In my system, the player gets benefits from building buildings/dungeons/whatever, and loses benefits when other players run roughshod over their stuff. The player would have a strong motivation to protect his stuff, and make it as hard as possible to beat.
It's not just about crafting either. Say you want to set up a dungeon full of bandits who raid nearby player junk. Why not? Player housing that gives bonuses based on the junk you've got in your house. You raid someones mine and trash it, and the miner gets pissed of and pays some thieves to loot your house, killing your bonuses.
It's about making the content created a needed and good thing for the character, and giving them bonuses/money/skills/whatever based on what they've got, so that they have an incentive to expand it and protect it.
To you realize how much that sounds like Eve Online in a fantasy setting? Do you realize how many people really don't want to play that, because if they did, they'd just play Eve?
If it's actually not hard to do, and it would improve the gameplay experience as much as you seem to imply, then why hasn't it been done yet? Either it's not easy, or it's not going to make things all that much better. Otherwise, dozens of companies would have done this by now (or you should make some awesome cash and sell your idea!).
As I said, tuning aggro distance based on the monster (maybe its perception, or its own movement speed) along would do a lot to make monsters appear less uniform, because pulling techniques have to change.
To my knowledge FFXI does this in some senses. Some monsters have larger or smaller aggro distances, and trigger through different means (sight, smell, hearing), which allows the user to use different magic to effectively be invisible to them. Also, some monsters don't care if you kill others, but some others do (mostly intelligent humanoids and some territorial monsters, which makes sense). Obviously, the range that they link to you isn't that great, though, otherwise fighting monsters becomes increasingly more dangerous, because that monster you couldn't originally see would all the sudden be too close and kill you for it, when you had no way of preparing against that. That's why most aggro distances are so relatively short; otherwise, it's a huge gameplay concern that most of the userbase would quit over.
Changing group behaviour of monsters (e.g. if you pull, does just one come or the whole group?) can be done with a few hours of additional work, essentially adding a few conditionals again based on monster type. Making monsters react more intelligently to the players based on player actions is not difficult. I'm always amazed when humanoid monsters completely ignore me when I'm just out of aggro distance, but even more when I'm at that time busy slaying their comrades. Doubling aggro distance, but only having the monster react when the player in the 2nd "circle" is in combat mode (a distinction most MMORPGs already make, so it's a simple check) would be what? Two hours of work?
Again, FFXI does this. I can't honestly say whether or not this is a standard for MMO games, but... if you're playing games that don't have these features, then you should switch to ones that do.
Also, sure as hell not likely 2 hours of work overall. Maybe the first pass of code, but bug fixes, setting up variables for monsters, etc make that take way more than two man hours. Remember that MMORPG's are friggin' huge ass beasts, lots can go wrong with one general logic bug.
I've been coding for over 20 years. Please check your assumptions.
My apologies. We just seem to have vastly different experiences about what is possible or not.
I'm talking about the magic of controlled randomness and emergent behaviour here. One more example: It is trivial to use spawn areas instead of spawn points. That technology is at least 10 years old. In an MMORPG it would change tactics dramatically. "Whoops, today we can't pull only mob 1, it's too close to mob 2".
A nice polish idea, I suppose. Not gonna lie, probably would be better, but I'm really not experienced enough with the logic of the two methods to comment in detail as to why this isn't done, other than, again, as I stated above, if it's actually easy and would improve gameplay as much as you imply, then it should have been done by now.
Or simply giving monsters a "stubborn" factor that affects aggro would change a lot. What if a monster acted more like a player in that it doesn't change its target that easily? A few simple checks would do, along the lines of how players think. e.g. "if you want to switch targets, but your current one will likely be dead in three more blows, give him those three before you switch".
Now unfortunately, that feature is a bad one. Most MMO's, especially at higher levels,
I agree with what you've said, but when all else is equal the player with the better gear is going to have the advantage.
I guess so. The argument comes up a fair bit in fighting games (replacing "gear" with "rank in tier list"), but it's usually accepted by most competitive communities that there's no such thing as having two completely equally skilled opponents.
Min/maxing in itself is still a skill.
I agree, so long as the min/maxing isn't just reading a book or throwing numbers into an excel sheet, but crunching the data mentally to find the best output for a given situation. That does require a certain level of skill, especially when taking into account if you need to change moves/buffs/etc when in the middle of a fight.
