GDNet: Weekly Sitrep
by Drew -Gaiiden- Sikora · 04/09/2009 (12:51 am) · 0 comments
Twitter Rocks
So some exciting times yesterday when the database server decided to fall over on us - at least that's how it appeared anyways since the site's static content was loading fine but... that was about it. I actually found out when I got home from coaching at the gym and was going through my twitter updates - both phantom and Aardvajk had tweeted that GDNet was down - I probably would not have found out about it myself until at least 30 minutes later, maybe even longer. I was able to call up superpig and catch him before he went to bed so he could jump on the problem. Luckily it was just the switch that powers the internal LAN that had died, and our database was fine. Even luckier was that they didn't need Don Thorp, who is one of the original team that founded the site and runs the servers we're on, to help fix anything, seeing as he's traveling at the moment and wouldn't have been back until Thursday evening.
GDC is still ongoing... for us
I personally still have more GDC stuff to write about, and a lot of the team also has more things to post as well, so keep checking the GDC Coverage page every now and then for new content. I have no clue what was up with this year but everybody was totally flummoxed by the show. I still see tweets/status updates from people complaining about being sick/over worked/not sleeping well. Maybe it's just all the roller coaster rides this industry has been on this past year, I dunno. What I do know is that I should have taken my own advice a lot better from last year, and not tried to do so much at the conference.
Moderator cleanup in progress
That report I mentioned the week before GDC? It's being acted upon. If you're a forum regular you might notice some changes this month. When all is said and done I'll post a full report on what we did.
New Resources
* Game Developer's Conference 2009 - Our coverage of the 2009 GDC.
* Space War Commander: Re-Thinking Real-Time Strategy - This article on game design discusses the ways in which the real-time-strategy genre can be improved, using a recently published RTS as a case-study in novel development. Specifically, the paper argues against traditional resource gathering in favor of true diversification of that experience. Furthermore, this article discusses the benefits of removing base-building and puts forth some valid replacements for that gameplay component
* Interview with Jen Bahan - Jen Bahan is the Rigging & Technical Animation Supervisor at Rhythm & Hues
New Events
* Play-Machinima-Law @ Stanford, CA, United States - April 24, 2009 to April 25, 2009
* Women in Games 2009 @ London, United Kingdom - September 1, 2009 to September 4, 2009
* IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games @ Milano, Italy - September 7, 2009 to September 10, 2009
* Italian Videogame Developers Conference @ Milan, Italy - October 8, 2009 to October 9, 2009
So some exciting times yesterday when the database server decided to fall over on us - at least that's how it appeared anyways since the site's static content was loading fine but... that was about it. I actually found out when I got home from coaching at the gym and was going through my twitter updates - both phantom and Aardvajk had tweeted that GDNet was down - I probably would not have found out about it myself until at least 30 minutes later, maybe even longer. I was able to call up superpig and catch him before he went to bed so he could jump on the problem. Luckily it was just the switch that powers the internal LAN that had died, and our database was fine. Even luckier was that they didn't need Don Thorp, who is one of the original team that founded the site and runs the servers we're on, to help fix anything, seeing as he's traveling at the moment and wouldn't have been back until Thursday evening.
GDC is still ongoing... for us
I personally still have more GDC stuff to write about, and a lot of the team also has more things to post as well, so keep checking the GDC Coverage page every now and then for new content. I have no clue what was up with this year but everybody was totally flummoxed by the show. I still see tweets/status updates from people complaining about being sick/over worked/not sleeping well. Maybe it's just all the roller coaster rides this industry has been on this past year, I dunno. What I do know is that I should have taken my own advice a lot better from last year, and not tried to do so much at the conference.
Moderator cleanup in progress
That report I mentioned the week before GDC? It's being acted upon. If you're a forum regular you might notice some changes this month. When all is said and done I'll post a full report on what we did.
New Resources
* Game Developer's Conference 2009 - Our coverage of the 2009 GDC.
* Space War Commander: Re-Thinking Real-Time Strategy - This article on game design discusses the ways in which the real-time-strategy genre can be improved, using a recently published RTS as a case-study in novel development. Specifically, the paper argues against traditional resource gathering in favor of true diversification of that experience. Furthermore, this article discusses the benefits of removing base-building and puts forth some valid replacements for that gameplay component
* Interview with Jen Bahan - Jen Bahan is the Rigging & Technical Animation Supervisor at Rhythm & Hues
New Events
* Play-Machinima-Law @ Stanford, CA, United States - April 24, 2009 to April 25, 2009
* Women in Games 2009 @ London, United Kingdom - September 1, 2009 to September 4, 2009
* IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games @ Milano, Italy - September 7, 2009 to September 10, 2009
* Italian Videogame Developers Conference @ Milan, Italy - October 8, 2009 to October 9, 2009
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