned. You might not know but I might as well try

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y292/GhostlyPolovnik/Canadian%20War%20Museum/DSC00409.jpg

[Ghostly_Substance]

Another modern warfare game Well the way you explain it it must seem to be like battlefield and that other game for ps2 mixed together. Interesting concept.

 

And wow Brett the game your helping to make just made a total of 33 game unions at Gamespot EAW only has 4 gamespot unions.

 

Lair - http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/lair/index.html

EAW - http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/starwarsrts/

 

Very big difference

[Katarn]

Good luck with your job search Cain. It sounds like things went fairly well with your two interviews. The way you described the two companies they sounded fairly typical for a small and large company. The trick is either finding a nitch/speciality in a big company (like I did with LEC) or stick it out with a small company and hope that you can make it better and grow. (like I'm going now with F-5

 

> Hey they have told me that the 19 questions were one of the best answered. Cool no ?!

 

lol. Yeah that is cool!

 

> And wow Brett the game your helping to make just made a total of 33 game unions at Gamespot Shocked EAW only has 4 gamespot unions.

 

That's awesome. But as expected (at this stage of development) EAW has far more people on their wish list. 39 verses 4323!

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

Another big difference. Wonder if that means its tied.

 

Wonder if I should mention Star Wars Republic Commando. I only played the demo but from what I seen its one of the best Star Wars games out there

[Cain]

... so it seems I will also turn in favor of a smaller company If Brett did it then it must be a better option

[Katarn]

> Wonder if I should mention Star Wars Republic Commando. I only played the demo but from what I seen its one of the best Star Wars games out there

 

I should try playing it myself. I was bias agaisnt the game because I know they tried to make it as non SW as possible. The weapons, locations, stroy, music and many of the ememies were not derived from any SW reference. Trying to make a SW game as non SW as possible always seemed wrong to me. I'm also bias because I thought LEC should have been making a Jedi Knight game instead. Oh well... I heard it does have a fun squad mechanic.

 

> so it seems I will also turn in favor of a smaller company

Keep in mind that I only did that after 12.5 years at LEC. If you choose the smaller company you'll have great oppertunities to do a lot of different jobs. Which is always a good thing. But once you've been there 5 years or so and shiped a few games you may want to consider working for a larger company. There are some things you can only learn at a larger company and some things you can only learn from a smaller one. There is no right or wrong choice. That said most people are happier at a small company.

 

-Katarn

[Cain]

Thanks Brett

 

Btw do you have any good links for manager or manageing projects and tasks in a game company ?

 

And standard communication procedures. They will tell me but any tips will help.

 

PS. I've played Star Wars Republic Commando on a GeForce 2 MX at 64 mb and it works

 

Anyway it is a good game - not the best SW game - but a very good FPS. With interactive elements and well balanced.

 

The only thing I didn't like about FPS in general is that they force me to run on predeterminated paths.

[Katarn]

Whoa! That's a huge topic. I would start with a subscription to gamedeveloper magizine (gdmag.com) Another great resource for everything game development releated is www.gamasutra.com. I'll add some more links once I get on my home computer.

 

Cheers

-Katarn

[Katarn]

Here are a few more links.

 

www.gametab.com = Doesn't specificialy cover game devlopment but it has a slew of links and many of them are development related

 

www.gamesindustry.biz = Mostly industry news

 

www.gamedev.net = Not as good as Gamasutra.com but it's probably the second best development site

 

Once you land a job you should request to attend GDC. That's the game development conference here in California held every March. It's the best place to learn about game development /www.gdconf.com

 

>I just wish someday I will have fans like you have

hehe. If the games you work on are half as good as your design proposals I'll be one of your fans

 

The pay increase sounds like it will be quite a jump for you. That's great! Now you'll be able to afford some high end computers and game systems!

 

> Hey if you decide in 10 years to expand your company in other country's (like JAMDAT did) I'm always here Wink and you can count on my support.

Anything is possible. Thanx!

 

Good luck....

 

-Katarn

[Cain]

Loll now that I work in the industry I see how hard it is to have free time

 

It is fun yes but I have alot of responsability as Project Manager I have to coordonate all betwen the QA > Producer > Developers not to mention that I have to keep an eye on the handsets assets here and I have to decide what bugs to fix or not and to give tasks in the morning to the QA .... Wow

 

If I compare this to a Mod Project - its like one on steroids

[Katarn]

hehe. Now add to that list some Designing, Marketing, Budgeting, Finance, Sales, disturbution, Public relations, staffing, executive reports and managing all of the other producers/product managers and you've just described my job.

 

Welcome to Production Cain!

 

-Katarn

[Cain]

No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no, I have been traped Thanks for the Welocme

 

Cain a producer - that sounds good

 

Anyway it feels normal to sit all day infront of the cool PC at work and and chat (email) tones of people about different QA projects .... something like that.

 

I already have a project on the role .... anyway the weekend is comming. Next day I will sleep at home

[Cain]

GUYS - I work for EA now

 

They have just bought us

 

http://info.ea.com/news/pr/pr719.pdf

 

What this will mean for me ?

[Ghostly_Substance]

Damn this sucks, bah well can you quick and join Petroglyph? Err damn bad and maybe I jinxed it.

[Ismael]

What is rung with EA ? I mean are they bad people ?

 

I know I don't post a lot but at least I have more posts than Brett

 

By the way since Brett has joined us in the NMA I asked Mike to take over the educational side in the NMA / training departament number 2 / maybe we can learn some or scripteing programming from him. I hope that he will accept.