Those that go the extra mile, [...] who strive to always have the best stats and gear; these are the "skilled" players.
Those who strive to always have the best stats and gear are not necessarily skilled. Sometimes, you can see more skill in someone who fights with a weaker hand and wins then one who walked into a challenge with far better equipment and didn't need as much other skill to win.
Perhaps those "who strive to always have the best stats and gear and figure out what's optimal with minimal outside help" would be better wording.
At this time, many hundreds of man-hours are invested to make practically identical monsters look, sound, move, etc. differently. Having them behave differently can't be that much additional burden, if you have a fairly solid system in the background. Heck, a lot of single-player games manage to.
You could even start right now by changing some values that for some mysterious reason seem to be identical for all monsters in all the MMORPGs. Stuff like aggro distance, for example, are tuned to be just within reach of the players long-range weapons, and not tuned to the monsters.
I'm sorry, but I am a game developer (game design, specifically), and you are clearly not a game developer if you think that is a trivial addition. If you so much as want the enemy to spit in your general direction when you get close to it requires dozens of hours of work, from the new animations, to new sight aggro logic, to the emitters needed for the spittle, and the design time needed to explain how all this logic comes together. And that's for something that's completely show; implementing strategy into AI to fight differently based on the player's strategy isn't even implemented in any commercial game that I know of.
You seem to have this grand illusion that code is magic and that you can do anything you want with it. In reality, you can, but only if you have an infinite supply of time and expertise. What's worse is that most games are built from the ground up, so from company to company, it's standard practice to reinvent the wheel with msot new projects (especially if a company is doing new IP or an unfamiliar genre/platform). All of these factors combine to make it very hard to take risks in doing new things like having AI that's actually meaningful in a manner that you've previously posted.
People are getting bored of the level grinding for sake of leveling... I mean I'm bored it of it. I don't want to play those games anymore.
Your anecdotal evidence is not reflective of the market's desires. People like to level up, because that gives them a feeling of progression. And that's all that RPG's are: artificial progression. Usually in RPGs, this is levels, but it also extends to other facets such as character skills or loot.
Take away the (artificial) progression from an video game RPG, and you don't have an video game RPG anymore. Such a game would quite literally be defined as a different genre of game. Go ahead and try it; take any RPG you know, but take away leveling, skilling up, loot acquisition, etc. What do you have left?
And the magical reason why this hasn't been done is that it would be damn near impossible (or at least ludicrously expensive) to implement a system like that. The whole reason MMORPG worlds are so expansive is that you can basically get away with using the exact same mechanics for 99% of the enemies throughout the game, but just switch up some attacks and variable numbers. To have enemies you'd need to beat that would require the "actual skill" you and the parent imply, you'd need to make them unique enough from each other so that the same strategies won't work not only against other types of enemies, but against enemies of the same type. Short of adding in random timing (which reduces the game to guessing if you can hit at the right time), this is not feasible to design on this scale.
This is further compounded by the problem that the majority of the potential audience won't go for it, because A) it's a genre where Macro's are the standard (very few people who like the genre would do without them), and B) synchronizing everything in real time across multiple people's hardware would be a technical nightmare.
Well, I guess your argument is pretty solid. It can be hard to argue how you would do nothing gain when you're getting a larger audience...
But the we have to remember that some people really like control, and don't like relinquishing it. A point I didn't make in my previous post that I should have is that each of the big three console guys have some sort of service that is part of their system. Even in the case of Nintendo, where... well, they don't have much that many people would care about, but Nintendo cares! Things like your Mii's (used in some games), WiiWare channels, and other gimmicks are things that Nintendo wants to leverage on their own. Other consoles have their own things too.
Furthermore, we then have to worry about QA issues that would arise from playing a current-gen console through a PC. Things like some of the above services being tied into the game could introduce wierd bugs or crashes (such as the Mii's in Mario Kart). And non-Microsoft games will be hard to play without the proper controllers.
Really, you can look up any robust arguement as to why people want to have/will never get a unified console, and they apply pretty well to this situation as well. There are plenty of reasons why it hasn't happened already, irrespective as to whether you, I, or anyone else in the general public agrees to the logic.
Console manufacturers don't make money on the hardware, they make money on the software.
Except of course Nintendo, who is a significant contender. Also, if previous console generations are of any indicator, the current-gen consoles for Microsoft and Sony will eventually turn a profit near the end of their life cycle.
