Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Weird Week

This has been a very weird week for me. I spent so much time working on EverQuest II, that I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not working on it. I'm grateful that Kander is keeping me posted on the additions he is putting into the new Runnyeye instance, and we have brainstormed out a few new fun things to add going in this week.

I got to skip my first EQ2 meeting in 4 years this Monday, and it felt pretty awkward. This team, the game and it's players are like family to me, so I find it hard to let go in a way. I've had plenty to keep me occupied, however.

For obvious reasons, there isn't much I can say about The Agency, in fact, I'm not entirely sure my new overlords are aware of this blog, but I do have a good track record of keeping the game out of my posts, and just talking about "working" so to speak in terms of making video games.

So far, I have spent all of my time reading up on how the game is put together, what the plans are, and learning how to use the editors and such, all remotely here in San Diego till I'm ready to move.

Communicating with my new bosses via IM is definitely different, and weird, but we live in that kind of age, and it's not all so strange so long as I get the information that I need to do what they need me to do. I've managed to get everything working on my own, and even made a test level already despite the fact it's only Wednesday and my 3rd day on the job. I've even done a playtest!

Once I know more about the game and what I can and can't talk about, you'll likely see more The Agency talk around here. I'm betting that will be quite a while, and most of my posts will be more related to adjusting to a new team, and adjusting to a new mode of work. How exciting to be working in the modern age instead of fantasy!

3 comments:

Nick McLaren said...

Self-sufficient engineers make me happy! You're a rock star man! Don't let anybody tell you different! =)

Are you 3D modeling or populating the world/zone with tools? I'm wondering if your test level was a basic hollow-box or if you had just managed to pop a few things into an existing zone.

Still, I think I'd be thrilled just to be able to output onto both the PC and the PS3. Those two architectures are so very different.. but let's leave that to the engine code ninjas. =)

Tracy tells me you guys Scrum. I'd love to hear your experiences as it relates to that as well. Particularly where you're working remotely. We've been using a tool called RallyDev to make Scrum easier with distributed teams, but I'm curious how other people do it too. When you have time of course! =)

KC said...

(( so are you guys split between EQ2 and the Agency? Or do you have to pick one or the other? Or are you allowed to pick? or were you assigned to Agency? o.O!

Steve Kramer (a.k.a. Saavedra) said...

I chose to go to the agency team. I was working remotely in San Diego at first, but now I've moved up and am in the office.

We don't really split time between projects, it's all or nothing, unless you are in marketing, or audio.