Devgamer

Counter Strike: Global Offensive Beta

2012-06-01T14:59:00.002-07:00

As you may or may not recall, I'm currently working on the latest and greatest CS game coming down the pipe. I've been super busy as you might have guessed, because as per usual I'm not posting here.

Beta started late in the year last year, but it didn't really kick off till around the end of January when we made our first big updated to the client and started bringing in more players. I've lost count in regards to how many people have invites to the beta now, but it's well over 100k by now.

For the most part we've maintained a schedule of weekly updates, which has been great for turn-around on feedback and bugs. It's a busy schedule to maintain though, because the PC beta is not the only product in development for this game, which means we need to develop all of the platforms at the same time.

I've recently spent a bunch of time working on the tuning of the PS3 Move/Sharpshooter controller, which has been a really interesting experience.

Anyways, beta is trucking along, the game is looking really good, and I hope some of you have gotten a beta key to enjoy it. If you haven't signed up for the beta survey you should go to http://blog.counter-strike.net/ and sign up.

Post Christmas Video Game Hangover

2012-01-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

The holiday season is brutal for everyone when it comes to the first world problem of being into geeky stuff. Invariably, this is when the most best/new things of the year come out in an effort to win our hard earned money.

Gamers in particular get hammered every fall leading into winter as the deluge of promised games past finally make it from the shelves into our homes. I feel the burn from both sides of the the candle being a game designer by trade. All too often the holiday season is fraught with pushing to get games out before the year is up, and it makes it worse when you want to play everyone else's stuff.

Luckily for me, the biggest push I worked on last fall was the effort in getting the first beta candidates out for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and it wasn't so involved and panic stricken as past events. That left me time to actually buy a couple games and play them, but that wasn't without its perils.

I admit, I'm primarily a PC gamer, though I do try to get most major releases on consoles across the multiple platforms to keep up with things and to satisfy my own curiosities. That being said, the Steam sale that happens every winter invariably ends up causing a glut in my gaming queue that results in some games falling by the wayside, no matter how much I enjoy them.

I've been trying to find time for the new Star Wars MMO (lets have a moment of silence for the ill fated Star Wars Galaxies, may by dancer/swordsman rest in peace) while trying to play the couple of console games my wife bought me for my birthday and Christmas.

I still find myself trying to maintain some level of skill at shooters other than Counterstrike so I don't totally lose my touch at them, all the while trying to maintain the meager skills I've developed in League of Legends and the DOTA2 beta.

It's all too much.

Yeah, poor baby.

I know I'm not the only one who contends with this though, Its something that happens to just about everyone I know that is into gaming. There just is too much to play in a short period of time, and you really have to pace that out.

For example people devoured or are still masticating on Skyrim, while I've probably only logged about 6 hours on it. I know its there, and that its wonderful, but my free 30 days are ticking away on the Old Republic, and if i don't get my money's worth out of that and get "hooked" I'll have to cancel that game and write it off as another MMO that didn't quite capture the imagination.

I could probably go on and on about KOTOR actually. Half of it I really like, and the other half bewilders me. I'm often left wondering why I should even have to put up with other people taking my kills, because that is pretty mu ch the only depth of interaction I have with them, and that includes the fact that I'm in a 30 person guild in there.

I think that kind of sums up how I've been feeling about alot of games I've bought lately. They all sound like a great idea, but the portion where I really want it to be executed well, never really gels with me.

Take for example Forza 4. I love the game and I really like the game mechanics there for the most part. I can't complain about the cars, the tracks, the physics, all of it is there. But why do they make it so hard to find and start custom games for multiplayer now? I want to know why its easier to start a custom game in say PGR3 which is aeons old, but the latest and greatest driving game out there makes this difficult to do. Don't get me wrong, its not impossible, but its just little tiny features, and the way the menus are ordered. They make it harder to find custom games than I think it should be, and the result of that is its hard to find random people to play with. Match making does not send people your way, they have to actively seek these custom games out.

Anyways, as usual, my interests are varied, and my time is short, so I have to pick and choose what I want to get into. I can never truly master any of these games, I just don't have the time for it. Those are the woes of adulthood and holding down a real job when all you want to really do is play games all day. Being a game designer is the next best thing, but you don't get to choose what game you get to play all day. That being said, I wonder who is gonna win? Terrorists or Counter-Terrorists, I guess I should go find out some more.

