Dolyak Express - March 7, 2014

Dolyak Express - March 7, 2014

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Posted by: Mark Katzbach

Mark Katzbach

Content Marketing Manager

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Greetings,

We are excited to bring you the Dolyak Express Community initiative! If you’re not familiar with the Dolyak Express, you can read the original post about it called Many Questions, So Dev. For the first batch of questions, the Community Team searched all four language forums for a variety of great questions. You can see the follow up with answers here!

We are maintaining an archive of all Dolyak Express Q&A sessions. The archive is a stickied post, and will be updated each time we post new topics.

In the future, we may pick questions again from our forums, but for most Dolyak Express Q&As, we’ll open them up to specific topics. We’re now opening up a thread for questions and here’s your topic: Working in the game industry

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work at ArenaNet or how people get their start in the videogame industry? Now’s your chance to ask about it.

Please refer back to the Many Questions, So Dev post for guidelines on asking your questions.

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Posted by: erickn.1853

erickn.1853

This is a very interesting Dolyak Express for me, for I’m a recently formed Game Designer. Sadly, my country (Spain) does not have many “great” VGDevelopers. I’m not afraid of traveling around the globe, but one posibility I’ve been thinking of is to create a VGDeveloper of my own.
I admire you people of arenanet, you’re awesome: I’ve been playing Guild Wars since the searing of Ascalon… My questions are:

1- What I must do to create a great game company from scratch? what teachings can I learn from you?

2- And, if I can never create such a company, what are your tips for a wandering Game Artist?

(edited by erickn.1853)

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Posted by: Viking Jorun.5413

Viking Jorun.5413

Hey Mark! I’ve been looking for some place to ask these types of questions, so thank you for the inlet.

I’ve worked as a 3D Character and Environment artist for the past 4 years sporadically as a freelancer on Indy games such as Project Divine, Rin (unreleased) and many “hobbyist”-made games via game-artist.net’s volunteer and contract work projects that never made it to fruition. My questions will revolve around both working in-house and more specifically the 3D character and prop design department.

  1. What is it like working in-house as opposed to freelance in the game industry?
  2. How would you compare working at ArenaNet as opposed to past companies you’ve worked for, and is the high-end portion of the industry as volatile as it’s made out to be?
  3. Does ArenaNet charge per use for the candy dispensers?
  4. Coffee.
  5. Alright, more serious now. This is for the design department: What is the learning curve if one already has extensive knowledge of zBrush and Mudbox, Maya, AfterEffects, Photoshop, and the smaller 3D design aid tools such as nDo2, UVLayout, and WorldMachine for one to find ease of access with the in-house proprietary software, and how long does it usually take for a new hire to learn said software?
  6. This may be a bit touchy and I don’t expect a straight answer or, any answer at all, but what is the pay scale like for 3D artists working at the studio? I’ve talked with several devs in-game who all told me that my asking wage was perhaps too low (I’d rather not disclose it here, for obvious reasons. Thanks for putting up with me!)
  7. Like Angel McCoy started out, do you ever hire freelancers to do work for the game prior to actual hire?
  8. What is the art department looking for in a portfolio? I’ve been building it up for some time now in order to someday apply for a position at what I’ve heard is one of the best companies in the industry (ArenaNet, of course!), but every time I look back on my past works I never feel that my content is good enough to meet the expectations of the company, despite what my friends, past employers and random citizens say.

Thanks so much, and I completely understand if you don’t get back to me! I work the night shift at a restaurant and typed most of this up on my break, so I apologize if the pacing seems a little off. (Get to sleep if you’re reading this at the time of posting! I’m on your time zone too o_o)

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Posted by: Curae.1837

Curae.1837

Very interesting subject!

I have some questions concerning concept-art.

1. As concept art mostly seems to be made on the computer, is it actively discouraged to use traditional media, or is it rather a choice that most concept artists make?

2. Are there specific artists who focus on environments, on characters, armor, etc? Or are most all-round and can practically do anything?

(and to add to question 8 from Viking Jorun)
3. What is a recommended size for a portfolio when applying for a job as concept artist, and should you rather show 1 thing(only environments, only characters, etc) or many different things?

4. Is it wise to show research and sketches next to finished works in a portfolio when applying for a job as concept artist?

“When we remember that we are all mad.
The mysteries dissapear and life stands explained.”

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Posted by: Serophous.9085

Serophous.9085

Just two from me:

1. For those who live on the East Coast of the US, I’m always a bit leary applying for a position on the West coast, due to the possibilty of an interview face to face. So, has Arenanet, or anyone else that you heard of, taken maybe a skype webcam interview? Or is it the applier has to take the bullet with spending money on a flight and flying out?

2. As a writer, how hard is it to break into the video game industry? What’s the best way, if any at all, to go about it, or something to focus on to improve the resume?

