You guys are confusing something. I didn't apply for "Lead Campaign Designer", I applied for "Level Designer" (and Associate Level Designer 8 months ago).
No. I get that. That's why I said lack of a visa disqualifies you for any US studio unless it's a higher up position.
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I'm not sure if that is visible form just the portfolio but the Settlers 7 stuff I worked on was an internship for a game company. My WC3 stuff got me that internship. They had offered me an Associate position but I declined due to conflcits with my night school.
If I was eating cereal, I would've just spit it out in amazement. Why?
Lack of US work authorization is probably enough to hold you back by itself, no matter how good you are in other ways.
I've got a buddy in europe who does a lot of modding. He's been trying to break into development in the US for a while,and it's proven to be largely impossible because nobody in the industry will offer a work visa for an entry level position. These days with all the border security nonsense, even senior developer positions often won't come with visa assistance.
You don't really need to be a programmer to be a developer (though it doesn't hurt), so that's probably a more minor concern. I can't really comment on anything else as I haven't played your maps yet (but I've heard great things!).
The only other suggestion I can offer, after looking at your portfolio, is that it really needs to do more to show off your "design" skills. All I see on that page are pretty screenshots. They look amazing, but they don't tell me anything about the overall layout of your levels, how they flow, where the key points of interest are, etc... I could probably get that by playing them, but assuming I don't have time, your best bet would be to make that more easily apparent.
I'd suggest doing either a short video (2-3 mins) giving a quick overview of one of your levels and its gameplay, or an overhead drawing (in photoshop or something) that's easy to read and understand. It also helps to point out why you made the decisions you did, and to talk about any problems you encountered and how you solved them.
Overall it seems like you're really passionate about this sort of thing. I hope it eventually works out for you! :)
I'd say you're correct that actual demonstrable work is far more valuable than any education. A piece of paper that says you took some classes just doesn't carry the same weight. Not that it doesn't help, but it's far from the most important thing you can be doing.
"Game Development" degrees haven't even been around for all that long, and from what I've heard most of them offer little over what you could learn in a normal school or on your own time. I mean, where do your friends think developers hired people from before "game dev" courses existed?
The one big benefit of those courses/degrees (over, say, a BA in Underwater Basketweaving) is that you have a higher chance of making connections with like-minded people. That could pay off later, but there are probably less expensive ways to make those connections.
I was lucky enough to avoid this particular nightmare scenario. My high school gave me IT credit for spending 1-2 hours a day running around fixing faculty computers >_>
"Need moar RAM"
"Halp I haz virus"
"How to install printer drivers?"
Etc.
It was a pretty sweet gig, except for the Music building. Screw those hippies and their Macs...
You can do this with a Unit Group array, but Unit Group functions a bit differently from Unit, so it may or may not work depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
He probably didn't go public on account of this whole wall of text being bullshit.
This.
And to add to it, giving one designer absolute control over a project is one of the dumbest things a company can possibly do. Anyone who plays a lot of games from Japanese studios can testify to that one.
You can use actor events to change opacity and scale. I'd be willing to bet that changing both in tandem might give you the closest thing to a "pulse" effect.
You can use a timer to loop the process so that it keeps pulsing, or just use triggers to send the actor messages.
There are a few takes on a color swap here, which is very similar-
Just to throw some experience in here: You know whats most fun in LoL? To amok rush in every time and die like 10 times, but getting all Items you need since you don't lose gold for dying. LoL is perfect for noobs who want easy game-play and a skill cap.
Were you by chance playing with bots? I guarantee you can't get away with crap like that once you get up to a half-decent ELO.
Besides making new heroes, what could he really even have done?
I dunno, improved the core gameplay?
The whole thing of having to destroy towers and the fact that-
Agi >>>> Str >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Int for that purpose?
Or the piss-poor late-game scaling of non-agi in general? The entire Str/Agi/Int system is broken.
Denies drive extremely passive play for the entire laning phase (compare to League of Legends in this regard).
...and that's just a start. Part of making a sequel is improving on the shortcomings of the original. They're acting like there's absolutely nothing that could be improved, which is a horrible misjudgment on their part. They're going to flop as hard as HoN, if not harder.
Did anybody else find the sound work on that entirely un-compelling? It felt like they were fighting with nerf weapons. The SFX didn't sell the visuals at all.
Anyway, I'm pretty bummed that they're just making another HoN with a different art style. But hey, it has "DotA" in the name, so that means it'll be a success right? Right?! >_>
Lucent Sphere - Fire an orb of light forward from the caster that takes 1 second to arm. Deals minor single-target damage, but is somewhat spammable. Lucent Spheres will detonate if they strike the caster. dealing area damage and refunding their energy cost. (The orb moves too fast for you to normally catch up with it, but certain abilities will make this possible. See below.)
Flash Forward - The caster dissolves into light waves and fires himself near-instantly to the target point. Enemy units along his path receive damage. Can also be used to detonate Lucent Spheres.
Mirage - Swap places with the target for 5 seconds. When the effect ends, swap again (if the target is still alive).
Refraction - Fire a beam of light that bounces between targets and slows them briefly (chain lightning). Subsequent targets take less damage, but are slowed more.
Diffusion -
(Passive) Gather left-over energy from spells cast nearby in the form of charges. You'll glow brighter for every charge.
(Active) Release all stored charges in an area around the caster, dealing damage per charge. Damage decreases with distance from the caster.
