Re:Role Playing Games: some random thoughts
on
Videogames as Art
·
· Score: 1
Literature is a craft of writing, whereas RPGs do not involve the same amount of writing
Be careful with that assertion. I've worked on a major RPG, and the amount of story, background and history that was developed for it could easily fill a series of novels. If I remember correctly, we're talking more than 3500 pages of well-written, finely detailed story, including several dozens of very intricately developed characters and hundreds of events.
Of course that won't apply to all RPGs, but with many of them there's more creative writing involved than one might think (and writing is not the only artistic task that is performed in game development).
Don't know how many people here actually still play 'old school' adventure games, but The Longest Journey was one that had the story, plot and characters to keep me playing it through to the end - and I'm not actually a big adventure game player. TLJ would make a good movie, IMO - a film crew that manages to retain the feel of the game provided.
As for looters being shot immediately - that's not a foreign concept to me, and I know it goes for every desaster area anywhere in the world. Perhaps my comment was a bit unclear - what I was primarily referring to, was the apparent indifference with which this woman reports about this, that makes it seem like an everyday occurrence. Fits the cliche, is all I was saying;)
Speaking of cliches.
First of all, I am originally from Germany. I now live in the US - what precisely is 'more peaceful'? No sarcasm, I'm looking for what you're actually referring to - citizens or politicians?
The reason I'm asking is, because so many europeans see the TV image of the US, in which shootings are around every corner every day, ex-police officers are all alcoholics and look like Bruce Willis, and wacko neo-nazis try to blow the world up with a custom-built hydrogen bomb once a week. Exaggeration aside, I've seen this sort of picture in the minds of Europeans many times. Admittedly, I had part of it, before I moved here. Reality ain't like TV. It really isn't.
Now, politicians are a whole different story. No question here (no they don't all look like Bruce Willis, and so on, either, but... well, you get my drift;).
"marauders in radiation poluted area are not just a regular marauders, they don't steal stuff for themselves. There were cases of radiactive tv sets and other stuff being sold on city second hand markets and then police shot 7 or 8 of them and it helped"
Now, does that sound like the Soviet Russia from a bad movie, or what?
If I'm not mistaken, Daisho is the Japanese expression for the combination of a traditional long (Daito) and short (Tanto) sword. It's generally regarded as an expression for something being 'well equipped', having the right combination of things required to perform a task, something along those lines (Disclaimer: IANAJAL/T (I Am Not A Japanese Linguist/Translator)).
Kisan means something like beginning to count, beginning to number something.
Of course, there can be a number of different meanings to this, depending on the context, or what words were actually used. Where I've heard Daisho used as the above, it can also mean "Scribe", according to a dictionary, and words with a very similar sound exist as well (for example Daishou which can means General (or maybe "military leader" or "warrior leader" as a more generic meaning), and can also mean the "size" of something.
I don't know much Japanese (not much more than being able to count to ten), but have found that certain intonations and contexts can change the meaning of words. These intonation changes can be so subtle that an untrained 'western ear' may not even be able to make a distinction. Naturally, hilarity often ensues.
Second disclaimer: This is an absolute layman's interpretation of the parent post. Maybe someone with a little more knowledge of the Japanese can help?
I've got a logitech wireless keyboard and mouse duo, and however hard I try, I'm not noticing the behaviour you described - of course it's not the same make, so there are probably differences between manufacturers and models. I'm an avid FPS player myself, and if anything, the wireless mouse has made it a better experience.
For me personally, the wireless keyboard and mouse have been the best investment in hardware ever. no more wires on my desk, no more messing with trying to find the best route for the keyboard cable, and no more pulling the mouse wire and trying to keep it in a position, where my mouse movement is unimpaired by it;)
Lag time from wireless? The signal travels at light speed, no matter if it's in a wire or through the air. But just for the heck of it, let's see... considering the mouse is 3ft away from the receiver, and radio waves travelling at light speed, that is
299,792,458 m/s, assuming 3 ft in a meter at a distance of 3 feet, that would mean a delay of
1/299,792,458 s = 3.3*10 ^ -9 seconds, or
0.000000003s or 0.000003ms, or 0.003ns, or 3.3ps.
If any gamer notices that one, then I want to have their computer including video card and monitor, with which they can reach 33,000,000,000 frames per second! I mean, damn!
Let the teams choose heads or tails. Then put the coin on the referee's hand and flip it. Since neither of the teams know, which side it started on, the result will be completely random to them.
Basically, to take advantage of this coin toss, either side would have to know if, beginning the flip, heads or tails was down. If they don't the bias isn't relevant.