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Posted by: Ltomato.8649

Ltomato.8649

Fantastic topic!
I have a few questions on the way the Living Story affects programming.

1. From a coder/programmer’s side, how do you like the Living Story type of relatively quick releases? It seems like a lot of fun to work on new concepts every month, but having a whole release cycle in that shorter time seems like it could get a bit stressful too!

2. Do you rigidly follow any sort of software engineering pipeline for efficiency? In the end, they’re organizational methods, but it would be neat to hear if/how they’re used in the Living Story release schedule.

3. A few releases in the past have had some major bugs on release- on a month-long release schedule, with enemies, fights, and environments on such a large scale, it seems like a lot of testing must be done with automated tools. As someone interested in both programming and QA, I’d like to learn more about the experience of developing such tools, as well as the process of updating them for different situations (if applicable).

4. What do you think is the biggest lesson you’ve learned regarding development since the inception of the Living Stories?

5. What background do most coders/programmers come from at ANet? From what I’ve researched, it’s notoriously difficult to get into the games industry without networking/connections with other people in the industry. Do you have any suggestions on how to build up a network and meet different people working in the industry?

That’s all from me! Thank you!

PS: Jorun! I know you! Haha!

(edited by Ltomato.8649)

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Posted by: Imperatora.7654

Imperatora.7654

As a game designer myself I would love to ask the dear Mr. Smith how vital it is to get a formal economics education (as opposed to learning economics as part of the game design process)? I’m considering getting a masters degree to augment my design knowledge and would love to know from someone “on the other side” how useful that education is on a day to day basis.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

1. How complex are the programs used for making Guild Wars 2 compared to Guild Wars 1?

2. Same as above, but compared to other game companies?

3. How many specially-made programs does ArenaNet use, and what are they used for?

4. In regards to the pacing of making the content (and any side-effects of said pacing), do you prefer the Living World fast-paced scheduling or the slower-release of expansion content? Why?

5. What are some good programs you would suggest to people who want to make indie games (from design to sound programs)?

6. This is a big one for me: For writers wanting to go into the game industry, what are some suggestions to go about doing so? What kind of things would be good looking on a resume or in a portfolio? How hard is it to do so? Feel free to be as detailed as you want on this! The more details, the more it’ll help me.

7. Do you ever look to the fanbase for potential employees (like going through the fan-made content to find good artists, storytellers, etc.)?

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Darkhayle.2473

Darkhayle.2473

1. For the design team, is it more desirable for an artist to have multiple skills in areas like texture design, conceptual design, and 3D design, or is it preferred to have someone specialized in one area?

2. How does the design team handle working in a group environment?

3. Do the artists on your team typically have to do research for things like armor, weapons, et cetera? Are research skills important for artists in this field to have?

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Posted by: Antara.3189

Antara.3189

1. When working on the “other side of the fence”, how does that effect the overall views on the game itself?

2. Playing a game that you played a designing role in, does it change the overall excitement that you might get if having no knowledge of the inner works?

3. As the game becomes the job itself, do you lose interest in actually playing the game the way it was meant to be played?

4. Looking back at the decision to become “collaborative” on the forums, would it had been better to keep decisions outside of the forums and not have as many play opinions? (To better clarify, Having the forums designed just to keep players informed with patch notes, bug findings, and only the CDIs controlled by the developers. No freedom to post other.)

5. For veteran designers who’ve been at ArenaNet since the early GW1 days;

Looking back on the morale and style of ArenaNet then, how has it changed? With the growth and expansion of the company how has that changed the close knit group from the beginnings? Do you feel the game has gained more flavor and style or become more commercialized?

Most importantly
Do great ideas ever spring up from a night out at the pub with fellow coworkers drinking beer?

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Posted by: Thereon.3495

Thereon.3495

Voice acting within the games industry fascinates me and there are a few questions that id like to find out from those in the know!

1) What is the primary way in which voice actors are assigned jobs within the AAA games industry? Are voice actors headhunted based on their previous work within the industry or is there a central database of potential voice actors similar to modelling agencies whereby the actors put themselves on show?

2) What would you say is favoured most within the games industry- an actor with a few very unique voices or an actor with many fairly similar, but distinct voices?

3) Are there any tips you could give to someone wanting to get into video game voice acting with regards to training? Are there certified vocal teaching courses that would help someone break through?

4) Do voice actors within the games industry consider working full time for a specific company or is the work mainly on a freelance basis?

Thanks in advance

Thereon Avenrise – former [Noes] Officer – Piken Square (EU)
Retired and living in a shack. Relaxing!

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Posted by: Mark Katzbach

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Mark Katzbach

Content Marketing Manager

Next

Thank you for submitting these questions. We will review the questions from this week’s thread, as well as those from the other language forums. We will chose a group of them to hand over to the various Development Teams. Their replies will be posted in all language forums on Friday, March 21.