But they still need to buy the games. Cha-ching! You've now sold a game to someone who didn't have a console. How exactly is this going to hurt them?
Both Microsoft and Sony have a problem with it, because it means that some consumers may not buy/rent/whatever the software from them (so they can get their cut in the game sales) and may instead by from the other current-gen offering.
And that's why, in a nut shell, why all three major console players wouldn't see much to gain with more to lose by going along with Gaikai.
Parent poster is right, most people who now work as game designers started young and worked for years. [...] In short, if you are one of the game design wannabes who aims to never learn any code and is afraid of C++, you are very likely doomed, unless you get in through the route of game testing, and then work your balls off or show incredible ability. Even given that, you are looking at 5+ years minimum before you get to really design.
While I don't mean to deride your opinion or advice, the stereotype of having to slave for years before becoming a designer is far from true. I went to The Art Institute of Vancouver-Burnaby for just shy of 2 years, and got a job as a Game Designer at an independent iPhone developer (IUGO Mobile Entertainment) about half a year after graduating. I've been here almost a year now, and I'm still going strong.
And I'm not the first, too; while admittedly the graduate -> designer success rate is still rather low (with my anecdotal evidence I'd put it lower than 10% within a year of graduating, sadly), it's far from impossible. I've also heard stories from older Slashdot articles of people from places like Full Sail who also have some success for getting into the industry straight to a designer position instead of having to work years for it.
The only thing you have to keep in mind is you really have to want it. I've seen a lot of graduates and other design applicants who don't have the out-right desire to thrive in this profession, and they just won't get the job because of it.
I guess it is worth noting that it's also not unknown to have people go into other disciplines and eventually working into Design, so the path you walked still occurs. But I'm also finding that increasingly rare. Most people I hear of getting into design are going straight into it, not from other disciplines.
Wickedly awesome and detailed post, good sir. As a fellow designer, I agree with pretty much everything you've stated.
As a further point to the submitter (and anyone else wanting to get into the industry), take a look at what game companies you live near, and what kind of games they make. That will give you a heads up on what you'd be designing if you landed a job there (and keep in mind that, especially when you're starting out, you're making their ideas come to life, not yours).
Of course, you may not live anywhere near a game developer (or very few), so if you want to pursue this career path, you'd also need to face the possibility of relocating. Living in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada, I have no need for that, but I've heard of states that only have one (or at least one known) game developer.
I even had to write some basic if statements for one of the recent games I designed! (of course, I actually requested the feature to be able to do that though, because there was no other way we could do what we wanted efficiently).
Designers don't necessarily write a lot of code, but the ability to interpret and write at least pseudo-code is a great asset.
Example one: You steal a CD from a shop, and sell it for $1.
Example two: You burn a copy of a CD you own and sell it for $1.
By the current law, the maximum fine for example one is close to the minimum statutory fine for example two. The maximum penalty for example two is orders of magnitude higher than for example one.
The problem with your examples is that in both cases, you assume only 1 copy is sold. But, if you're going through all the trouble of burning and selling, you're likely selling more than one copy. As such, since the potential for lost sales is far greater, the penalties are potentially far greater as well.
When you realise that the minimum statutory penalty for copying a CD is higher than the maximum penalty for stealing the CD, you see quite how messed up copyright law has become.
As a knee-jerk reaction, sure. And if you steal the CD, there is an obvious loss on one or more parties.
But if you steal a CD, you aren't necessarily taking an action that may have others not purchase other copies of said CD. If you buy a CD and upload it, there are many others who may download it instead of purchasing it, resulting in potentially far more than a single lost sale.
The key word is potential. Obviously, every download is not a lost sale, but if the cheep/easy solution of downloading wasn't available, more sales would likely occur.
I've seen a few interesting blogs though. For example, for the more gaming inclined (both designers and competitive players), there's David Sirlin's blog, who both a designer for many Street Fighter games and a competitive player in some of them.
Oh, and likely a faster graphics processor, which is nice -- but did anyone honestly have issues with it updating too slowly before? This will only matter for some games that want to push the envelope a little further with how much you can do on a phone.
As an iPhone developer, I assure you that this point is pretty much irrelevant. No iPhone game that wants to make money will be made to only work optimally with the newest version, because that means it'll work poorly on such a huge amount of devices currently released. And when the people with the older devices start leaving reviews saying it works incredibly sluggishly...
