Review of the first semester.

Well, the semester officially ends on the 19th (tomorrow) but since i have not more lectures and all my work is in i feel it is a good time to review the semester while it is still fresh in my mind.

All in all i have enjoyed my first semester of university allot. Allot of this enjoyment has come from being independent of my family for the first time and being able to explore and new place and make new friends.
Derby is a nice city and the night life is good even if its not the biggest night out you'll ever have. Mosh is my personal favorite nightclub because of the music the DJs play and the price of drinks!
At this point you may be thinking, what has this stuff got to do with games programming?
Well my answer to that is not allot, but i do on the other hand believe that stuff like this does have an effect on your course mainly your happiness and stress levels so its a still a very important thing to discus about the course and where it is situated.

As far as the lectures and tutorials themselves go i have found almost all of them both interesting and relevant. The only exception to this has been the "Computing Environment" module. This module seems to be made up of repetitive lectures about referencing and plagiarism and work that makes you practice stuff that would have been useful before embarking on the Computer Architecture assignment but now seems like too little too late.

My favorite modules have been Ludology and Software Development I.
In the Ludology i have found learning more about the games industry very interesting and this module has helped me broaden what i think of when someone says the word "game" to me.
In Software Development I it has been an easy journey for me because of my previous course in Computing that i did at A level. This has helped me immensely to complete this module without any issues. For people without programming experience previously this has been the hardest module but also the most rewarding. It is important also to remember that although this semester this is the only programming module, next semester there is three.

Just because the first semester is over doesn't mean the work stops of course. We have been set 120 hours of work to do over the Christmas break. I am looking forward to doing this work over Christmas as it involves learning how to use XNA, Microsoft's game development software. I will posting stuff i make using XNA on this blog to show you how its coming along.

Here are some photos of memorable moment in the first semester.

Click the image to see the whole photo.


This is a lecture theatre, not your bedroom.....Good times in a computing environment a lecture.



A picture of my flat mate Dan in his oh so tidy room, showing off some tasty two week old meatballs.

A picture of me just resting my eyes....Thanks to Steve C for this picture....

I picture of some of my games programming mates and my brother (far left) as zombies at Gamecity 3 in Nottingham.

Me (back to the camera) and my mates Darren (on right looking right) and Dan (on right looking left) at Castleton in the peak district for a walk to get to know each other in freshers week. Good times.

Joe, Dan and Me (left to right) in Derby, Freshers Week.


Harj (left) and Jon (right) my flat mates playing a drinking game. More good times!


Dan, Darren, Me and Harj (left to right) in the SU bar.


Thank you for reading my post and taking a look a the photos, check back for more posts soon!

Wrath of the Lich King

As you may already know i play allot of world of warcraft so i thought i better post my opinion on the newest expansion "Wrath of the Lich King" i feel i can now do a proper review as i have seen almost all of the content. I have healed all the 5-man and 10-man content as a resto shaman and it has been alot of fun. With my current guild "Freex" (http://www.freex-bladefist.com) starting 25-man raids next week i am still enthused to play.

When i first got to Northrend the first thing that struck me was the sudden change in art the art style of the gear and of the environment. The whole thing feels allot grittier (in a good way).
The first complaint i have about the new expansion is that the new gear (of which there are huge amounts) looks exactly the same. You will go from 68-80 with what looks to be exactly the same gear but the stats will get better as you go up. This gets depressing when you are 80 and trying 2 replace your gear with epics and you still have shoulders that look like the level 68's shoulders who is standing next to you.

As i leveled there was a huge amount of quests that involved new game mechanics such as vehciles and a few lame attempts of covering up the standard boar killing quest but all in all it was the funnest 10 levels in the game and at no point did i feel like quiting the game like i did when i wanted to level to 70 before the 20-60 exp boost patch.

Once you reach the end game there is the usually gear jump between what you get at level78-79 and the gear you gather from heroics which leads to groups not wanting you to tank or heal for them till you lie about your gear a few times which can be annoying but is nothing new to warcraft or MMORPGs in general.

Blizzard has tried to make some raids more accessible to casual players which has lead allot of the more hardcore players to complain about the game being too easy.
I was in Naxx today having allot of fun taking down the bosses which i could not do in Burning Crusade as quickly which has made the whole experience allot more enjoyable.

On the whole if you didn't like WoW before you are not going to like it now, but if you got bored of TBC or have stopped playing then WotLK is a really good expansion and i would recommend it to anyone.

Good times.

Update

I've been busy for sometime now doing my course assignments. These few weeks of the course have broke a few people. 20% more of the course has dropped out over the assignments and i hear of and see peoples work that makes me think they will be kicked off the course. Its very hard to workout what John Sear (CGP program leader) whats from us. In my last Ludology lecture he explained the work we must do over Christmas. We must learn to use Microsoft's XNA development kit to be ready for game design next semester. While i have Christmas work on my mind and how i can possibly interact with my family after not having to for so long i must remember to revise!
Revision has been brief because of assignment work, socialising and getting ready for 25 man raids on WoW but i am pretty confident with the material.

My Ludology assignment (remaking Kirby) was good but i feel the level i supplied to show gameplay was a little brief. I will upload the playable game here so you guys can have a go around mid January when i get my mark. This may also help you understand what level of work you must do for grades.

My Computer Architecture assignment took me a long time because i'm not very good at writing but i got through it and submitted a piece of work that i felt very happy with. I'll publish it as a post once i've got my mark back for it.
I have an exam for Architecture today and on wednesday i have to pitch my game of Kirby to my tutors as they pretend to be publisher for 40% of my ludology mark.

My game of Boggle for Software Development I is intresting. I have aced part1 and 2 and found them very easy but i have struggled on part 3. It is because i need to revise for other subjects that i have decided to call it quits on it and hand it in the way it is. My hope is that it is enough to get a B. Ill post a clean bug free version of part 2 Boggle some around mid-January.

On World of Warcraft i have been farming heroics with my flat mate and we have successfully applied to a Naxx 25man guild so i will be in Naxx 25man by Thursday. Should be on farm by the time i get ready to start lectures again after Christmas.

My Plan is to get a nice XNA game (hopefully in 3D) working some time after Christmas. I will post my progress on this blog and i will release my program as open source and let you have a look at the code and play around with it if you wish.
Once i had a good clone game running in XNA ill start work on original game mechaincs for a game that i plan to release on Xbox Live Arcade sometime in the summer.

Sorry i haven't been able to explain everything in much detail. Once this week ends and i have some time to clear my head at home i will post some more stuff in more detail and i will explain my work as i post it for download in January.

In other news i saw the film "The Day The Earth Stood Still" with the writer of Screen Suck blog so check his review out at http://geekshed.blogspot.com .

Check back soon!