Dennis De Marco

Account Type:

member

Location:

Coral Springs, FL USA

Member since:

April 5, 2006

Last Login:

April 1, 2010

Last Update:

April 21, 2008

Bio:

Skills

Primary Skill:

Intermediate Programmer

Secondary Skill:

Beginner Writer

Tertiary Skill:

Beginner Producer

Summary:

A long description of who I am first, imagine an old geezer with a cane:

I started off tinkering with game programming when I was 12 on the good old Apple //e with Beagle Brother's Apple Mechanic for sprites/shapes and a Penguin Software graphics package called Graphics Magician. Back in the day where information on how to make games did not exist and everyone was learning Applesoft basic for fun. I loved RPG's, adventure games, (Cranston Mannor anyone?), Ultima and Wizardry on that early apple computer. Each new game released in the early years was inspirational and different. Zip lock bag games were normal and "Lord Brittish" aka Richard Garriot became my childhood idol. Each Ultima game improved technology in CRPG gaming that I eagerly awaited and wanted to find how it was done. Dungeons and Dragons was big back then and I loved pen and pencil RPG's along with those 'choose your own adventures' books. I created many of my own paper RPGs as a kid and who didn't back then?

I picked up C and Pascal in high school, continued to tinker with game programming, never did anything serious. Loved text based Zork like games and logical puzzle solving. Ran my own online bulletin board in high school (Before the Internet) and fell in love with online communication, modems, and BBS'ing. Saw computers and telecommunications as the future and made it my career path. I started to write my own shareware utilities and I made my first $20 when someone registered 'smartcopy'. It was a small shareware utility that figured out files sizes in a directory and then copied those files to least amount of floppy disks. It was a big floppy saver for backing up files to least amount of disks.

Gaming-wise at this time, loved whatever Origin systems created. Sierra was also very creative back then too. I saw Lord Brittish (Richard Garriot) as iconic, and wished I was able to do what he did. I dabbled in making tile based games like Ultima but with lack of any good information out there gave up half way thru. I wanted to combine tile based games with my bulletin board as a 'online' game like tradewars. (They were called 'doors' back then)

You youngsters have no idea how much an asset the Internet is for a learning resource! Games started to require teams to build and technology rocketed with adlib cards, MT-32, and shortly soundblaster sound cards. I joined AOL, played Neverwinter Nights and blew alot of cash online. The Sierra Network with their online game Shadow of Yserbius in my teens. TNN was very innovative but happend too soon with online time being expensive. TNN pioneered a lot of interesting ideas online back then and Sierra had no idea how much they were ahead of their time. I paid my online addiction with a local grocery store job working after school. I love how people complain $19.95 is too expensive for a montly fee now. Back then, it was $9.95 an HOUR plus any LONG DISTANCE charges.

I worked myself through community college both gaining an associates in Telecommunications and moved forward getting my Bachelors Degree in computer Science, picking up a math minor at Montclair State NJ. I got hooked into online MUDS (Online text based RPG's) in college. Internet was mostly available only to college institutions and these online persistant text games were very addictive. Last year in college I landed a job as at local ISP at the time the Internet was still in infancy. This was good fortune, since I was a subscriber before I worked at this ISP and my hourly charges were killing me :)

I was programming online shopping carts and web applications during my experiences at the ISP using C and then later PERL for web customers. I was working in the cutting edge of the new internet frontier! The web was taking off like a rocket; Dialup PPP was replacing shell accounts. It was an amazing time. I continued my adventures in programming online text games in C and something called PennMush softcoding. Loved coding for fun, loved Linux, loved online text gaming,and loved creating virtual worlds.

I gave up graphical game programming when it became too difficult with Windows API and poor documentation. I focused more on cgi / web development and Unix system administration for my professional goals, and online text based game creation as a hobby. You can learn alot about people and online communities writting a text based MUD. Many good lessons have been learned back then that even today's modern MMORPG shops fail to take into consideration. Virtual world building is just a microcosim of real life. It is funny as I watch the major players of today struggle with player issues that were tackled and learned by text based games years ago.

During the peak of the internet crazy I started to see things in the programming marketplace that made me shift more on system engineering and Unix / NT administration. Keeping programming more of a personal passion and a hobby. Programmers were more or less treated like 'Code Monkeys' and given insane deadlines without any sort of respect to the art of programming. Programmers started to come out of the woodwork with $$ in their eyes after just graducating from college. Many had very bad skillsets from college without knowing anything about back ends and OS they are programming on. Many had no clue how to operate or build a computer. They just knew their IDE's, and the job market became over saturated.

I focused my attention on system administration and computer networking professionaly, keeping programming on the side. It was the correct move. The Internet bubble busted, programmers got laid off right and left, and many programmers were finding themselves laid off, their companies outsourcing overseas.. and those $$ fading fast. The system administrators were still kept around to keep things running.

It's kind funny now, reading how the major game developers are treating their younger employees. People burning out in 5 years and only thing big companies work on are seqels. I'm surprised they haven't started outsourcing yet. It's almost like the cycle is going to repeat itself...

And to where I am now:

I work currently in a very large corporate environment doing Linux system infrastructure planning and administration. Game programming is a hobby to me and now seeing what tools currently available going to start getting back into the swing again.

Torque looks to be a very good and adaptable engine. I do not have to worry about DirectX or windows API programming. All the stuff is a giant pain for an indie, and hobbist. I really do not want to spend time on engine development. All I want to do is protoype and build game worlds like back during the text based game days.

I am a big fan of virtual game worlds, online worlds, etc. I want to see if the technology and tools are there for a hobbiest to bridge the gap from MUD/text based programming to graphical online games. My goal isn't to create a giant EQ clone. Small community online game is more realistic and easier managed. Plus not everthing needs to be whack a mole, nor does everthing need to be elves and dwarves... There are a lot of unexplored areas where an Indie can get a leg up.

Recent Activity

No recent activity

All Activity

Blogs:

Dennis De Marco has posted 5 blogs

Resources:

Dennis De Marco has not submitted any resources

Forums:

Dennis De Marco has created 15 threads and 63 posts