By Design

This month a lifelong dream of mine came true.  After years of hard work and dedication, two moves taking me across most of Canada, countless hardships but also great memories, overcoming many self-doubts along the way, I was officially promoted to Game Designer.  Accomplishing something you've wanted your whole life makes you take stock of everything that led up to it...

I wish I could say I remember the very first time I played a video game.  I find it hard to picture any version of myself having difficulty understanding controls, not intrinsically knowing to go right in a side-scroller, knowing falling off the screen usually means death or that enemies are almost always killed by jumping on them.  But I imagine it must have been the case.  I do remember the era I got into gaming though.  I was exposed to it through my cousins, Bill and Rick.  Bill was especially into gaming.  I remember we'd go over and play Mario 1 & 2 for a while, and then our moms would play some NES spelling game together.  I even have a memory of going over to their place the night Mario 3 came out for the NES.  We were all so excited.  I remember finding a secret in level 3 and being so proud.  It wasn't long after that I got my own NES for Xmas.

From then on I was hooked.  And even from an early age I loved the idea of being able to design levels for the games I loved.  I'd see the game's levels and get ideas of my own I wanted to implement, but obviously this wasn't possible to an 8 year old kid in a time before internet offered all kinds of hacky solutions.  So instead I started drawing elaborate Mario levels in pencil in giant note pads.  I'd have entire games drawn, split into worlds and sub-levels.  Whenever my friend Tim would spend the night my Mom would drive to pick him up, and as soon as he got in the car I'd hand him the notepad and he's start playing through my "levels" right there.

As I grew up some games started coming out with level editors.  I remember finding an old NES game with Mario in it called Wrecking Crew, and I used to make levels for my brother to play.  Then I found a PC game called Jetpack, and again designed levels for Tim and my brother to play.  It was shareware and only let you save one custom level at a time unless you bought it, but I quickly learned I could move the level files to a  backup folder and just put whatever level I wanted to play/work on in the proper folder with the right filename.

When I was entering my teen years Duke Nukem 3D came out for pc.  And with it came the Build engine.  This was before the days of youtube training videos and online guides, the internet was still in its infancy.  But somehow I managed to teach myself the Build engine through trial and error.  I must have designed dozens of levels for that game.  By then Tim lived in Saskatchewan so once I'd finish a level we'd play it over the modem.  At first it was all deathmatch levels, but I started to find coop levels with NPC enemies really fun to build.

Eventually I decided to design an entire Duke Nukem 3D campaign.  12 maps that could be played either single player or coop with an over-arching story/theme etc.  It took 6 months but when I was done I played it with Tim and we had a blast.  I then submitted it online to several Duke Nukem 3D custom maps communities.  It quickly became one of the highest rated campaigns.

For a few years after that my level design hobby, and even gaming in general, took a back seat to teenage drama, girls, drugs, booze and music.  This lifestyle left me lost and directionless.  I was getting older and had no idea what to do with myself.  I knew I wanted to make something of myself, but I was also afraid of failure.  I tried once or twice to get back into Level Design as a hobby, but the tech had come so far I felt left behind and gave up.  For a while I tried to convince myself I was happy where I was, but it was a lie anyone could see through.  Then I found joy in photography and for a while tried to make a career out of that.  As I was beginning to see success I quickly realized I preferred it as a hobby.  Still, my sense of adventure and ambition was growing, with nothing in sight to spend it on.

I still didn't know what I wanted out of life, but I knew I wanted much, much more than I was getting out of it at the time.  I was in my early 20's now and hadn't made much tangible progress since I was a teenager.  I decided to take an epic road trip to try to find myself, and get some answers to these questions.  I went by myself, something that terrified me.  I'd been a pretty sheltered, dependent person my whole life so to do something this big by myself was scary.  And that was the point.

The road trip was a huge success, though I didn't realize it immediately.  When I got back I knew I'd grown, changed in some fundamental way.  I just couldn't quite define it yet.  But as the months went on I realized how claustrophobic I was feeling in Winnipeg.  I didn't fit in my old life anymore, and needed to get out.  I decided to move to Edmonton, for a change of scenery and a new experience.  I made some calls and my cousin Bill, who now lived in Edmonton, said I could stay with him.  This was the same cousin who'd let me come over and play his NES when we were kids, and now he was living in Edmonton working in the video game industry for a studio named BioWare.  He then told me he could probably get me an interview for a term tester position.  I still didn't quite know what I was looking for in life, or what exactly I had to offer, so I didn't recognize the opportunity I was being presented, it just sounded like a cool job for a few months.