At least that's what I would think. IANAM (I Am Not A Mathematician.)
That is one of the things to be done to improve on scalability issues. However, to prevent hacking, most of the data has to be at least verified by the game servers. Otherwise you end up with players using speed hacks to outrun you at 150MPH, fight four times as fast, or cast fifteen devastating uber-magic-spells at a time.
So, again, you end up with the game server having to know everything, even if the frequency of processing here doesn't have to be quite as high.
Another problem, and this is the major issue I see with Wish's MSRQs, is, the target market. To date, and I don't see that one changing anytime soon, Asia is by far the largest market for MMORPGs, Korea being the largest in the bunch, with some 15 million people being involved in one or more MMORPGs (on a side note, interestingly enough, the 2D MMO Lineage being the most successful with supposedly over 3 million (!) subscribers. Let that one sit in your head for a while. Then imagine the continuous revenue stream at, say, $4 a month per subscriber. Scream. Read on once your antidepressants have kicked in).
The majority of asian MMO-players play in gaming cafes. Machines like, say, a P3/800 with a GeForce1 or Radeon, or equivalent systems, is the predominant amount of gaming horsepower you'll find in Asia. This is one of the big problems a developer of an MMO has to deal with, and it is one of the big reasons, why there are so many MMOs that either are not even released for the western market, or simply don't make it. The asian gaming landscape is quite different from the US and european ones. With its current requirements, Wish has little of a chance of wide spread adoption in Asia (unless everyone there suddenly decides to perform major upgrades on all of their machines). With accumulated development and infrastructure cost for a big MMORPG at launch time exceeding $8 Mio. more often than not, it is quite a gamble to not give the asian market major consideration in both gameplay and requirements.
This burns down to the scalability problems the article is mentioning. Real-time characteristics always mean more frequent transfer of potentially larger data packages, and the more frequent processing of those packages.
While you may be able to run Jedi Academy with 30 players on a cable connection, the same is not necessarily true for 300 players.
There are ways to at least make bandwidth and processing requirements scale less than linearly with the numbers of players, but the actual problem persists. The more players, the more data. The more data, the more bandwidth requirements and the more latency. The more latency and bandwidth requirements, the more the realtime characteristics suffer. Needing halfways reliable security (read: hack protection) methods doesn't make it any easier.
It is not only the reason why MMOs aren't realtime like an FPS, but also why FPSs aren't MMP like MMOs;)
No, of course tight deadlines are not limited to the game industry. However, in the game industry they tend to be noticeably tighter due to smaller team sizes (if we're talking 'normal' companies, not giants like EA) and more, more different, and more diverse tasks having to be taken on by the developers.
And of course there is also the (quite normal) case of big publishers bullying small studios around, changing requirements and adding tasks during development. At any rate, working 17 and 18 hour days for weeks at a time is more of an exception in any other industry. It's almost a rule before every major milestone in the game industry.
Also consider, that salary and benefits for developers in the game industry are usually considerably lower than in other fields. This has been alleviated somewhat by the dot bomb, but is still the case - compare average salaries between industries. Then compare the average perks across industries. You'll see what I mean.
And this is not because software engineers in the game industry are in any way less professional, less talented, less engineers, less computer scientists, or less experienced than in any other software engineering field (if this was the case, it wouldn't be as difficult to get a foot into the game industry as a software engineer from another field). As I stated above, in my opinion, the opposite is the case, to an extent. There is still much more need for innovation, flexibility, and creativity in software engineers in the game industry than in any other software engineering field I know of. As someone else stated below, many, many things a game software engineer does during a single development cycle would be suitable for a Ph.d. thesis - that is no exaggeration. Research and developing new technology and techniques are an integral part.
It is a common misconception, that the game industry consists of enthusiastic kids slapping code together and spending half of their days playing quake and having pizza parties at the office. Game companies trying to do that, will not make it through the first 6 months of their existence. Even if they manage to sign a publisher, they will be sued for breach of contract faster than they can say 'Papa John's' after their first couple of missed big milestones (which are, as a general rule, 4 to 8 weeks apart, similar to any other software project).
The reason, the disparity between compensation and requirements/duties is possible, is, because everyone thinks working in the game industry is the coolest job in the world, and wants to get in. For every job opening, be it artist or engineer, there are likely to be high 2-figure to 3-figure numbers of applicants (depending on the profile of the company).
And you know what? It is the coolest job in the world, or at least, from my perspective, the most interesting field I've ever worked in. If you can look past ridiculous crunchtime and the above mentioned flaws, like I said, you're in for the software engineering time of your life, also in a positive context.
