Quote from Zantai:
The question shouldn't so much be "portfolio or degree" as much as "portfolio and what degree".
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No... it shouldn't. School is a major waste of time; other than showing you actually went to class, the only people that benefit from it are those who aren't capable of teaching themselves.
I've actually been looking around, and have found that Java is actually no longer as slow as it used to be. I don't understand it, but apparently they added something that DOES compile to assembly, and now Java is comparable to C+ + (as long as you have the compiler thing installed, which I think comes with the standard JRE now) in speed and effectiveness. But it is still just comparable. From what I understand, C is still the fastest, C+ + trailing close behind (if you use the OO part of it), with Java actually closing in on C+ +.
That is just what I have been reading, I have no idea if any of it is true. About 50% of what I read says Java is slow, and the other 50% says that Java has added something so that the speed issue no longer applies (as much). Once again, not sure which part is true.
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If they did that may help, but as I said, I don't use Java so couldn't care less. Beyond it being slow I hate the syntax and the API is horrible, and no operator overloading, it requires overly complicated constructs for otherwise simple things as I recall (only ever used it in high school for a class and once in college in some general programming class I had to take. It was like an overview of the languages we could take courses in, like they do for foreign language. So I have fairly minimal interaction with it, other than what people tell me and the basic I know about it). It's somewhat popular now likely because before C# and whatnot, your options for high-level languages were fairly limited and most were even worse than Java. I don't mean to totally flame the language (well I do, but I mean I don't care if you like it or want to use it or whatever), but I would advise against using it and nothing else.
And C is faster than C++, but marginally, and I think almost irrelevantly; I forget why, but there is a reason. I'll look into it sometime to be sure, but I think it might have something to do with how small the language actually is. That's why it's typically used for Operating Systems (and because you obviously need to compile the language to machine code, and a compiler for C is far easier to do than a compiler for C++). In theory you could use any language nowadays for an OS (I've been thinking about writing one after I finish with my engine, as I want to eventually get into the OS and console war if the company ever gets that far. I'm aiming for East India Company status personally, although now that police forces are a common thing I think it's unlikely I'll be allowed to have my own army), as long as you can get it into machine code. Technically even Java could if you could make the Virtual Machine compile the language; maybe even just have the VM in machine code, and then just run the OS on top of that. I don't know if anyone has ever written not in C though (except Unix, which was written in machine code originally).
We are well aware of what we're doing; there is a purpose for working on multiple projects (and if you would like to know part of why that is, go spend ten hours a day working on the same thing for weeks on end, and then stop for a bit and see if you care anymore. The other part is timing their releases for when we need them to be and they're heavily interconnected).
Why would it be like that? You said you started an indie studio which means you would be a founder or cofounder which would mean your time spent is up to you and not some big corporation breathing down your neck.
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Because there is a lot to do and when I don't work on it (like today) I get really stressed, or days I do work on it I don't have a lot of time for much else. We have three game projects going, and three of us on them (me programming, a concept artist, someone who is technically an architect), only one of which is remotely near release (the others are in pre-production, we do work on them sometimes when we get bored with the current game; mostly we're trying to decide how we want to do it), but still needs mass amount of art done. At one point we had a couple of 3D artists, but they have stopped talking to me for whatever reason (I really have no idea, one day they just stopped responding), who did like half the work and now we can't use any of it. Throw onto that the fact that we have no where near the money supply we'd have if we had publisher support, meaning we can't do what it is we want because we can't afford servers or anything right now, and all of us working full time jobs on the side of it that don't cover what we need it to. Typically I run on about four to six hours of sleep, which is fine because I have DSPS, but then there are times where I'm right in the middle of my day job and am borderline passing out for the day.
It's not like you're going to make enough to live on right off the bat; we're guessing that next year we MIGHT be in alpha if we get enough done, then it'll probably be another six months of art work. And I also know that pretty much all of the money, if not more, that comes from this game will be accounted for as soon as it comes in. Likewise, the money from that game will likely all be going to getting and maintaining the server system I need for the game engine thing I'm working on, and the list goes on and on. And we might be getting sued for one of the games... which altogether isn't that big of a deal because we haven't done anything wrong, but still, the US legal system can be an absolute joke.
You could do what I did and start an indie studio... your entire life will feel like when you're in elementary school and you're mom is going "Did you finish your homework yet?"
Hopefully the storyline is a lot better than Oblivion's. Oblivion was nothing compared to Morrowind; I think a lot of it had to do with them changing to voice acting instead of just written dialog, which was a bad decision. Morrowind had so much more depth because you actually got to know the characters a little bit; Oblivion was like "Oh so you're the emperor... you sound like Boromir."
Sorry, don't want to derail zelda's thread, but I am confused. You infer that making a game in Java is a bad idea to begin with, but then you say that making your own engine will give you more flexibility. So are you saying that yes, programming your own engine is good, but doing it in Java is bad? Because I do intend on learning C+ + over the next 2 years, and then in college I would work on that some more. I just want to be making the best out of what I am learning. So basically, making a video game, making $1k max (probably more like $100), while learning all the basics of programming.
But yeah, because I feel bad making a totally off topic comment, I will respond to zelda's first post. I would recommend going for something that is fun for everyone. I'm not going to lead you down the same path I went down, because then you would be arriving at the same game I am making, but the idea is something like Farmville. Everyone can play Farmville, whether you are a girl, boy, 10, 8, 102, 73, 41, 23, you get the idea. Plus Facebook, that made the game super successful. But, there was something else. It was a competition. You want to beat your friends. What better way of getting ahead than to legally cheat? So they added in the stuff you can buy for like $1. That is a lot of money right there. So basically, I would go with something that is free, but requires you to buy stuff to REALLY get into the game. Make it fully playable though, not like a free trial.
Ya so that is my input. I wouldn't trust it though, as I don't really know what I am talking about :D
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Yes, you got it. You certainly CAN make it in Java; however for any heavy application it's not advisable. Java is very slow. It's perfectly fine for slower things (like games that take up very little power, or basic applications). I don't use it at all; personally I can't stand the language, but other people seem to like it (I like Python, but only really use that for prototyping work). I believe there's an engine someone is writing using Java (Cafu, maybe, can't remember the name, but I think that's it), but you will rarely see Java used in serious game development because of the speed issues, because of the way it runs (using a virtual machine, instead of compiling to machine code). You could probably pump out programs a lot faster using it, but in games speed is essential and can become very noticeable very quickly. In the event that they had designed it to compile to machine code, Java would probably have overtaken C++ by now, but for some reason they made the decision not to. I would advice using C++ or C# for an engine or 3D game; if it's slow paced or 2D or something (like Angry Birds, or browser based games), Java will be perfectly fine probably. You could even use C if you wanted to, but that would be some fairly weird programming (look at the older id Tech engines, up to 3 I think are all in C).
For Zelda, you could do something like Defcon. It was extremely popular for a while, but make it somewhat more advanced. I was going to do it a while ago, but never really got around to it and now I'm too busy with my projects to do it anytime soon. I was going to use OSM data for major roadways, get population densities for the major cities, etc.
Having many different model formats isn't that bad; most companies that 'encourage' modding release tools for it fairly quickly, or at least information that will allow other people to develop tools to do so. Blizzard, for whatever reason, made the decision not to do this for reasons I cannot fathom.
The reason for not using only one format universally is that many of them store irrelevant information to the game, so they write their own that condense everything, or leave things out, to minimize the space requirements for installation.
With solely 2D you're limited as you noted, although you're also limited in 3D. But not to top down or sidescroller games only; you can also work with isometric views, pseudo-3D (like the original Doom, although technically I believe that's isometric), and ASCII games (which could provide for some unique gameplay; I've been considering doing a 3D game solely using ASCII symbols, but likely won't get around to it), and others. The requirements for online gaming would be significantly less as there would be no where near as much information being passed around, but still would be there. From the suggestions provided I would recommend either isometric or pseudo-3D, as that would allow the most flexibility; I don't know what the online capabilities of Game Maker are (I wouldn't use it for a large scale multiplayer game though, as it is very slow), but it's quite capable of doing it.
Not terribly; it makes very little sense to give you something of mine to sell. Besides you're not giving much to work with. We have no idea what it is you can and can't do, all we know is that you might want to do a top-down shooter and you want to do it online, and know how to use Game Maker, and don't want to do anything with 3D. And you want to sell it.
With your own engine you can design it to do exactly what you need. If you're only making one game, it really wouldn't make much sense to develop an entire engine though, when you can develop only the resources you need to use.
UDK has a 25% royalty after making $50,000, which I would be amazed if you did, and you have to display Epic's splash screen and I think Bink's splash screen if you use it. As to why everyone is promoting UDK specifically I have no idea; there are plenty of other engines. ShiVa is fairly friendly for new developers, Unity has a free version, C4 isn't too bad, albeit kind of weird. Lawmaker used to be a decent engine, I'm not sure if it's still being worked on though.
Quote from Eimtr:
The problem isn't buying the product.One could get it 'by other means' lol. The problem is some of us want to just to convert to sc2 models, which requires assigning and giving them the additional textures and of course pretty much what the M3 export plugin has. And for just converting while using another modelling program such as Milkshape or Blender, having to install a large program just for conversion seems not right. I can't work with Blender but it was OK to use it even as a conversion tool, as it is only 100MB and you can unzip it, no install. But there is no M3 export for blender.
One has the source code of M3 export plugin of 3ds max, cant a tool that opens obj or other model files and export to M3, assign textures and that's all - be made as a stand-alone tool out of that plugin? Even without animations, for a starter until at later phase that is also made.
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It's not as simple as just re-writing the code in the 3DSM exporter. You would then have to rework the code to convert the format of the data in any other model into M3, which in itself is an extremely complicated file.
I am well aware of the differences between the two. UE3 has the source code. Which makes it infinitely more powerful as you can modify whatever you need to. Other than using DLLBind, which is extremely limited, you're limited to what is included in the UDK (Speedtree, Scaleform, and a few other things, can't remember all of them), which is the binary release of UE3.
Neither of those games use UDK; they both use UE3. As far as I'm aware, no one has developed a viable method of bypassing the player limitations for the UDK; as I said, it might not even be allowed. While UE3 is perfectly capable of an MMO, UDK is not. However we are not talking about UE3, because again I find it extremely unlikely he, or anyone discussing it for that matter, has the funds behind him to buy the license. So in short, no, it is not a viable engine to use for an MMO. As you would know if you read the many threads in the forums on people asking if they can use UDK to develop an MMO.
You cannot make an actual MMO with UDK. Unreal Engine 3 and UDK are not the same thing. You might be able to work around it by having multiple game instances, but that might not be allowed by the EULA, and I think it might be a little advanced for a first game. There are many other, probably better suited, engines that have the capability of being used for an MMO than UDK.
Any MMO would be hard to do, especially if you're making a game specifically for getting some money. I'm guessing you don't have the funds to set up the server database that would be required, so you would be advised to stay away from that. In the event you want to make even a simple multiplayer game using peer to peer networks, you'll still require a master server to route connections. It would be much cheaper than having a dedicated array, but still might cause some complications for you if you've never done it before.
All a degree is good for is showing you went to class. It says nothing about whether or not you actually know what you're doing; there are plenty of people graduating that are still very poor programmers. It would be much more useful to have a decent portfolio, which even with a degree you would need to have.
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Quote from Zantai:
The question shouldn't so much be "portfolio or degree" as much as "portfolio and what degree".
----
No... it shouldn't. School is a major waste of time; other than showing you actually went to class, the only people that benefit from it are those who aren't capable of teaching themselves.
0
Quote from TacoManStan:
@Varine: Go
I've actually been looking around, and have found that Java is actually no longer as slow as it used to be. I don't understand it, but apparently they added something that DOES compile to assembly, and now Java is comparable to C+ + (as long as you have the compiler thing installed, which I think comes with the standard JRE now) in speed and effectiveness. But it is still just comparable. From what I understand, C is still the fastest, C+ + trailing close behind (if you use the OO part of it), with Java actually closing in on C+ +.
That is just what I have been reading, I have no idea if any of it is true. About 50% of what I read says Java is slow, and the other 50% says that Java has added something so that the speed issue no longer applies (as much). Once again, not sure which part is true.
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If they did that may help, but as I said, I don't use Java so couldn't care less. Beyond it being slow I hate the syntax and the API is horrible, and no operator overloading, it requires overly complicated constructs for otherwise simple things as I recall (only ever used it in high school for a class and once in college in some general programming class I had to take. It was like an overview of the languages we could take courses in, like they do for foreign language. So I have fairly minimal interaction with it, other than what people tell me and the basic I know about it). It's somewhat popular now likely because before C# and whatnot, your options for high-level languages were fairly limited and most were even worse than Java. I don't mean to totally flame the language (well I do, but I mean I don't care if you like it or want to use it or whatever), but I would advise against using it and nothing else.
And C is faster than C++, but marginally, and I think almost irrelevantly; I forget why, but there is a reason. I'll look into it sometime to be sure, but I think it might have something to do with how small the language actually is. That's why it's typically used for Operating Systems (and because you obviously need to compile the language to machine code, and a compiler for C is far easier to do than a compiler for C++). In theory you could use any language nowadays for an OS (I've been thinking about writing one after I finish with my engine, as I want to eventually get into the OS and console war if the company ever gets that far. I'm aiming for East India Company status personally, although now that police forces are a common thing I think it's unlikely I'll be allowed to have my own army), as long as you can get it into machine code. Technically even Java could if you could make the Virtual Machine compile the language; maybe even just have the VM in machine code, and then just run the OS on top of that. I don't know if anyone has ever written not in C though (except Unix, which was written in machine code originally).
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We are well aware of what we're doing; there is a purpose for working on multiple projects (and if you would like to know part of why that is, go spend ten hours a day working on the same thing for weeks on end, and then stop for a bit and see if you care anymore. The other part is timing their releases for when we need them to be and they're heavily interconnected).
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Quote from Keyeszx:
@Varine: Go
Why would it be like that? You said you started an indie studio which means you would be a founder or cofounder which would mean your time spent is up to you and not some big corporation breathing down your neck.
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Because there is a lot to do and when I don't work on it (like today) I get really stressed, or days I do work on it I don't have a lot of time for much else. We have three game projects going, and three of us on them (me programming, a concept artist, someone who is technically an architect), only one of which is remotely near release (the others are in pre-production, we do work on them sometimes when we get bored with the current game; mostly we're trying to decide how we want to do it), but still needs mass amount of art done. At one point we had a couple of 3D artists, but they have stopped talking to me for whatever reason (I really have no idea, one day they just stopped responding), who did like half the work and now we can't use any of it. Throw onto that the fact that we have no where near the money supply we'd have if we had publisher support, meaning we can't do what it is we want because we can't afford servers or anything right now, and all of us working full time jobs on the side of it that don't cover what we need it to. Typically I run on about four to six hours of sleep, which is fine because I have DSPS, but then there are times where I'm right in the middle of my day job and am borderline passing out for the day.
It's not like you're going to make enough to live on right off the bat; we're guessing that next year we MIGHT be in alpha if we get enough done, then it'll probably be another six months of art work. And I also know that pretty much all of the money, if not more, that comes from this game will be accounted for as soon as it comes in. Likewise, the money from that game will likely all be going to getting and maintaining the server system I need for the game engine thing I'm working on, and the list goes on and on. And we might be getting sued for one of the games... which altogether isn't that big of a deal because we haven't done anything wrong, but still, the US legal system can be an absolute joke.
0
You could do what I did and start an indie studio... your entire life will feel like when you're in elementary school and you're mom is going "Did you finish your homework yet?"
0
Hopefully the storyline is a lot better than Oblivion's. Oblivion was nothing compared to Morrowind; I think a lot of it had to do with them changing to voice acting instead of just written dialog, which was a bad decision. Morrowind had so much more depth because you actually got to know the characters a little bit; Oblivion was like "Oh so you're the emperor... you sound like Boromir."
0
Quote from TacoManStan:
@Varine: Go
Sorry, don't want to derail zelda's thread, but I am confused. You infer that making a game in Java is a bad idea to begin with, but then you say that making your own engine will give you more flexibility. So are you saying that yes, programming your own engine is good, but doing it in Java is bad? Because I do intend on learning C+ + over the next 2 years, and then in college I would work on that some more. I just want to be making the best out of what I am learning. So basically, making a video game, making $1k max (probably more like $100), while learning all the basics of programming.
But yeah, because I feel bad making a totally off topic comment, I will respond to zelda's first post. I would recommend going for something that is fun for everyone. I'm not going to lead you down the same path I went down, because then you would be arriving at the same game I am making, but the idea is something like Farmville. Everyone can play Farmville, whether you are a girl, boy, 10, 8, 102, 73, 41, 23, you get the idea. Plus Facebook, that made the game super successful. But, there was something else. It was a competition. You want to beat your friends. What better way of getting ahead than to legally cheat? So they added in the stuff you can buy for like $1. That is a lot of money right there. So basically, I would go with something that is free, but requires you to buy stuff to REALLY get into the game. Make it fully playable though, not like a free trial.
Ya so that is my input. I wouldn't trust it though, as I don't really know what I am talking about :D
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Yes, you got it. You certainly CAN make it in Java; however for any heavy application it's not advisable. Java is very slow. It's perfectly fine for slower things (like games that take up very little power, or basic applications). I don't use it at all; personally I can't stand the language, but other people seem to like it (I like Python, but only really use that for prototyping work). I believe there's an engine someone is writing using Java (Cafu, maybe, can't remember the name, but I think that's it), but you will rarely see Java used in serious game development because of the speed issues, because of the way it runs (using a virtual machine, instead of compiling to machine code). You could probably pump out programs a lot faster using it, but in games speed is essential and can become very noticeable very quickly. In the event that they had designed it to compile to machine code, Java would probably have overtaken C++ by now, but for some reason they made the decision not to. I would advice using C++ or C# for an engine or 3D game; if it's slow paced or 2D or something (like Angry Birds, or browser based games), Java will be perfectly fine probably. You could even use C if you wanted to, but that would be some fairly weird programming (look at the older id Tech engines, up to 3 I think are all in C).
For Zelda, you could do something like Defcon. It was extremely popular for a while, but make it somewhat more advanced. I was going to do it a while ago, but never really got around to it and now I'm too busy with my projects to do it anytime soon. I was going to use OSM data for major roadways, get population densities for the major cities, etc.
0
Having many different model formats isn't that bad; most companies that 'encourage' modding release tools for it fairly quickly, or at least information that will allow other people to develop tools to do so. Blizzard, for whatever reason, made the decision not to do this for reasons I cannot fathom.
The reason for not using only one format universally is that many of them store irrelevant information to the game, so they write their own that condense everything, or leave things out, to minimize the space requirements for installation.