I take these are thoroughly moddable PC game engines. But do they support split-screen or any other sort of multiplayer without requiring a 4-pack of PCs?
Probably not, but if your goal is to gain experience creating games for a portfolio, then that point should be irrelevant. If you want to make a multiplayer game for your portfolio, there are many other avenues you can use in addition to creating a level in an industry-standard editor (such as *gasp* actual card or board games!).
In order to develop video games, I need to get a job at a video game studio that has a console license. But in order to get a job, I first need to develop video games to build a resume. How do I break the Catch-22 without homebrew?
Off the top of my head, there are two acceptable methods I can think of off the top of my head for designing or coding games, which would be GameMaker or Unreal Tournament 3. There are also many other ways that are more difficult or require a more code-oriented approach (such as Flash with ActionScript or straight-out using something for XNA).
And if you're too stubborn or cheap to take the dive with $10-50 dollars... then no one will hire you anyways. We're an industry driven by passion, so holding yourself back on such a small expense definitely makes you look not very dedicated.
If you're only games in your portfolio involve running on anything that could even be interpreted as illegal, then no sane company will want you, as they may think you could potentially get them into the wrong side of the law with other matters as well.
Today you might be able to hear your favorite song played every two hours on a rotating basis, but what about ten years from now? Probably not because as songs age, they disappear off the DJ's playlist.
Depends on what you listen to. I listen to Ormgas @ Rainwave at work, which is all of the music from OC ReMix put to a radio. Even though I've downloaded over 30 hours worth of music from ocremix.org, I still have barely a dent in the constantly-growing collection of remixes.
It's a great way for me to have a chance at listening to new music, but at the same time hearing some good recognized tunes too.
You CAN commit crimes WHILE being a jerk, but being a jerk simply isn't a crime.
Though I imagine doing something to needlessly stall or waste an officer's time by being a jerk could be. It get's really subjective at that point, but still.
Slashdot Mirror
In my system, the player gets benefits from building buildings/dungeons/whatever, and loses benefits when other players run roughshod over their stuff. The player would have a strong motivation to protect his stuff, and make it as hard as possible to beat.
It's not just about crafting either. Say you want to set up a dungeon full of bandits who raid nearby player junk. Why not? Player housing that gives bonuses based on the junk you've got in your house. You raid someones mine and trash it, and the miner gets pissed of and pays some thieves to loot your house, killing your bonuses.
It's about making the content created a needed and good thing for the character, and giving them bonuses/money/skills/whatever based on what they've got, so that they have an incentive to expand it and protect it.
To you realize how much that sounds like Eve Online in a fantasy setting? Do you realize how many people really don't want to play that, because if they did, they'd just play Eve?
And when we want to play a game, that is good because?...
But it's not hard to do.
If it's actually not hard to do, and it would improve the gameplay experience as much as you seem to imply, then why hasn't it been done yet? Either it's not easy, or it's not going to make things all that much better. Otherwise, dozens of companies would have done this by now (or you should make some awesome cash and sell your idea!).
As I said, tuning aggro distance based on the monster (maybe its perception, or its own movement speed) along would do a lot to make monsters appear less uniform, because pulling techniques have to change.
To my knowledge FFXI does this in some senses. Some monsters have larger or smaller aggro distances, and trigger through different means (sight, smell, hearing), which allows the user to use different magic to effectively be invisible to them. Also, some monsters don't care if you kill others, but some others do (mostly intelligent humanoids and some territorial monsters, which makes sense). Obviously, the range that they link to you isn't that great, though, otherwise fighting monsters becomes increasingly more dangerous, because that monster you couldn't originally see would all the sudden be too close and kill you for it, when you had no way of preparing against that. That's why most aggro distances are so relatively short; otherwise, it's a huge gameplay concern that most of the userbase would quit over.
Changing group behaviour of monsters (e.g. if you pull, does just one come or the whole group?) can be done with a few hours of additional work, essentially adding a few conditionals again based on monster type. Making monsters react more intelligently to the players based on player actions is not difficult. I'm always amazed when humanoid monsters completely ignore me when I'm just out of aggro distance, but even more when I'm at that time busy slaying their comrades. Doubling aggro distance, but only having the monster react when the player in the 2nd "circle" is in combat mode (a distinction most MMORPGs already make, so it's a simple check) would be what? Two hours of work?
Again, FFXI does this. I can't honestly say whether or not this is a standard for MMO games, but... if you're playing games that don't have these features, then you should switch to ones that do.
Also, sure as hell not likely 2 hours of work overall. Maybe the first pass of code, but bug fixes, setting up variables for monsters, etc make that take way more than two man hours. Remember that MMORPG's are friggin' huge ass beasts, lots can go wrong with one general logic bug.
I've been coding for over 20 years. Please check your assumptions.
My apologies. We just seem to have vastly different experiences about what is possible or not.
I'm talking about the magic of controlled randomness and emergent behaviour here. One more example: It is trivial to use spawn areas instead of spawn points. That technology is at least 10 years old. In an MMORPG it would change tactics dramatically. "Whoops, today we can't pull only mob 1, it's too close to mob 2".
A nice polish idea, I suppose. Not gonna lie, probably would be better, but I'm really not experienced enough with the logic of the two methods to comment in detail as to why this isn't done, other than, again, as I stated above, if it's actually easy and would improve gameplay as much as you imply, then it should have been done by now.
Or simply giving monsters a "stubborn" factor that affects aggro would change a lot. What if a monster acted more like a player in that it doesn't change its target that easily? A few simple checks would do, along the lines of how players think. e.g. "if you want to switch targets, but your current one will likely be dead in three more blows, give him those three before you switch".
Now unfortunately, that feature is a bad one. Most MMO's, especially at higher levels,
I agree with what you've said, but when all else is equal the player with the better gear is going to have the advantage.
I guess so. The argument comes up a fair bit in fighting games (replacing "gear" with "rank in tier list"), but it's usually accepted by most competitive communities that there's no such thing as having two completely equally skilled opponents.
Min/maxing in itself is still a skill.
I agree, so long as the min/maxing isn't just reading a book or throwing numbers into an excel sheet, but crunching the data mentally to find the best output for a given situation. That does require a certain level of skill, especially when taking into account if you need to change moves/buffs/etc when in the middle of a fight.
Those that go the extra mile, [...] who strive to always have the best stats and gear; these are the "skilled" players.
Those who strive to always have the best stats and gear are not necessarily skilled. Sometimes, you can see more skill in someone who fights with a weaker hand and wins then one who walked into a challenge with far better equipment and didn't need as much other skill to win.
Perhaps those "who strive to always have the best stats and gear and figure out what's optimal with minimal outside help" would be better wording.
I don't think that's the case, really.
At this time, many hundreds of man-hours are invested to make practically identical monsters look, sound, move, etc. differently. Having them behave differently can't be that much additional burden, if you have a fairly solid system in the background. Heck, a lot of single-player games manage to.
You could even start right now by changing some values that for some mysterious reason seem to be identical for all monsters in all the MMORPGs. Stuff like aggro distance, for example, are tuned to be just within reach of the players long-range weapons, and not tuned to the monsters.
I'm sorry, but I am a game developer (game design, specifically), and you are clearly not a game developer if you think that is a trivial addition. If you so much as want the enemy to spit in your general direction when you get close to it requires dozens of hours of work, from the new animations, to new sight aggro logic, to the emitters needed for the spittle, and the design time needed to explain how all this logic comes together. And that's for something that's completely show; implementing strategy into AI to fight differently based on the player's strategy isn't even implemented in any commercial game that I know of.
You seem to have this grand illusion that code is magic and that you can do anything you want with it. In reality, you can, but only if you have an infinite supply of time and expertise. What's worse is that most games are built from the ground up, so from company to company, it's standard practice to reinvent the wheel with msot new projects (especially if a company is doing new IP or an unfamiliar genre/platform). All of these factors combine to make it very hard to take risks in doing new things like having AI that's actually meaningful in a manner that you've previously posted.
People are getting bored of the level grinding for sake of leveling... I mean I'm bored it of it. I don't want to play those games anymore.
Your anecdotal evidence is not reflective of the market's desires. People like to level up, because that gives them a feeling of progression. And that's all that RPG's are: artificial progression. Usually in RPGs, this is levels, but it also extends to other facets such as character skills or loot.
Take away the (artificial) progression from an video game RPG, and you don't have an video game RPG anymore. Such a game would quite literally be defined as a different genre of game. Go ahead and try it; take any RPG you know, but take away leveling, skilling up, loot acquisition, etc. What do you have left?
