LFM
So I released Lock Mastery tonight. That's sort of a rush, being something I've worked at off and on for over two years. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably don't know me. My name's Aaron, and I have the dream job of being a game developer, except it's not always a dream.
For the longer version, see here. Of course, it's pretty out of date. I'm gonna revise the whole website this month, just like I've told myself every month for the past few years.
Anyway, I've been against the idea of starting a blog, for a couple of reasons. First, everyone and their cow has a blog. I don't really expect that more than two people will read this on a regular basis, unless I climb a tower with a rifle. That'd push it to four or five. Lately, though, it's occurred to me that it might be a nice way to let off steam, without actually having to bitch to someone, something I've been doing a lot lately.
That brings up reason number two; I'll probably let off steam about some of the people that will read this, because they're all internet-savvy, and if you know me well enough to get bitched about, you probably know my domain as well. I sometimes say things I meant to just think when I'm annoyed with someone, which I later regret. Not to their face - I like to think I have more tact and less bravado than that - but these things have a habit of coming back to you. I'm okay with the people that annoy me. Hell, they're the only people I know. So I may well chicken out on discussing work here in anything more than a general sense.
General sense tingling.
The reason I'm so pleased to have Lock Mastery out...wait, I never really cleared that up. I'm a developer for Simutronics, a company which produces MMORPGs. Google it if you must. I was an offsite contractor for a couple of years, but I moved to St. Louis in autumn of 2002 to work in the "real" office (wonder where the word "autumn" comes from? I prefer it to "fall"), which means I now work on all five of the existing games, in addition to the full-time job of designing and developing the Next Big Thing. However, I kept certain responsibilities from my offsite days, when I was the rogue guru for GemStone III (now GemStone IV!), Simutronics' flagship internet RPG, foremost among them being developing a rogue skill called Lock Mastery, which is essentially a set of tools to make GemStone's thieves a more well-rounded and customizeable group of locksmiths. This took way too long.
It's a project which has been sucking out whatever life is left in me after the 80-90 hour work weeks some of us are pulling lately. I don't mind the hours; I love my job, or I wouldn't be doing it. I like the people I work with, as much as I like anyone. LFM (Lock Mastery, I'm sure you can figure out the F) just ended up growing into such a big project, forcing me to rewrite multiple systems, that it became intimidating to even think about. So much easier to push it to the back of my mind. Problem is, it got to where I would feel so guilty about it not being released yet that I couldn't enjoy anything else, like writing and recording music, kicking AI ass at Need For Speed: Underground, etc. So I would usually find some middle ground...something less productive than working on LFM, but also less fun than what I would typically do. It didn't stop the guilt, but it helped me ignore it until I've become thoroughly miserable.
GemStone's producer, Melissa, offered to take it off my hands a few times, transferring it to someone with more time, but I really didn't want that to happen. It would have been admitting failure on my part, something I'm not very good at (admitting it, that is).
So finally, I realized how stupid all this was, and determined to get this project out of the way, once and for all. Unfortunately, work hours really ramped up at the same time, so I'm getting an average of 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I'm pretty strung out lately, finding it hard to be nice to people, especially when they're lazy or stupid, but releasing the first part of LFM symbolizes the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. For that, I'm grateful.
Wow, I just wrote an emo song about game development, I think. Anyway...they won't all be nearly this long. I just needed to tell someone all that. You'll do.
Currently listening to: "Walking Is Still Honest", Against Me!
For the longer version, see here. Of course, it's pretty out of date. I'm gonna revise the whole website this month, just like I've told myself every month for the past few years.
Anyway, I've been against the idea of starting a blog, for a couple of reasons. First, everyone and their cow has a blog. I don't really expect that more than two people will read this on a regular basis, unless I climb a tower with a rifle. That'd push it to four or five. Lately, though, it's occurred to me that it might be a nice way to let off steam, without actually having to bitch to someone, something I've been doing a lot lately.
That brings up reason number two; I'll probably let off steam about some of the people that will read this, because they're all internet-savvy, and if you know me well enough to get bitched about, you probably know my domain as well. I sometimes say things I meant to just think when I'm annoyed with someone, which I later regret. Not to their face - I like to think I have more tact and less bravado than that - but these things have a habit of coming back to you. I'm okay with the people that annoy me. Hell, they're the only people I know. So I may well chicken out on discussing work here in anything more than a general sense.
General sense tingling.
The reason I'm so pleased to have Lock Mastery out...wait, I never really cleared that up. I'm a developer for Simutronics, a company which produces MMORPGs. Google it if you must. I was an offsite contractor for a couple of years, but I moved to St. Louis in autumn of 2002 to work in the "real" office (wonder where the word "autumn" comes from? I prefer it to "fall"), which means I now work on all five of the existing games, in addition to the full-time job of designing and developing the Next Big Thing. However, I kept certain responsibilities from my offsite days, when I was the rogue guru for GemStone III (now GemStone IV!), Simutronics' flagship internet RPG, foremost among them being developing a rogue skill called Lock Mastery, which is essentially a set of tools to make GemStone's thieves a more well-rounded and customizeable group of locksmiths. This took way too long.
It's a project which has been sucking out whatever life is left in me after the 80-90 hour work weeks some of us are pulling lately. I don't mind the hours; I love my job, or I wouldn't be doing it. I like the people I work with, as much as I like anyone. LFM (Lock Mastery, I'm sure you can figure out the F) just ended up growing into such a big project, forcing me to rewrite multiple systems, that it became intimidating to even think about. So much easier to push it to the back of my mind. Problem is, it got to where I would feel so guilty about it not being released yet that I couldn't enjoy anything else, like writing and recording music, kicking AI ass at Need For Speed: Underground, etc. So I would usually find some middle ground...something less productive than working on LFM, but also less fun than what I would typically do. It didn't stop the guilt, but it helped me ignore it until I've become thoroughly miserable.
GemStone's producer, Melissa, offered to take it off my hands a few times, transferring it to someone with more time, but I really didn't want that to happen. It would have been admitting failure on my part, something I'm not very good at (admitting it, that is).
So finally, I realized how stupid all this was, and determined to get this project out of the way, once and for all. Unfortunately, work hours really ramped up at the same time, so I'm getting an average of 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I'm pretty strung out lately, finding it hard to be nice to people, especially when they're lazy or stupid, but releasing the first part of LFM symbolizes the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. For that, I'm grateful.
Wow, I just wrote an emo song about game development, I think. Anyway...they won't all be nearly this long. I just needed to tell someone all that. You'll do.
Currently listening to: "Walking Is Still Honest", Against Me!
1 Comments:
Did you start all of this on the day that my daughter was born? Weird, don't you think?
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