I had a going away party with all my friends, had a dinner with my extended family, and prepared to leave.  At the time I assumed it would only be for a few months, but that would still be the longest I'd ever been away for.  When the night of my departure came, I packed as much of my belongings that would fit into my car and headed off.  I'll never forget that moment, walking down to my car with my friends, hugging them all goodbye as I got into my car, fighting back tears.  And as I drove off I watched them waving at me in the rearview mirror.  I think on some level I knew I'd never be coming back...  One of the hardest, most emotional moments of my life.

I arrived in Edmonton and got settled in, and started at BioWare.  Within a few weeks of working there I started to suspect this was what I was meant to be doing, and that I wanted to make a career out of it.  The first game I worked on was Dragon Age: Origins and I knew it was one I'd be proud of the rest of my life.

At the time I figured QA was good enough.  I'd gotten this far, and I shouldn't get "greedy".  I knew I wanted to be a Designer, but even after everything I'd been through recently and all the growing I'd done I still wasn't ready to believe in myself that much yet.  And maybe I was right not to, I had a lot to learn.  I had no idea how office politics worked, how industry in general worked, let alone this industry.  But I didn't believe I ever would, and that was a mistake, but one I would soon begin to remedy.

After a few months I knew this was something I had to do, and made the hard to decision that I would not be moving back home to Winnipeg.  I fought hard for a contract extension and then immediately set my goals to taking on more responsibility to prove myself for an eventual permanent full-time QA position.  By constantly volunteering for extra tasks, and making it known I was interested in QA Design (where your feedback is more about design elements than technical glitches) I was eventually moved to the PRC team.  PRC stands for Post-Release Content.  In this case I would now be working on Dragon Age: Awakening, an expansion pack for the original Dragon Age.  My role was now QA Design, and once the acting QA Lead moved on to another position I took on a lot her responsibilities, and was essentially doing the job of a full timer.  I was giving design feedback that was incorporated into the game, running my own meetings, training and assigned new QA Term Testers, etc.  I loved the new responsibility and the professional growth it afforded, and I really loved getting to give Design feedback.  I still wasn't quite ready to see what should have been obvious though, that what I really wanted was to be a Designer.

I was told several times they were looking to get me a full-time position, but honestly, BioWare was somewhat bloated, and the economy was in tough times.  EA instituted a hiring freeze, and I knew things were going to be tough.  That meant for me to get hired, someone else had to be let go.  I just kept on working hard knowing sooner or later, in some way or another, it'd pay off.  But then I also found out an EA policy stated that anyone on contract couldn't stay on contract for more than 1 year without 3 months off in between.  It was a policy instated to prevent the abuse of contract workers...  As Dragon Age Awakening was finishing up, so was I.  I'd managed to get my contract extended 3 months past my 1 year mark, the only term who managed to do so, but even then, my time came and I was let go for 3 months, though I was promised I'd have a job waiting for me once those 3 months passed.

I decided to go on EI for those 3 months since I knew I'd have a job waiting for me in 3 months, and looked at this as an opportunity.  I decided to spend my 3 months off learning the Unreal Engine.  As I mentioned, I'd tried it a few times before, but this time my cousin pointed me to some excellent free training videos (3DBuzz).  I forced myself to follow a strict routine of waking up by 10:00 AM, and spending most of the day learning the engine.  Within 2 months I was designing professional grade levels, and documenting my progress on Facebook, my blog, and other mediums, and got feedback from many people at BioWare.

When I returned to BioWare after my 3 months off I was put on the Content Team of Dragon Age 2.  I had several people comment that they'd been following my Unreal Engine progress and were quite impressed at how quickly I picked it up, and the initiative to do so during my 3 months off.  Chad moved out to work at BioWare as a term tester like I head, hoping to get into the Art Department, and life was going great.

Then, within a few months into my second contract another EA mandate reared its ugly head.  I, along with all the other QA Terms I'd been hired with now on their second terms, found out EA had a strict mandate that states no contract workers could be used more than twice on contract.  Again, a rule in place to try to prevent the exploitation of contract workers.  The idea was that if they were good enough to use twice, they should be hired.  Of course the hiring freeze was also still in effect...  So things weren't looking good.  But then 3 QA positions within BioWare opened up.  Two in Edmonton and one in Montreal.  I of course applied for all three.

The application process was pretty intense, mainly because so many people were applying.  I have to imagine close to a hundred people applied for the positions across all of BioWare's studios.  They made a short list of candidates after taking a preliminary test.  I was ecstatic to learn I'd made it to the short list for two of the three positions, the only person to do so.  The positions I was considered for was either the Edmonton Dragon Age position, or the Montreal Mass Effect 2 position.

Around this time I was also contacted by an old work acquaintance about a job possibility as a QA Lead at a smaller studio in Halifax called Longtail Studios.  While my goal was to get one of the BioWare positions, I wasn't about to turn down opportunity in an industry that presents it so rarely.

When the results came back from the BioWare hiring committee I hadn't been selected for either position.  I was told it'd been a very close call on both counts, but that didn't change the fact.  My options then were to either stay at BioWare as a term tester hoping for another position to open up, which I knew was incredibly unlikely, or pursue the Longtail Studios offer.  I obviously did the latter.  And after being flown out for an interview, seeing the studio and the city, the idea started to grow on me.  It admittedly felt like a consolation prize at the time, but a consolation prize was more than many of my fellow term testers at BioWare were getting, so I couldn't pity myself too much.  By then I was just beginning to believe MAYBE I had what it took to get into Design.  During my interview with Longtail I was asked what my long-term goals would be and I said eventually I'd like to try my hand at Design (I also said maybe Production, which I think I could be good at but would probably find much less rewarding personally, though certainly not financially).

Once I got the call telling me I was accepted, it was a whirlwind of change.  My start date was in 2 weeks...  I gave me notice to BioWare, started packing and making moving arrangements with Longtail (they paid for moving expenses), and getting everything in order.

I decided to stay in Winnipeg for a week before moving on to Halifax, so I left Edmonton early.  After a nightmare fiasco with the movers, Chad and said our goodbyes and I drove off, leaving Edmonton behind me.  This time I knew I'd probably never be back, and it was heart breaking, no easier than leaving Winnipeg.  I'd grown so much in Edmonton.  When I'd arrived I had no idea what I was looking for, or really even who I was.  Now I was leaving with a clear vision of myself and my goals.  Edmonton will forever be the city I found myself in, and I miss it to this day.

After a great week in Winnipeg it was off to Halifax.  I won't lie, I was terrified.  This was even scarier than moving to Edmonton.  This time I had no one I knew in the city to make me feel at home or show me around, and it wasn't for some low responsibility entry level job, this was a full-time salary position with some high expectations.  I was nervous!  The city felt much different than the prairie cities I was used to.  In fact working on a peninsula meant driving really didn't make sense, so I was forced to start taking the bus and eventually sell my car.  But as the months went on I began to realize I was not only capable at my job, but that it was really beginning to foster confidence in myself.  I'd implemented and rolled out a new bug database for the studio, handled relations with our off-site QA team in India, interviewed and hired new QA Term Testers, begun researching and implement ion new Agile Scrum software for sprint planning, and more.  And I was getting great feedback.

After my first project with Longtail Studios shipped, a PS3 Move dancing game Dance On Broadway, we had a wrap party.  During this party it was made clear to me by some higher-ups that I was definitely being eyed for Design after I'd volunteered to help the Design Department a few times in my down time.  I was excited, but also nervous.  After all these years and successes, I was still afraid I'd fail when it came to what really mattered, my lifelong dream of being a Game Designer.  But I didn't let it show, and expressed full enthusiasm for the chance.

I was put in the Design Department for our next project, the one I'm on now, an extreme sports game for Xbox Kinect and PS3 Move, Motion Sports Adrenaline.  I was eventually made the Acting Level Designer on the Extreme Ski tracks.  I spent the past five to six months designing some awesome tracks I can't wait for people to play.  All this was in a Junior position however.  My title within Longtail was still officially QA Lead, and I was still making QA Lead salary.  I helped hire and train more QA to replace me in my absence, but for the most part I was no longer in QA.  But this was an amazing opportunity to learn what exactly being a Game Designer meant, and to then prove that I had what it took, not just to the studio but to myself.