And the magical reason why this hasn't been done is that it would be damn near impossible (or at least ludicrously expensive) to implement a system like that. The whole reason MMORPG worlds are so expansive is that you can basically get away with using the exact same mechanics for 99% of the enemies throughout the game, but just switch up some attacks and variable numbers. To have enemies you'd need to beat that would require the "actual skill" you and the parent imply, you'd need to make them unique enough from each other so that the same strategies won't work not only against other types of enemies, but against enemies of the same type. Short of adding in random timing (which reduces the game to guessing if you can hit at the right time), this is not feasible to design on this scale.
This is further compounded by the problem that the majority of the potential audience won't go for it, because A) it's a genre where Macro's are the standard (very few people who like the genre would do without them), and B) synchronizing everything in real time across multiple people's hardware would be a technical nightmare.
Well, I guess your argument is pretty solid. It can be hard to argue how you would do nothing gain when you're getting a larger audience...
But the we have to remember that some people really like control, and don't like relinquishing it. A point I didn't make in my previous post that I should have is that each of the big three console guys have some sort of service that is part of their system. Even in the case of Nintendo, where... well, they don't have much that many people would care about, but Nintendo cares! Things like your Mii's (used in some games), WiiWare channels, and other gimmicks are things that Nintendo wants to leverage on their own. Other consoles have their own things too.
Furthermore, we then have to worry about QA issues that would arise from playing a current-gen console through a PC. Things like some of the above services being tied into the game could introduce wierd bugs or crashes (such as the Mii's in Mario Kart). And non-Microsoft games will be hard to play without the proper controllers.
Really, you can look up any robust arguement as to why people want to have/will never get a unified console, and they apply pretty well to this situation as well. There are plenty of reasons why it hasn't happened already, irrespective as to whether you, I, or anyone else in the general public agrees to the logic.
Console manufacturers don't make money on the hardware, they make money on the software.
Except of course Nintendo, who is a significant contender. Also, if previous console generations are of any indicator, the current-gen consoles for Microsoft and Sony will eventually turn a profit near the end of their life cycle.
But they still need to buy the games. Cha-ching! You've now sold a game to someone who didn't have a console. How exactly is this going to hurt them?
Both Microsoft and Sony have a problem with it, because it means that some consumers may not buy/rent/whatever the software from them (so they can get their cut in the game sales) and may instead by from the other current-gen offering.
And that's why, in a nut shell, why all three major console players wouldn't see much to gain with more to lose by going along with Gaikai.
Parent poster is right, most people who now work as game designers started young and worked for years. [...] In short, if you are one of the game design wannabes who aims to never learn any code and is afraid of C++, you are very likely doomed, unless you get in through the route of game testing, and then work your balls off or show incredible ability. Even given that, you are looking at 5+ years minimum before you get to really design.
While I don't mean to deride your opinion or advice, the stereotype of having to slave for years before becoming a designer is far from true. I went to The Art Institute of Vancouver-Burnaby for just shy of 2 years, and got a job as a Game Designer at an independent iPhone developer (IUGO Mobile Entertainment) about half a year after graduating. I've been here almost a year now, and I'm still going strong.
And I'm not the first, too; while admittedly the graduate -> designer success rate is still rather low (with my anecdotal evidence I'd put it lower than 10% within a year of graduating, sadly), it's far from impossible. I've also heard stories from older Slashdot articles of people from places like Full Sail who also have some success for getting into the industry straight to a designer position instead of having to work years for it.
The only thing you have to keep in mind is you really have to want it. I've seen a lot of graduates and other design applicants who don't have the out-right desire to thrive in this profession, and they just won't get the job because of it.
I guess it is worth noting that it's also not unknown to have people go into other disciplines and eventually working into Design, so the path you walked still occurs. But I'm also finding that increasingly rare. Most people I hear of getting into design are going straight into it, not from other disciplines.
Wickedly awesome and detailed post, good sir. As a fellow designer, I agree with pretty much everything you've stated.
As a further point to the submitter (and anyone else wanting to get into the industry), take a look at what game companies you live near, and what kind of games they make. That will give you a heads up on what you'd be designing if you landed a job there (and keep in mind that, especially when you're starting out, you're making their ideas come to life, not yours).
Of course, you may not live anywhere near a game developer (or very few), so if you want to pursue this career path, you'd also need to face the possibility of relocating. Living in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada, I have no need for that, but I've heard of states that only have one (or at least one known) game developer.