I'm Not So Legendary @ LoL

2011-10-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

Over the past month or two, I've continually been logging back into League of Legends despite my lack of skill in it. I think that might be what I like about it the best. I understand what I'm supposed to do, I'm just not good at doing it yet. There are a ton of characters I need to learn in terms of how they attack and how to deal with them, all the while I have to learn my own characters and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I've been playing more and more with some co-workers and their friends, which has been fun and frustrating at the same time. I'm level 12 in the game and they are all level 28 and up. This means when we get matched against other players, I'm at a significant disadvantage in terms of runes and masteries. To be honest, I prefer playing this way, because I'm playing against people that I know are better than me. If I'm able to hold my own, I'm growing faster than I would if I were to play with people my own level. Anyways, I've been playing alot of this lately, but can't help but look forward to DOTA2 on the horizon. I don't know what the big differences will be between the two yet, but knowing Valve and their processes alot better now, I am sure I know which game will come out on top at the end of this.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

2011-10-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

As you might know by now, if you "follow" my blog at all, I'm a terrible blogger. I know this thing is here, and I know I have a small audience, but I keep letting weird stuff like work and life get in front of me.

I can't believe that I didn't post this here right away, considering how excited I've been to tell people what I've been working on this past year, but I didn't. Trying to rectify that...

So yeah! I'm working on the new Counter-Strike game! This is the project that I've been on since coming over to Hidden Path Entertainment, which was just over a year ago now. I was first brought on to work on guns, and it kind of branched out from that. Since that point, I've done game modes, gameplay stuff, designed some levels, and the weapons and equipment stuff.

You all know the drill of course, I can't get into specifics on alot of aspects of my job while the game is still in development, but I just wanted to make sure I got this post out.

I can't tell you how proud I am to be working on such a great game with such a great company like Hidden Path Entertainment in partnership with Valve Software. Who woulda' thunk it?

Rift 7 day trial invite

2011-05-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

If any of you are interested in trying Rift out for 7 days, I have an invite code here I can share with you.

http://www.riftgame.com/en/products/ascend-a-friend/invite.php?voucher=36ZKZHNQLQPF3CJC7J6K&utm_source=manual&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ascend_invite

If you would like to play on my server, I play on Shadefallen, guardian side.

Can't ARGue with it.

2011-04-04T23:16:00.000-07:00

With the Potato thing going on in the Indie games and seeing so many references to them the past few days, I caved and bought the Potato Pack too!

So far, I'm not sure which game is my favorite. I feel like of partial to AAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, because it feels so daredevil to get that close to things when you are falling that fast. I was getting a big kick out of it.

I found BIT.TRIP BEAT to be mesmerizing with it's Atari 2600 graphics and sounds too.

It's great to be among amazing company, really. I can't help but feel proud that I work with the people who created Defense Grid.

Defense Grid on Sale

2011-04-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Defense Grid, a game created at Hidden Path Entertainment (Where I work as a game designer) is currently on save via the something called "The Potato Sack"

You can buy the pack and get a bunch of great indie games at 75% off, or you can buy Defense Grid individually for 50% off.

Defense Grid was made well before I got involved with Hidden Path, so I can honestly give you a non biased heads up that this game is awesome! It is without a doubt the most polished and well thought out tower defense game I've ever played. You will really be missing out if you don't take advantage of this sale, just sayin'.

Besides, there are some neat things going on with this indie pack if you take a look around at the game news.

Farewell, The Agency

2011-04-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

Its been a couple of days since it was announced that The Agency was no longer in production and the Seattle SOE studio was being closed. I probably would have jumped right on here and posted about it considering my past involvement with the game, studio and company, but instead I spent my time getting old friends new job recruiter contacts, and taking people out for a beer to commiserate.

In a few months it will be a year since I left the team, and to be honest I've felt the sting of the layoff many many times since then. In fact, I went from a still avid EQ2 player to someone who has logged in twice since then, just because I was being a baby about it.

Now that The Agency will never see the light of day, a million thoughts run through my mind on how I feel about it. As soon as I heard that something might be happening with the studio it was like reliving my departure all over again. I can't help but feel terrible for everyone that lost their job this week, that includes other companies that I've heard about this week. It's a tough deal to be right in the middle of doing something you love and just have the power switch turned off.

