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I love talking about new features in C++. My problem with that language has always been that it just isn't big enough.  On the other hand, changes wouldn't be happening if people didn't want the features, and they all usually seem really cool. That said, my favorite part of C++11 was >>. I just started working in C++ at a publisher modernizing their SDK, haven't used it since college. The lead was hit by a bus on the 405, and he probably wont be back for another couple weeks. Do any of you have recommendations on how I can convince the 'senior' engineers that thread safety matters? You guys all use threads, right? And here I was thinking that junior positions were about learning and growth, not trying to teach people higher up the chain about core concepts. 
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Jun 23, 2013 17:21
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Liang Nuren posted:If I were in your shoes, I'd take a look at the crash reports and see how many crashes are coming out of that particular SDK. Also, take a look at the data flow coming out of the SDK and see if there's intermittent/unexplainable bullshit there. Both of those are likely outcomes of thread safety issues. If you aren't seeing either of those two symptoms, then you may be mistaken about how vulnerable the code in question is. If you've got some smoking gun evidence, they will very likely listen to you. If two threads call a function at the same time, a resource will leak. It's blatant and obvious (and simple to fix), and it's mostly a function of the developer responsible having little to no oversight. Code reviews have been eschewed because they "slow people down." The problem is not so much this particular thing, so much as an environment which makes things like this systemic. Forcing the project onto VCS was a major victory. It only took a couple weeks of politicking. I don't want to clutter this thread too much with this. It's starting to take a turn where it really belongs in one of the shadenfreude threads. 
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Jun 23, 2013 22:13
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Max Facetime posted:Assuming the function is a part of a larger component and that the thread-safety of the component is not documented, We told our partners that our product is thread safe. We shipped them something that is not.
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Jun 24, 2013 04:50
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Juc66 posted:Aren't a number of the fields in game development underpaid compared to other industries? My understanding is that all fields make less than other industries. Unless you're talking about founder exits; then it's probably about average, but I don't have data on that. For founders, I assume average means: "I ran out of money and lost my house/car/marriage/dog/sanity/.., and do you have any change brother?" Talking about dev staff.. HR probably makes about the same as other industries?
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Jun 29, 2013 02:47
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I know there's plenty of room for the entire industry to grow up, but why does it seem like whenever these topics come up it's a bunch of westerners projecting their ideals on products from eastern developers? Yes, a lot of eastern games are more sexually egregious than many western games, but the cultures are also very different. I can't get over the idea that we might be too deep in our puritan roots.  Let's teach our kids about guns and drugs, but call child services if they see a nipple.Dragon's Crown is hilariously over-sexualized though. It's almost unfortunate that the gameplay looks good, because I hope no one ever sees me playing that game in public.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:01
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mutata posted:Eh, I think that's a different topic entirely. What I said above has nothing to do with "omg think of the children censorship" or nudity or anything. There's been a lot of judging of foreign games based on American cultural norms and ideals in the past few pages. Most of the negative examples I saw were from Asian developers, while the positive examples were from American and European developers. For better or worse, the developer communities are largely segregated. It's not clear how a bunch of westerners whining about Asian games is going to help the issue. If anything, the games will still be made and we just wont get them. To me, that's much worse than gratuitous boobs.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:22
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 Trading my position at a publisher in for one at a developer. Working 'in'/'around' games to working 'on' games. A seemingly minor change, but I'm pretty excited for it. What I'm saying is, if you don't have PMs yet, you really ought to fix that.
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Aug 10, 2013 03:09
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Not really my field, but I would assume that directly related experience is useful just like it is everywhere else. Have you done any manga/anime/game translations (there are /loads/ of fan groups that do this). My assumption is that knowledge of the language you're translating to is just as/more important than knowledge of the language you're translating from. I know someone around here bootstrapped his own translation company and could give better advice.. Most of the translation houses I know of are in Southern California; some of them are subsidiaries of Japanese firms, others are independent. Salaries probably aren't great, but livable. No, really; direct experience is a thing, in every field. It's the difference between telling someone looking to give you money, "I have a piece of paper that says I might be qualified to do this at an entry level" vs. "I made a thing and shipped it, look how terrible this thing that exists is." Always assume you're going against people with the slip of paper, direct experience, and positive references; plan accordingly.
