Digital Dave

What a year 2008 has been.  Time has flown by faster than ever, and blessed me with some great moments.  From attending my first Game Developers Conference in February to being the first in my family to Graduate with a Bachelors this December – it was a busy year.

So, how did my first time writing out new years resolutions fair?

• [FAIL] Increase Stock Portfolio 25 – 50% from $10,519.97
  • This has been one of the worst years ever for the stock market. If you’ve invested, you took a massive hit. I believe the market has lost an average of, close to, 50% to 55%. I didn’t end up beating the market, but there are some great things that I might be able to rebound off of once I get a job. The worst thing I could possibly do is not invest money right now. There are deep discounts all around.
• [PASS] Read 2 to 5 books
  • I didn’t read any “books”, however, I read a LOT of short stories.   Around 50.  In my mind, that felt like reading 2 books.
• [EVEN] Complete 2 small independent game projects
  • I used Python and wrote an XML Based Adventure game.
  • I used XNA and completely rewrote a map editor that put emphasis on Plug-in Architecture. Not even close to being finished. The editor looks good, but the architecture does not.
• [PASS] Write 1 or 2 short stories
  • I wrote “The Midnight Dilemma”
• [FAIL] Improve Modeling skills with Maya
  • I did not spend any time with Maya this year. Sad, but had a LOT of other things on the plate.
• [PASS] Find Internship
  • While, technically, I did find a unpaid programming internship, it did not work out for a few reasons that all revolve around the lack of planning on the start-up side.
• [FAIL] Find Job
  • This has been brutal. I want to work in California. I’ve applied to several places (50 to 60) with custom cover letters, tweaked resume, and a lot of time and energy. I only received 2 bites.
  • I’ve applied to several places in Kansas, and received several bites. One of them nearly turned into a job offer, but they had a hiring freeze.  Another company offered me a job, but it wasn’t feasible for the girl and I.
  • Based on the response that I’ve got from having my feet on the ground in Kansas, I feel that I should easily be able to get a job if I can get my feet on the ground in California. So, in January, I’ll be heading over to stay with a friend.
• [FAIL] Play More Board Games
  • I played a couple, but nothing like I wanted to.  School really drained my time.
• [EVEN] Improve Mathematical and Logic Aptitude
  • Throughout the year I worked on this. Through just programming and solving puzzles in books. I spent some time with math, but not nearly as much as I wanted.
• [PASS] Network the GDC
  • I took ~100 business cards to the GDC and came out of my bubble for awhile. Thanks in large part by the inspiration that Darius wrote on his website in regard to networking. I ended up handing out a majority of the cards, and I still keep in touch with a couple of the contacts.  I’m really going to miss not being able to go this year.

Keeping to these things are tough.  Tomorrow, I’ll be bringing in the new year with a new set of goals for the years.

Things in life require unrelenting dedication and drive.  Things test each and every one of us in a unique way that makes us all stand out from the crowd.  We each have our own story to tell.  The key to everything we do in life is how we decide to utilize our mind to push us to the next level, and not letting those who tell you that it can’t be done, win.  If you stay true to yourself and push through the obstacles the rewards are endless.  You know you’ve done well and those around you see it.

Today, I will graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Information Systems! Many have said I couldn’t do it, but giving in isn’t in my bloodline. I’ve pushed through the difficult moments, and I feel that I’ve done myself well. I am the first in my family to graduate from college and hopefully not the last.

We had our final presentation yesterday and ended up impressing the professor.   He awarded us extra credit (rare) for our effort and the success of the project.  I’m incredibly happy and proud of the other guys for their commitment.  It has to be one of the best team-work experiences that I’ve dealt with while I’ve been here at Kansas State.  Each of us averaged 70 hours of work, ranging from design, implementation, and testing and close to 400 LOC delivered from each of us.  I came in at 75 hours and 487 LOC.

Good stuff.

I still have more time to work on my next project, so this none of this is final.  But I thought I’d share.

I have one more presentation on Monday which is for my game programming class.  I’ll be presenting my map toolset that is based on the relatively new .NET 3.5.  This project has been very interesting.  While I’m not where I thought I would be (bzzt. shock), I’ve got the pipeline in and functioning on an event-driven basis.  I wanted to implement a plug-in that actually adds something to the toolset, but I just don’t have the time to do something extensive.  So I have plug-ins that actually show off the architecture.