Why is that? Because the challenges posed by game projects are so many, and so diverse. I think anyone having worked on a game project, 'professional' or not, would probably agree with me on that. Not necessarily having to wear shoes at the office (depending on the company) is just a perk.
Still, it is time for the big publishers to get reasonable. Even considering their expenses and risks in game projects, sacking in 95% or more of the pie is not reasonable. It is also time for the game companies to get reasonable, and think about their compensation packages. While there are game companies that provide comparably good salaries and benefits, the vast majority is still behind other industries. Profit sharing from royalties? Give me a break - heard that one too many times. It's likely not to happen, or to be marginal, unless you work for Blizzard or a similarly established company.
For everyone thinking about getting into the game industry, let me say thi
I think you're making it a little bit too easy on yourself. I've been in software development for, well, let's say a while now, starting with end-user applications over web-based and non-web based network applications to game development. Development of a 'profesional' game easily rivals large e-commerce applications as far as complexity is concerned.
The reason?
Far more diverse challenges from different areas of software development come to play. Network engineering, including bandwidth, server stability and scalability issues, performance of processing large amounts of data in an unimaginable amount of different ways, compression algorithms, design and architecture of APIs, use of often many different (often poorly documented) 3rd party APIs at a time, efficient use of dedicated video, audio and other hardware, strong knowledge of human audiovisual perception, asset management, database design, knowledge of several different programming languages, scripting, SQL, SOAP, development of tools and applications using MFC,.NET and whatnot, specifications of proprietary file formats, encryption and security, are just some of the subjects a single software engineer may have to work on in a single large scale game project.
In addition to that, any software engineer working in one or more of graphics, animation, audio, tools, to name a few, will need to have good knowledge of how the modelling, animation, audio and texture artists go about creating assets, in order to be able to make asset integration into the systems they develop, work as smoothly as possible.
Add about a teaspoon of multi-platform development (let's say, PC, XBOX, PS2, GameCube, sometimes Mac, for example).
Combine that with tight deadlines (the game industry isn't infamous for crunchtime for no reason), publisher's big wigs constantly looking over your shoulder and asking 'is it ready yet?', and dealing with (and this is the result of some people not knowing what they're doing as you stated) poorly specified requirements, and with the fact that hardware and technology in game related fields is advancing faster than anywhere else.
Stir frequently, and you have a recipe for the software development time of your life.
To summarize, in my opinion, a software engineer working on large scale interactive entertainment projects has to be far more flexible, have a higher level of self-motivation to take on problems and acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to do so, and be more team oriented and communicative than developers in other fields of software engineering.
We are not a bunch of kids hacking in hundreds of thousands of lines of spaghetti code without any consideration of software design and architecture principles, to release a game to make a quick buck. Those times are long gone.
I've used Opera's email client for a while, and am pretty happy with it. It provides what they call 'access points', which seem to be about the same conept as the above mentioned virtual folders. New access points can be created along with filtering criteria for each, and incoming email is assigned to one or more access points, if the filtering criteria match. I've found this to be a pretty powerful way of managing my email, since I can change the... well, the 'perspective' or angle, from which I look at my inbox. I can view email by contacts (sender addresses), unread, or any arbitrary access point I have created. That makes managing email, especially when having to assign email to several 'view points' in lack of a better term, based on several criteria, as described above.
I downloaded the drivers for my 9700Pro, installed them (RedHat 8), configured and restarted the X server, and that was it. Took me about 10 minutes total. Another 5 minutes to add a device block to xfree68.conf, and dual monitor was running too.
The only real problem I have is, that I can't seem to manage to run a different resolution on each of my monitors - otherwise the drivers are working just fine.
new technology that lets them print directly to the printing plate
I used to work in prepress as well, about 6 years ago. CTP (Computer-To-Plate) is anything but new technology, but since the systems needed for it were for quite a while only provided by one or two companies, and the software was running on comparably expensive SGI hardware (yes, it's a *nix that this technology was first developed with), adoption was slow, and there still were a few drawbacks in working with it. Basically, layouts had to be exported from Quark into PS files, loaded into an Irix app that made corrections possible, and printed from there directly to plate. I imagine the technology is much better now, and there are more providers of the needed hardware and software but one or two.
However, another thing that makes widespread adoption of this kind of thing a slow, long, and painful process, is the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality of anyone involved in professional publishing and prepress. The reasons should be clear - if tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (and sometimes more, if we're talking long-term customer relationships) depend on making the customer happy by giving them the results they expect when they expect them, it is hard for a publishing/design house to try new technology, be it hardware, a process like CTP, or software, like Scribus.
