Switching Over

Ok, so everything so far has been about America's Army and I know there will more of that ahead, but with the recent submission in I have a couple of weeks to not worry about it while the devs mull it over and instead work on some other things.

Orientation for Montreal is over. Champlain has us running all over the city for the past 3 days getting used to our surroundings. I really feel like I kind of know my way around the city now. Classes start Tuesday, and I have all day of Monday to do what ever I want. I would like to start using my new computer, but I ran into a few snags putting it together tonight. It came down to the fact that I have to install Windows on my second hard drive, but the windows disk I have isn't the right one. I bought an install disk years ago, but the disk I found in my things was just a recovery disk. The short of it is that I am going to have to find an install disk somewhere. It is 11:30 right now and it doesn't look like I'll get it working tonight. I was really excited to start pondering over some Unreal work, but I guess that will have to wait for the days ahead.

P.S. sorry still no Montreal pics. I keep forgetting to charge my camera.

Big Change

A lot has happened in the past few days. I moved out of my apartment Friday morning. While moving out I had to talk Sean through how to fix the mini map over the phone. I was a little nervous about this, but no one else was available to do it and the project was due that day. Thankfully he called me a few hours later to let me know that it turned out fine.

For those of you that don't know, I am studying abroad in Montreal Canada for a semester. I just arrived this past Friday, and I have been completely blown away by the awesomeness of this city. There is stuff happening everywhere. There are literally thousands of restaurants and a never ending supply of interesting shops selling everything from fried squid to wooden sculptures. The school has kept us very busy over the past couple days, which is good because they have essentially forced us to learn the city. I still can't wait for Monday though, when I can finally relax and upgrade my computer with some new parts I bought. As soon as I install my new parts I play to get a copy of Unreal 3 so that I can start working with the editor. I have lots of pictures that we took yesterday, but I need to get them from Nichole my RA. Maybe next time I'll post some beautiful pictures. Well, here's to hoping the AA devs like the changes to the map, and to a wonderful new semester.

Done yet?

There is this horrible feeling you get when you are almost done a project. You can't help think that you are forgetting something. I am in the gamelab right now, and all I have left to do is fix the mini map, or at least that is all I think I have left to do. I am blogging right now so that I can bring out my thoughts about the map and try and catch other things I have to do. I adjusted the heights of some of the walls of the wooden stalls in the market so that players can get a good shot through some and a poor shot through others. Elken fixed the comm volumes and the identifying text on the new objective last night. It's just me and Sean now, and I can't help but think that I am missing something critical. What else am I forgetting? I fixed the east side spawn point. The squad leader had acccidentally been put on Delta squad. Me and Sean also found a few spots where the terrain had little hiccups. Ooh I just found a spot where the player can leave the play area.
I am feeling rather anxious about the project right now. In a few hours I will leave the project in Sean's hands. He will be the last sailor aboard a boat desperately trying to make it to port that is quickly running out of crew. I pray that this all goes well, and that the AA devs like our changes.

A little bit closer

Sean tweaked the terrain a little last night, and today we did more testing. We pulled someone in from the game lab for about half an hour so that we could play 2 on 2. We decided that more paths were needed leading out of the center towards the other objectives. This is integral to making players actually capture all the objectives. We didn't get any capture wins yesterday when we played, but after putting in the extra paths we got a couple today. It still needs more work though. I think I am recognizing that in order for players from one team to go after the other teams favored objective, they need a very safe way to get there. These new safe paths that we have put in still need more cover to make them "safer". We have also been working to alter the center a little here and there to give the players more cover when capturing the point in the center.