Sometimes I wonder if I had never decided to take the job up here, leaving my comfy and fun job on EQ2. I had a good gig there, a great game to work on, fantastic fans, the whole 9 yards. What more could a designer ask for? To have that decision to come up here end up in the game never releasing even after I left hurts. I had faith in The Agency, and I thought it was going to be an awesome game. I would have never uprooted my family and left my friends behind if I weren't 100% into the idea. Now, its gone, and that dream has withered away in so many people who are left heart broken this weekend. It's a tough thing to swallow.

I hope someday someone spills the beans and shows off how cool this game was turning out ala duke nukem. I won't be that person of course, because it developed almost a year further from the last time I ever saw it, but I sure would like to see where they got to on it.

Cheers to the ex Agency team, I wish you all the best of luck.

3DS demo kiosk @ Best Buy

2011-03-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

I went to Best Buy yesterday with my boss (to buy a giant stack of games for competitive research) and I noticed that they had a 3DS area with a playable demo of Pilot Wings on it.

I have to admit, the 3D effect was really good for me, and I adjusted to it immediately. I spend a good amount of time with it and didn't notice any eye strain, so I am pretty sure I'm going to get one now.

My co-worker, though he just had gotten new glasses had a horrible time with the 3d effect. It was hurting his eyes and he couldn't get the 3d effect at all. If you look at the screen from the side at all the picture completely goes crazy, the only way to view it is straight on.

One thing that I noticed that I really liked was the soft analog thumb pad thingie. I never tried a DSi, so I don't know if they have those, but its a nice feature on the 3ds.

Anyways, thats my update. Pilotwings was pretty fun too, I flew through some hoops, and the 3d effect added to the depth of being high in the sky.

Nintendo 3DS: Have any of you had some hands on time with this thing?

2011-03-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

As the launch date for the Nintendo 3DS looms I'm beginning to wonder more and more about it. I don't know anyone who has mentioned having any hands on time with the unit yet, and I and wondering if any of you have tried it out yet?

I skipped the DSi, which is abnormal for me, as I normally try to pick up every system that comes along unless its a direct 1 to 1 redo of a unit (like the psp3000 to the pspGo).

I can't say my handheld systems ever get a TON of play, but I do like to have them around, and I certainly like playing those way more than say my Iphone, which I think it an atrocious platform for gaming.

Anyways, one of my biggest concerns about the 3DS naturally would be the 3d effect. I know that you can turn it on and off, but I'm wondering how convincing it is? Please note that I'm one of those guys that is already sick and tired of the "3d" movie movement that has been going on, I think it gimmick and crutch for movie studios. In gaming, its relatively an untapped opportunity for unique gaming experiences, but that's because you can interact with a game. Movies with 3d in them general consist of scenes where people are pointing at the camera, pointing things at the camera, throwing things at the camera, ect... I wonder what we'll get with the games?

I've read the announcements about netflix coming to the system, and I think that's great. I use the netflix feature on my iphone relatively often, and I think I would use it on the 3ds as well.

Anyways, if any of you have had some hands on time with this system, I would like to hear your thoughts on it

Rift: The answer to my MMO blues

2011-03-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

I never really think about it very much, but I’ve been playing MMOs regularly since I first fell in love with Dark Sun Online back in the mid 90’s. Since that point in time, my involvement in MMOs went from fascination to obsession and back again. I’ve been a fan to the point where I dedicated years of my life to working on them, and there were many highs and lows that came along with it.

It’s tough to separate out the timeline of games that I played for various reasons, especially ever since I worked on EQ2. There were a bunch of games I bought purely out of professional curiosity, and many of them didn’t get played a whole lot. When I switched my professional focus from working on a fantasy game to that of a game where guns did the killing, my research preferences changed too. I ended up spending a lot more time playing shooters, keeping the few MMOs that I really liked on the hard drive, eschewing those that just didn’t have the staying power.

There were only really a handful of games that stayed on my hard drive for more than a few months over the last several years. I guess I have a hard time keeping my eggs in one basket. Anyways, I can only say that since my time on EQ2 that I’ve only really been “into” EQ2, EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and possibly (if you think it counts) Maple Story.

