It’s no secret that I’m a pretty big fan of MMO games. I played World of Warcraft for years, played The Old Republic to the end game, and I am currently (anxiously) awaiting Guild Wars 2. What makes GW2 so attractive to me, interestingly enough, is the fact that it’s attempting to do away with the “tried and true” Tank-DPS-Healer trinity of gameplay roles. For those not familiar with these roles, here’s the gist:  Tanks are the vanguards that absorb damage and protect the rest of the party, DPS (damage-per-second) deal damage with impressive attacks and flashy spells, and Healers, of course, heal and buff the rest of the party with supportive abilities. Now, I love this classic MMO trinity, but I’m excited to see how GW2 handles a new paradigm of class roles.

However, while musing on the nature of those classic roles, I drew an amusing parallel between the MMO trinity and the various roles at a game development company. Hear me out for a moment; this may be a superficial observation, but I felt it was at least amusing enough to record...

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I realized something this past weekend, I think;  as my free time to play my beloved FPS games lessens (read: I continue to be a responsible adult) the more depressing stat tracking is for me.

I remember, way back when Call of Duty 4:  Modern Warfare was all the rage, I cared deeply about my stats. I was far from a "pro" at the game, I guess, but back in the hubris of my relative youth, KDR (Kill/Death Ratio) was all that really mattered to me. I ended my Modern Warfare "career" with a formidable KDR somewhere around 2.4 or so. This was, of course, a result of playing nearly every day. When Call of Duty:  World at War was released (the next game in the series), I believe I scraped the tail end of a 2.0 KDR overall. Following that, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops respectively saw a similar decline. When Modern Warfare 3 came out last year, it only took a few play sessions of negative KDR to turn me off of the game completely.

Now, while I have strong opinions on map design in recent Call of Duty multiplayer, specifically with how sight lines have become shorter and flanking routes have become more tangled and numerous, most of this decline stems directly from having less and less time to devote to a game so passionately. Nevertheless, having a record of precisely how awful I am at the game isn't exactly helping my perception.

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The capstone prototype I worked on at FIEA, "Dead West," was featured on Game Career Guide! This wonderful write-up was done by Pat Dietz, our design lead and original creator of "Dead West."

Check it out!

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/1034/postmortem_dead_.php?page=1

In other news, transitioning to my new position at Zynga (and by that, I mean the winter gaming glut) hasn't left me a lot of free time for personal projects, but I haven't forgotten about Verdigris! I have Zbrush; now I just need to sit down and get to work!

... just let me finish this... one... Flashpoint in SW:TOR first...
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With the glut of the 2011 gaming season now in full-force, I haven't had much time for independent projects, so I pulled myself away from Battlefield 3 for a few minutes to do a modeling and design concept:  a League of Legends Champion!

And I've also started on the modeling; I wanted to started sculpting him today, but I no longer have access to Zbrush! Sadface! Santa will have to bring me a copy for Christmas.

WIP:  His current iteration is sitting around 5k tris. Click "READ MORE" below to see what I've penned up for his abilities so far!
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Oh, look! I wrote a tutorial. Does what it says on the tin (hopefully). Regardless, I learned a lot by writing it, so there's that!

I used some of the techniques in the guide to make the hi-poly sculpt of the MSBU, also below for your viewing pleasure. Click on it the image to expand. :D
beginner_hard_surface_guide.pdf
File Size: 2148 kb
File Type: pdf
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For the MSBU! Roughly 7k tris.
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I have removed this post. There was a misinterpretation over it, and I just feel better with it off of my site, although I still stand by everything I said.

-Luke
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Finally managed to get a few decent renders up in my portfolio; all I'm missing is a couple screenshots from "Erado" (getting the old package files to work with the newest UDK engine has been taxing ), and perhaps a couple .swf files from my job to show off some Flash skills.

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Between school work and work work, I've been spending my spare time penning up a game design doc for TBX. In grand total, it came in at about 23 pages... perhaps a little lengthy, but this was mostly a "for me" project anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter very much. Still, it will make a decent game production portfolio piece (although probably not for display on this website).

Speaking of which, still haven't gotten around to finishing my portfolio (this site), which is disconcerting but not quite unexpected given my workload at FIEA this semester. The work is there, but it's difficult to find the time to get some competent renders. In some ways I guess I am a prototypical artist, although procrastination really ins't all to blame in this case.

Next on the docket for TBX:  more character art, with particular focus on the expressions of the pilot, whom I've named "Sophie."
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Originally I had envisioned the "TBX" pilot as a male because, honestly, when you describe the concept of game like that to someone it just drips testosterone.  However, I've always had a soft spot for female lead characters, especially when bordering on the less conventional.

I'm not the most skilled concept artist; I'm a cartoonist at best. But I do enjoy drawing characters. For this particular character, I opted to put her in an action pose from the beginning instead of a just a standard "standing straight and looking at the camera" view because I still needed to get a sense of her mannerisms. She's crazy. No really, she's clinically insane.

I had imagined that the pilot, regardless of sex, was going to be a little "off." And this as-of-yet nameless character is definitely going to be that. I want to do a ridiculously over-the-top back story where she killed her step-father with a fondue fork and then somehow managed to murder an entire department worth of police when she was arrested. The idea is that the military needs a completely depraved mind to pilot the Mega Stratus Breaker Ultimatum, otherwise the machine just won't... work. Crazy likes crazy, I guess.

Of course, this is all just silly black humor that would only be mentioned in passing in the game.

Next up:  Finish this concept and do some expression sheets. Who knows? Maybe I'll make Japanese RPG-style dialogue boxes out of the expressions! Yeah... that sounds like fun.
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