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Aug 18, 2013 16:44
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Shalinor posted:Nobody in games goes unemployed, they go "indie." Figure stuff out, make a flash game, done. This is also why you should keep several months of expenses in liquid assets and your supply of rice and beans well stocked. Marginally related, my new job seems to be going fairly well. I'm sure I'll be disillusioned and jaded in two or three weeks.
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Aug 29, 2013 03:36
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The Grammar Aryan posted:I noticed that I can customize workflows on a per-project basis, but I don't know enough about project management to really understand how I could use that to our benefit, or how to get other people started in that direction. We'll probably be using Greenhopper, since I think we're trying to get back to an Agile environment, but right now we're in "figure out the basics" mode before we start getting into any of the other fancy stuff. Each department in the organization can set things up so that it works correctly for them. Sales workflow and dev workflow can be somewhat different... I haven't really seen multiple projects in the same discipline use a different workflow unless one of them has a manager that's really obnoxious about doing everything the way they are used to things. eg, approximately every project in every discipline. Figure out the basics mode really should be a bunch of post-its. JIRA is this huge/obnoxious enterprise program that's overly customizable. If you don't know exactly what you want it to do before hand, you're going to end up with a giant mess.
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Aug 31, 2013 14:42
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Leif. posted:Speaking of producer/product management chat, does anyone's position require (or at least highly value) PMP/PMI-ACP certification? I have family with that cert, among others; they're a PM at a fortune 100. From my understanding, it's less valuable than 6 sigma certs. Any specific questions? I can forward them along and get answers.
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Aug 31, 2013 18:07
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How do I tell my boss that he's been forcing me to waste time wiring up stuff from design that just doesn't work? My sausage fingers cover several elements at 4x zoom. Nothing is legible at native size. Should I just bring in some hot dogs and give them to design as a template? Mobile is the best.
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Oct 10, 2013 20:53
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I've only heard good things about cocos from our coders, of course we were using marmalade before soooo... This is cocos 2d-x, which is some sort of terrible auto-generated c++ thing based on the cocos 2d codebase. I'd much rather be in cocos than this abomination.
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Oct 10, 2013 22:58
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superh posted:The moral is that if the client wants it, and you at least bring up the issue with them, then you just need to sigh and take an extra drink when you get home. Who has time for booze or relationships when you have to work and commute?  E: This is really partially my fault, because I haven't moved closer to my job yet. Finding a place that isn't terrible and is reasonably costed is difficult I guess. (I have a 2h commute in the morning and about 1h in the evening. Video games.) leper khan fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 00:29
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MissMarple posted:See this is what I don't understand. If you don't like those things you will just not play them. Your potential value is not being utilized. There are "enough" people who want a fair game where power and balance are not built into it as a time-investment or pay-now scheme that someone will cater to that market, because the "YOLO SPEND MONEY KILL BITCHES EVERYDAY WHERE DID MY $5000 GO?" crowd will have just a few devs fighting each other to capture them with mega-budgets. I had a boss who told my team to do a bunch of stuff because candy crush did it. It became a running joke, but he was a step below VP and we weren't. If given the choice to do something marginally dumb because my boss saw something he liked/was afraid of last week and getting fired, I'll probably just throw it together and keep my job.
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Feb 21, 2014 16:37
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I hate it when that guy comes to lunch from home and then sticks around the office all day sounding like death. On Friday. I know he doesn't like his wife and kids and all and that's why he spends an extra five hours at the office reading news, but he could have taken one for the team and not shown up today. We've gone enough pages without this topic, right?
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Mar 1, 2014 04:24
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Akuma posted:Wait what the gently caress? It's in-line with their strategy for LucasArts. I guess maybe they're becoming more afraid of the crazy budgets and uncertain returns that are driving a large portion of the industry. Not that any rationale makes the reality of it suck less.
