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Shalinor posted:Hehehehe. It's like they're Counter-Strike avatars come to life! Terrorists vs Counter-Terrorists: This reminded me of the old goons.jpg thread and a singe tear of nostalgia escaped. 
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Oct 25, 2011 18:25
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Shalinor posted:Hehehehe. It's like they're Counter-Strike avatars come to life! Terrorists vs Counter-Terrorists: You missed the dude with the big rear end USMC avatar, but then it shows that he's 13 and has the goal of joining USMC. God I want to punch every one of them in the face. -e- also "I WANT TO MAKE MONEY OFF OF GAMES"
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Oct 25, 2011 18:36
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Diplomaticus posted:You missed the dude with the big rear end USMC avatar, but then it shows that he's 13 and has the goal of joining USMC. As painful as this site is to read, tell me you didn't have the same aspirations when you were in middle school/high school. That you didn't try to put together a game only to be stalled when you realized you lacked that education to do so. Maybe you even got a few bored artists or programmers on board before realizing you had no idea what the hell you were doing. And that you'd sell the game, strike it rich, and be able to pay everyone a percentage of the profits. This is the quintessential experience for every high school with dreams of making it big in the entertainment industry of their times. From people who wanted to be movie stars, rock stars, or video game makers, it's the same pattern of emulating those you respect. Many of you actually work in the industry that these folks hope to some day break into. You are, essentially, their equivalent of rock stars. They look up to people like you, and you are making fun of them on an internet forum. I'm not saying that we should drop everything and go mentor these types of kids but it's sort of disingenuous to make fun of them when we all have projects like that we want to keep hidden. Unless they are assholes or super entitled. Then all bets are off. My guess is these kids just need someone to say, "Go get a drat CS degree."
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Oct 25, 2011 19:01
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Pfhreak posted:As painful as this site is to read, tell me you didn't have the same aspirations when you were in middle school/high school. That you didn't try to put together a game only to be stalled when you realized you lacked that education to do so. Maybe you even got a few bored artists or programmers on board before realizing you had no idea what the hell you were doing. That only lets the younger teens off the hook. The 20-somethings should know better. 
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Oct 25, 2011 19:20
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mutata posted:That only lets the younger teens off the hook. The 20-somethings should know better. No disagreement there. 
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Oct 25, 2011 19:28
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mutata posted:That only lets the younger teens off the hook. The 20-somethings should know better.  But yes, keeping it above-board is only polite. I did that same thing. But... a little ribbing, I think, is ok. ... and no, the 20-somethings really shouldn't know better. I was a loving tool when I was an early 20-something. Of course I also had a lot of personal problems to sort, there was cause, but the point is just that you don't stop being a kid at the stroke of 20.
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Oct 25, 2011 19:52
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Shalinor posted:When I was young, in IRC, the older game devs (20+'ers) ribbed on me for my lovely studio names and tried to break down some of my more ridiculous notions. That helped me get to where I am, something something, etc, dammit it's a tradition. Ok fine. As a 27-year-old, I can at least snicker at the 27-year-old and the 30-year-old on that site. 
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Oct 25, 2011 20:27
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Pfhreak posted:As painful as this site is to read, tell me you didn't have the same aspirations when you were in middle school/high school. That you didn't try to put together a game only to be stalled when you realized you lacked that education to do so. Maybe you even got a few bored artists or programmers on board before realizing you had no idea what the hell you were doing. Also this phenomenon that you're talking about does not stop at high school. The majority of free mod projects can't recruit anybody. The majority of the ones that can recruit fail to get past concept. The majority of the ones that get past concept fail when they have no direction. The majority of the ones with direction fail when they can't replace that really good programmer or artist that had to leave due to real-life issues, or because the person leading the project burns out. The majority of the ones that get released don't find an audience. Then all of them wonder why they didn't just make a Java game about cubes.
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Oct 25, 2011 20:41
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Modeller Modeller Modeller Modeller Weapon Modeller ... Coder
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Oct 26, 2011 07:35
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Sorry I don't do UVs, heh.
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Oct 26, 2011 10:02
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Pfhreak posted:As painful as this site is to read, tell me you didn't have the same aspirations when you were in middle school/high school. That you didn't try to put together a game only to be stalled when you realized you lacked that education to do so. Maybe you even got a few bored artists or programmers on board before realizing you had no idea what the hell you were doing. Quite the opposite. When I was in high school, the mod I worked on was acquired and commercially released by Valve and was the 2nd most popular HL mod behind Counter-strike. I managed to do that without pretending I was in the military in the process, or do it without plans of making it mega-rich off of other people's work.