Our acting Lead Designer, Nick, mentored me, and I owe so much to him for doing so.  He really took a chance for me, and I think saw something in me before I fully saw it in myself.  As the project was coming to a close it was time for my probation review.  I don't want to get into specifics, but it was very positive.  I was told I'd done great work, given advice and direction on how to continue to grow as a Designer, a never-ending process, and then, at long last, officially promoted.  The kid who drew Mario levels in notepads, hacked Shareware games to make levels, and taught himself 2 game engines to design levels, was now officially a Game Designer.  Three years climbing within the industry paying off.  The countless pitfalls, self-doubts and legitimate reasons to quit along the way weren't enough to keep me from achieving this.

Not many people get to say they grew up to do the thing they always wanted to.  Not many people can say they truly love going in to work in the morning.  I don't know many people who wouldn't love to get paid to be creative.  And even though I worked my ass off to get here, and made countless sacrifices along the way, I still feel incredibly lucky.

Updating my LinkedIN profile I realized I think this is the first time I finally feel like I "made it".  I have a well-respected job-title in the industry I love, the work is extremely rewarding, and I get paid a handsome salary that I can live quite comfortably at.  This is the first time I don't feel like I'm just trying to get in, to prove myself.  For the first time I truly feel like I'm in, I'm here.  It's also the first time I've ever really felt like a grown up, a man.  A man covered in tattoos who makes video games for a living...

Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell previous versions of myself it was all leading here.  I could tell the kid who thought of Level Design as a hobby that someday he'd get paid to do it, the teen who was anti-establishment that he'd some day work at one of the few industries that accepts you for who you are.  Or maybe I wouldn't tell them at all.  because all that uncertainty and confusion is what drove me to search for more out of life.  It's what led me here.

I turn 28 this week and I'm a Game Designer.  This entry was written on a plane on my way to Winnipeg for a vacation.  Returning to where it all started.  To recharge between projects, and celebrate with friends and family.  And when I get back to Halifax, I will begin a new chapter.  One that starts with me as a Game Designer, and takes me to new places, presents new challenges, and new adventures.  I have plans for my career, and it's only just now beginning.

Places Lived

First time I saw this on my Google+ profile I found it pretty surreal…

Google+

By now most people have heard of Google+ (“Google Plus”).  It’s basically Google’s version of Facebook.  Google has their hands in almost every facet of the internet, and they have a pretty good track record of winning.  They overthrew Yahoo as the major search engine, and then took the email crown away from Hotmail.  When Google Video didn’t pan out they just up and bought Youtube.  Everyone is wondering if they will successfully pull people away from Facebook with Google+ and become the new social network leader.

They’ve managed to create quite the hype around it by only sending out limited invites while it’s in beta.  Similar to what they did with gmail.  It’s a smart marketing ploy, and it works.  Chad got some invites from some of his friends in the 3D art community and sent me an invite which I then passed on to a few friends of mine and I finally got a chance to try it out.

There are some fundamental differences from Facebook I hated at first, but now realize are just differences.  They’d take some getting used to, but the work.  Mainly, you can’t post to someone’s wall.  A profile is for outgoing broadcasts only, no dropping by and leaving a message.  Instead that is pushed to the person directly, with the option of being visible to others, all through the “stream”, essentially Facebook’s news feed.  I find in a few cases like these, in an effort to make things more simple, it instead complicates them.

Google+’s most hyped feature is “Circles”.  You can group friends into different circles, and choose which circles see what.  So if you’re posting pictures from a wild party you can make sure not to post it to the “Work” circle.  For privacy reasons this is awesome.  And for more control over your feed it’s great too. 

One concern I have though is Google+’s philosophy seems to be one of exclusion, and this, to me, is not what social networking is about.  I’ve made several connections on Facebook because someone posted something that revealed we had a surprising common interest.  If that person had chosen who to send that link to based on their assumptions by placing friends into Circles we’d never have discovered we had common interests and formed that spontaneous connection.  Facebook seems to be about connections, where Google+ almost seems to be more about cliques.  On Facebook acquaintances can become friends.  It seems on Google+ a casual acquaintance would file you in the “someone I don’t care about” circle, and never post anything to that circle.  To you, that person would barely exist on Google+.  On Google+ strangers stay strangers.  Facebook, to me, is all about opportunities through connection.  I’ve made friends, met women and even GOT JOBS through surprising connections on Facebook.  I’m not sure any of those would have happened under Google+’s method of exclusionary social networking.  In fact, in some ways Google+ feels more like a chat room than a social network.

