Landmark and My Thoughts (Little Controversy)

Well hello everyone! It's been a while since I last posted and that's because I've been working on my Landmark scholarship build a lot. It is coming along very nicely in my opinion! I am working on getting half of it done so I can take a screenshot of that half for the scholarship but I will finish it even after the scholarship due date has passed! Here are some screenshots of my progress! I'll put a before picture so you can see how much I have done in the past few days!

This was in an earlier post, but this is what I had 2 posts ago. Flat land with a few houses. Nothing too interesting.

And this is where it is at now! As I said it is only half way done, but I like it so far! 

This is the view I will use for the screenshot I think. It shows how the town feels and also reveals how it is centered around the clocktower. 

I just love this picture. Landmark is such a beautiful game. Knowing I can make something that looks like this is very cool for me.

Of course you have to make it blow up :D (No buildings were hurt in this process)

Well that is how my build is going so far! Going smoothly I think! I really like how it is turning out and even if it doesn't win me the scholarship at least I had a good time making it in the process. That's what I like about designing things. It may not turn out how you or the company wants it to, but while you are creating it it is enjoyable.

As the title of this  post says I am not going to be talking about just Landmark. I just wanted to take some time to voice my thoughts. There won't be order to this and there won't be any end point that I am getting at! Just me saying what's on my mind.

Well as many people who are interested in video game design know, the best place to be is California. I've been having some thoughts on that and I cannot tell whether or not I am excited or scared of moving that far away? I live in Indiana so it is quite the trip. My initial reaction is that of curiosity. I think of it and want to know more about what it is like to live far away from home. To live without any connections. From this I also get a bit scared because it's a huge jump. Going from knowing a lot of people to suddenly being alone in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people around you. A part of me feels like I'll be like a ghost for a long time until I have friends at where I work. Another part of me makes me think I'll feel like Xerath getting jumped on my Akali. 100 to 0 instantly. But there is a larger portion of my mind that thinks about it and gets an almost giddy sense of wonder at the thought of being on my own for once. Taking care of myself completely without relying on my parents too much and making my own. It's a very...peculiar topic for me right now. It's on my mind a lot and I think I'd like it to come true? I would hate to be so far away from home, but I also want to follow the path I think will be good for me. And I think that is where I am eventually going to be.

There is also the whole girlfriend concept that runs through my mind. I'm sold on her as is and I have every bit of confidence that we will get married. That is not my issue. My issue is removing her from her family and whisking her away to a foreign land with me. I am so torn on this. A part of me feels it is so unfair for her to be taken away from her family because of me. And I don't want her parents and sister to see me doing it as an act of finally getting her all to myself...I don't think they will but I still fear it! We have talked about this already and I am sure it will come up again. She does sometimes check in on my dorky blog posts so she'll probably mention something to me about it.

Enough about California! Onto...music! Music in video games to be specific. Of all the music in the world, I think video game music is my absolute favorite. It's all orchestra music, but somehow game developers make it work? Most people don't listen to orchestras all day, but if you play say Skyrim for eight hours...well you just listened to Jeremy Soule's composition for eight hours! And he is a fantastic composer. I just recently, being tonight, discovered a group called Adiemus and I am enthralled by their music. They are not in a video game, but if you are looking for easy listening music then check them out. I have no idea what they are saying, but I don't even care. I discovered them from a guy known as Pantera in Landmark so thanks Pantera! You don't read this but still thanks!

