Posts by Jord

  • DayZ Mod for ARMA II

    So I was playing this for a few hours last night.


    It's largely exactly the same as the mod in my opinion. There are some improvements that justify the purchase for me though.


    • The crashing is a lot better as I haven't crashed once yet after a good 4-5 hours of play.
    • Connection issues are mostly gone, didn't see any lag and didn't get any disconnects or have trouble connecting to servers as I often did in the mod.
    • More buildings can be entered than in the mod and there seems to be more loot to be found, with more variety.
    • More items in the game with more options how to use them such as tearing a shirt in to rags to be used as bandages.

    At present there doesn't seem to be many zombies at all in the game, I only saw 4 but wasn't really exploring towns much. It's still impossible to find your friends, I couldn't find 3 of mine the entire time we were playing, I did find other players though.


    I wouldn't recommend people to buy it if they already have the mod, but I don't regret buying it as I much prefer to have it on steam and not suffer the connection issues. I was expecting more really, but we'll see how this goes.

  • DayZ Mod for ARMA II

    Hoping it's success inspires a company to do it properly. The ARMA 2 engine really isn't the right engine for it, I wish they'd have started from scratch with it.


    Crashes and server issues were my main complaints about DayZmod really so as long as they're fixed it should be fun for a while.

  • World of Warcraft : Warlords of Draenor

    I think WoW leaves a lot to be desired compared to modern MMOs. I find that what WoW does really well is the lore, balancing and animations. The art style was nice but as I mentioned is now feeling dated.


    I've been trying a few modern MMOs out lately, RIFT being probably one of the better ones as it's free to play and aside from the animations and some of the combat it feels really well made. there's also so much to do in RIFT while not questing.


    I don't really want to go in to detail as I'll be here forever, but WoW lacks a lot of features modern MMOs have and I think Blizzard have started playing catch up in some respects.

  • World of Warcraft : Warlords of Draenor

    Funnily enough me and my friends have just gone back to WoW after not playing it for 3 years. It had nothing to do with the expansion though, we just felt like getting back in to it. About 8 of us just rolled new characters on a new PvP server and we're starting from scratch.


    Expansion looks pretty cool though, WoW was feeling very dated compared to most modern MMOs, it's a good job they've updated the character models.

  • Craig Crawford - Game Designer/Modeler

    Really, if you want to be in games development, drop web design from your portfolio website. You need to focus on the career path you want to take and make sure your portfolio is focused. Next as Vilham said, choose either 3D or level design and focus on that.


    Trust me though, your web development skills are completely irrelevant in game development.


    Quote from Obseneus

    What kind of projects did you guys have complete before you got your first work experience in the game industry? Or what types of projects got you employed?


    I landed my first job at Codemasters by doing QA for them and then applying internally for a junior level designer role using a Trackmania track.


    Vilham has some great advice with joining a mod team or creating a map for an already established franchise such as Counterstrike Source. Many of the people who now have very successful careers are large development studios started off that way.

  • Craig Crawford - Game Designer/Modeler

    To be constructive, it's good that as a level designer you have an interest in 3D modelling, this is a big advantage when applying for jobs. Currently your portfolio doesn't show how your 3D is relevant to level design and actually suggests you're not sure which path you'd like to choose.


    If your heart is set on level/game design you should create some simple models yourself to use in your levels rather than use stock assets or assets provided by other people, this will show a much better understanding of the level design process. It's great you're learning unity though, that's a good place to start.


    It's good you've included examples of your games, however some of the web demos take quite a long time to load (could be my shitty internet though). In your rogue robots video it strikes me as a bit weird the robots are shooting at you and you're not taking any damage.


    And the second half of the video when you're in the long corridor, try to vary the gameplay a bit here, it's a bit dull walking in a straight line down a corridor and killing enemy after enemy in exactly the same way. Add some cover for the player for example.


    Another thing I noticed is that there's no information about you as a person or your education and background with regard to game development. This would be a good thing to include as it indicates what level you're studying at.


    I have no idea what Adobe Muse is or how it's relevant to game development.