Semester is almost done and Headgear

Ok I know that I have been rather quiet on this site for some time now.  The nice thing is that my semester is almost done.  I will have completed all of the prerequisites for grad school, and now I am just waiting to see if I will be accepted into the program or not.  Even if I am not accepted I have already learned a ton and I have a good springboard for moving forward with this project.  I will be focusing a lot more over the summer, so expect a lot more in the way of posts, though no guarantees of course.

So one idea I have had was to somewhat copy other FPS games in introducing purely aesthetic headgear for personalization.  In this game I plan on a standard headgear being the antennae, and so at first it could be different configurations of antennae.  If the game proves to be successful, then later on I will be able to commission an artist to make some better looking head items.  This will have to wait until a game model is put together of course.  This will also be another way for the game to get income and/or promote the game.

Sound

This is a big one that luckily I have already learned a little about.  I have noticed that sound in many multiplayer games is really hard to take.  I think that this stems from sound effects being a part of so many events, everything from shooting a weapon to large explosions.  I know that the technology for good sound has been out for a long time, it is just the large amount of processing that goes into good sound effects that will be hard to balance out.  In many war games that I have played the sound effects create an annoying cacophony of noise that it is hard to take for a few minutes, let alone the hours and hours of time that is spent playing.  The other problem I find is that the sound effects drown out voice chat making communication difficult.

So what do I plan to do about this.  First of all I plan on making relatively quiet weaponry.  Since it is all going to be beam based and is fictional in nature anyway, I can make the sound however I see fit.  This will be true of most of the weaponry in the game, even mines or vehicle based weaponry.  I already have a pretty good idea of what I want the sound to be, which will be the initial discharge and a charge up period after.  Recharging will explain the slow rate of fire and is something that things like capacitors do in real life anyway.  I also plan to avoid any high pitched sound effects as I already suffer from tinnitus (ringing in the ears permanently) and I'm sure a lot of veterans out there do too.  Playing video games with high pitches can make this worse.  Structures will probably make no noise at all to cut down on processing when in bases.  For vehicles I think I will use a low hum so players will be able to know a vehicle is around, but not a whole lot more than that.  I'll have to look into this more as I get closer to that point in the creation process.

On another note I start school tomorrow.  Wish me luck.

Gearing up for school

Ok so I think I'm all set as far as school for fall is concerned.  I have bought my books, and I have realized that I will be learning in separate classes C++, C#, and Java.  I have heard that the languages are similar and from what I have seen so far there are only minor changes between them.  I just hope I am able to keep the syntax between all of them clear in my mind, but after Chinese I think that these languages are going to be much easier to learn.  I'm in for a rough semester though.  I hope that by the end of it I will have a much better idea of the process than I currently have.  I feel a little excited about it.  I also feel a little nervous.  Wish me luck.