Profile: Dracis
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| Username | Dracis  |
| Real Name | Chris Harpan |
| Rank | Hard Core Member |
| Joined | January 12, 2006 |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | 36 |
| Location | Kingsford, MI, United States |
| Last Visit | October 10, 2008 |
| Post Count | 398 |
| Biography | I''m a cofounder of DNA Studios Online. We''re a small independent game development company. Visit us at http://dnastudiosonline.com. |
| Quote | "Ideas are bulletproof" |
Latest Blog Entry - Learning the trade: An ongoing blog on becoming a game developer
From my blog The joys and pains of being an "indie"... [Dracis]
I"ve been meaning to do this for several days now, I've just had a hard time deciding where to start.
One thing I see here on MMORPG.com in the development forums is alot of people wanting to become a developer. Most just have an idea, some have a bit more, but it's alot harder than it looks.
As with most developers, I've been playing video games for years. Nearly most of my life actually. I just never knew how to get started. I first started off trying to make Flash games, but I'm no artist by any means. Then I found a lovely little program called Game Maker that wet my appetite. I've made quite a few games on that, most just for friends and family. Game Maker wasn't enough for me though, so I enrolled in some classes and learned C++ and DirectX programming.
Now let me say coding isn't for everyone. You need math skills and good ones. One thing I've tried to instill in my daughter. It's been hard for me to learn, because I'm more of a hands on type of person. That and I guess I have the old dog/new tricks thing going on at times. You're brain really does turn to mush as you get older. Alot of time I can see the code in my head, but I just can't translate it from thought to the computer.
Another thing to know about becoming a developer is finance. Let me state for the record, I'm no financial genius. There have been very few times in my life that I haven't been in debt, so going into game development wasn't much of a stretch for me. I can say that right at this point I've spent about ten thousand dollars on our little company. All of that coming right out of my pocket. A good chunk of that money is on our game engine and on various programs for our artist.
We went with a game engine, just because it was easier to actually adjust the engine for our needs than for me to code the whole darn thing myself. I'm pretty good, but I'm no coding genius either. I plod along and take my time. If I can find a code snipet here or there that some one is willing to share, I'm more than happy to use it instead of trying to figure it out myself.
There's alot more to it than just this little bit I'm writing here, but I guess I'd like you folks to tell me what you want to hear. Is there some question I can answer? Is there something about coding you want to ask? Do you want to just hear about the day to day things that I go through?
Let me know and I'll bash it out for you folks here.
Read more from my blog [Dracis]
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Recent Forum Posts [more...]
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- Dark and Light game developer NPCube dismissed and convicted by French Court
Originally posted by _Pix_
The final speeches took place last Thursday, October 2nd, as planned. The Judge announced the verdict was to be reached on October 31, i.e. in less than 4 weeks.
Thanks _Pix_ ! I hope that clears up some of the confusion and I guess we'll know soon enough the outcome.
- Posted: 10/04/08 8:15 PM
Dark and Light
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- Dark and Light game developer NPCube dismissed and convicted by French Court
On the DnL site, someone, not an AD person or mod, posted that the final decision will be October 30th. Not sure if that means Oct 2nd was the day for the closing arguements and then the judge has to render his final decision, or It's BS. I guess we can only truely know if _Pix_ lets us know, or someone stumbles across a news report on it.
- Posted: 10/03/08 8:15 PM
Dark and Light
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- DnL is probably dead
Originally posted by Abrahmm
So the server just went offline one day, without a peep from anyone running it, and just stayed off? Wow thats low... I feel bad for them.
Well, from what I've read on the official forums and site, that's basically what happened. I personally stopped playing about a month after launch when I still couldn't log in properly. From what I understand they had some sort of auto-reboot system in place, which seemed to cause quite a few problems, and one of the supposed scheduled days it went down, it never came back up. Now about a month or so into the server being down a bunch of the forum mods, which are actually unpaid players, tried to tell everyone that the game wasn't dead, blah, blah, hype, blah. Well it never did come back up, even after the date specified by the mod/players.
I wouldn't feel to bad about any of those players left near the end. They knew they were playing a game with a large part of the code stolen and couldn't care less. It wasn't until the end and _Pix_ winning the counter suit against him, that I think a few of them started to realize that everything they were told and believed was one big lie. The people you should feel sorry for is the ones who overcharged several times and some by hundreds of dollars.
- Posted: 9/17/08 12:32 AM
Dark and Light
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- Dark and Light game developer NPCube dismissed and convicted by French Court
I guess my only concern now is, _Pix_ getting his money. After all this crap he's gone through, the least he deserves is some of it, and hopefully all of it. Unfortunately with our ole buddy, Cesar Jacquet, fleeing to China I have my doubts that _Pix_ will get a chance to collect. Hopefully French law covers this though, but as long this case has taken, getting the money may take even longer.
Anyway, my hopes are still high for you _Pix_ and just can't wait until the October verdict.
- Posted: 9/12/08 4:10 PM
Dark and Light
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- So it's dead?
Originally posted by indiramourn
Originally posted by Dracis
Funny thing is, I posted that... You could have at least given me credit....
But that would have tainted your reputation, Dracis. ;)
lol, I just thought that the post made it look like it was from official sources, and obviously, it wasn't... Please, I beg, no one ever confuse one of my posts as something official, I'm already on enough medication as it is
- Posted: 8/30/08 4:23 AM
Dark and Light
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