Last summer when I made a sudden career change away from MMO development, I have to admit I was heartbroken. At that time, the only MMO I was playing was EQ2 despite the fact that I hadn’t worked on it for a couple of years, I just loved the game. Still do. The problem is I just didn’t have the heart to log in anymore. I know and knew I had a home there with my guild, but for some reason, I guess I’m not ready to return to that place, silly as it seems. In any case, I’ve felt this distinct desire to find a game to play as the months went on.

When the latest WoW expansion came out, I found myself in the same pattern that I experienced the last 2 expansions they put out where I would play for about 2 weeks, exhaust the new new stuff, and then find myself not logging in anymore.

That brings me to Rift!

With several friends on the development team, I was always interested in how the game was going, and I knew I was going to buy it as a show of support one way or the other, but I have to say that I knew something cool was going on here when I peeped the game when it was alpha early.
Once I got to spend a few hours with it I knew it was a game I was going to want to buy, so I backed off and kept myself away from any info about the game and avoided logging in. I wanted the game to be fresh and brand new to me when it released and I’m really glad I waited.

Anyways, I intend to write in depth what I’m liking about the game, and yes, I’m definitely liking it a lot. This has to be the first MMORPG that I’ve liked this much since Warhammer Online came out.

If I could give the game any kind of endorsement for the casual reader I would say this… Rift is a good cross between all the things you like about EQ2, World of Warcraft, and Warhammer online. If you liked those games, you need to buy Rift right away and join my server “Shadefallen” and make a Guardian because you don’t want to be one of those Godless heathens called the Defiant.

The HPE gig is going well

2011-03-06T19:58:00.000-08:00

Wow, I think about this blog several times a week, and that probably puts me in the mindset that I've updated it recently, and lo' and behold I haven't posted since I started my new job.

I really like my job at Hidden Path Entertainment so far. I still can't talk about my project though, because it hasn't be officially announced. It's only a matter of time though, the clock is definitely ticking!

When I first got involved with HPE I had a general idea that these guys were talented, and I was happy to be getting involved. Now that I've had time to work with them over the past 7 months or so I am happy to say that I've really lucked out.

The caliber of work being done here has been astonishing, and I feel nothing but pride and high hopes for what we are capable of doing. It just feels great to be pushing forward and getting something done, all without killing ourselves with overtime and getting praised all along the way.

At first I was brought on board with a specific task in mind, which I've been working on steadily, but I've also gotten to do level design work which I've seen go from my white box versions all the way to completion in the time I've been there. We aren't just talking one level, we are talking 3. It's been really cool. I just feel like things are getting done, and I love that feeling!

Anyways, this was a quick update to let everyone know how things are going. As soon as I'm allowed to talk about the project I'm working on, I'll write about it here. There is a certain stress level involved with working on something like this, and I'll explain how that came about and how I am coping with it.

Starting a New Gig This Week

2010-09-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

I received a written offer of employment yesterday, so that pretty much makes it official that I'll soon be working again. I was supposed to start next week, but I just got a call that they would like for me to come in on Friday and get my orientation going so, I guess I start a new job this week.

The company? They are called Hidden Path Entertainment. You are probably familiar with their awesome tower defense game "Defense Grid"that was on several platforms.

I can't talk about what I'll be working on yet, but once they announce it I'm sure I'll be just as obtuse about my work as I've always been.

So, why Hidden Path Entertainment? When I met the team I just could tell how passionate they are about what they do. They are a small but very experienced team, they aren't afraid to push their limits and work on a variety of projects and game genres, they are family oriented, and they are local.

I had several opportunities come up over the past 7 weeks that were out of state, and while they were very tempting, especially the big name MMO guys that came my way, I just really wanted to stay here and enjoy the new house, the fact my wife has a new job, and just the general atmosphere of the Seattle area, which I'm just way into still.

Anyways, that's whats been going down!

PAX: Who Cares?

2010-09-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

PAX is going on about a 30 minute drive away from me, and yet another year goes by where I miss it. This time around I have family coming into town today and I have to get my house set up for a big get together with everyone tomorrow. Last year, I think I was so busy on The Agency it just came and went and I forgot about it.

I really want to go, but then I tell myself how much it sucks to park downtown in Seattle to try and convince myself that I'm not missing out, then I hear that the Minibosses played last night and a tear rolls down my face.

