Interesting.

Well, I'm reading the front page, and I notice this little job offer. As much as I am intriguied by the idea of a game development company looking for mappers on a community site - how much has this happened before? - I'm deterred slightly by the fact that the contact email address is a Hotmail account. If you've got paid positions available, why are you using a free email service? Surely you've got some sort of infrastructure? I mean, a domain name from GoDaddy is $10US!

Should have a website up too... but hey, at least he can spell. He's already aeons ahead of most people. :smile:

Alien_Sniper said:
Should have a website up too... but hey, at least he can spell. He's already aeons ahead of most people. :smile:

Your thinking of me arent you :biggrin:

I hope you did that on purpose... going to give you the benefit of the doubt. :biggrin:

maybe :rolleyes:

DesPlesda said:
Well, I'm reading the front page, and I notice this little job offer. As much as I am intriguied by the idea of a game development company looking for mappers on a community site - how much has this happened before? - I'm deterred slightly by the fact that the contact email address is a Hotmail account. If you've got paid positions available, why are you using a free email service? Surely you've got some sort of infrastructure? I mean, a domain name from GoDaddy is $10US!

The last time there was an argument about a seemingly n00bish mod, everyone started yelling and Cassius and Vash left... Maybe no one wants to go there again. /me couldn't care too much anyway

I'm deterred slightly by the fact that the contact email address is a Hotmail account.

My project lead for the current title I'm working on (contract basis) uses a Hotmail account. :razz:

General advice, though, is never to sign up for any project that offers payment details down the road. If you get no figures and promises of payment after the game releases, you should probably re-think things. If it's a paid gig, you get paid either regularly or as you complete certain milestones for assets.

Too many people try and have tried to take advantage of loopholes like this in the past, so just be cautious of any 'paid' deal. It may be legit, but it's always the second you let your guard down that you get burned. :razz:

Why is this person looking for people who map using 3ds max here? How many people here can use 3ds? 2 or 3?

It didn't do any harm posting it, so what does it matter? There are a
small few who can model here, although I can't recall anything
noteworthy being created.

DesPlesda said:
I'm deterred slightly by the fact that the contact email address is a Hotmail account.

Not all hotmail accounts are free :wink: Depends on wether you want a bigger mail box than 1 meg, on lycos i think it is they are now offering 1 gig mailbox's

I find it surprising that they plan to release a full game (I'm assuming their first) in a little over half a year. Even with a source engine this would be quite a task.

You assume the source engine could do this? It'd take even longer because of the art content needed to make a game on that tech.

Newer tech doesn't make games happen quicker. Newer tech means more and more people taking longer and longer to get games completed due to the complexity of the new things.

The company I used to work for got to make a 6 month budget game. They won it because they were able to create an engine that looked like it could do all the Doom3 features. Except it couldn't. And they wasted all the time on the shoddy tech, and the game turned out to be the worst game EVER and on top of that looked like ass, even with a supposed 'next gen' engine.

Short dev timeframes are -not- a good sign if there is a publisher involved. :-\

Was it you that worked for 4D rulers Andrew?

KungFuSquirrel said:
Short dev timeframes are -not- a good sign if there is a publisher involved. :-\

I totally agree, but short development times are never a good sign no matter what. Just look at mapping. There are people who can crank out tons of above average or average maps quickly, but they'll never be able to make a truly great map in that short amount of time. That's why many authors choose to spend a good amount of time on one map to make it as perfect as they can instead of making three or four average maps in that same timeframe. Looking at myself, when I was making prefabs at one point I managed to make like 4 prefabs a day, and they really suffered because of it. I decided to slow down and make more complex things and managed to make good prefabs. There's no point in artificially rushing yourself if you have no deadlines. Take the extra time to make great maps!

It all depends on what you want to put into it. If you are only aiming small, a short dev cycle, whether in mapping or full game development, is not necessarily bad. However, holding onto something can be just as damaging as rushing it, if not moreso.

The reason I added the "if there is a publisher involved" is that it's very possible for a group of people to get together and make some great small projects in just a few months to a year. However, this same team with a publisher involved should expect that if the publisher is only willing to ride with them for 6 months, odds are they won't bother wasting their time with you for even 1 more afterwards.

The biggest problem with short dev time games (or maps) is that many of them aim to be much more than they have time to be (the previous example I gave, if you will). If you make a small independent game with 2 levels, 3 weapons, and very simple gameplay, 6 months may be enough. 18 can even be enough for a decent game with a fairly small amount of content artwork. The teams that -can- pull off this sort of short schedule are the ones who are working on much bigger and more long-term projects, because they can get those done, too.

There's nothing wrong with taking your time, but if you're capable of making -exactly- what you made in 2 years in 6 months, you need to re-examine your priorities. :wink:

KungFuSquirrel said:
There's nothing wrong with taking your time, but if you're capable of making -exactly- what you made in 2 years in 6 months, you need to re-examine your priorities. :wink:

Particularly good point. :biggrin:

<DIV>Hmm, that's probably my main problem. Namphibian and I have trouble making really good maps - usually because we get bored with the old one before we jazz it up some, or because we suddenly realise that a large part of the architecture has to be changed and really cant be stuffed redoing everything. As such, we've taken to making a map individually until one of us is completely bored with it, then passing it onto the other to add detail and texture prettiness. It seems to work.</DIV>

I sort of know the guy who posted the news, he was a coder for
something I was working on (possibly ELVA, before we got wanderer? I
forget). He is a good enough coder and a nice guy, and last I heard was
making an FPS.
While I don't doubt he is a decent programmer, what he was making
before was a free game as opposed to a marketable one, and I doubt that
it COULD get published. This is especially true for the Xbox, as
getting the Xbox development kit is near impossible if you aren't
a fully fledged development house, let alone getting the final thing
published (particularly if its an FPS, considering the Xbox is the
console of choice for this genre and so has plenty of good ones as is).

If you really want to know more, search for "sprocket interactive" at
Gamedev, and you can read his posts there. Or alternatively, email him
I suppose :smile: