Guess Who!?

Props to Reid for finding this.

An Awesome Weekend

Had a great weekend, as you may have deduced from the post title.  Weekend was off to a great start with the last 2 hours of work on Friday being Beer Day.  At 4:00 everyone went down to the second floor lunchroom and drank free beer, and had free chips, pretzels, etc.  It has been beautiful out so many of us just stood around on the smoker’s deck in the sun, beer in hand, and chatted.  It was great.

As people started to take off for the weekend Nathan, Reid, Owen and I stuck around and played some Soul Calibur 4 until about 8:00.  It was something we’d been planning on doing for a while.  After we were gamed out we headed to Boston Pizza and chatted over good food.  A good day.

Saturday I woke up early and caught up with Kyra.  I still miss that girl.  Great hearing from her again.  It was beautiful out so I went and hung out with some friends on Whyte Ave.  We walked around shopping, had some food and drinks at Next Act, and enjoyed the weather.  I bought a very cool skin for my iPhone, replacing the Mass Effect one I had.  Very cool.

Eventually we went back to their place and watched movies until a GIANT storm hit.  It was really powerful, causing quite a bit of damage.  The power ended up going out on all of Whyte Ave!  On a Saturday night…  So bars were full, energies were high, streets were packed, etc.  I’m surprised a riot didn’t break out.  We took out some candles and played some cardgames and got to know each other really well, it was great fun.

Once the storm passed we went for a walk down Whyte in the dark.  It was weird to be in the heart of the city but still be able to see a sky full of stars.  There was quite a bit of storm damage too, many LARGE branches and trees had been broken right off.  I had been parked under a large tree so I’m lucky there was no vehicle damage.

Around 1:30 I headed home, it was a really great night, one of my best in Edmonton so far.

Sunday I took a lazy day.  For the most part I just laid in bed and watched my old House DVDs, lol.  Andi called and I chatted with her for a while, always good to hear from her.

And now I’m back at work.  Vanessa just introduced me to more of the team, and I’m just waiting for an export.  Good times.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

A revealing video about the MMO project Bioware is working on!

Movin’ On Up!

So I’m no longer on the Consoles team.  I’ve managed to get into the PRC (Post Release Content) department, specifically as QA Design =D

Earlier this week my new boss, Jason, scheduled a quick meeting with me in his office.  I went down, not sure what it was about.  It was just a quick chat to get me comfortable with the new position, what I’d be doing, and what the overall plan was.  And he told me, in no uncertain terms, he wants to get me fulltime!  He can’t make any promises of course, but the department is in desperate need of some qa.  This is fantastic news!  Him and one of the producers on PRC have been embedding me deep in the team, putting me on a fast-track to be as involved as possible.  Things are definitely looking up. 

Yesterday was my last day in my old office.  I loved that room and will miss it.  Packing up my stuff at the end of the day for the movers was a weird feeling. 

But this morning I came to work to my new office.  And it is AWESOME!  It’s a window office, unlike the old office which was always dark, I’m now sitting in sunlight.  The room is me, and John, a programmer who’s rarely at his desk, so I usually have the room to myself.  My desk is in a corner facing the wall, so I have privacy.  I’m not a slacker, but I  do like to have privacy and not have people able to see my monitors all day.  So it’s pretty great.

Today I was told to come in late, the movers usually don’t finish setting up new offices until about 10:00.  So I came in around then, though Jason told me to just mark it as 9:00 since it was out of my control.  I have a big meeting at 1:30, a bi-weekly meeting for the PRC team, and I’m to be introduced to the new team then.  And then at 4:00 it’s officially Beer Day.  All of Bioware goes down to the lunch rooms and drinks beer for the rest of the day, paid.  God I love this job.  We work hard, we play hard.

Moving Day

Moving to the new office tomorrow morning!

Great Monday

This morning I headed into work, and started my week with the link I posted in my previous entry.  The day was off to a good start.

For lunch Nathan, Dave, Owen and I went to Ikea for some cheap hotdogs, then we drove down to West Ed to buy a hard-to-find game.

When I returned to work, Zac (my boss) immediately said “Dale, come with me!”  I had no idea what this was about.  He took me over to Jason’s room and told me I was being moved to the PRC (Post Release Content) team to do QA Design work for them!  I’ll be moving offices (window office!!!), attending all the QA Design scrum meetings, and working exclusively with them now.

If you remember, a few weeks ago I took some initiative and brought up the idea of doing some QA Design work for PRC, which the right people seemed impressed by.  Since then, on my down time, I’ve been playing the PRC stuff and submitting design bugs, and have been getting very positive feedback from them.  Well apparently the need for some more dedicated QA Design work on the project came up, and my name came to mind.  So the power-play a few weeks ago accomplished exactly what I wanted it to, and as a result I’ll be making a jump to the career-path I’ve been trying to get on for the better half of a year!

This is great news!!!  I applied recently for that QA Design fulltime salary position, so this can’t hurt my chances.  And the job comes with much more responsibility.  As an example, immediately after I got the news I returned to my desk and had several meeting requests waiting for me in Outlook.  The rest of my day was spent in meetings!  The first was a playthrough of some PRC with the QA Design team to critique some of the new stuff.  I was nervous, as I didn’t know any of these people, and many of them were big names, including David Gaider, lead writer for Dragon Age.  I wanted to make a good first impression.

Despite my intimidation, I spoke up during the meeting, introduced myself to people, etc.  Throughout the meeting I made my ideas heard, and several were even accepted.  That means they will be changing elements of the game based on my ideas.  Not just technical stuff like “That door won’t open” but more creative stuff like “This should happen in a cutscene to emphasize the emotional impact of the event”  I find that amazingly cool, that I now have some creative input on the final product!

Tomorrow I have a meeting with someone from the team and they’re going to show me the infrastructure and all the tech stuff I need to know for the job.  I’ll probably be moving offices by the end of the week.  I will miss the office I’m in now though; Zac is a great boss, and the whole room is filled with great guys.  Reid and I always have intense debates while we work, Dave and I always rib each other, and we all collectively rib Owen, lol.  I will definitely miss that.  Though I’m just down the hall, and when Nathan moved offices to help with the audio team it’s not like we never saw him again.  Hooray for in-office MSN.

My calendar is literally packed now with all the meetings I have.  I’m really excited about the more involved role I’ll play now.  The more responsibility I’m given, the more chances I’ll have to prove I’m the right person for the position.  And I truly believe I’d be great at this job. 

                                                --  Meetings!  --

Also, the PRC project I’m now on will be my 4th official sku with my name in the credits!

I find it funny that I was never the ambitious type.  There was a time when I thought I’d be fine working at Pita Pazzaz in the mall food court the rest of my life.  I was a total screw up, but put me in the right place and suddenly there’s a fire I can’t put out.  And I love it; I love that I’m always on the way to something even better, while loving where I’m at.  I love that the further I get, the more I have to show for it.  This has been a great ride so far, and I feel I’ve grown along the way.  I’d really hate for this ride to end, or more specifically: I’d hate to have to take a 3 month hiatus from it.  But today was a big step in the right direction.  It was a good day.

Video Game Mind-Fuck

I came in to work this morning and the first thing I did was open a link from Colin on msn.  This is what it was.