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Mar 6, 2014 23:13
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Mega Shark posted:GDC has been great so far. The Independent Games Summit had some good talks, particularly the guys who made Little Inferno. Also thanks to Shalinor for convincing me to go talk to Kellee Santiago, she has a well deserved reputation and was super approachable. The AI summit has been good so far as well. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to go to overlapping talks. 
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Mar 18, 2014 19:05
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devilmouse posted:CS / engineers really needs to be better about naming. Just today, I've read articles about OpenCL, OpenGL, and OpenFL. I know off-hand there's also an OpenAL, OpenRL, and an OpenSL. That means we have 20 more until figuring out a new naming scheme. 
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Mar 18, 2014 20:51
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Too many open libraries!
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That Gobbo posted:With GDC passed I've been thinking about volunteering at GDC2015. Anyone been a CA and have some advice/stories about volunteering? For a first timer are most of the tracks and bootcamp/tutorials worth going to or are they mostly for more experienced developers? I would actually recommend that you take that week off you were going to take and push a side project forward a whole bunch. The talks and networking are great, but probably not as important as your portfolio. Unless you're about to graduate, then enjoy a week of awesome talks and hit the career fair I guess. I'd advise against the student pass because no one is really cogent on Friday and you'll have better conversations in the career booths on Wednesday and Thursday.
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Mar 27, 2014 01:00
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Aliginge posted:I continue to be all kinds of hype over the oculus, all the industry oldbies I know are all "naaaaah, won't happen, been there done that." As long as someone keeps the dream alive it might happen one day.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:04
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Chainclaw posted:Those of you who often travel for work, how do you occupy yourself after work? I thought this was standard for all hotels.
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Apr 19, 2014 08:42
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demota posted:I'm going into a place for my very first design job interview. It's at a mobile games company (We all gotta start somewhere). I'm super excited and I've been trying to prepare as best I can, but there's one piece of information I'm having a hell of a time trying to find. I usually refer to them by the first game [that I think of where] the specific mechanics I'm talking about showed up in. Match-3 has a lot of design space; I've read a few articles on the history of design in them, and they invariably get something wrong. Most either ignore the true classics (columns, etc) or the exceptionally Japanese (money idol exchanger, etc). Don't trust anything I say on design though; I usually stick to telling the machines what to do.
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Jul 4, 2014 16:16
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Started using unity at the office, and I'm running into issues with conflicts in hg. Does anyone have a workflow that works for small-medium sized groups that makes sure no one loses a bunch of work because the unity files can't be merged? I suggested we move the unity projects to perforce, but I guess that's not a possibility politically.
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Jul 27, 2014 21:21
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Thanks, those are great suggestions! Now I need to try to sell my boss on some of that, but I can already hear the, "ain't nobody got time for that" line. One day I'll be able to work with people like you and have nice things.
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Jul 28, 2014 08:00
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Mega Shark posted:You would laughed out of a lot of places. If I was feeling snarky about it in an interview, I'd phrase my disdain as an open problem in a sub field of mathematics related to the question they asked. If nothing else, doing so would show me if they actually care about the topic or if they're just looking for a reasonable parrot. I'm pretty bad at interviews though.
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Aug 21, 2014 15:28
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SAHChandler posted:When are you not feeling snarky? I am good at what I am good at. 
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Aug 21, 2014 15:53
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Beast of Bourbon posted:The experience necessary is "I've worked on getting 80 different system/networks/databases specifically designed not to work together, to work together flawlessly" This is what I did during my first job out of school and it's still the most impressive sounding thing I've done. Only about a dozen systems though. It was actually a lot of fun, but I ran into various political troubles by making people unnecessary.
