March 2008
16:30 - 27/03/08 - Level Design, Life, MMORPGs and Summer Glau
Some of my imaginary regular readers, any real one's probably having gone else where once my update rate dropped below 3 times a month, may have noticed that I updated (and changed the name of) one of my level design pages. I worked up a new beta of de_perseverance recently so I thought I'd update it's page as well, you can take a lookie here. I'm quite pleased with how it's developing, it is slowly getting better looking and better playing, however I've hit a bit of snag in that the clan leader of the server I used to test my maps on has become weary of my infrequent and rather small updates (I have a lot of other things to be doing!) so I've been unable to test the rather major layout modifications I made, which is going to make further progress some what difficult.
In other news I've decided that I'm going to try for the jobs I really want to do, even though my degree isn't entirely relevant, that is in game development. I think my skills would be best used programming, as I seem to have somewhat of an aptitude for it, although I wish I had some proper qualifications. I guess if the worst happens and I can't get into a graduate job I'll have to do an MSc in Computer Science / Programming and work up some amateur stuff, before re-applying.
Something else I'd quite like to mention is that anyone that knows me will know I've been playing World of Warcraft in spurts since it's release. Since I last mentioned it on my blog I had another spurt, playing my rogue and got into a bit of raiding (only Kara and ZA) it was good fun whilst it lasted and I got my character quite nicely kitted to PvE, and got her* an epic flying mount. However it's coming up to exam time and I can't afford to spend anywhere near enough time that a proper raid spot requires (especially when you're one of the dps classes that can be swapped out for someone else with ease, even if they aren't quite as good! ;]) so I've stopped playing once more.
I'm sure I'll come back and take a poke at the expansion when it comes out, but for now there is a MMORPG shaped hole in my life, there's something about being able to play a game and make progress in a persistent world that just isn't satisfied by other game types (although they do other things better, like rts - strategy or fps - skill) so I've started myself an EVE character. Partly because many of the things I find annoying about WoW, the expansions rendering your previous work null, the lack of player created content, the completely fucked economy, the many different realms, are all different in EVE, but mainly I choose EVE because your character skills up in real time. So it doesn't matter that I'm not going to be playing as much, my character will still advance at a comparable rate to if I was playing my ass off, so yay. Plus space ships and sci-fi is still cooler than fantasy, hehe. If anyone plays EVE feel free to add Sephanie Siin to your buddies list (yes, *I play G.I.R.L. characters in MMORPGs).
Oh also, a week or so ago I had my last lecture ever (presuming I don't go do an MSc to change disciplines that is). In celebration, and as I failed to celebrate the leap day, here's a pic of summer glau from a terminator series promo poster.