For example, the savings in material and time connected to being able to print a 1500 page catalog every two months without having to go via film can be enormous. However, it's really a matter of convincing management that it's worth taking the risk of having a few problems at first, or dedicating a couple of employees to making the new technology work, getting familiar with it, and integrating it seamlessly with the current processes.
That's the biggest hurdle any new player in the professional DTP game will have to jump. The potential benefits for a publishing house have to be large enough, so that even a blindfolded financial manager with a stick up his rear will see and acknowledge them.
The best place to apply those benefits is in time savings. The publishing house I worked at didn't even consider new tech, unless it came with a free do-it-in-half-the-time-warranty. Then, even the pricetag didn't matter - I remember for example a $35,000 Iris inkjet proofer, that management ordered and had installed without even a twitch, when that same management never could bring themselves to shell out a 500 bucks to make the move from 10 to 100MBit ethernet. In one case, the savings was obvious to them. In the other, they didn't see the benefit.
No, but I got whiplash when I saw the $899.95 pricetag!:)
Being the #1 desktop publishing package, they think they can ask that price. Always have. Always will. And it being the #1 package proves them right;)
900 bucks is nothing out of the ordinary for pro design software - you can easily spend several grand for software on a single machine for a design or publishing studio.
Here's my two cents. Since I was 10 or so, I've been having problems with low blood pressure. My doctor back then recommended to my parents, to let me have small doses of coffee to counteract the effects. He said it would beat the hell out of having to take actual blood pressure medication. I remember being hooked on coffee back to when I was about 13. Since then my caffeine intake has been varying, from zero to 3 pots a day when I had finals in college. At that time I actually had to substitute the 3rd pot of coffee with tea to prevent the jitters and concentration problems, because I had difficulties studying. I read up on various beverages and read that regular tea contains a smaller dose of caffeine than a comparable amount of coffee, plus theobromine, which is supposed to be a mild muscle relaxant. It worked - no bad jitters and I could concentrate just fine. Even now I need a cup of coffee in the mornings to really get going. The last time I had my blood pressure checked after getting up and walking (!) a quarter mile to the doctor's office, it was 90 over 60. Which would explain why I'm having a hard time getting started in the mornings. Sometimes I have withdrawal symptoms if I'm not drinking coffee (note, not everytime), that range from fatigue to slight headaches, but they are all mild. Currently I drink between one and one and a half pot (around 7 to 12) mugs of coffe a day. I agree whole-heartedly with the statements of increased concentration and being less tired. My mind seems to work faster, I'm able to solve problems more easily, can focus better and work out tasks much faster after a cup of coffee. I'm a software engineer, so caffeine kind of goes with the trade. However, I also notice that after too much coffee, the caffeine seems to have an adverse effect. It may be just that I've exhausted my mental and/or physical capabilities for the day, but at a certain point the coffee either doesn't help anymore, or more coffee makes the concentration problems slightly worse.
I also have a slightly hyperactive thyroid that prevents me from gaining weight anywhere over 140lbs, though I eat like a pig. Doctors have told me that there may be a correlation between my thyroid and the low blood pressure, although they noted, that it's usually the other way around - people with overactive thyroids have high blood pressure more often than not. People tend to tell me that my caffeine intake is part of the reason for my 'weight problem' (hell I'd rather weigh 140 lbs than 240), but from what was stated above, the opposite should be the case. Any more information on that one?
Generally, I think it's a matter of balance between drinking coffee (if you want to call yourself a geek you just have to), drinking water (yes, water is good for you!), a halfways reasonable diet with some fruit and vegetables, and getting at least a small amount of physical exercise.
I remember some media buzz about WORM (Write Once Read Many, if i recall correctly), but not that they were actually magnetically written. Thanks for the clarification:)
This kind of levy has been on any kind of recordable media for as long as I can think back (it's called The GEMA-Gebuehr). The sales price of all audio tapes, DAT tapes, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, etc. etc. includes this added price which is distributed among the recording industry. Note that the artists are actually not seeing a penny of this money.
So, by levying recordable CDs, they should actually already have their fee to level out the damage done by copying. Now they're proposing to add a second one to computers, cause they can't get their pockets full enough.
Some people have actually researched and found out that the decline in sales they're reporting is pretty much in harmony with the decline in new releases of music recordings. Surprised? I'm not.
A side note: "Blank magnetic media, especially recordable CDs..."
That's a new one. The magnetic CD...
Slashdot Mirror
Be careful with that assertion. I've worked on a major RPG, and the amount of story, background and history that was developed for it could easily fill a series of novels. If I remember correctly, we're talking more than 3500 pages of well-written, finely detailed story, including several dozens of very intricately developed characters and hundreds of events.