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Sep 4, 2014 16:14
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Unormal posted:Minecraft wasn't exactly a technical feat of heroism. It was a relatively trivial technical and design task that happened to manifest the Lego of the digital-age. That's an awesome achivement, but while I'm positive they're all fine people and competent developers, Microsoft has an army of those. The value in Minecraft is the IP/mindshare, not the people. Add to this that it essentially started as a clone of another game. I've become convinced that Minecraft is a story of developer marketing and integrating consumer feedback. And affirmation that I just don't understand YouTube culture.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:49
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If I'm working on a game that is unusually seizure inducing, do I have an ethical imperative to quit or at least reduce the  as much as possible? Where does the line get drawn when you're fairly confident that it will kill someone if it gains traction in the marketplace?Will Apple even allow an app that flashes the whole screen different bright colors at 30/second for a few minutes? (This is not hyperbolic it is literally what the application specifications state to do.)
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Sep 18, 2014 20:28
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SAHChandler posted:Is the flashing as bad as Transformers: Mystery of Convoy? It's being used to send data to hardware. It's literally a minute+ of full screen color swaps at 30 frames. Not sure how bad transformers was, but it's similar to the banned episode of pokemon, except that episode only flashed colors for 8 seconds or so.
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Sep 19, 2014 15:15
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Sigma-X posted:This isn't a problem or a safety hazard, it's an opportunity. I can see why you transitioned to the business side of game dev. E. Thanks phone leper khan fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 19:29
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theflyingorc posted:Yup! It's really unfortunate that it's almost impossible to find anyone with any ideas, if only there were some freshly graduated CS graduates with great game ideas, then everyone could make so much money. Real talk games were better when I was 12.
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Oct 13, 2014 16:54
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theflyingorc posted:The "tutorial UGH just LET ME PLAY" thing is the most overblown "games are being ruined!!!" thing. Touch the button that says touch here to touch the touch here button to touch here. I get that some intro is necessary for a lot of complicated 3d games, but I do have a problem with a lot of it blowing back into incredibly simple games. Those games make megabucks though, so what do I know?
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Oct 13, 2014 20:43
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I spent two hours trying to figure out where to go when hl2 first came out. Then I gave up on the horrible single player mode and played more counterstrike.
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Oct 15, 2014 07:26
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theflyingorc posted:...how? At the very beginning after you go into this courtyard area and walk around trying to figure out where to go with no indication.. yeah not the best game.
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Oct 15, 2014 17:05
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theflyingorc posted:You appear to have posted 2 days ago about disliking the handholding in modern games, so I guess you're either trolling or lacking self awareness. Human beings are inconsistent. I do dislike handholding in modern games. I also dislike being lost in games. Is it so much to ask that the puppet masters lead me on without explicitly telling me so, or to give me hints when it's determinable that I need them instead of when it's determinable that I don't?
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Oct 15, 2014 18:15
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:Except that HL2 is basically one of the best examples of an environment being able to handhold a player through an environment without it feeling like handholding, especially those early levels. There's literally no where to go but forward. The fact that you felt that you had options of where to go in the courtyard (you don't) proves that they were effective. The fact that you gave up there just proves that your attention span is very very short. I clearly did not have places to go from the courtyard because I could not get out of it. I did not feel like there were places to go, I felt like I was unable to proceed. Because I was unable to proceed. I haven't touched the game since release week and have no intention to go back and get lost again. I don't think the issue is my attention span, as I spent a literal two hours on a segment of the game with nothing to do and seemingly nowhere to go. The game wouldn't point me in a direction even when I tried to get it to do so. Morrowind, on the other hand, is one of my favorite games. It's full of interesting content everywhere you look, and if you get lost on a specific objective you can backtrack and read the directions from your journal.
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Oct 15, 2014 18:49
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:Then maybe you are just bad at games, I dunno, I'm not a mind-reader or a time traveler, but you should recognize that you are an *extreme* outlier here. I appreciate that many people enjoy bad games like HL2 and dislike great games like Monster Hunter. Let's all just agree that Tetris is pretty great and get on with it.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:04
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Jan posted:Seriously man, just stop talking. You cannot express an opinion like this and expect to be taken seriously on any game dev forum. It is my earnest opinion as a player and creator of games that HL2 is bad. I've briefly expanded on that point and have what I believe are valid and logical reasons for that belief. I do not expect everyone here to share that belief, but the implication that I should share yours makes me take you less seriously as a creative and indicates a lack of empathy for portions of your potential audience.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:15
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