On the subject of chat rooms, one of my favorite features of Google+ is the “Hang Out” feature.  You pick a circle (or all circles) and you broadcast that you’re just “hanging out”.  It’s basically a webcam chat room that anyone in that circle is free to join.  Group webcam is something Skype charges for, and Google+ brings it for free.  And you can watch YouTube videos together, which is an awesome feature.  Seeing your friend’s reaction when the baby sneezes milk out it’s nose on YouTube is pretty cool.  It wasn’t without its problems though.  Brett couldn’t get sound working unless he left the Settings tab open.  Several of us got browser crashes while trying to use it.  And the quality and memory usage was generally worse than Skype’s.  Still, an amazing feature, and one that is surprisingly free! 

It’s this kind of integration into so many other facets of the internet that I think could really make Google+ a contender.  Instead of a messages tab like Facebook has it’s integrated right into Gmail.  You can “+1” a webpage right from Google search (Google+’s version of “liking” something), etc.

But this integration also led to an extremely sour first impression of Google+.  Blogger is owned by Google.  This blog is run on Blogger.  Whenever I use an image in this blog it’s uploaded to Google’s image hosting service Picassa.  Google+ decided to use Picassa for its image hosting.  So when I created my Google+ account using my Gmail account, it auto-linked to my Picassa album and posted all my blog photos to everyone in my social network, including pics of half-naked celebrities from things like my crush lists.  Not stuff I want plastered into everyone’s feeds.  But if I messed with the privacy settings at all for those albums, the image links stopped working for my blog and I lost 4 years worth of images for this blog.  So I had to decide to either lose all the images on my blog, or to save them, have them published for everyone to see in Google+ right on my profile, and every time I add a new pic to the blog it’d add it on my profile as well.  Not impressed.

Looooong story short, to fix it I had to create a new gmail account, transfer my Picassa albums to it, transfer this Blogger account to it, wait for Google to process the 2 transfers and then reset my Google+ Picassa account.  The whole time I was praying if it didn’t work none of it was irreversible.  Totally ridiculous and not something I should have had to deal with on a fresh account for a new social network.

But my account is finally truly fresh.  This blog and its images are now truly separate from my Google+ account.  And to be fair, Google+ is still in beta.  And Facebook is far from where it started, so Google+ will presumably evolve as the needs of its customers become clear. 

One thing I don’t think anyone wants is further division among social networks.  It’s already annoying having some people who use Facebook and some who use Twitter.  Not to mention the professional social networking on LinkedIn.  Google+, with its Circles feature, could theoretically replace them all.  There’s a “Following” circle meant for following people you don’t know but find interesting, just like Twitter.  But you can also post videos and pics to your friends and tag them when they’re in them, comment on them, etc., just like Facebook.  And if they add a few more professional options you could theoretically have work history and resume just like LinkedIn.  I’d love to see consolidation in social networks, but I’d hate to see further division.  Only time will tell which Google+ ends up being.

If anyone wants to try it for themselves leave a comment with your email and I’ll send an invite!

Empires & Allies

A Facebook game finally sucked me in.  A bunch of people at work started playing it, and they practically forced me to join.  But it’s actually quite fun!  It’s like Starcraft meets Cityville.  And in an office environment, it’s exactly what it was meant to be, a social game.  Sort of like having an ongoing board game you play whenever you have a minute.  Never thought the day would come I played a Facebook game…

Labour Of Love

Let me preface this entry with a simple fact.  I love my job.  I love the industry I work in, and I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else.

Often when I tell people I work in the video game industry I’m met with the same response.  They think it must be the easiest job on the planet and that it’s nothing but fun.  They imagine my life as one without the challenges that come with a “real” job.  The truth is, the video game industry is one of the biggest economical juggernauts out there.  It brings in more than Hollywood, or the music industry.  This year it was worth almost 75 BILLION dollars.  With those kind of numbers involved, you better believe it’s not just a bunch of kids dicking around on computers, this a high stakes industry, this is as real as it gets.