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Oct 26, 2011 10:09
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Yeah, well, back in your day a gun was only 8 polygons, err triangle things. And hi-res textures meant 64x64.
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Oct 26, 2011 10:12
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Back in my day, we had a single pixel to work with and god drat we never complained!
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Oct 26, 2011 11:24
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I admire their... spunk, as it were. I'd like to see some at least some concept art before I commit to the project. I can't really talk though becauseI'm 19 and learning myself Animation and Modelling and I dont have anything worth showing anyone so I can't talk . All I know how to do is turn photos of leaves into awesome low res plants...  and no, I'm not showing anyone anything for at least another month I am investigating the indie side of things and making something myself but that would involve learning how to Code and I suck at coding. Is UDK manageable in this regard? Im sure I can throw a rock at university and find a computer engineering major who wants to help.
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Oct 26, 2011 11:32
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My dream finally came true. I'm (was) a Project Manager and Senior Software Engineer in Serious Games and on Monday was given a official offer to be the Sr. Producer for a well-known studio in the LA area. I don't want to name the studio yet but I will after some time there. This morning I am handing in my notice at my current job.
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Oct 26, 2011 11:34
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In 1986, two game developers started a company that has lasted longer and developed far more acclaimed titles than the majority of your employers. Those developers were Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin. Their company was Naughty Dog. Their first title, Ski Stud, was published by Baudville for $250. Their second title, Dream Zone, was developed for multiple platforms—the Apple II, Amiga, and Atari ST—and sold 10,000 units. Their next three titles were published by EA. They were 16 years old. Don't knock the kids.
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Oct 26, 2011 11:57
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Yeah to be clear, I wasn't knocking kids, or youthful enthusiasm. I was knocking that particular subset because they really rubbed me the wrong way. Being young doesn't mean that you can't do your research, and be mature and professional with what you do -- in fact in this age of integrated information there's no excuse NOT to. I'm also an elitist rear end in a top hat, so there may be that.
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Oct 26, 2011 12:24
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Awww, we're not allowed to make fun of the "I have an awesome idea for a HalfLife mod that's like Counterstrike but even better, I just need modellers and mappers and programmers and audio guys" people any more? $50 says that team is not the next Naughty Dog. The core team of ND had the skills needed to make their games, these kids don't and don't appear to be willing or able to pay the people who do.
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Oct 26, 2011 13:10
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My senior Team-Project consisted of 5 artists, 2 level designers, 2 UI designers (one of which could program at least somewhere near my level but wanted to do UI layouts instead), 1 guy who literally could not do anything so we put him on sound but even then me and the lead artist had to step in to make all the sounds/music anyway, and 1 programmer (me) fun times here is the "final" version we got to in 21 weeks: http://www.paulnexttime.com/games/warnutz.html oh yeah and the "official website": http://teaminsidevoice.trevorlift.com/index.html at least, this is what all this talk made me remember.
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Oct 26, 2011 13:35
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I'm having Crimson Haze flashbacks.
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Oct 26, 2011 13:40
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FreakyZoid posted:The core team of ND had the skills needed to make their games, these kids don't and don't appear to be willing or able to pay the people who do. Broderbund Software started out selling its products in a similar manner. If you want to talk about not having the right skills, cofounder Gary Carlston told me, "Most of my work experience prior to Brøderbund was as a women's basketball coach in Sweden. My degree was in Scandinavian Languages and Literature. I couldn't imagine why Doug wanted a computer. I had played Pong in college and could not conceive of a more riveting technology." Doug Carlston was practicing law, building houses, and eventually "started programming the most boring parts of the legal business and job estimating." He was programming games as a hobby, sold a few to Adventure International, and by the time the housing market dried up, he was bored with law and decided to make games full-time. Broderbund later sold for ~$559M in today's dollars. Those of us who are entrepreneurs absolutely hate naysayers and people who underestimate us. I know what it's like to be a 16-year-old and treated like a child in business, regardless of the fact that I had a long-term contract with a Fortune Global 500 company. I could see it in the faces of the adults around me, everything from resentment to a simple lack of confidence. You know, Nolan Bushnell was not in his teens when he started Atari with Ted Dabney, but he was the youngest entrepreneur in Silicon Valley at a time when entrepreneurs were middle-aged men who had already completed their careers. The investment community treated him the same way. They didn't want to invest in this 29-year-old kid's company and they certainly didn't understand what he was doing. I'm not saying that these kids are starting the next Naughty Dog, the next Broderbund, or the next Atari. I'm saying that you don't know that they won't surprise you.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:01
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Black Eagle posted:The "core team" of Naughty Dog was Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin. They started programming when they were 13.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:15
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We can poke fun, because even they will look back on that and think "man, we were such spazzes way back then!"