The idea here is to create a very opportunistic type of caster. He'll generally prefer to stay out of the fray and has a few tools to accomplish that, but he's also very good at taking advantage of chaotic situations. Mirage in particular is great for this, even if it doesn't do any damage by itself. There's also some interplay between abilities, but they can still be effective on their own so it should fit the "purchase" model.
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@OutsiderXE: Go
Interesting. I guess German studios roll a bit differently than in the US.
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No. I get that. That's why I said lack of a visa disqualifies you for any US studio unless it's a higher up position.
If I was eating cereal, I would've just spit it out in amazement. Why?
0
Lack of US work authorization is probably enough to hold you back by itself, no matter how good you are in other ways.
I've got a buddy in europe who does a lot of modding. He's been trying to break into development in the US for a while,and it's proven to be largely impossible because nobody in the industry will offer a work visa for an entry level position. These days with all the border security nonsense, even senior developer positions often won't come with visa assistance.
You don't really need to be a programmer to be a developer (though it doesn't hurt), so that's probably a more minor concern. I can't really comment on anything else as I haven't played your maps yet (but I've heard great things!).
The only other suggestion I can offer, after looking at your portfolio, is that it really needs to do more to show off your "design" skills. All I see on that page are pretty screenshots. They look amazing, but they don't tell me anything about the overall layout of your levels, how they flow, where the key points of interest are, etc... I could probably get that by playing them, but assuming I don't have time, your best bet would be to make that more easily apparent.
I'd suggest doing either a short video (2-3 mins) giving a quick overview of one of your levels and its gameplay, or an overhead drawing (in photoshop or something) that's easy to read and understand. It also helps to point out why you made the decisions you did, and to talk about any problems you encountered and how you solved them.
Overall it seems like you're really passionate about this sort of thing. I hope it eventually works out for you! :)
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@rkmx52: Go
Holy nostalgia, Batman!
Nice work :)
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@VoidPotato: Go
I'd say you're correct that actual demonstrable work is far more valuable than any education. A piece of paper that says you took some classes just doesn't carry the same weight. Not that it doesn't help, but it's far from the most important thing you can be doing.
"Game Development" degrees haven't even been around for all that long, and from what I've heard most of them offer little over what you could learn in a normal school or on your own time. I mean, where do your friends think developers hired people from before "game dev" courses existed?
The one big benefit of those courses/degrees (over, say, a BA in Underwater Basketweaving) is that you have a higher chance of making connections with like-minded people. That could pay off later, but there are probably less expensive ways to make those connections.
0
I was lucky enough to avoid this particular nightmare scenario. My high school gave me IT credit for spending 1-2 hours a day running around fixing faculty computers >_>
"Need moar RAM"
"Halp I haz virus"
"How to install printer drivers?"
Etc.
It was a pretty sweet gig, except for the Music building. Screw those hippies and their Macs...
0
@GodsFury: Go
You can do this with a Unit Group array, but Unit Group functions a bit differently from Unit, so it may or may not work depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
0
This.
And to add to it, giving one designer absolute control over a project is one of the dumbest things a company can possibly do. Anyone who plays a lot of games from Japanese studios can testify to that one.
0
@booseek: Go
You can use actor events to change opacity and scale. I'd be willing to bet that changing both in tandem might give you the closest thing to a "pulse" effect.
You can use a timer to loop the process so that it keeps pulsing, or just use triggers to send the actor messages.
There are a few takes on a color swap here, which is very similar-
http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/development/data/14005-solved-actors-how-to-change-color-pereodically/
Just look for Set actions for Scale and Opacity instead of Tint Color.
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@Fullachain: Go
I was thinking a spiffed up version of the High Templar model. You could probably get away with using a Probe or something, though.
Feel free to pick it apart and use it however you please :)
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Were you by chance playing with bots? I guarantee you can't get away with crap like that once you get up to a half-decent ELO.
0
I dunno, improved the core gameplay?
The whole thing of having to destroy towers and the fact that-
Agi >>>> Str >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Int for that purpose?
Or the piss-poor late-game scaling of non-agi in general? The entire Str/Agi/Int system is broken.
Denies drive extremely passive play for the entire laning phase (compare to League of Legends in this regard).
...and that's just a start. Part of making a sequel is improving on the shortcomings of the original. They're acting like there's absolutely nothing that could be improved, which is a horrible misjudgment on their part. They're going to flop as hard as HoN, if not harder.
0
Did anybody else find the sound work on that entirely un-compelling? It felt like they were fighting with nerf weapons. The SFX didn't sell the visuals at all.
Anyway, I'm pretty bummed that they're just making another HoN with a different art style. But hey, it has "DotA" in the name, so that means it'll be a success right? Right?! >_>
/facepalm
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Photomancer
(Passive) Gather left-over energy from spells cast nearby in the form of charges. You'll glow brighter for every charge.
(Active) Release all stored charges in an area around the caster, dealing damage per charge. Damage decreases with distance from the caster.
The idea here is to create a very opportunistic type of caster. He'll generally prefer to stay out of the fray and has a few tools to accomplish that, but he's also very good at taking advantage of chaotic situations. Mirage in particular is great for this, even if it doesn't do any damage by itself. There's also some interplay between abilities, but they can still be effective on their own so it should fit the "purchase" model.
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@progammer: Go
This about sums it up.
...and wow, progammer's alive! =O