FUCK! I'm missing PAX again and I live in Seattle!! Now I'm seeing videos of Duke Nukem "Fornever" Forever coming from PAX and I'm not there! Also some of my old EQ2 buddies are out there hanging out. I have such awful timing.

Oh and I missed Sakura Con this year because I was so entrenched in buying a house it came and went without me knowing about it. Where the heck were my reminder emails? I gave them all that info the year before! Gah aggro!!

Now I go mow grass... that's right! MOW GRASS instead of being at the biggest game convention for gamers by gamers.

You know what? EFF PAX!! WHO CARES!? Who wants to go to that stinky Fun Yun and Mountain Dew fest anyways? I hate gamers! I hate games!

"I've been cyber-stalking you" LoL! 0.0

2010-08-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

You are probably going to think this is pretty silly of me, but for some odd reason during the past month + of looking for a new company to melt faces for, it never occurred to me that a prospective employer might happen upon my barely read blog.

Well it so happens that this fine blog was brought up yesterday in an interview, and I just had to laugh... "So... a Justin Bieber MMO?".

I guess I picked a bad time to throw my journalistic integrity out the window eh?

Not that I had much in the first place, this blog was more of a place to talk about games because I have a journal elsewhere that talks about my personal life more. I found more often than not, that my friends were getting pretty tired of listening to me talk about EverQuest II, probably because most of them were WoW players (heh).

The reality is, I just have too much game geek in me, and If I weren't in the game industry, I would be doing this kind of thing full blown, because I am just that kind of person.

I guess maybe I should keep the Kotaku style headlines off the blog for a bit hahaha.

To distract you I submit this pic of one of my dogs when she was a puppy.

Justin Bieber's North Korean Tour MMO

2010-08-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

Drake is absolutely right. The Justin Bieber MMO should be called Justin' Bieber's North Korean Tour. I can see the millions rolling in right now.

Justin Bieber MMO?

2010-08-24T11:19:00.001-07:00

Who wants in on my Justin Bieber MMO idea? Let's do it 8-bit because that's trendy, and hell I want to play an 8 or 16 bit MMORPG with modern "features". We'll get the guy to "write" the soundtrack of course, he'll be king of the domain, he can log in anytime he wants and interact with his minions... We just have to make sure a Lord British murder doesn't happen and we are all good!

What do you think?

Double Dragon V

2010-08-12T20:47:00.001-07:00

Double Dragon V is first game that I can say I had any real designer input in. When this game was developed it was prior to Midway buying Leland Interactive Media out, so the game was published by Tradewest which was out in Corsicana, TX I believe.

DDV happened to be one of the very first games I ever worked on, being preceded by Troy Aikman Football and Fun N' Games. At the time Street Fighter II was a huge hit and arcades were sporting SFII cabinets wall to wall everywhere I went, so its not a big surprise that a game publisher like Leland Interactive Media would want a piece of the pie.

I have no idea where they got the licensing set up, because they tied the game into the tv show and even had a comic book in the manual. We didn't have the voice actors from the cartoon, so they recorded some of us at work, me included to do some of the grunts and hit sounds. It's very hard to remember, but I may have been the end boss guy's voice. It's been so long. I know I recorded for it, but I don't know if my voice made the final cut in that game.

Anyways, at the time since we had to do a lot of game play research, they bought a Neo Geo, which back at the time was impossible to get on our salaries, so we ended up "testing" Samurai Shodown and World Heroes all day while they were getting the art and code ready for the game. When it came time to implement the gameplay, it was both myself and my friend Tim Heydelaar that worked on the moves lists, the timing of all of the moves, and the hit box locations, hence my first real dabbling into game design. I don't think we got any special credit for the work we did, but it was just cool to be doing it. Back then I was only being paid $4.25 an hour and loving every minute of it.

Some funny stuff. In this level, you can't see if of course, but there is graffiti on the wall in various places. One of the graffiti images says "EMP" which stood for "East Milan Posse", a fake gang a group of friends and I created to rebel against the local gangs in Chula Vista CA.

I would say the worst thing about working on this game was working on the Jaguar version. They Jaguar was much more limited than they wanted to admit, or the programmers just didn't know how to take advantage of it, but needless to say it was awful, and I still can wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night thinking about 8 hours of testing that one.