Good Progress Today

We made some great progress today even though things started out slow and I was a little worried at first. I got to the game lab at noon, and no one else was there. Then I realized that I had forgotten to bring a flash drive with Americas Army on it, so I had to wait while it downloaded. Then, shortly after Elken and Sean arrived we had to leave the game lab. Apparently the game lab was reserved from 1 till 3. We then decided to go to the library and hash out some ideas. We spent a couple of hours going over the ideas we had and we came to a lot of conclusions. First of all, we didn't quite go with either Elkens idea or mine. Instead we ended up combining the two designs together. We took Elkens idea of two paths with a third objective in the market, and we used my concept of integrating the center hills into limiting the extra pathing we had. At 3 we got back to the game lab and we integrated the changes. We ran some tests on the map. At first we just walked around the map to get a feel for it, but the first round we had where we actually played the map was amazing. I could really feel the difference. I walked into the market area at the beginning of the match and a strange foreign experience came over me. I felt safe. Limiting the players options made the playing field far easier to understand. I didn't have to worry about enemies coming from a thousand directions. It still wasn't something that was legitimately "safe", but first person shooters arn't suppose to be safe. No, instead it had just become maneagable. I also found that combat in the market area is awesome. The high visibility high cover environment created tons of extremely long satisfying firefights. The only problem we still have with the map is that it looks like capture wins are going to be somewhat unlikely. The map favors Team West capturing the southern objective and Team East capturing the northern objective. Both teams then fight over the middle objective. This works out fine, but it usually doesn't get past this. Tonight Sean is going over the terrain and fixing the texturing. Tomorrow we will tackle the issue of the low rate of point capturing. We talked about it a lot today, and we have a lot of ideas about how to fix it. Wish us luck.

Start of design prototype

I did a few hours of work trying to incorporate my changes into the level. I changed the hills about how I wanted them. As I expected the tunnel was somewhat sassy, and I haven't quite finished it yet. I also need to adjust the spawn points. I will do those two things in the morning, and then at noon tomorrow Sean, Elkin, and I can start really getting to work.

New Hills

Ok so the other comment the devs had, was that they still don't like the two center hills, so I decided that it would be a good idea to work the hills into my fix for the center. At the meeting yesterday we decided that 4 options was too many, so I am going to make the hills larger so that they flow into the mountainside in a way that is both more believable, and that cuts off one of the routes. I am going to bridge the east hill into the mountain cutting of the south east path to the market, and do the same for the west hill, but put in a tunnel to keep the south west path open. I will also pull the west hill into the market more to make it difficult to get into the market from the north west. This creates two nice opposite entrances. The only thing I am worried about is the tunnel. If the tunnel proves too difficult, then I will switch the sides that the entrances are on.

Redesign

So the America's Army devs were somewhat disappointed with our map. They told us that we were doing a great job, but they had a problem with the center area of our map. The told us that in their play test no one entered it. This is problematic especially because the center area, or market, is my favorite area of the map. So my team met today to hash out a plan to fix it. We have until next Friday which gives us a solid week, but most of us are gone next week. There are six of us in all, but it is mostly just going to be me and Elken next week. We decided that me and Elken would work on two different ideas over the weekend, and on Monday we will decide which one to go with.
The original design essentially gave the player four choices at the begining which is too many.
My altered design limits the players choices down to three at the beginning. I also plan to alter the two center hills which the devs said they felt were still out of place. Luckily Sean, our terrain artist, will be around to help me out with this.

Catching up

I feel like anyone reading this has missed out. So much has happened in the past two years. I know I don't really have time to write it all down right now, but I guess I'll put something down. The biggest thing to happen to me recently is my involvement with the America's Army project at the EMC. The EMC or Emergent Media Center is a department at my college that produces media pieces for groups through grants and other forms of funding. Ann the head of the department runs a blog at http://emergentmediacenter.blogspot.com/ I was recently chosen as a Producer/Level Designer for the project. We were charged with making a couple of multiplayer maps for the game America's Army. We finished a couple weeks ago, but we still arn't sure what they are going to do with our maps. I am anxious for the outcome. Luckily we have a phone conference this Wednesday, so hopefully we will find out.

Lets start again

Ok so I wasn't really sure what to write at first, so I wrote some sentimental poetical junk that I like the sound of so I'm gunna leave it there, but allow me to write a more practical first post here.
ahem... My name is Joel Christian Pelletier. I am 20 years old. I am a gamer, a lover, a fan of anime, and I have an irrational fear of Africa. I knew what I wanted to do when I was about 10 years old, and I haven't had any doubts since then. I want to make video games (No that isn't right). Making video games is the only job that I know that I will ever love (better). Wish me luck, and maybe I will actually post things here.

Crossroads

I find myself at a crossroads. I have completed 2 years of courses at Champlain College. I find myself filled with skills, but with few examples of my abilities. I yearn for an opportunity to show the world what I am capable of.
I am a Designer. I create video games, but I am still just a beginner. It is now necessary that I spread my wings and make something to prove who I am. There is no point in waiting any longer.