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horked website haiku
Thursday, October 9, 2008 03:22pm
this website is broked.
IE7 behaves different.
I will fix it soon.
IE7 behaves different.
I will fix it soon.
New website
Wednesday, July 11, 2007 02:50am
I have a new website.
It's called captain lobotomy. you should check it out.
It's called captain lobotomy. you should check it out.
Extreme AI
Wednesday, March 8, 2006 08:32pm
I went over to the Extreme AI website to look around and i noticed that all of our game content has been taken off the front page. That is kinda sad for me considering how hard we worked for almost two years, but hey, that's a startup for you and I knew that i couldn't expect to still be getting paid a month later, much less a year.
i was proud of what i did there and would have stayed on even if the pay had remained the same. You just can't work for free for 6 months like i did. I am really happy for Bill and Toby, and I hope that their new ventures with EAI turn out well. They are doing some cool stuff with the state film industry, and I know that Extreme AI will get back to making video games again. Especially with Punk Mobile still being worked on and all.
Things are definitely different here at EA. I honestly miss the days of staying in the office waaay longer than i should have. I remember sleeping at my desk, making coffee at 4 am, trying to get orbz ready for demoing, gdc, e3, etc. even though i seemed to have boundless energy at Extreme AI, I get tired here toward the end of the evening here at EA. I think it might have something to do with the role that I play here. I love what i am working on at EA. I get to help build and maintain components that every EA sports title is going to use, and that is really cool. Despite all that, i feel like cog in a big machine at times. I like my team a lot, and Jef and Jim have turned out to be fantastic mentors. I like that, because it gives me some of the feeling i used to have at Extreme AI with Bill. I like how the senior guys on the team are willing to stop and explain anything and everything to me. It is great to be part of this kind of team, but part of me misses the creative freedom that came from working on smaller games. At Extreme AI, we had creative decisions to make, and at the time we all left, we were starting to plan out how Flatspace was going to work. I wanted to call it Flatspace|Universe, and it would have been a persistent mmorpg, akin to final fantasy xi. I had thought that if you forgot to log in for a week, you could find your own colony in smoldering ruins. essentially, you'd have to play once a day to prevent bad things from happening. I really miss working on game design.
Another thing i noticed is that our fan base turned into a bunch of jerks. Even after Tapwave closed up shop, they were still badgering us to "leak" a copy of ThinkTanks. the rest seem to insult us for not releasing the game, even though i knew it wouldn't sell. it really was the strangest thing... our games were the most popular for tapwave, but they sold like crap.
anyway, i am glad things worked out the way they did. i am content here at EA and i know Glenn is having a blast working on his game with JB. i guess it worked out for the best.
i was proud of what i did there and would have stayed on even if the pay had remained the same. You just can't work for free for 6 months like i did. I am really happy for Bill and Toby, and I hope that their new ventures with EAI turn out well. They are doing some cool stuff with the state film industry, and I know that Extreme AI will get back to making video games again. Especially with Punk Mobile still being worked on and all.
Things are definitely different here at EA. I honestly miss the days of staying in the office waaay longer than i should have. I remember sleeping at my desk, making coffee at 4 am, trying to get orbz ready for demoing, gdc, e3, etc. even though i seemed to have boundless energy at Extreme AI, I get tired here toward the end of the evening here at EA. I think it might have something to do with the role that I play here. I love what i am working on at EA. I get to help build and maintain components that every EA sports title is going to use, and that is really cool. Despite all that, i feel like cog in a big machine at times. I like my team a lot, and Jef and Jim have turned out to be fantastic mentors. I like that, because it gives me some of the feeling i used to have at Extreme AI with Bill. I like how the senior guys on the team are willing to stop and explain anything and everything to me. It is great to be part of this kind of team, but part of me misses the creative freedom that came from working on smaller games. At Extreme AI, we had creative decisions to make, and at the time we all left, we were starting to plan out how Flatspace was going to work. I wanted to call it Flatspace|Universe, and it would have been a persistent mmorpg, akin to final fantasy xi. I had thought that if you forgot to log in for a week, you could find your own colony in smoldering ruins. essentially, you'd have to play once a day to prevent bad things from happening. I really miss working on game design.
Another thing i noticed is that our fan base turned into a bunch of jerks. Even after Tapwave closed up shop, they were still badgering us to "leak" a copy of ThinkTanks. the rest seem to insult us for not releasing the game, even though i knew it wouldn't sell. it really was the strangest thing... our games were the most popular for tapwave, but they sold like crap.
anyway, i am glad things worked out the way they did. i am content here at EA and i know Glenn is having a blast working on his game with JB. i guess it worked out for the best.
Times like these...
Monday, February 20, 2006 01:24am
This is something i sent out in an email to my friends a while back...
After my second week at EA Tiburon, the studio sponsored movie night at the Lowes cineplex at Universal CityWalk here in Orlando. We got to see a private company screening of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" or whatever it was called.
The whole experience was really interesting, but there are two specific issues that I found amusing.
Traffic in Orlando can be nightmarish on fridays. My friend Aaron Long invited me along with him and some of his friends to go to the company screening. We left the studio around 5 pm to drive south on I-4 to the Mall at Millenia. They have a California Pizza Kitchen there and Aaron and his friends wanted to grab dinner before the movie. The plan was to get to the mall by about 6, eat for an hour or so and then go to the theater. Except that around 6:45, we're barely passing by the mall, being forced to skip dinner and go straight to the theater.