I'm a Game Designer

2010-08-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

I love making games! There, I said it!

While I type this, I'm currently an unemployed game designer. There was a point in my life a long time ago where I didn't really identify myself by the job that I do. That was back in the day when I was a janitor, a dishwasher, a caddy, a paperboy, or a fast food employee. Later down the line when I got a job testing games, I called myself a game tester, because that's what they called us in the early 90s. Now they are called Quality Assurance Analysts. Sounds Fancy doesn't it?

Well, back when I was a tester, I started what now has become my career of being in video games. I've been a Tester, a QA Supervisor, a Level Designer, and worked by way up to being a Senior Game Designer. Somewhere along that timeline I went from being some guy who did his work somewhere to identifying himself as a game designer.

I'm proud of the fact that I'm a game designer! I love the fact that I have had a hand in creating games that I love. You see, before I ever became a designer, or a janitor for that matter, I was a gamer. I've been a gamer since the early 80s! Games have always been and probably always will be a major part of my life. It's in my blood. You could say I'm a gamer first and a designer second. They are so intertwined with each other though, its hard to tell which is which.

It's one thing to love games, but its an entire different matter when you eat sleep and breathe them both at home and work. I feel so fortunate to have a wife who understands my passion for gaming and is so supportive of my efforts. She's even so cool shes made characters in EQ2 just to play with me from time to time. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've really loved it the past 17 years and hope to have at least that many more years ahead of me in the industry that I love so much.

One of the funny things about being a game designer, especially one coming from a QA background is, you never can really turn off the QA switch. Its one of those buttons that just get stuck, its like seeing the Matrix, they can't just shove you back in the tube to where you can't see the lady in the red dress. I see the lady all the time, and I'm well aware that there is no spoon. This is what happens to you when you get this intimate with games. You not only see problems when you are playing them, you can't help but pick at them and see if it breaks some more. On top of that old "wanting to break the game" thing I do, I can't help but wonder how I would do this or that differently with each game I play. You just can't turn off the designer part of your brain once you get the ball rolling.

So, I'm in the process of looking for work, and while I look at jobs out there, both near and far, I wonder if I'm at another turning point in my long career where I might want to try something different? Can I? I don't know if I could leave the game industry altogether, I think I just like making games too much. I sometimes wonder if I would do well in a production role where I work with a wider lens than say a specific part of the game. I'm 100% positive I'm capable of doing that kind of job, hell, I know probably a dozen people at least that came up through QA under my supervision who are now producers at various companies. Most of the people I worked with in QA that have moved on and upward in the industry have invariably gone on into production roles. I think that's really cool. Anyways, now I'm in a position to try and reach out and see what I might do next, and to be honest I don't know yet! Then there is that whole wide world out there. I've worked on some really cool projects in the past, and now I wonder what else could be in store for me? So many people with so many different jobs. I'll always be a gamer, but will I always be a designer? It makes me wonder sometimes, though I guess I have plenty of time to think about it.

Anyways, I think I'll write a small series of posts talking about games I've had a hand in designing going into the deep past. Why not eh?

-steve

Super Street Fighter IV

2010-08-09T18:06:00.000-07:00

Having recently moved, I haven't really had a ton of time to get any gaming in, but as things are settling down I'm finally starting to dig into some of these games that I've bought over the past few months.

I really enjoyed Street Fighter IV but I also wasn't all that excited about buying what I thought was practically the same game twice... I ended up caving because of the low price, and man is this game good!

I'm one of those guys that can claim that he was a fan of the first Street Fighter game in the arcade and played a ton of it back in the day. In fact, I bought my NES Advantage joystick just so I could practice "hands fire!" fireballs. Back when Street Fighter II came out, I was really happy to see a sequel and remember getting on a pay phone (remember those?) and calling my best friend to get him down to the arcade to check it out. Anyways, needless to say, I'm a big fan of the series.

Now I get to say how much I love Super Street Fighter IV. I luuurrrve it! Just before I moved I was playing the crap out of it and here I am again hooked all over. I was hooked last year with Street Fighter IV came out, and its a repeat!

