Streamerp2p Forum

Hi all,

Gave up my job, in order to work on a console port of my Spheres of Chaos game for my ex employer. But they seem to have chosen not to go ahead with it. I say seem to because they haven't actually said anything at all, just silence. On the day of the meeting about the project I got a phone call 'the guy is off sick, will reschedule when he returns'. 6 weeks later I haven't heard anything else, not a peep. Not really getting a good sense of commitment from them there. I do wish game companies wouldn't do this sort of thing, but I'm not hopeful it will ever change.

Mind you this is nowhere near as bad as 'honest John' at the first place I worked, he'd sack most of his employees just before they had been employed for 2 years, to stop them getting employment protection. (I'm not making this up). My last day of work there was one single day before my 2 years. Unfortunately the project I was working on had at least 2 weeks to go. What a loser.

Seriously, if you are going into games, watch yourself. Don't believe 'work super-hard long hours and we'll give you a pay rise in 6 months' or anything like that, you will find yourself working hard for a reward that never happens. If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist. I worked for ages on rather less pay than the going rate for somebody of my skills and experience for something that isn't going to happen. It eventually started to look like a carrot on a string, leading me on. That's not happening to me again. Don't let similar happen to you.

And it's amazing how many companies will, rather than actually telling you a proposed deal is off, will just stop talking to you. Not very professional really, and not I'm talking about game companies here.

So, any developers reading this who would be into doing SoC for the xbox360/ps3?. Here's a review to whet your appetite:
http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=78

I'm doing a PC/DirectX port at the moment, partly as a 360 demo, and also as a full PC product. Without a proprietary library in the way, DirectX turns out to be as simple and logical as it could possibly be, it really is easy. And it goes fast too, at least it does once I realised that I was reading from a write-only vertex buffer and probably invoking an exception handler for every single buffer read. (write-only memory is also an old electronics joke about the function of basically any chip from which the magic smoke has escaped).

Work on the Streamer skinned client is currently paused, there's a rather ugly doze-crashing bug hiding in the skinning library somewhere. I'm going to try compiling with vcc6 (or maybe even 2003.net, although the 'assembly/mainfest' stuff it puts in the exe may make it not run at all unless you already have the exact correct versions of various dll's)

The STL Streamer (Studio Transmitter Link) spin off is going very well. It's in test by a christian radio station at the moment and is apparently rather more reliable than the other net-based STL offerings out there. Lots of potential for enhancements to this, and since it's a specialist thing for professional users, there's potential for earning some decent $$$ from it, at last!

Also in Streamer land, I see there's lots of Latin American stations on here (11 or so, not all on at the same time though). Very good, help me learn Spanish