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Oct 26, 2011 14:16
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FreakyZoid posted:That's what I said. Your Broderbund example is the same - the people who started it learned the skills and made the things themselves.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:21
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Black Eagle posted:I'm not saying that these kids are starting the next Naughty Dog, the next Broderbund, or the next Atari. I'm saying that you don't know that they won't surprise you. Of course they could surprise us. That's what the word 'surprise' means, to do something unexpected. We don't expect them to get anywhere, and we are reasonable in those expectations. These people are behaving like adolescents by putting up a website about their 'company' when they are not a company and their 'game' when they have no game. I don't think anyone faults their ambition, we just laugh at their posturing, and note that, important as it is to them, nobody else cares that a bunch of young people has decided to make a game. Think how our reaction would be different if, instead, they had made their game, and their website was full of awesome (or even terrible) screenshots, videos, and a demo.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:21
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Star Warrior X posted:I don't think anyone faults their ambition, we just laugh at their posturing Star Warrior X posted:Think how our reaction would be different if, instead, they had made their game, and their website was full of awesome (or even terrible) screenshots, videos, and a demo.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:31
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Black Eagle posted:I'm not saying that these kids are starting the next Naughty Dog, the next Broderbund, or the next Atari. I'm saying that you don't know that they won't surprise you. Anyways I'm pretty sure the whole point was a bunch of kids trying to hire a professional artist for their game idea was pretty amusing.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:46
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Black Eagle posted:According to their home page, they planned to release a trailer this month and a demo in January. And if and when they have those things, we can judge them based on how good those things are (we judge real game companies' pre-release announcements based on their prior titles). Until then, we must judge them on their poor website layout, bad grammar, and silly profile pictures and quotes.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:48
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The Marine thing did it for me, but I'm touchy about posing like that.
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Oct 26, 2011 14:52
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SupSuper posted:You can't really compare success stories from the 80s to today. Game development was barely a thing and every company started off with a clueless pair of guys that just got together and started selling cheap shareware games out of their house for some reason. These days that'll make you an "indy developer" at most. I have my pick of the litter and that's just the first book. As Peter Molyneux wrote in his foreword, everyone started from humble beginnings. Star Warrior X posted:And if and when they have those things, we can judge them based on how good those things are (we judge real game companies' pre-release announcements based on their prior titles). Until then, we must judge them on their poor website layout, bad grammar, and silly profile pictures and quotes.
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Oct 26, 2011 15:10
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Black Eagle posted:I've seen worse from teams who could afford to license the Unreal Engine. Robot Entertainment's launch website just had a logo and an e-mail address. One of my friends, Jim Buck, launched his first company DepthQ with this website. Respawn Entertainment didn't even have a website. I think you should find a more appropriate criteria. All of these things that you listed are better than the website linked in this thread, by far. Those people knew that if you didn't have anything to make a website about, you keep it super simple or don't even make one. The DepthQ site is from 2001, which wasn't that much further beyond "hampster dance" times on the internet. I believe that much of what people are laughing at are the personal bios and their job openings. Have you looked at the page? This is one of their job opportunities: - Graphics Adjuster I understand that you don't think we should be making fun of people that want to break into the industry, but we're just teasing them about how much their website screams "I'm a kid who wants to make the next Call of Duty". At some point many of us were that kid, and we ALSO know how to make fun of ourselves for the crap we did back then.
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Oct 26, 2011 15:34
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Black Eagle posted:I think you should find a more appropriate criteria. That's my whole point. There is no other criteria available. All of the success stories from humble roots in your book are the same way. When they were in the humble roots phase they got less respect and admiration then they do now that they are in the success stage. If these people make a great game I will be happy to congratulate them for it. I will not congratulate them for intending to do so (though I might have congratulated them on some awesome screenshots, or a cool website). I intend to make a million dollars, but do not expect people to act as though I am already a millionaire. People would justifiably laugh at me if I made a website with my photo and the tag 'future millionaire.'