I would have to say my favorite feature of the game is the ability for me to fight the computer, and have people "put up their quarter" so to speak and challenge me. I have had bouts of playing this game where I've taken on all challengers for up to 4 hours straight, much to the chagrin of my wife, because I get really heated up when things don't go my way. I especially loathe it when a player pulls out Akuma, because I don't care what anyone says about the health balancing, I still view him as a cheater character from back in the day, and I'll never see him as otherwise.

Anyways, I have bouts where I do really well, and bouts where I do really horrible. I've fluctuated from B to D class in the game a couple times by now just due to winning and losing streaks. Honestly though, I just don't care where I end up with that. I just like playing! I don't know what it is, but the fact that its all pretty much a level playing field and you just bring what you have to the table really appeals to me in this game. I kinda play old school style, not really juggling people all that much, in fact my primary character is Blanka, so I'm usually on the offensive and try to overwhelm my opponent with movement.

If you haven't picked up Super Street Fighter IV, I would really recommend it, especially if you've ever been a fan of the series, as this is the definitive version of the game and covers a wide spectrum of what the entire series has had to offer over the years in terms of taking all the best stuff from the best versions and putting it in one game.

I'm sure a bunch of the SSFIV players are going to migrate to marvel vs capcom 3 when it comes out, but I personally think a bunch will stick around to play this because of their differences. I never really got into the m vs c games that much because of all of the crazy jumping around. It usually just devolves into a juggle fest, which I never really saw the appeal of, even going back to the canned combos of Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat 3.

Moving On

2010-08-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

As inevitable as the tide, change comes to us all. There have been times in my life where I was in control of the changes in my immediate sphere of influence, but there are other times where things just happen to you.

Unfortunately instead of the former, the latter took place when I parted ways with SOE last month.

I knew I was going to write here about it sooner or later, and I guess I just needed some time to get used to the idea before I did. I don't exactly have a huge audience here, and those that used to follow this blog did it purely for the inside glimpses I gave into the creation of EverQuest II and The Agency. Not that I really said all that much, I suppose.

Anyways, here I am... I'm sitting in my game room writing this post from my brand new house I just bought, wondering what I'm going to say to the world.

As far as SOE goes, I had a fantastic time there, and would do it all over again even if it resulted in the same way. I got to make some really fun content that people are enjoying as I type this, I got to work on really cool stuff that you guys have yet to see, and I worked with some really great people. I don't dare count how many friends I've made over the years of being employed at SOE, but it has to be in the hundreds.

So, what's the next step? Well, I've received a few interesting phone calls from some familiar names in regards to MMOs in development, but they are quite far away from here, and I literally made my first house payment a few days ago. To say I would be chagrin to move away from Seattle would be an understatement. If there comes a time where I have no other choice, then I may consider moving, but at this time I am looking for employment here in Washington.

Part of me wonders if I should stay in game design or explore something else. I could certainly fulfill a production role, or maybe something outside of games altogether.... outside of games? Nah!!! Lol. I love the industry too much to leave it without kicking and screaming first.

When I first started this blog one of the first things I talked about is how I got into the industry. Now this is an entirely different story. I've been steadily working for 17 years and now find myself using recruiters and applying via websites instead of using referrals because I only really know the people in my SOE circle out here. I do have a positive outlook on things though, I mean I've worked on a variety of game types in a variety of roles. I'm bound to find something, but I don't want to just work at any old company working on any old game just for the sake of employment. I have to be into what I'm working on or its all for naught, I just love gaming too much to work on something I would be miserable playing.

Anyways, that's the status update for Steve "Saavedra" Kramer. I know that the news got around because I even was getting flamed on EQ2flames.com, which is an honor of course =D. If you hear of any interesting jobs out this way let me know hehe =).

IGN Video: The Agency PC Games Trailer - E3 2010: Trailer

2010-06-11T10:20:00.000-07:00

IGN Video: The Agency PC Games Trailer - E3 2010: Trailer

Evercracked Movie part 1

2009-11-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

I got to watch this a few months ago, and now its publically available. check it yo!

EverQuest II Players

2009-11-03T12:02:00.001-08:00

EverQuest II Players

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Crabcore gif for your enjoyment

2009-10-14T15:08:00.001-07:00

I know this isn't related to video games, but I can't help it.

To commemorate some of the worst music on the internet, I decided to share these with you all.

Look them up on youtube if you want to check their video out, the band is called Attack Attack.

Made by miriku @ www.miriku.com