Keeping Current
This is a post for the artists, and the people who want to understand them a little better.
Of all the artists professions it’s pretty clear that the Games and Animation Industry has the fastest moving tool and knowledge set. Every 5 years there’s a paradigm shift where the majority of old skills and techniques get heavily changed. This means that anyone who wishes to work (or continue to work) in this industry needs to be furiously researching new tools and techniques while they work diligently on what pays for the food and rent this month.
Note that this isn’t a pity post; oh no! Anyone who has chosen the game industry has done so fully knowing this. It’s a passion–something you don’t see too often these days. This passion is more often pawned for higher paying vocations. Of course, no judgement on anyone who has done so. In fact, I’m a little jealous you were able to.
From what I’ve observed in the Games and Animation industry, the most surefire way to stay current and have a sharpened skill set, is to simply commit your entire life to it. I’ve worked with some absolutely fantastic artists. They work 12 hour days, at least 5 days a week (with a smile) and they go home to work on their projects for another 4 most nights (though I do believe Friday nights are reserved for Street Fighter). They are amazing. Loyal to a fault. Hands as skilled as a storybook god.
Perhaps this is some kind of mental condition, but I wholeheartedly believe that working on their drawings, animations, models, etc gives them the same enjoyment that most of us get from going out to a movie, playing our favorite video game with friends, or playing sports in a team. If I ever find out the formula to adapting one’s self into this mindset, I’ll happily share it (or sell it?).
The objectivist side of me feels that I should be getting these people coffee, or brushing their eraser dustings off the page for them, hoping that I will earn enough consideration in their servitude that they will share their secrets with me. Of course, that won’t help. If gawking over other people’s artwork and asking “how did you do that” all day long made you more successful, DeviantArt would be full of employed artists (Sorry DeviantArt, I know that was a low blow).
It’s all just practice, really. Skill speeds up learning and determines someone’s ceiling, but really, you can grab anyone off the street and teach them how to have a contributing role at a Game or Animation studio. I hear stories about Animation Studios in India doing it all the time.
So then, what’s the value of someone who spent years in College studying this stuff, if they aren’t going to spend 16 hours a day practicing it? We need to be careful not to fall into the trap where we find a comfortable job, and grow obsolete working at it. It seems the only options are…
- Spend your unpaid time learning and practicing
- Take a annual/bi-annual Sabbatical
- Settle in somewhere that seems stable and cross your fingers
- Work in another industry
Frankly, I’m a huge fan of #2. Unfortunately, most employers aren’t. If you can convince them and if you can support yourself financially during that period, I say do it.
#1 keeps coming up as the simple answer. “Just work on your own stuff in the evenings, dummy!” Anyone who’s tried this and failed knows why this is a very tall order. Why? Because we’re all lazy.
Like a lot of excellent artists, I’m lazy. Yeah! Totally. I don’t want to spend more time doing anything than is required. Also, I don’t want to take any shortcuts on that something that will require me to pick it up later and work on it again. Laziness forces me to be efficient. The laziness that we frown upon is simply laziness without foresight (Greed is the same way, btw. We actually all big fans of greed, we just like greed with foresight into the consequences of our actions). So when I get home, and I’m tired, I’m inclined to do something that’s relaxing, or something else that needs to be done like household chores, or maybe even something romantic. The last thing I can get excited about doing is more of what I just did all day long (even if it’s different subject matter).
I know there’s a lot of like minded people out there, and you may be tired of me just blathering about everything that already occurs in your head. Okay, I’m done! One of the purposes of this blog is therapy, so there you go, I feel better having just thrown my thoughts into the internet.
I urge you to comment if you have any feelings about this from any perspective. Perhaps a part 2 of this will spawn, and perhaps it will have some conclusions in it.
Fabrizio Hiatus until further notice..
Posted by admin in Art Projects on February 1st, 2010
The laboratory project has been placed on Hiatus until further notice. Another project will arise to replace it in time!
Paladin AOE Tanking
Posted by admin in World of Warcraft on January 26th, 2010
Everyone has been rabbling over the Ghost Crawler post,
Long-term, the paladin manner of generating AE damage and threat is probably too good, especially given how simple it is. To be honest, we have very mixed feelings on the whole AE tanking game. We brought the druid and warrior more in line with the paladin for fear of recreating the Shattered Halls / Mount Hyjal experience, where other tanks just weren’t competitive. What that has led to of course is the AE tank + AE style of damage for almost every pull. You need the tools to be able to tank legitimate adds fights (imagine lots of incoming mobs), but does that mean every pull needs to devolve into that? We’d like to see less AE overall, so buffing everyone’s AE tools isn’t going to be tops on our agenda. That does however mean that we really can’t afford to have a “best AE tank”, and while things are more fair there than they were in BC, they aren’t fair enough.
There’s also been the usual QQing about Protection Paladins being overpowered, and as one, sure, I’ll openly admit the class is probably a bit too good of a tank. It’s important to look at all this in perspective though. I don’t want everyone QQing as much as they are because Blizzard might cave to nerfing us from peer pressure.
Paladins are the best AOE tank in the game. Sure. Consecrate, Retribution Aura, Seal of Cleave (I mean Command), Holy Shield, Hammer of the Righteous and Holy Wrath all see to that. Someone has to be the best AOE tank. But… when was the last time wiping on an AOE pull held you back in progression? Would you have downed Rotface, or Festergut, or Putricide, or Blood Council, or Queen if both your tanks had Consecrate…? AOE tanking ability rarely impacts anything meaningful, it just lets Pallies grind heroics faster and pad damage meters with ICC trash.