0
With solely 2D you're limited as you noted, although you're also limited in 3D. But not to top down or sidescroller games only; you can also work with isometric views, pseudo-3D (like the original Doom, although technically I believe that's isometric), and ASCII games (which could provide for some unique gameplay; I've been considering doing a 3D game solely using ASCII symbols, but likely won't get around to it), and others. The requirements for online gaming would be significantly less as there would be no where near as much information being passed around, but still would be there. From the suggestions provided I would recommend either isometric or pseudo-3D, as that would allow the most flexibility; I don't know what the online capabilities of Game Maker are (I wouldn't use it for a large scale multiplayer game though, as it is very slow), but it's quite capable of doing it.
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Not terribly; it makes very little sense to give you something of mine to sell. Besides you're not giving much to work with. We have no idea what it is you can and can't do, all we know is that you might want to do a top-down shooter and you want to do it online, and know how to use Game Maker, and don't want to do anything with 3D. And you want to sell it.
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Why are you using Java for a game at all?
With your own engine you can design it to do exactly what you need. If you're only making one game, it really wouldn't make much sense to develop an entire engine though, when you can develop only the resources you need to use.
UDK has a 25% royalty after making $50,000, which I would be amazed if you did, and you have to display Epic's splash screen and I think Bink's splash screen if you use it. As to why everyone is promoting UDK specifically I have no idea; there are plenty of other engines. ShiVa is fairly friendly for new developers, Unity has a free version, C4 isn't too bad, albeit kind of weird. Lawmaker used to be a decent engine, I'm not sure if it's still being worked on though.
0
Quote from Eimtr:
The problem isn't buying the product.One could get it 'by other means' lol. The problem is some of us want to just to convert to sc2 models, which requires assigning and giving them the additional textures and of course pretty much what the M3 export plugin has. And for just converting while using another modelling program such as Milkshape or Blender, having to install a large program just for conversion seems not right. I can't work with Blender but it was OK to use it even as a conversion tool, as it is only 100MB and you can unzip it, no install. But there is no M3 export for blender.
One has the source code of M3 export plugin of 3ds max, cant a tool that opens obj or other model files and export to M3, assign textures and that's all - be made as a stand-alone tool out of that plugin? Even without animations, for a starter until at later phase that is also made.
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It's not as simple as just re-writing the code in the 3DSM exporter. You would then have to rework the code to convert the format of the data in any other model into M3, which in itself is an extremely complicated file.
0
I am well aware of the differences between the two. UE3 has the source code. Which makes it infinitely more powerful as you can modify whatever you need to. Other than using DLLBind, which is extremely limited, you're limited to what is included in the UDK (Speedtree, Scaleform, and a few other things, can't remember all of them), which is the binary release of UE3.
Neither of those games use UDK; they both use UE3. As far as I'm aware, no one has developed a viable method of bypassing the player limitations for the UDK; as I said, it might not even be allowed. While UE3 is perfectly capable of an MMO, UDK is not. However we are not talking about UE3, because again I find it extremely unlikely he, or anyone discussing it for that matter, has the funds behind him to buy the license. So in short, no, it is not a viable engine to use for an MMO. As you would know if you read the many threads in the forums on people asking if they can use UDK to develop an MMO.
0
You cannot make an actual MMO with UDK. Unreal Engine 3 and UDK are not the same thing. You might be able to work around it by having multiple game instances, but that might not be allowed by the EULA, and I think it might be a little advanced for a first game. There are many other, probably better suited, engines that have the capability of being used for an MMO than UDK.
Any MMO would be hard to do, especially if you're making a game specifically for getting some money. I'm guessing you don't have the funds to set up the server database that would be required, so you would be advised to stay away from that. In the event you want to make even a simple multiplayer game using peer to peer networks, you'll still require a master server to route connections. It would be much cheaper than having a dedicated array, but still might cause some complications for you if you've never done it before.
0
All a degree is good for is showing you went to class. It says nothing about whether or not you actually know what you're doing; there are plenty of people graduating that are still very poor programmers. It would be much more useful to have a decent portfolio, which even with a degree you would need to have.