UnstableArk

Gotta hate those required textbooks. Hate those "school brand" books even more. Not only will they not buy it back after the semester, but it's pretty much useless to you after the class ends, and most are only available for purchase. Luckily, my college started renting out books more efficiently, but then there are those books that contain those f**king online codes that you need to sign up for, and are only available on brand-new purchases. Very few ways around those... Thanks for the heads up, but my mistake last time was a bit of naivete and general carelessness, and for going under my usual full time schedule. Shan't be doing that again...I should really try recording phone conversations though...

Sophomore-ish? Started in this college in the Spring of 2010, my previous college credits wouldn't carry over. Why do you ask?

I never liked Joel, at all. You can always sense this feeling of condescendence and arrogance in his writing, it never worked for me. It just seems that he'd be one of those assholes on a message board who thinks he can outwit the rival of discourse. Looks like banning powers are the ultimate form of online "I'm better than you, and I'm ending it here". A cop out move if you ask me...or anyone.

My entire tuition is paid through financial aid, and I have to pay the difference out of pocket. What I really hate is the dispursement date. It takes about 2 weeks for the money to be dispursed, which I'm not angry about, I'm pretty patient. What bothers me is that, even though the entire school is aware of the delayed dispursement, there are some Professors who make it mandatory to have books or equipment within the 1st or 2nd week of the semester. I just can't afford that, and it's worse when they plan a quiz or a full exam in the 2nd week. Also, gotta love how financial aid waits until after the add/drop deadline to tell you if you're f**ked for the semester or not.

Forgot to take out the chicken to defrost, so I ended up making some brown rice and beans for my brother and I. Not too bad a combo, but it does get boring without anything else.

From what I've been told, programmers usually have to follow certain programming conventions the company may have in place. That way, if they need to get rid of you, your replacement can easily pick up and continue whatever work you didn't complete. Of course the good ones can stick around, but you'd really have to impress the employer and convince that the work is done efficiently and quickly. The last thing they want to do is pay for more time than you're worth, which is why learning a good amount of keyboard shortcuts and making use out of macros are so important. Game programmers are among the best around. They can easily trump the work of a procedural programmer under the employ of a non gaming company, so maybe that's why they're valuable. Still, there's a lot of competition in the game industry, so standing out of that crowd is pretty damn difficult. But it's nice knowing that there are some outside places that can hire you just the same.

Didn't know what the hell that was 'til just a second ago. At $19.95, I'd be crazy not to get one. The person below me doesn't know why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I've taken focused game courses for 1 year at my previous college and just started programming again in my new semester here and took a game history class back in the spring. I'm not sure how accurately I can answer your questions, but I'll give it a go. But I should let you know right now that I have not built my skills enough to begin a game, nor do I have professional experience, so this is just words from a student. Also, I trained mainly in the field of programming with only minor student experience in design, so... 1) Folks still have it in their minds that games build themselves, even newer students. Most orientations tend to over-exaggerate what actually is in store to make it seem more appealing than it is. The work is pretty mundane most of the time and it takes a large amount of time to actually get anything done, all before you start using more sophisticated tools. I'm having a bit of trouble answering the first question, so if you could specify it a bit more, I could probably offer a better answer for you there. Sorry. 2) For the most part, the classes are very focused. Actually, they're incredibly intensive most of the time. In design, it can be pretty simple to learn, but most of it is "learn by doing" and requires a large team dynamic. Programming is more solo work, and thus becomes a great pain in the ass if you have little knowledge concerning whatever programming language you're using. Sometimes it seems that most of the classes force you to learn on your own time since most of the material they cover during a class lecture is very fast paced. If you're learning programming without experience, this can be hell since they throw A LOT of different terms at you with the expectation that you already know what's being discussed. Be prepared for that. 3) Most are, especially the design based professors. They usually begin a semester by explaining what type of projects they've worked on and how long they've been in the industry. Programming instructors are somewhat different and act a bit more technical. Sometimes they have no gaming experience, which really doesn't matter all to much in programming, but still share where they gathered experience. You can usually tell right off the bat if they're a gamer or not. It can be helpful, especially if they can hint and reference more popular game mechanics into a project. But then again, they can be tough to work with. I've met quite a few instructors who force you to teach yourself or scoff at your programming techniques. 4) Yes, you learn a lot on the side of legality and business. Most of it you may already know before taking classes, like the relationship between publishers and developers. Others include copyrighting and plagiarism, especially on the coding side of things. Other stuff like licensing and marketing are also taught, mostly off hand. These aren't main focuses of most courses, so just be aware of that. Most of the time they only teach you about team and time management and how employers might find you and your work and your expected time of employment. Programmers, while paid a lot, are the most expendable people in a development team, as said from multiple sources...lucky me. Sorry if my writing isn't all too cohesive right now. That's all I got at the moment, so hopefully that helps. If not, sorry that I butchered your thread. If you got any other questions, I'd like to help, but I can't guarantee a great answer.

The "Ark" part of my name comes from a character I developed years ago, which coincidentally resembled my generated name on one of my first MMOs. I use it pretty often for online screen names. Not quite sure where the "Unstable" comes from, might be related to my brother's XBL gamer tag. I also swap in some other stock character names I've come up with over the years in case Ark is taken, or if a game has no default character name in place.

Persona 3 FES. Started it a few months ago as a rental then learned it was a lot more expansive than I thought. I bought it about a week ago on the cheap and have been having fun since. Still, the game doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon. Currently at Nov. 20th in game, struggling to avoid any spoilers and juggling around some of the S.Links.

Hmm, I seem to be in the presence of many figures of respect. It seems rather intimidating, especially considering that I was one of the invisibles... Anyway, hello hello, I'm UnstableArk, that quiet dude who says something here or there when it seems appropriate. I'm a 21 year old college student training in the unholy combination of digital media and computer sciences. Been in the gaming scene for as long as I could remember, and it's not changing anytime soon. And like most of you, I visited Kotaku on a near daily basis for several years until a change in scenery slowly began building a fierce amount of suppressed rage. Unfortunately(maybe fortunately?), I haven't had a major falling out or anything of the sort, but I do like to observe the thoughts and concerns of others who seem to ask the tough stuff. Also, I've been looking for a forum of class for quite some time, so hopefully I'm welcome here. I hope I don't bog down anyone for my anonymity, and I don't expect my post counter to reach the thousands either, at least not anytime soon. Not sure what else I can say or if a mob will drive me out of town by torch and pitchfork, but that's pretty much it. I'm sleep deprived, so yeah, that'll have to do for now, won't it?