But it’s also a young industry.  As the cost to make a single game spirals deep into the millions and production times begin to exceed 5 years in some cases, the industry is consolidating and going through a phase of vertical integration.  At this point, almost all studios are under a handful of major publishers like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc.  Independent mainstream developers are vanishing as they’re absorbed by the big players.  All this change as the industry matures with its audience means it’s still a very volatile industry.

Third-party studios pop-up every day, and just as easily they get shut down.  With the overhead for a single game digging deep into the coffers, even if it’s successful, one miscalculation on the projections for that game can lead to a studio closure, and 100s of people out of work, falling back into the job market, competing with each other, and new members to the workforce fresh out of university, for a new job.  Or if the publisher decides to cancel your game mid-project, this can lead to mass layoffs, not to mention a major drop in morale.  The video game industry is easily one of the most competitive fields out there, even more so now during the recession, which is another way of saying it offers some of the lowest job-security around.  And with the relatively small amount of studios (compared to to the amount of job applicants) being clustered across the globe, be prepared to relocate for work, and often.

The video game industry, unsurprisingly, attracts people who are passionate about making games.  And there’s no short supply.  As the industry consolidates under a handful of major publishers who invest millions in single SKUs, more and more is demanded of employees.  Overtime to meet a deadline is not unique to this industry, but stories of year long crunches with mandatory 80 hour work weeks (in some cases with no paid overtime or comp time) are becoming more and more common.  And individual employees can’t do much about it, because there’s a long line of people either out of work or just out of school dying to take their place.  As a young industry, and one that’s grown with immense speed, it’s largely unregulated.  You hear stories of shady practices all over.  Sham-contracts seemingly being the big one right now.

Sometimes you feel like you live at the office.

All of these factors take a toll on employees, and their families.  There have been a few high-profile instances of this coming to a head.  This industry, if you want to get in and stay in, has to come first.  It’s not for someone looking for a balanced life.  You will spend years trying to get in, you will never feel totally comfortable that your job is secure, you will have to go through periods of crunch where you only go home to sleep and if you have family you won’t see much of them during these periods; you will have to move often either due to studio closures or downsizing or to climb due to limitations at the current studio, and in some cases you may even need to deal with shady practices, etc.  It’s not the easy lifestyle many imagine when I tell them I make games for a living.

Many talented workers decide the big publisher model just doesn’t work for them.  They want to retain creative control, they don’t want to compromise quality for a release date, etc.  So they decide to start their own studio, and go at it independently.  And fortunately for them the blockbuster game trend has left the market wide open for indie games to make a large impact.  And while the indie game market is experiencing its golden days, it’s still the wild west.  With no publisher to back you with marketing, or give you what often ends up being valid criticism, combined with the inherent niche market these games tend to skew towards, for every successful indie game with a new vision, there’s hundreds of confused messes that flop miserably, if they ever even see the light of day…  And without publisher backing, the development costs are out of pocket.  If the game doesn’t turn a profit you default on your mortgage.  It’s hardly a high-security alternative to mainstream game development.

While going for a walk with the Design team at work the other day, we started talking about the phenomenon called “Smoke-Bombing”.  Due to all these trials and tribulations that come with working in this industry, every other day you hear about someone who decided they’d had enough and just vanish, poof, to a new career.  We shared a few stories.  I’d once heard of a guy who’d been in the industry for over a decade and one day just quit to give bike tours in Europe.

This past week Chad smoke-bombed.  After nearly 3 years fighting to get into the industry, and knowing full well he was in all likelihood less than a year away from a fulltime salary position at a studio, he took stock of his priorities, looked ahead at the kinds of sacrifices it would require, and said no.  He is now in the midst of completely re-planning his life, no easy task.  But I totally get it, and in his case, I believe it was the right decision.

Personally, I don’t see myself ever leaving.  Sure, this industry takes a lot from you.  Sometimes almost everything.  But having a job you’re passionate about is a hard thing to walk away from.  Even if that passion can be used against you.  And the money ain’t bad either.  It’s an extremely volatile industry, and it requires hard work.  That’s just what it is.  Whether or not it’s worth it is something each individual must ask themselves.

I spent years fighting for a fulltime salary position.  Now I fight for a designer position.  I’ve already moved to 2 cities in 3 years, leaving behind 2 great lives in the process to start over.  I’ve been laid off.  I’ve had a project I was passionate about get cancelled.  I’ve worked a few 80 hour weeks, and many more 60 hour weeks.  But I do it all willingly.  I love this industry; I love the work, I love the community, I love the product.  I can’t see myself doing anything else.  And Longtail has done nothing but right by me.  They’ve given me recognition, fair pay and steady opportunity.  All crunch has been voluntary, and making the transition into Design is not something I was expecting to be available to me so soon.  In a lot of ways this industry saved my life.  I was lost until I found it.  Despite its taxing requirements, it’s an exciting time for me in this industry and I can’t wait to see what my career has in store for me, and the places the industry is heading.

As Chad drifts away from the gaming industry into some new career, I will miss sharing this adventure with a friend who was with me before it all started.  I will miss hoping for the day we once again worked together at the same studio, living in the same city.  But this industry isn’t for everyone, and he needs to do what he needs to do to find a life that suits him.  And I wish him all the best in it.  We’ll always have the DA2 credits!

Dragon Age II: Legacy

Dragon Age 2 Legacy DLC Trailer

DLC for Dragon Age 2 is coming.  Chad did a lot of art assets for Dragon Age 2 DLC, and in fact the sword that is prominent through the entire trailer, and even gets its own scene basked in light, was done by him!  Here’s the asset he made in its own image:

Pretty cool!

The Dark Side

Well, I finally bought a PS3.  It has a ton of exclusives I’ve always wanted to play, with more announced at E3.  And I had a ton of old games to trade in.  With the trade in and some other lucky promotions, I got one of the best deals ever.

• PS3 160 gb
• Call Of Duty: Black Ops
• Killzone 3 Collector’s Edition
• Infamous
• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Little Big Planet & Wipeout HD (Sony’s Welcome Back promotion, since I technically had an account from when I briefly had a PS3 in Edmonton)
• HDMI Cables

  ---

  Total after tax: 200$

Now THAT is a deal!  The Killzone 3 Collector’s edition came with a cool dynamic theme for the PS3, all DLC, the OST and Making Of vid, an art book, an action figure and a cool bust of the Helghast.

I spent most of the weekend on Skype with Chad playing PS3.  Felt like old times having a videogame night with Chad.  I miss when we lived together in Edmonton, those were good times.

My PS3 experience hasn’t been perfect however.  The first night it started beeping and making really louds clunking sounds.  I returned it the next day for an exchange and the new one is working fine though, thankfully.

Also, Oliver was quite happy to see I finally got a PS3.  He’s an admitted PS3 fanboy (and Kanye fanboy for that matter…)

It’s been a lot of fun so far, and easily worth the cheap price I paid!  So far I’ve been playing Infamous and Little Big Planet.  You may have noticed I’ve added a PS3 ID badge to my blog now too.  Now I can be an achievement AND trophy whore .  Now back to playing!  If you have a PS3, add me:  notme2000

Friend Times

Is drinking with friends on Skype technically drinking alone?

I’ve been working out a lot and eating less, trying to lose weight, and it’s been since the Dance On Broadway PS3 release party since I drank.  So ya, I’m pretty drunk right now, chatting with Brett and Linda on Skype.  Good times.  I miss my group!

FibreOp

I switched my internet to FibreOp today.  A few weeks ago I came home and checked the mail and had a flyer saying FibreOp was available to my neighborhood now.  For those who don’t know, it’s a new infrastructure for internet that is still very new and not available most places.  I immediately called.  For only 20$ more than I was paying for my old internet I could get over 4x faster downloads and 30x faster uploads.

I had it hooked up today.  Check out the difference:

Old:

New:

I’m downloading season 1 and 2 of community.  A total of 10 gigs.  Both should be done in a littler over an hour!  I could get used to this.

Raaiiinnnn

Getting sick of this. Been almost 3 weeks of this!

I Get Around

My friend Ashley posted a pic on her blog of all the places she’d taken pictures on her iPhone.  It made me curious so I checked mine.  I get around!

Winnipeg-ho!

