Gaming

Gaming and Game Development

Bulletin; attention XBox owners

Please see www.xbox.com for information about a recall of XBox power cords. This was announced publicly today, Feb.18, 2005. This applies to units manufactured before October 23, 2003 (in the US only; before January 13, 2004 in Continental Europe). You can find the manufacture date ("MFG Date") on the underside of the case of the unit. The cords can catch fire, and about 30 people have had house fires because of it. Until you can get a replacement power cord, Microsoft recommends that you leave your XBox turned off when you are not actually using it to prevent fires. (There is a prominent message on this page, but in case MS moves it, the direct URL is: http://replacements.webprogram.com/en-us/programoverview.asp)

Education

NEW - According to an article in The Houston Chronicle, 2/16/05, three local (Houston) universities/colleges will be offering degree plans in video game design beginning at differing dates. The Kingwood College in the North Harris Montgomery Community College District started their classes this January. Southwest College - West Loop Center will begin having classes in an associates degree program in fall of 2005. San Jacinto College will be offering courses beginning some time in the next two to three years.

Houston Community College System

In Florida, the premier school is FullSail

Gaming companies in Houston, Texas

Sharkbyte "MOS"
MOS game site
Archangel "Aardvark Adventures"
Timegate "Krohan"; "Axis & Allies for Atari"; "Kings of War"
Revelation Interactive
Plutonium Games "Cleric"

Women in Gaming

IGDA Women in Gaming SIG
Gaming Tries to Shed Boys' Club Image
Game Girlz

Forums

Middle Earth Online official forum
Elves of Imladris forum ME Online kinship forum
Elder Scrolls official forum Morrowind
IGN Morrowind forum

Resources

Game Creation Resources for non-programmers - excellent!
The 3D Game Maker the engine I've chosen for my first level attempts
3D Game Studio another possible engine
Video Game Yellow Pages
Ultimate Gaming Resource
Game Developer Search Engine
Garage Games web-based publishing label for independent games and game makers. Everything needed to make and sell high-quality games.
Game Developer Magazine
Gamasutra
Moby Games historical gaming info
Adrenaline Vault game releases and demos
Texas Sci-fi Cons - Google
Beta Watcher
Games Tester
Bugzilla
Wayback Machine Internet archive project
CLASP Software Preservation Project Homepage
Japanese Language Translator
A Brief History of Japanese Clothing
TADS; Text Adventure Development System Interactive Fiction compiler
Adventure Game Studio create King's Quest style games without programming
Genesis3d Open source 3D rendering engine
NeoEngine Open source 3D game engine
RPG Toolkit
Verge RPG toolkit
OpenOffice Open source office software
SpriteLib GPL free artwork for hobby game developers
NovodeX see Physics SDK; copy protection free for non-commercial use
DevMaster 3d game & graphics engine database
The Gamecreators game development tools

Mods, Bots, Engines, and other Tools

On Modding search Internet for: Unreal, Quake, Half-life, Doom, Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights

How to make mods a beginner's guide
It's a Mod, Mod Game World beginning game modding advice
Neverwinter Nights Tutorials
Unreal Developers' Network
Unreal.com
Epic Games creators of Unreal
3rd Life.net

Modding Morrowind

Modelling/Texturing tutorials

Qarl's Retexturing Morrowind tutorial
members.cox.net/srikandi/skintut/skintut.htm
www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=25

General Construction Set tutorials

www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/tamriel/tutorials/
www.rpgplanet.com/morrowind/chronicles/mods/
www.morrowindfiles.com/modules.php?name=Content
Srikandi's Morrowind

"How-To" tutorials

Dialogue tutorial
Comprehensive Dialogue for Morrowind - The "How-To"
Skydiver's basic quest tutorial
SirLuthor's Race Creation Tutorial
“Scripting for Dummies” version 8
Iamhere’s mod compatibility list

Useful Utilities

GhostWheel's Utilities
Morrowind Book Generator v1.2
BSA Browser v1.0
TES Dependency Tool Kit
Enchanted Editor

Advice on cleaning dirty saves and/or mods

Cleaning Game Setting (GMST) records
Dirty Saves: Causes and Cures
How to clean a saved game From the infamous Dirty Save thread

Pages containing other tutorials, usefull information and/or utilities

Argent's Morrowind Tech
Compatible Mods List
Thanos' Tower
Klinn's Advice to New Morrowind Modders

Conferences

Austin Game Conference Sept. 9-10, 2004; Austin, TX
Women's Game Conference concurrent with Austin Game Conference
Independent Games Festival March 9-10, 2005; San Francisco, CA
Game Developers' Conference March 7th - 11th, 2005 San Francisco, CA
E3 May 18-20, 2005 Los Angeles, CA
D.I.C.E Las Vegas

Starting Out

IDGA Breaking In
Game Developer Magazine's 2004 Career Guide (PDF format)
IGDA Forums - - Houston Job Opportunities
Obscure’s FAQ
Tom Sloper’s School-A-Rama
The Games Game (monthly IGDA column)
Artists Guide to Breaking In broken link copied from IGDA....will be trying to find this locally
PolyCount's How Get Into and Survive the Gaming Industry
Gamasutra's school listing
Carnegie Mellon's school listing
Getting A Job In The Game Development Industry

Web Sites

You may check out an old version of my web site at:
Rebuild of www.terraforming.com (under construction)
Resume
This site was lost due to technical difficulties, and is in the process of being rebuilt.

Part of the rebuild:
The Thera Project an Activeworlds 3D virtual reality project
Citizen's Information Bureau My Total Recall 2070 site
Luna Portal My Earth: Final Conflict site
Note: 80,051 hits when this snapshot was taken
Angel's Demon was a memorial page for a character in the TV series "Angel", which turned into a memorial page for the actor who portrayed him

Game Sites

City of Heroes Comic book Superhero MMORPG
Starfire is a SG (super group) on City of Heroes
Public Defenders is a Starfire allied SG
NCSoft in Austin, TX
XBox games by "Live" status, showing genre
Yu-gi-oh TCG
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
The Two Towers Tolkien MUD
A Beginner's Guide to The Two Towers
Aggiecon
Infocom defunct RPGame brand
World of Tamriel Morrowind Lore and Info resource
Desslock's Guide to Morrowind Gamespot
Morrowind patches
Quanze's Morrowind information site
Morrowind Books
Technologies of the Childhood Imagination analytical paper by Mizuko Ito
Fable map created from screen shots
Queen a Big Fable Fan Lionhead Studios founder Peter Molyneux receives an OBE....yes, THAT Queen
Hmmmm....somebody needs to send Her Majesty a copy of Morrowind....

June 13, 2005