Take away half our AOE attacks and give Paladins a reliable Interrupt and I won’t complain one bit!
If you’re going to complain about Paladin tanks being OP, don’t bring up AOE, bring up Ardent Defender, Divine Protection and LoH (Oh wait, those last two got nerfed, nevermind).
Plagueworks and LFG Tanks
Posted by admin in World of Warcraft on January 12th, 2010
Icecrown Citadel: the Plagueworks
Last week the second wing of Icecrown came out, the Plagueworks. Featuring of course, Rotface and Festergut, and their creator the marvelous professor Putricide. Our best 10 men and women spent hours this weekend trying to down them but it just isn’t happening yet. We tried Festergut a few times, and decided to focus our efforts on Rotface (who is suposed to be easier). On multiple attempts we got Rotface down around to 30% of his health, but died to overwhelming amount of Slimed players. The spawns are just far too fast for us–when so many people are dancing near the Big Slime to drop off their little slimes, they eventually die from a small error, or lag, or just bad luck.
We’re running with the recommended strategy, of a Rotface tank in the middle, and a Big Slime kite-tank running around the perimeter. DPS/Healers with who get an injection continue doing their thing until there’s a few seconds left on the debuff (they do NOT cleanse, we found delaying the slime spawn let the player contribute healing/dps for longer), and run to the outer edge of the room to kite their small slime around and eventually into a big slime (which is very tricky to start, but our raid became quite skilled at this with practice). The pally offtank (me) kited the Big Slime around the perimeter until it explodes, warns the raid, we move out of the way, and repeat.
When one person dies their slime tends to just sit in our big melee/tank/ranged/heals cluster in the middle, pick random targets, not obey aggro, and not be kite-able. Is this boss impossible with one death? The thing that gets me is it doesn’t quite seem tuned properly. It’s a 10 man, therefore should be doable in 232 gear, right? Most of us have an average item level of 240+, and it seems we have the strategy down very well here, so what gives? I can only think that it’s some kind of strategy problem–something we are still somehow not seeing.
Looking for Group: Tank shortage and how to Remedy
As you know, I have a Prot Paladin and a Warlock. I’ve had a very good view of the vastly different queue times on DPS and Tank. On my paladin, it’s literally 1 second to get into a Dungeon, unless someone AFKs the ready check (then it can be up to 30seconds, oh no!), compared to my Warlock, which usually has to wait 15minutes or so to get into a run (which the Tank often bails on if it’s Old Kingdom or Oculus). I usually skip the daily on my Warlock now, since it’s such a waste of time to sit in queue.
Obviously, if you play a DPS you’re well aware of this problem. Nobody wants to wait 15 minutes to have their tank bail if they don’t like the dungeon that popped up. Blizzard buffed Oculus and is re-tuning dungeons like Old Kingdom, which might help a bit. I’m not so sure that’s going to make a huge difference. Let’s look at other reasons why it’s hard to get a tank.
First of all, I’ve noticed a lot of people setting their dual spec to Protection (or Feral), so that they can burn through the daily heroic fast, and with a tank they trust (themself). Considering how easy it is to get tanking gear, and how low the bar is for gear that’s required for entry to tanking heroics, this is a great idea! So why aren’t they chaining heroics?
The main reason is that people aren’t behaving well in the group. I’ve talked with lots of tanks and chaining heroics usually ends when you encounter someone terrible. Hunters and Rogues–just because you can misdirect to the tank doesn’t mean you can pull groups. If you want to do a speed run where you help the tank pull–ask the tank! They might be into it, in which case you could co-ordinate and go even FASTER. Surprising the tank with groups of adds is a horrible idea.
This morning in Old Kingdom, a hunter was misdirect pulling groups of casters on the lower level. Do I need to tell you how bad of an idea this is? Healer aggro can overtake the misdirect shot very quickly, and if the casters aren’t silenced, they will sit far away where the tank can’t get them and destroy the healer. Fortunately most tanks will notice something like this and react. Just because you survived doesn’t mean it’s okay–that misbehaving dps (I’ve seen healers do it too) just took that Tank out of the LFG rotation. That tank isn’t going to want to run another!
Misbehaving members also make Tank’s ignore lists–which means you will wait longer.
My recommendation is to stay behind the tank and communicate. If you want to pull extra groups to go faster–just ask the tank! Likewise, if the tank is pulling too many groups at once, let them know that you can’t handle that! I like doing dungeons fast, and I even like pulling entire rooms (I’ve got Drak’Tharon keep down to a trivial number of pulls!) but not everybody else does. This is more important than making Mana Strudels, Fish Feasts or Healthstones or even buffing as far as I’m concerned (Buffing btw, is not significant in 5-mans when everyone is doing 4k+DPS. Don’t get your panties in a knot because you’re missing Blessing of Might, I think your 3500 instead of 3600 DPS will be enough to get us through Nexus!).
Much of this isn’t just courtesy to the tank, it’s courtesy to the Healer and DPS as well. So if you want to improve the dungeon queue, don’t do things that will cause the most in-demand party members to feel like logging out. Treat them nice and maybe they will continue chaining heroics to gear up their off-specs too.
As for me, I’m sticking to one LFG Heroic per day–I’m getting a sick of Leeroys, and all I want is my Frost Emblems.