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Posted by: Mark Katzbach

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Mark Katzbach

Content Marketing Manager

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Hey everybody,

There were a bunch of great questions submitted on this topic across several disciplines. Because we had to tap several teams for answers to your questions, and many of the people on those teams are quite busy currently, we have made the decision to postpone both posting the answers and starting the next topic by one week. This will allow us to gather more answers from the teams to a wider variety of your questions.

Answers to the current questions and the thread for questions on the new topic will be posted on Friday, March 28.

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Posted by: Mark Katzbach

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Mark Katzbach

Content Marketing Manager

Thanks everybody for being patient for the extra week while we rounded up answers from our programming, art, writing and HR teams. From those teams respectively, we have Lead Gameplay Programmer Braeden Shosa, Lead Server Programmer Susan Thayer, Environment Art Lead Dave Beetlestone, Lead Writer Bobby Stein and Head of Recruiting Thomas Abrams.

Q: You had once talked about the iterative aspect of the game development. Are you still using this method considering the time restrictions that come with a two-week cadence?

Braeden Shosa: Yep! Keep in mind, living world updates are worked on for a few months before you see them roll out in bi-weekly releases. By the time one of those updates ship, we’ve played the heck out of it to find the fun and stabilize it for release.

Q: What is the day to day routine like for a developer at ArenaNet?

Braeden:

  • Walk up 10 flights of stairs to wake myself up.
  • Get coffee and cereal to further wake myself up.
  • Check for any fires that need my immediate attention, like crashes or urgent emails.
  • Respond to outstanding emails from the previous day.
  • Resume working on whatever I was coding the day before.
  • As a programmer I typically have a long term project I’m working on and shorter term stuff that comes up from day to day.
  • Thoroughly test my changes on my machine, check them into Perforce and kick off a build so my coworkers and our alpha testers can start exercising my code.
  • Maybe review some of my colleagues’ code (we like to keep our code quality bar high by reviewing each other’s work).
  • Lather, rinse, repeat—except replace breakfast with lunch and stairs with walking outside. Also insert all-calls for playing other teams’ work-in-progress.
  • And insert the occasional meeting some days, typically for planning the technical requirements of work we’d like to do in the future.

Q: How would you compare working at ArenaNet as opposed to past companies you’ve worked for?

Braeden: Working at ArenaNet is orders of magnitude better than working at Domino’s. Seriously, it was my first gig in the industry and I’ve been here for ten years as of this week. So I can’t compare it to other studios for you from personal experience, but I hear it’s pretty good in comparison.

Dave Beetlestone: The fact that I’ve been at ArenaNet for more than 10 years definitely speaks to how I’d compare it to past companies. This is my 20th year in the industry and I’ve had the chance to work at 5 different studios during that time. Each company definitely had its own strengths, but when I compare them side by side to ArenaNet… they don’t come close.

Q: Do you rigidly follow any sort of software engineering pipeline for efficiency? In the end, they’re organizational methods, but it would be neat to hear if/how they’re used in the Living Story release schedule.

Braeden: We borrow from agile development practices only to the extent that they are demonstrably beneficial to a given team or project. We don’t employ a one-size-fits-all approach. For example, many teams don’t have a fixed schedule like the living world teams, so they’ll employ the development practices that work best for them. GW2 Development Director, Kristen Bornemann, just gave a great talk at GDC precisely about this topic if you want to check it out.

Q: How complex are the programs used for making Guild Wars 2 compared to Guild Wars 1 or other games?

Braeden: As a programmer, I spend most of my time in Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 which is an industry standard IDE especially for Windows game development. It’s a very powerful tool for coding and debugging, but I wouldn’t say it’s complex, as the UI does a great job of showing you only what you need. If you’re curious, you can experiment with Visual Studio Express for free.

Q: What specially-made programs does ArenaNet use, and what are they used for?

Braeden: We have a ton of in-house tools. We make tools all the time! Some of our big ones include Duo, our content authoring tool primarily used by designers to make everything you’re playing in GW2, and MapEdit, our awesome environment editor used for creating those beautiful maps you’re running around in, there’s also ViewModel which allows us to check out our models after they’ve been exported from Maya and before they’re in game. We also have tools that live within third-party tools—like our plugins for Maya. There are also lots of little tools you’ll never hear about that all serve important roles in various processes here, including the build process. You can get a glimpse of some more of our tools in this ArenaNet GDC presentation.

Q: Do great ideas ever spring up from a night out at the pub with fellow coworkers drinking beer?

Susan Thayer: Yes, but it’s usually Scotch whisky and only occasionally beer.

Q: For those who live on the East Coast of the US, I’m always a bit leery applying for a position on the West coast, due to the possibility of an interview face to face. So, has ArenaNet, or anyone else that you heard of, performed a Skype interview? Or does the applicant have to bite the bullet and spend money to fly out?

Thomas Abrams: We Skype interview all the time. It’s a part of our process for candidates that are out of state. Also we pay for candidates to fly out after our Skype interviews. We would never ask a candidate to pay for flights to come interview for us.

Q: What background do most coders/programmers come from at ArenaNet?

Thomas: We have programmers from all sorts of backgrounds. We are always just looking for talented programmers. You don’t have to have worked for a gaming company in order for us to hire you. Make sure that you do have code samples that highlight your programming skills. Potential employers will ask for it, but make sure it’s your best current work!

Q: From what I’ve researched, it’s notoriously difficult to get into the games industry without networking/connections with other people in the industry. Do you have any suggestions on how to build up a network and meet different people working in the industry?

Thomas: LinkedIn is a big networking tool. It’s your live resume and a way for people to connect and network with you. Also, there are a ton of industry meet ups that you can attend in your local areas. GDC is one of the biggest networking events to attend. Make sure you get out there and network.

Q: What do you look for in an artist’s portfolio, both in size and scope?

Thomas: I always encourage candidates to pick out their top 5 studios that they would love to get a job at. Now your portfolio should mirror their style of characters, animation, or concept. Our leads want to be able to see something in your work that can relate to ours. I’m not saying that you should mirror our work; I’m saying that the style should be similar. But make sure your best work in your portfolio. Have your friends and others critique it before making it public. It is hard to break into games and especially the art side of the business. So it’s important that whatever work you put in front of future employers is your best work and relevant to their style.

Q: What is it like working in-house as opposed to freelance in the game industry?

Dave: I’ve only done a limited amount of contract work in the industry, but for my taste, it doesn’t come close to working in-house as a full time member of a development team. The creative collaboration that happens all throughout the day and the sense of accomplishment when all the hard work finally makes it into the hands of the player is something that’s tough to describe unless you’ve been through it. Contract work typically pays a bit more because of the “gun for hire” approach, but I still don’t think it compares to the feeling of being a full time member of a team.

Q: What is the learning curve if one already has extensive knowledge of Zbrush and Mudbox, Maya, AfterEffects, Photoshop, and the smaller 3D design aid tools such as nDo2, UVLayout, and WorldMachine for one to find ease of access with the in-house proprietary software, and how long does it usually take for a new hire to learn said software?

Dave: We require artists to have extensive knowledge in many of the standard tools (Max, Maya, Photoshop, Zbrush etc.) because it definitely helps artists to hit the ground running. That being said, we also have some very powerful proprietary tools that are used differently across the art department and each tool has a different amount of ramp up time. The Character and Creature artists use very specific materials and methods that are quite different from the standard workflow on the Environment team and since we’re all responsible for the overall frame rate, we have to go about creating models and using our tools in many different ways. If I had to guess, the longest ramp-up time for proprietary software would probably be our world building tools. Our map editor is about as complex as any of the standard tools on the market and although it has an intuitive approach to creating environments, the amount of complex nuances in the program is staggering. An artist may be able to create something that looks decent in only a couple of weeks, but to create something amazing it would take at least 6 months to begin to learn how to fine tune the details.

Q: As concept art mostly seems to be made on the computer, is it actively discouraged to use traditional media, or is it rather a choice that most concept artists make?

Dave: Although I’m not a concept artist, I’m confident in saying that we don’t “actively discourage” the use of traditional media. I watch almost the entire concept team get up every Thursday to attend life drawing sessions and I see sketchbooks, pads of paper and whiteboard sketches all around the office – many of which are scanned in and used digitally in one way or another.

Q: As a writer, how hard is it to break into the video game industry? What’s the best way, if any at all, to go about it, or something to focus on to improve the resume?

Bobby Stein: This, like many “breaking in” topics, is broader than is suited for forums but I’ll give you a summary. It’s difficult to break into games writing because there is no established, clear path to employment. Not many companies employ full-time writers, though that’s starting to change. Focus on putting together a solid portfolio consisting of screenplays, short stories, outlines, and game narratives. If you can bring your ideas to life in a mod or indie game, all the better. Of course, relevant experience in television, film, or print publications can often make it easier to get your foot in the door (especially if you have a passion and deep understanding of the medium).

Q: For writers wanting to go into the game industry, what are some suggestions to go about doing so? What kind of things would be good looking on a resume or in a portfolio? How hard is it to do so?

Bobby: Write often. Build a portfolio. Get published online or in print, or make an indie game or mod that demonstrates you not only have good ideas but can execute on them in a team environment.

Catch me at a convention and I’d be glad to discuss in greater detail.