Just bought my tickets to Winnipeg for my Dad’s wedding!  Going to be there April 28th – May 4th.  Just under a week.  I leave bright and early May 4th, and of course my Dad’s wedding is April 30th, so it’ll be a shorter Winnipeg trip than usual, but it’ll be good times!

+2 To Healing

So I’ve spent the weekend healing from my wisdom teeth removal.  I never thought I could miss chewing so much…  So far no smoking since Friday at noon.  Maybe I actually managed to quit!  I’ve spent most of the weekend watching tv or playing games.  I beat Dragon Age 2 and played a lot of Rift.  I’m still loving this game!  Such a great MMO!  Here’s some more cool screenshots!

Magicka Sprint

A friend at work got the game Magicka and played it at work today.  As soon as he launched the game her burst out laughing.  One of the first things he saw was this:

This game was clearly made by a bunch of people who love the industry they work in and have a sense of humor.  For those who don’t know, that’s a sprint board behind them, used in Scrum, a form of Agile Management used religiously in game development.  As someone who uses this every day, I found this a great nod to others in the industry.

Hooked

Nerdgasm to follow:

So when I first got Rift it was just cause Chad was pestering me to try it, and I figured I was pretty bored on the weekends anyway since Ryan moved so I’d give it a shot.  I did not expect to get into it much, I thought I was done with MMOs.

Wrong.  I am hooked to this game.  It feels like the first game to do MMOs RIGHT since WoW.  And it’s learned from WoW and other MMOs along the way.  It has the best of WoW, Warhammer, Aion, etc all in one with beautiful graphics.  And it does a few new things really well.  The fact that you can have 3 “roles” and re-spec on the fly out of combat is great.  And the rifts are awesome.  Rifts open up throughout the world and they’re like mini raids / public quests. 

It was a free-play weekend so Chad and I convinced Brett and Linda to give it a shot and they’re now seriously considering picking it up too.  Over the weekend we all played together and it was a ton of fun.  Facetime on iPhone is an awesome addition to gaming together! 

It just seems everyone is at a weird time in life where they have a lot of free time.  Chad doesn’t do much on weekends other then spend time with Olga, Brett and Linda are biding their time until they move to Vancouver, and I have a lot of free time on weekends now that Ryan has moved.  It lets us play without any guilt!

Today Chad and I did our first instance.  It was hands down the coolest instance I’ve done in an MMO to date.  It starts in summer and as you progress the seasons change.  At the end you’re climbing a mountain in an insane blizzard where you can barely see in front of you, adding to the epic feeling and sense of confusion.  Incredibly well done instance, and it was only the first.

The world is beautifully done and the graphics are amazing.  The game feels amazingly polished and balanced, especially when you consider it just came out and from a no-name studio!  There’s always something to do as well.  Plus my friends are playing.  Not just close personal friends, but friends from BioWare and Longtail play too.  I think I’ll be playing this game for a while…  In fact, I’m considering getting a new PC next month to run it better.  My PC is 5 years old, it’s been time for a new one for a while, and I can afford it.  But it’ll have to wait until after I pay for my wisdom teeth coming out and then my plane tickets to and from Winnipeg for my Dad’s wedding.

It’s exciting to be into an MMO again.  Forgot how fun they can be.
Nerdgasm over.

Rift

Well, I never thought it’d happen, but I somehow let Chad talk me into trying a new MMO.  Rift.  It’s been getting good reviews, most saying it’s the first real competitor with WoW.  I quite enjoyed Aion for the short time we played it, but it had its issues.  None-the-less we’ll see how long we play this one for.  I was certain I was done with MMOs altogether.

It’s pretty fun so far, and the graphics are beautiful.  While I can run it comfortable at Ultra, makes me realize I should probably start thinking about an upgrade or new PC soon.  This computer is almost 5 years old now, with a few upgrades keeping it alive.  I rarely game on PC anymore, so it’s not a priority, but even in just every day use it’s starting to show its age.

It is nice having an MMO to play again though.  I don’t have much of a social life for it to interfere with.  I still plan on trying to meet people, but that can only fill up so much of the day.  And it’s a great way for Chad and I to spend some time together.  Although the 3 hour time difference between Halifax and Edmonton makes it hard to schedule a decent chunk of time to play together.  But we played tonight and it was good fun.  One of the guys at work plays too!

Google Is Not Your Friend