Of course that won't apply to all RPGs, but with many of them there's more creative writing involved than one might think (and writing is not the only artistic task that is performed in game development).
Don't know how many people here actually still play 'old school' adventure games, but The Longest Journey was one that had the story, plot and characters to keep me playing it through to the end - and I'm not actually a big adventure game player. TLJ would make a good movie, IMO - a film crew that manages to retain the feel of the game provided.
Memphish, of course!
As for looters being shot immediately - that's not a foreign concept to me, and I know it goes for every desaster area anywhere in the world. Perhaps my comment was a bit unclear - what I was primarily referring to, was the apparent indifference with which this woman reports about this, that makes it seem like an everyday occurrence. Fits the cliche, is all I was saying ;) ;).
Speaking of cliches.
First of all, I am originally from Germany. I now live in the US - what precisely is 'more peaceful'? No sarcasm, I'm looking for what you're actually referring to - citizens or politicians?
The reason I'm asking is, because so many europeans see the TV image of the US, in which shootings are around every corner every day, ex-police officers are all alcoholics and look like Bruce Willis, and wacko neo-nazis try to blow the world up with a custom-built hydrogen bomb once a week. Exaggeration aside, I've seen this sort of picture in the minds of Europeans many times. Admittedly, I had part of it, before I moved here. Reality ain't like TV. It really isn't.
Now, politicians are a whole different story. No question here (no they don't all look like Bruce Willis, and so on, either, but... well, you get my drift
"marauders in radiation poluted area are not just a regular marauders, they don't steal stuff for themselves. There were cases of radiactive tv sets and other stuff being sold on city second hand markets and then police shot 7 or 8 of them and it helped"
Now, does that sound like the Soviet Russia from a bad movie, or what?
If I'm not mistaken, Daisho is the Japanese expression for the combination of a traditional long (Daito) and short (Tanto) sword. It's generally regarded as an expression for something being 'well equipped', having the right combination of things required to perform a task, something along those lines (Disclaimer: IANAJAL/T (I Am Not A Japanese Linguist/Translator)).
Kisan means something like beginning to count, beginning to number something.
Of course, there can be a number of different meanings to this, depending on the context, or what words were actually used. Where I've heard Daisho used as the above, it can also mean "Scribe", according to a dictionary, and words with a very similar sound exist as well (for example Daishou which can means General (or maybe "military leader" or "warrior leader" as a more generic meaning), and can also mean the "size" of something.
I don't know much Japanese (not much more than being able to count to ten), but have found that certain intonations and contexts can change the meaning of words. These intonation changes can be so subtle that an untrained 'western ear' may not even be able to make a distinction. Naturally, hilarity often ensues.
Second disclaimer: This is an absolute layman's interpretation of the parent post. Maybe someone with a little more knowledge of the Japanese can help?
I've got a logitech wireless keyboard and mouse duo, and however hard I try, I'm not noticing the behaviour you described - of course it's not the same make, so there are probably differences between manufacturers and models. I'm an avid FPS player myself, and if anything, the wireless mouse has made it a better experience.
;)
For me personally, the wireless keyboard and mouse have been the best investment in hardware ever. no more wires on my desk, no more messing with trying to find the best route for the keyboard cable, and no more pulling the mouse wire and trying to keep it in a position, where my mouse movement is unimpaired by it
Lag time from wireless? The signal travels at light speed, no matter if it's in a wire or through the air. But just for the heck of it, let's see... considering the mouse is 3ft away from the receiver, and radio waves travelling at light speed, that is
299,792,458 m/s, assuming 3 ft in a meter at a distance of 3 feet, that would mean a delay of
1/299,792,458 s = 3.3*10 ^ -9 seconds, or 0.000000003s or 0.000003ms, or 0.003ns, or 3.3ps.
If any gamer notices that one, then I want to have their computer including video card and monitor, with which they can reach 33,000,000,000 frames per second! I mean, damn!
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
Let the teams choose heads or tails. Then put the coin on the referee's hand and flip it. Since neither of the teams know, which side it started on, the result will be completely random to them.
Basically, to take advantage of this coin toss, either side would have to know if, beginning the flip, heads or tails was down. If they don't the bias isn't relevant.
At least that's what I would think. IANAM (I Am Not A Mathematician.)
That is one of the things to be done to improve on scalability issues. However, to prevent hacking, most of the data has to be at least verified by the game servers. Otherwise you end up with players using speed hacks to outrun you at 150MPH, fight four times as fast, or cast fifteen devastating uber-magic-spells at a time. So, again, you end up with the game server having to know everything, even if the frequency of processing here doesn't have to be quite as high.
Another problem, and this is the major issue I see with Wish's MSRQs, is, the target market. To date, and I don't see that one changing anytime soon, Asia is by far the largest market for MMORPGs, Korea being the largest in the bunch, with some 15 million people being involved in one or more MMORPGs (on a side note, interestingly enough, the 2D MMO Lineage being the most successful with supposedly over 3 million (!) subscribers. Let that one sit in your head for a while. Then imagine the continuous revenue stream at, say, $4 a month per subscriber. Scream. Read on once your antidepressants have kicked in).
The majority of asian MMO-players play in gaming cafes. Machines like, say, a P3/800 with a GeForce1 or Radeon, or equivalent systems, is the predominant amount of gaming horsepower you'll find in Asia. This is one of the big problems a developer of an MMO has to deal with, and it is one of the big reasons, why there are so many MMOs that either are not even released for the western market, or simply don't make it. The asian gaming landscape is quite different from the US and european ones. With its current requirements, Wish has little of a chance of wide spread adoption in Asia (unless everyone there suddenly decides to perform major upgrades on all of their machines). With accumulated development and infrastructure cost for a big MMORPG at launch time exceeding $8 Mio. more often than not, it is quite a gamble to not give the asian market major consideration in both gameplay and requirements.
This burns down to the scalability problems the article is mentioning. Real-time characteristics always mean more frequent transfer of potentially larger data packages, and the more frequent processing of those packages. While you may be able to run Jedi Academy with 30 players on a cable connection, the same is not necessarily true for 300 players.
;)
There are ways to at least make bandwidth and processing requirements scale less than linearly with the numbers of players, but the actual problem persists. The more players, the more data. The more data, the more bandwidth requirements and the more latency. The more latency and bandwidth requirements, the more the realtime characteristics suffer. Needing halfways reliable security (read: hack protection) methods doesn't make it any easier.
It is not only the reason why MMOs aren't realtime like an FPS, but also why FPSs aren't MMP like MMOs
No, of course tight deadlines are not limited to the game industry. However, in the game industry they tend to be noticeably tighter due to smaller team sizes (if we're talking 'normal' companies, not giants like EA) and more, more different, and more diverse tasks having to be taken on by the developers.
And of course there is also the (quite normal) case of big publishers bullying small studios around, changing requirements and adding tasks during development. At any rate, working 17 and 18 hour days for weeks at a time is more of an exception in any other industry. It's almost a rule before every major milestone in the game industry.
Also consider, that salary and benefits for developers in the game industry are usually considerably lower than in other fields. This has been alleviated somewhat by the dot bomb, but is still the case - compare average salaries between industries. Then compare the average perks across industries. You'll see what I mean.
And this is not because software engineers in the game industry are in any way less professional, less talented, less engineers, less computer scientists, or less experienced than in any other software engineering field (if this was the case, it wouldn't be as difficult to get a foot into the game industry as a software engineer from another field). As I stated above, in my opinion, the opposite is the case, to an extent. There is still much more need for innovation, flexibility, and creativity in software engineers in the game industry than in any other software engineering field I know of. As someone else stated below, many, many things a game software engineer does during a single development cycle would be suitable for a Ph.d. thesis - that is no exaggeration. Research and developing new technology and techniques are an integral part.
It is a common misconception, that the game industry consists of enthusiastic kids slapping code together and spending half of their days playing quake and having pizza parties at the office. Game companies trying to do that, will not make it through the first 6 months of their existence. Even if they manage to sign a publisher, they will be sued for breach of contract faster than they can say 'Papa John's' after their first couple of missed big milestones (which are, as a general rule, 4 to 8 weeks apart, similar to any other software project).
The reason, the disparity between compensation and requirements/duties is possible, is, because everyone thinks working in the game industry is the coolest job in the world, and wants to get in. For every job opening, be it artist or engineer, there are likely to be high 2-figure to 3-figure numbers of applicants (depending on the profile of the company).
And you know what? It is the coolest job in the world, or at least, from my perspective, the most interesting field I've ever worked in. If you can look past ridiculous crunchtime and the above mentioned flaws, like I said, you're in for the software engineering time of your life, also in a positive context.
Why is that?
Because the challenges posed by game projects are so many, and so diverse. I think anyone having worked on a game project, 'professional' or not, would probably agree with me on that. Not necessarily having to wear shoes at the office (depending on the company) is just a perk.
