Posts by Furyo

  • The Furyo Hate Topic

    As a side note, you're welcome to start discussing the tools again. If it's any consolation, the topic was seemingly beaten to death and everyone's point was up for days so I'm pretty sure everyone got what was to be had from it all.

  • Jobye-Kyle Karmaker - Environment Artist

    I like the stuff I'm seeing, if a little generic (everyone does guns) so maybe you want to try to diversify all that.

    Portfolio wise:

    - drop the home page

    - make the bio the last category

    - Make your desired position clearer, it's hard to understand you are a modeler / texture artist from the get go

    - Make your 3D work a single category, mod and personal = the same thing

    Overall, as you said, you'll need to make your own portfolio. I just think the entire framework simply doesn't translate well into a portfolio. It's very old school and clunky to navigate to me.

  • Downloadable Content for Console/PC RPGs...

    The problem with the cost of the DLC is that it really hasn't got much to do with customer perception. Microsoft and Sony will demand a certain price in most cases, making your plans completely random. That's because when speaking DLC with them, all they care about is the weight of your additional content in Gb, and not the number of hours it includes. Brand power is a factor in as well of course

    As far as your question goes, I'd say that the best approach may be to quantify it in percentage terms of the total length of the original game, and again the nature of the DLC?

    Precisely for an RPG, typically long games, a 30 hours game that gets a 2 hours extension for 10 bucks may not be worth it (1/15th extra game length for 1/6th the original price tag). But a 5 hours extension for 5 dollars is a lot more bang for your buck (1/6th extra game length for 1/12th the original price tag)

    Again, depends on the nature of the DLC. If it's extra content that radically changes the entire experience and is accessible at any time (think Joker specific levels in Batman, that act as a mini prequel to the game), then every fan will want to experience it and you can charge a little extra. If your DLC typically caters to a very small niche of your entire game market, pricing should change to reflect that.

  • Downloadable Content for Console/PC RPGs...

    i think another point to be made is about the nature of the payment. By nature the smaller DLCs are (to me at least) a matter of impulsive purchases, so permitting easy payment methods should interest your own customers Jeremy. I'm thinking a publisher based system that spans all their game, where you sign up a bit like you would with Xbox Live or PSN, and you would withdraw straight from money you deposited there either via credits or real money. I think with these transactions, a good part of the lost sales come when you need to enter your credit card details and add additional points or money to your account. It gives customers a minute to think about it again, or they have to get up and find their card etc etc.

  • The scary case of Infinity Ward

    Ok I shouldn't have posted that cause now the thread is getting derailed. Interviews are interviews and the details don't concern everyone here. Besides I am under NDA with them. Now that I realize it I'm under so many NDAs it's a miracle I can even say something about anything

    Bottom line, I respect Jason and Vince's track record a hell of a lot more than I do Kotick's and I wish our Mapcore brothers at IW all the best through all that crap. This week surely couldn't be good, and it will be some time before it all clears up again.

  • The scary case of Infinity Ward

    Well the method used clearly was unique, even now I have yet to see a studio round up 35 people to grill you at once

    Either way, I came in unprepared for that, and I deeply regretted it for many months after this. The team and the games you guys make are just absolutely stellar for their production values, and I can only hope to work with you guys at one point in the future.

    Now for Jason and Vince to create a new indie studio....

  • Downloadable Content for Console/PC RPGs...

    - Does the DLC for these RPGs actually interest you?

    The only DLC I ever was interested in was in Rock Band, whether free or not. I think DLC works for me if there is a very strong emotional connection with the content, as the songs for Rock Band I bought always were favorites of mine even 15-20 years ago, so the promise to be able to play them was more than worth the price of admission.

    The lack of that type of connection with every other DLC content makes it very hard to bother with the rest. EXCEPT it if automatically downloads, such as what Valve does with Steam and its games. I've played and enjoyed the DLC that came for TF2 and L4D, but whether they constitute "traditional" DLCs is debatable. Updates is a better term. And that stigmatisation of the term DLC may be a sign that maybe the term is viewed negatively.

    - Would new DLC bring you back to play the game if you beat it already or otherwise stopped playing it?

    Yes in the case of the Rock Band songs, but that's because you can't beat the game (there is no end to it) and the new DLC is the ENTIRE gaming experience in itself. Unlike playing the same game again with a different skin.

    In the case of L4D, or other Valve games, the renewed interest came through additional achievements more than for the game itself.

    So in a nutshell, either the DLC is an entirely new gameplay experience and you only play that new experience on its own, or the achievements that come with it are enough for me to pay attention to the game once more.

    - How long after a game releases would you still be interested in DLC?

    Hard to pinpoint that, because the only answer is "As long as I'm still interested in the game in the first place" See, my position with DLC is that it doesn't work for me to revive a dead interest, but to prolong an existing one. It's a very thin line, but one multiple publishers adopt when using DLC has a way to keep the customers from reselling their copy on the second-hand market.

    For Rock Band, it fades very quickly, then it will be rekindled for a couple weeks when a brilliant album comes out. The release of Pearl Jam's Vs album made me jump from my seat, but I had to wait for another year (it seems at least) before Megadeth's Rust in Peace was made available. In between, no interest whatsoever in the DLC OR the game itself.

    For L4D, I play the game regularly to this day with or without DLC so I'm always interested in additional content, but you'd argue I don't need any....

    - Have you/do you buy the expansion packs to RPGs? How long after the original game releases would you want a major expansion pack to be released?

    I play games that contain RPG elements, but very rarely RPGs in the traditional sense of the term. Either way I generally don't play SP games more than once, so the prospect of a DLC that would take hours to access via the actual game is completely uninteresting to me. For the DLC to interest me it needs to be accessible from the main game's menu, and playable at any time in the game.

  • The scary case of Infinity Ward

    yeah but I'm referring to the specifics. The CEO will give you your objectives, maybe the plan, but that's up to the execs below to implement that. In the case of these two guys leaving IW, I wouldn't be surprised if Kotick only got the memo once the day passed.

  • The scary case of Infinity Ward

    Yeah that's happened, but why yesterday of all days? And after meeting with Activision in the morning? If the principle was the problem they'd have had that hissy fit long ago when Schofield set up shop for Activision. Maybe that's when they first saw what the Schofield game was going to be like and they flipped, but yeah that's a stretch

  • The scary case of Infinity Ward

    I have known for SledgeHammer Games's new game for over two months now and I also know the engine they'll be using for that. I can honestly say there is absolutely no way this has anything to do with Zampella and West's departure. It's simply Activision's way of telling the shareholder to hold on to their shares because the stock was starting to dip. I'm sure Activision wouldn't have said a soul if it wasn't for that and would have kept it under wraps until after this year's CoD came out. Now they are going to have announced the next before this one ships and that's never a good move.

    This is more internal than this. Something triggered their departure in the meeting they had earlier yesterday.