Once we got to the theater, we had to wait in line for the the previous showing to end. So Aaron's friend Volga pulls out his cell phone and we end up playing a mobile version of Worms. It seems pretty obvious to me that game playing has to be an important part of your life if you work for EA, and the cell phone game seems like a natural extension of this.
When we sat down in the theater, the most amazing thing happened. I looked down from my seat at all the other EA people there, and there was a sea of tiny, glowing LCD screens. There were handheld game devices everywhere. PSPs, Nintendo DSs and Gameboys everywhere, in addition to the cell phones. The newest handhelds have wireless capabilities, so there were also lots of people playing together. I heard people shouting "anyone want to play mario kart?" The whole thing was very cool.
The other amazing thing happened when I left the theater after the movie was over. We walked out of the theater, stopping to talk about the possibility of getting dinner. I was standing there, listening to the conversation, when an usher at the theater taps me on the shoulder and says, "hey, do you work for EA too?"
I smiled and said yes, and then he says the greatest thing: "is Madden going to be as awesome as they say it is? I preordered an XBOX 360 and I just can't wait for that game. I love Madden. Are there going to be new features?" He continued gushing about the game, and I stood there smiling. I had to sheepishly answer, "I've only been at EA for two weeks, so I didn't get to work on Madden, but I hear it's going to be great."
"That's awesome," he replied before thanking me. It was the highlight of my first month at EA. I felt like a rock star, and I didn't even do anything to deserve it. Even after I told him that i didn't work on Madden, he continued to tell me how much he loved the game.
After my second week at EA Tiburon, the studio sponsored movie night at the Lowes cineplex at Universal CityWalk here in Orlando. We got to see a private company screening of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" or whatever it was called.
The whole experience was really interesting, but there are two specific issues that I found amusing.
Traffic in Orlando can be nightmarish on fridays. My friend Aaron Long invited me along with him and some of his friends to go to the company screening. We left the studio around 5 pm to drive south on I-4 to the Mall at Millenia. They have a California Pizza Kitchen there and Aaron and his friends wanted to grab dinner before the movie. The plan was to get to the mall by about 6, eat for an hour or so and then go to the theater. Except that around 6:45, we're barely passing by the mall, being forced to skip dinner and go straight to the theater.
Once we got to the theater, we had to wait in line for the the previous showing to end. So Aaron's friend Volga pulls out his cell phone and we end up playing a mobile version of Worms. It seems pretty obvious to me that game playing has to be an important part of your life if you work for EA, and the cell phone game seems like a natural extension of this.
When we sat down in the theater, the most amazing thing happened. I looked down from my seat at all the other EA people there, and there was a sea of tiny, glowing LCD screens. There were handheld game devices everywhere. PSPs, Nintendo DSs and Gameboys everywhere, in addition to the cell phones. The newest handhelds have wireless capabilities, so there were also lots of people playing together. I heard people shouting "anyone want to play mario kart?" The whole thing was very cool.
The other amazing thing happened when I left the theater after the movie was over. We walked out of the theater, stopping to talk about the possibility of getting dinner. I was standing there, listening to the conversation, when an usher at the theater taps me on the shoulder and says, "hey, do you work for EA too?"
I smiled and said yes, and then he says the greatest thing: "is Madden going to be as awesome as they say it is? I preordered an XBOX 360 and I just can't wait for that game. I love Madden. Are there going to be new features?" He continued gushing about the game, and I stood there smiling. I had to sheepishly answer, "I've only been at EA for two weeks, so I didn't get to work on Madden, but I hear it's going to be great."
"That's awesome," he replied before thanking me. It was the highlight of my first month at EA. I felt like a rock star, and I didn't even do anything to deserve it. Even after I told him that i didn't work on Madden, he continued to tell me how much he loved the game.
howdy!
Saturday, February 18, 2006 10:16pm
So this is my blog. Because I avoid using off the shelf software whenever I can do things myself, i wrote the blog backend in php/mysql.
I hope to add features to the blog, including a login system for other (approved) people to create posts when they want to, and a comment/feedback system eventually.
Despite some objections from my girlfriend, I intend to use this blog to detail some of my experiences as a software engineer at EA Tiburon. No, I don't plan on talking about studio internal policy, divulging information about studio technology or talking about EA's corporate decisionmaking. I'm not trying to get fired. I just want to talk about what it feels like to go from my unglamorous job in Albuquerque as "platform content specialist" (read: data entry) to a real game technology programmer for a real company.
I hope you'll enjoy reading, and as always, feel free to email me at aaron@aaronromero.com.
I hope to add features to the blog, including a login system for other (approved) people to create posts when they want to, and a comment/feedback system eventually.
Despite some objections from my girlfriend, I intend to use this blog to detail some of my experiences as a software engineer at EA Tiburon. No, I don't plan on talking about studio internal policy, divulging information about studio technology or talking about EA's corporate decisionmaking. I'm not trying to get fired. I just want to talk about what it feels like to go from my unglamorous job in Albuquerque as "platform content specialist" (read: data entry) to a real game technology programmer for a real company.
I hope you'll enjoy reading, and as always, feel free to email me at aaron@aaronromero.com.
© 2005 Aaron Romero |
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