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Oct 26, 2011 15:36
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SupSuper posted:You can't really compare success stories from the 80s to today. Game development was barely a thing and every company started off with a clueless pair of guys that just got together and started selling cheap shareware games out of their house for some reason. These days that'll make you an "indy developer" at most. Aaaannnyyywaaayss... Yeah, ribbing is fine, so long as everyone realizes that we were all just as spazzy as kids. Well at least I was. At one point, I was involved with a "studio" called "Flying Dead Cow Games." I even drew a terrible splash image. My hero and mentor was a dude who made a Bust-A-Move clone in his spare time at Uni, and was working on a 3D RTS-like game. I made a Build level of my school's pool building. I was going to make an engine and a game and sell it for millions and become rich, just like John Carmack, except that I never even got all the way through an engine before getting bored and starting over. Etc. Even the Marine thing isn't unusual for the age. My brother desperately wanted to be a Marine at that age, just like his grandfather. I believe I might have tried to hire or attract an artist at one point, even, and they probably laughed at me in the early internet IRC equivalent of this thread. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Oct 26, 2011 |
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Oct 26, 2011 15:39
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Superrodan posted:I believe that much of what people are laughing at are the personal bios and their job openings. Have you looked at the page? This is one of their job opportunities:
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Oct 26, 2011 15:53
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Black Eagle posted:Respawn Entertainment didn't even have a website. I think you should find a more appropriate criteria. Anyway, I'm not sure the point is lost even if what you're saying is true. The thing with high school projects is that it doesn't matter if they fail: The costs are essentially zero and the developers all have their living expenses covered. Because nobody stands to lose anything and nobody has any experience, failure is virtually guaranteed, the benefit is that the whole thing is a learning experience which can be built upon. We're not playing what the Naughty Dog founders made in high school, we're playing the things they made after recovering and learning from a few failures and non-successes.
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Oct 26, 2011 15:53
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Black Eagle, I know your whole schtick is "schooling" the rest of us and shilling your book while being contrary, but I'm pretty sure these guys aren't the next Naughty Dog. I'm definitely sure they're not the next Respawn. And that's OK. There is no harm done by looking at a bunch of middleschool/highschool kids and laughing at the naivety of youth. Especially because most of us were there doing the same thing. At 13 I was going to get a job with my Red Alert Total Conversion that was turning all the units into kids toys (I did not have 3d software so I was drawing sprites in Paint Shop Pro. There are about 300 frames for their infantry). I organized and ran a clan and WE WERE ALL GOING TO BE PRO GAMERS.
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Oct 26, 2011 16:06
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Don't forget name dropping.
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Oct 26, 2011 16:12
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Sigma-X posted:Especially because most of us were there doing the same thing. At 13 I was going to get a job with my Red Alert Total Conversion that was turning all the units into kids toys (I did not have 3d software so I was drawing sprites in Paint Shop Pro. There are about 300 frames for their infantry). I organized and ran a clan and WE WERE ALL GOING TO BE PRO GAMERS. I designed an MMO that was going to be Everquest but better. Then 7 years later World of Warcraft came out! Jerks  I used to keep a journal when I was younger where I'd write a plot for a game sequel I knew was coming (like Final Fantasy 8 and 9) and see how close I got to the actual plot. I only got one of these dead on, and that was the Lord of Destruction expansion for Diablo 2. I felt awesome about that.
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Oct 26, 2011 16:15
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Star Warrior X posted:I intend to make a million dollars, but do not expect people to act as though I am already a millionaire. People would justifiably laugh at me if I made a website with my photo and the tag 'future millionaire.' The webmaster and project leader in this case is 13 years old. Instead of chasing girls, he's chasing a dream of making games. I think that, as an adult, you can be more lenient in your judgment of his presentation. Yes, he's naive. What 13-year-old isn't? Yes, he's not a marketing genius. He's 13. Yes, his team will probably fall apart. Most startups in every sector in the US don't survive past their fifth year. But none of that is important. None of that matters in this case. If you feel so strongly that he shouldn't be doing this or that, send him an e-mail. He will either think the world of you for sharing your insight or ignore you, the adult, as teenagers should. But I really don't see why ragging on a 13-year-old boy should be good fun for adults. OneEightHundred posted:We're not playing what the Naughty Dog founders made in high school, we're playing the things they made after recovering and learning from a few failures and non-successes.
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Oct 26, 2011 16:23
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I'm really looking forward to reviewing your book on Amazon.
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