Still, it is time for the big publishers to get reasonable. Even considering their expenses and risks in game projects, sacking in 95% or more of the pie is not reasonable. It is also time for the game companies to get reasonable, and think about their compensation packages. While there are game companies that provide comparably good salaries and benefits, the vast majority is still behind other industries. Profit sharing from royalties? Give me a break - heard that one too many times. It's likely not to happen, or to be marginal, unless you work for Blizzard or a similarly established company.
For everyone thinking about getting into the game industry, let me say thi
I think you're making it a little bit too easy on yourself. I've been in software development for, well, let's say a while now, starting with end-user applications over web-based and non-web based network applications to game development. Development of a 'profesional' game easily rivals large e-commerce applications as far as complexity is concerned. .NET and whatnot, specifications of proprietary file formats, encryption and security, are just some of the subjects a single software engineer may have to work on in a single large scale game project.
The reason?
Far more diverse challenges from different areas of software development come to play. Network engineering, including bandwidth, server stability and scalability issues, performance of processing large amounts of data in an unimaginable amount of different ways, compression algorithms, design and architecture of APIs, use of often many different (often poorly documented) 3rd party APIs at a time, efficient use of dedicated video, audio and other hardware, strong knowledge of human audiovisual perception, asset management, database design, knowledge of several different programming languages, scripting, SQL, SOAP, development of tools and applications using MFC,
In addition to that, any software engineer working in one or more of graphics, animation, audio, tools, to name a few, will need to have good knowledge of how the modelling, animation, audio and texture artists go about creating assets, in order to be able to make asset integration into the systems they develop, work as smoothly as possible.
Add about a teaspoon of multi-platform development (let's say, PC, XBOX, PS2, GameCube, sometimes Mac, for example).
Combine that with tight deadlines (the game industry isn't infamous for crunchtime for no reason), publisher's big wigs constantly looking over your shoulder and asking 'is it ready yet?', and dealing with (and this is the result of some people not knowing what they're doing as you stated) poorly specified requirements, and with the fact that hardware and technology in game related fields is advancing faster than anywhere else.
Stir frequently, and you have a recipe for the software development time of your life.
To summarize, in my opinion, a software engineer working on large scale interactive entertainment projects has to be far more flexible, have a higher level of self-motivation to take on problems and acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to do so, and be more team oriented and communicative than developers in other fields of software engineering.
We are not a bunch of kids hacking in hundreds of thousands of lines of spaghetti code without any consideration of software design and architecture principles, to release a game to make a quick buck. Those times are long gone.
I've used Opera's email client for a while, and am pretty happy with it. It provides what they call 'access points', which seem to be about the same conept as the above mentioned virtual folders. New access points can be created along with filtering criteria for each, and incoming email is assigned to one or more access points, if the filtering criteria match. I've found this to be a pretty powerful way of managing my email, since I can change the... well, the 'perspective' or angle, from which I look at my inbox. I can view email by contacts (sender addresses), unread, or any arbitrary access point I have created. That makes managing email, especially when having to assign email to several 'view points' in lack of a better term, based on several criteria, as described above.
I downloaded the drivers for my 9700Pro, installed them (RedHat 8), configured and restarted the X server, and that was it. Took me about 10 minutes total. Another 5 minutes to add a device block to xfree68.conf, and dual monitor was running too. The only real problem I have is, that I can't seem to manage to run a different resolution on each of my monitors - otherwise the drivers are working just fine.
out of sheer vindictiveness.
share vindictiveness, you mean?
new technology that lets them print directly to the printing plate
I used to work in prepress as well, about 6 years ago. CTP (Computer-To-Plate) is anything but new technology, but since the systems needed for it were for quite a while only provided by one or two companies, and the software was running on comparably expensive SGI hardware (yes, it's a *nix that this technology was first developed with), adoption was slow, and there still were a few drawbacks in working with it. Basically, layouts had to be exported from Quark into PS files, loaded into an Irix app that made corrections possible, and printed from there directly to plate. I imagine the technology is much better now, and there are more providers of the needed hardware and software but one or two.
However, another thing that makes widespread adoption of this kind of thing a slow, long, and painful process, is the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality of anyone involved in professional publishing and prepress. The reasons should be clear - if tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (and sometimes more, if we're talking long-term customer relationships) depend on making the customer happy by giving them the results they expect when they expect them, it is hard for a publishing/design house to try new technology, be it hardware, a process like CTP, or software, like Scribus.
For example, the savings in material and time connected to being able to print a 1500 page catalog every two months without having to go via film can be enormous. However, it's really a matter of convincing management that it's worth taking the risk of having a few problems at first, or dedicating a couple of employees to making the new technology work, getting familiar with it, and integrating it seamlessly with the current processes.