A user can open a window which loads all of the discovered plug-ins into a list.  From there, the user can click on the plug-in to find out a little more detail.   The user can choose to activate the plug-in, which will give the user a visual indication that it’s good to go.

So, for now, this activates a plug-in for the tileset domain. You can divide your application up into different domains, so you can focus your plug-ins, and sandboxing.  An event handler is set for this plug-in, and simply gets what tile was selected, and returns it.  I could be doing work on the other side, and returning the work.

Another feature that I implemented is an XML validator.  I’ve created an XSD (schema), and when an XML map is loaded, I check it against the schema.  If it fails, I produce an error for the user so they can fix it.

 And some other functionality that I have working is zooming, moving around the map (wasd, arrows), drawing tiles.

Inspiration for this editor came from several places (Thanks a lot!): XnaFantasy, XNA RPG Development, RPG Maker

Clearly, my core belief is extensibility (and to learn: xna, xsd, plug-in architecture), not just to make “another” editor.  Software needs to adapt, and it shouldn’t be solely on the main developers shoulders.  If I can provide a toolset that other developers can expand, that is much more powerful. It’s a challenge that I’m willing to at least try to accommodate.

But for now, I’d say I’m definitely testing the waters.  A lot of this is still confusing due to the complexity of how to handle all of the elements.

I’m not typically this vocal about things, but I love MMOs, and I ESPECIALLY love the EverQuest brand.  I mean, it’s MMOs that really, really got me wanting to do game development.  I don’t get to play nearly as much as I’d like these days, but one disturbing trend is rearing its head over the mountain top.

Yesterday, Sony released a new system within EverQuest and EverQuest II which allows players to morph real money to game currency.

This is ridiculous on many levels.

The game is now restricting what we can access, and, more importantly, devaluing our net worth as a character. Now, our gold has to compete with real world currency. Now, we have to compete with Joe Smuckateli and his hoard of cash he makes through his job.

I don’t understand the logic in this beside that it is for Sony to make money (bzzzt. shock).  But they are just not making money off of this, they’re making money off of the $15 monthly fee as well.   It’s business in a hard economy, yes. But it’s also my immersion at stake. RMT has no place in the fantasy realm unless you give an option to keep it off of my server.  I applauded the ban-hammer, but now the hammer is tainted itself.

This game is for the players more so than the company. We provide the life to the business model. Without us, the game wouldn’t exist. Funny how companies seem to forget that and the principles which they begun this adventure on.  Even Smedley said he wouldn’t go RMT… Then likened RMT to the in-game card system (Psst… completely different!), and now poof, we have this.  It’s all a progression.

It’s not what is happening right now that matters (fluff items.. wooptie), it’s the fact that I know this is a prelude to something much more grand (see: prior paragraph). Introduce the concept at a weak level (pots, misc crap), then slowly turn up the heat. This implementation should have stayed away from the game.

Not only this game, but all games.  Give us a choice.  You can make a server RMT based with other servers that are not.

Yesterday, Star Wars: The Old Republic announced that it would be FREE TO PLAY, but MICRO-TRANSACTION based.

We do not know the specific details, but it receives a sigh anyway.  At LEAST the game will start that way.  I can stay away from it much easier now.

Update: “Electronic Arts has responded to Shacknews, reiterating that “no statements have been made about the Star Wars business model,” and attributing Mr. Riccitiello’s comments to a misunderstanding.”

I’m done with EQII.

Which could be a much larger story, but I’ll stop where it’s at.  If you like short stories, this comes in just over 4,000 words.  I like action, so it should be easy to read due to keeping you busy.

Download “The Midnight Dilemma” (*.pdf)

Download “The Midnight Dilemma” (*.docx)

The reader follows Ethaneal as he faces a situation with equally undesirable alternatives. Eradaan has just unleashed a deadly bow which is cursed and given to Ethaneal. Ethaneal doesn’t know and finds himself to blame for something he had little control over. Set to redeem himself, he is faced with the choice of saving a life to give a life. Read as you follow these elves through their journey to bring to light the true face to this crisis.