Who isn't who is in/entering an entertainment field?
I even had to write some basic if statements for one of the recent games I designed! (of course, I actually requested the feature to be able to do that though, because there was no other way we could do what we wanted efficiently).
Designers don't necessarily write a lot of code, but the ability to interpret and write at least pseudo-code is a great asset.
There's lies, damn lies, and deliberate untruths.
Now we're using corruptions of cliches, are we?
( ) we should be able to talk about viagra without being censored
Shouldn't this one be checked?
Example one: You steal a CD from a shop, and sell it for $1.
Example two: You burn a copy of a CD you own and sell it for $1.
By the current law, the maximum fine for example one is close to the minimum statutory fine for example two. The maximum penalty for example two is orders of magnitude higher than for example one.
The problem with your examples is that in both cases, you assume only 1 copy is sold. But, if you're going through all the trouble of burning and selling, you're likely selling more than one copy. As such, since the potential for lost sales is far greater, the penalties are potentially far greater as well.
When you realise that the minimum statutory penalty for copying a CD is higher than the maximum penalty for stealing the CD, you see quite how messed up copyright law has become.
As a knee-jerk reaction, sure. And if you steal the CD, there is an obvious loss on one or more parties.
But if you steal a CD, you aren't necessarily taking an action that may have others not purchase other copies of said CD. If you buy a CD and upload it, there are many others who may download it instead of purchasing it, resulting in potentially far more than a single lost sale.
The key word is potential. Obviously, every download is not a lost sale, but if the cheep/easy solution of downloading wasn't available, more sales would likely occur.
I've seen a few interesting blogs though. For example, for the more gaming inclined (both designers and competitive players), there's David Sirlin's blog, who both a designer for many Street Fighter games and a competitive player in some of them.
Oh, and likely a faster graphics processor, which is nice -- but did anyone honestly have issues with it updating too slowly before? This will only matter for some games that want to push the envelope a little further with how much you can do on a phone.
As an iPhone developer, I assure you that this point is pretty much irrelevant. No iPhone game that wants to make money will be made to only work optimally with the newest version, because that means it'll work poorly on such a huge amount of devices currently released. And when the people with the older devices start leaving reviews saying it works incredibly sluggishly...
I take these are thoroughly moddable PC game engines. But do they support split-screen or any other sort of multiplayer without requiring a 4-pack of PCs?
Probably not, but if your goal is to gain experience creating games for a portfolio, then that point should be irrelevant. If you want to make a multiplayer game for your portfolio, there are many other avenues you can use in addition to creating a level in an industry-standard editor (such as *gasp* actual card or board games!).
In order to develop video games, I need to get a job at a video game studio that has a console license. But in order to get a job, I first need to develop video games to build a resume. How do I break the Catch-22 without homebrew?
Off the top of my head, there are two acceptable methods I can think of off the top of my head for designing or coding games, which would be GameMaker or Unreal Tournament 3. There are also many other ways that are more difficult or require a more code-oriented approach (such as Flash with ActionScript or straight-out using something for XNA).
And if you're too stubborn or cheap to take the dive with $10-50 dollars... then no one will hire you anyways. We're an industry driven by passion, so holding yourself back on such a small expense definitely makes you look not very dedicated.
If you're only games in your portfolio involve running on anything that could even be interpreted as illegal, then no sane company will want you, as they may think you could potentially get them into the wrong side of the law with other matters as well.
Today you might be able to hear your favorite song played every two hours on a rotating basis, but what about ten years from now? Probably not because as songs age, they disappear off the DJ's playlist.
Depends on what you listen to. I listen to Ormgas @ Rainwave at work, which is all of the music from OC ReMix put to a radio. Even though I've downloaded over 30 hours worth of music from ocremix.org, I still have barely a dent in the constantly-growing collection of remixes.
It's a great way for me to have a chance at listening to new music, but at the same time hearing some good recognized tunes too.
I know no one likes reading the article or even summary, but... from your own quote:
will allow players who have a character at level 50 or higher to create a brand new character already at level 50.
People who just started yesterday won't bother your high-level gaming a while.
You CAN commit crimes WHILE being a jerk, but being a jerk simply isn't a crime.
Though I imagine doing something to needlessly stall or waste an officer's time by being a jerk could be. It get's really subjective at that point, but still.