That's the biggest hurdle any new player in the professional DTP game will have to jump. The potential benefits for a publishing house have to be large enough, so that even a blindfolded financial manager with a stick up his rear will see and acknowledge them.
The best place to apply those benefits is in time savings. The publishing house I worked at didn't even consider new tech, unless it came with a free do-it-in-half-the-time-warranty. Then, even the pricetag didn't matter - I remember for example a $35,000 Iris inkjet proofer, that management ordered and had installed without even a twitch, when that same management never could bring themselves to shell out a 500 bucks to make the move from 10 to 100MBit ethernet. In one case, the savings was obvious to them. In the other, they didn't see the benefit.
No, but I got whiplash when I saw the $899.95 pricetag! :)
Being the #1 desktop publishing package, they think they can ask that price. Always have. Always will. And it being the #1 package proves them right ;)
900 bucks is nothing out of the ordinary for pro design software - you can easily spend several grand for software on a single machine for a design or publishing studio.
Here's my two cents.
Since I was 10 or so, I've been having problems with low blood pressure. My doctor back then recommended to my parents, to let me have small doses of coffee to counteract the effects. He said it would beat the hell out of having to take actual blood pressure medication.
I remember being hooked on coffee back to when I was about 13. Since then my caffeine intake has been varying, from zero to 3 pots a day when I had finals in college. At that time I actually had to substitute the 3rd pot of coffee with tea to prevent the jitters and concentration problems, because I had difficulties studying. I read up on various beverages and read that regular tea contains a smaller dose of caffeine than a comparable amount of coffee, plus theobromine, which is supposed to be a mild muscle relaxant. It worked - no bad jitters and I could concentrate just fine.
Even now I need a cup of coffee in the mornings to really get going. The last time I had my blood pressure checked after getting up and walking (!) a quarter mile to the doctor's office, it was 90 over 60. Which would explain why I'm having a hard time getting started in the mornings.
Sometimes I have withdrawal symptoms if I'm not drinking coffee (note, not everytime), that range from fatigue to slight headaches, but they are all mild. Currently I drink between one and one and a half pot (around 7 to 12) mugs of coffe a day.
I agree whole-heartedly with the statements of increased concentration and being less tired. My mind seems to work faster, I'm able to solve problems more easily, can focus better and work out tasks much faster after a cup of coffee. I'm a software engineer, so caffeine kind of goes with the trade.
However, I also notice that after too much coffee, the caffeine seems to have an adverse effect. It may be just that I've exhausted my mental and/or physical capabilities for the day, but at a certain point the coffee either doesn't help anymore, or more coffee makes the concentration problems slightly worse.
I also have a slightly hyperactive thyroid that prevents me from gaining weight anywhere over 140lbs, though I eat like a pig. Doctors have told me that there may be a correlation between my thyroid and the low blood pressure, although they noted, that it's usually the other way around - people with overactive thyroids have high blood pressure more often than not.
People tend to tell me that my caffeine intake is part of the reason for my 'weight problem' (hell I'd rather weigh 140 lbs than 240), but from what was stated above, the opposite should be the case. Any more information on that one?
Generally, I think it's a matter of balance between drinking coffee (if you want to call yourself a geek you just have to), drinking water (yes, water is good for you!), a halfways reasonable diet with some fruit and vegetables, and getting at least a small amount of physical exercise.
Initial traffic got very high, transferring over a gibibit a second.
Neat... and how much exactly is a gibibit?
Who needs a sig anyway?
'Overall, the countries that have the poorest record of IP rights have slower rates of IT growth'
In other news: Countries with slower rates of IT growth have poor records of IP rights, because they don't need them.
I remember some media buzz about WORM (Write Once Read Many, if i recall correctly), but not that they were actually magnetically written. Thanks for the clarification :)
This kind of levy has been on any kind of recordable media for as long as I can think back (it's called The GEMA-Gebuehr). The sales price of all audio tapes, DAT tapes, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, etc. etc. includes this added price which is distributed among the recording industry. Note that the artists are actually not seeing a penny of this money.
So, by levying recordable CDs, they should actually already have their fee to level out the damage done by copying. Now they're proposing to add a second one to computers, cause they can't get their pockets full enough.
Some people have actually researched and found out that the decline in sales they're reporting is pretty much in harmony with the decline in new releases of music recordings. Surprised? I'm not.
A side note:
"Blank magnetic media, especially recordable CDs..."
That's a new one. The magnetic CD...
who needs a sig anyway?
923 MBits/s = 115.375 MBytes/s = 6.9225 GBytes/min