I think I want to write about something controversial but I can't decide what. I was going to state my mind on the whole GamerGate/SJW groups are stupid, but I'll leave that for some other time I suppose(or not because I'm about to go on an unintended rant). I shouldn't say stupid. Overly zealous perhaps. They all just need to calm down and find the middle ground. All extreme people should take a step back and view the pros and cons of each side and then they can equalize and find the middle ground where they can all settle on an agreement of sorts. Nobody will get exactly what they want so quit acting like you will. The only reason why I thought of this topic was because Twitter was blowing up over the whole "National Cleavage Day" and the SJW group got offended by LionHead Studios posting of a picture of one of Fable II's tavern signs. It was a sign that said "The Foaming Jugs" and had a well-breasted woman holding foaming beer jugs. So they complained and LionHead took it off Twitter. Then GamerGate got all rallied up and bombarded the SJWs with a lot of hate. Both groups in my opinion are in the wrong. LionHead has every right to post what they want, especially if it is from a game of theirs. No group of people with a very narrow mind frame should think they have the right or power to control what LionHead does. Now on the other hand GamerGate should not respond to the SJW response with such zealous hatred. That's not how you solve problems? You don't put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it? That's just insane! Now I'm not going to say that one group is right and one group is wrong because honestly both are right to an extent and both are wrong to an extent. Yes the tavern sign could be offensive to some people. That just means you don't look at it? Yes the actions of a group can be infuriating. That just means you block them? Quit acting like children and approach the issues with some maturity.

Since I'm already ranting I might as well bring up what I think about the sexuality of girls in video games since it's an interesting topic to look at. I will say that I do not want to be offensive to anybody and if I do come off as that then please comment or email me or something and let me know. I don't want to be sexist in any way I just want to look at it from my perspective. Now many woman are fine with this but there are certain woman that think that woman are overly sexualized in video games. I agree with that, but to an extent. I do believe that video games make woman extremely "hot" or "sexy" looking, but I will also say that they make them that way for multiple reasons. For one, it is a good marketing strategy to use against guys because if we see a hot bodied woman then it will interest us slightly more. That is not something we take pride in at all. It is just a simple fact. Over sexualizing woman is a very touchy topic to approach for game developers. If they make extremely "sexy" woman then they get hate for being overly sexual. However if they make an average girl they will get told that they are giving woman a bad image. I personally have to say that woman are over sexualized in video games. I utterly agree with this statement. However in all honesty I don't look at the women that are created. I'm not interested in a hot girl for how she looks in a video game. I find interest in them for what they do. What powers do they have? What is their background? Honestly my character could be the ugliest girl in the world and I wouldn't care one bit. I'm just going to cover her up with armor so even if she's hot I won't see her? In my opinion, the overly sexualized women in video games argument falls flat for a lot of gamers because we're in it for the game not the characters. There are select gamers that are a bit off and are in it for the hot chicks but that's a tiny group of players. I am sorry to anybody who read this and felt offended. These are my opinions and I felt inclined to share them. If you have an issue with it contact me and I'll hear you out. I might not agree with you but I will not say you're wrong. Opinions vary from person to person so I don't expect everyone to view this like I do.

Ok well I think I have had enough with writing this time around! I hope you all enjoyed my pictures and what I had to say. I'll keep writing in this manner I think. I enjoy just free writing my thoughts out. I hope you all have wonderful days! I'll talk to you later!

Life Talk and Video Game Talk

Hello everyone! How have you all been? I have been pretty good! I haven't gotten to play my games today, but that's ok because I got to come back home to see my girlfriend's sister perform at the state show choir competition. And they won!! It was a very cool moment I must say because I was a part of the same group and we also won a couple of years ago. It has been very interesting watching her grow up over the past 4 years that I have been dating my girlfriend. Although she and I are not too terribly close I can't help but feel like an older brother to her now. I do want to get closer to her and become better friends so I am really trying to reach out to her and show her that I do care about her and her family and such as all boyfriends should do. Sorry this is a bit of a tangent out of nowhere, I was just recently at the show choir competition and so it is on my mind! I'll move onto another topic now so as to not bore you!

Well as you all know, I have been working hard at creating this floating village-esque sort of place and I am quite fond of it. It is the first creation I have made where I have worked on it with another person who has similar passions. My friend and I spent the first 3 days after getting back to school creating this idea which actually evolved from my floating bubble house. Although it has lost the whole bubble concept, there is a shield type of concept still floating around, but for the purpose of the build that will not be implemented until far later when all the houses are built and basically the entire town is done. This project has been really cool for me personally because I am making something that is my own idea, but I am molding in another person's concepts and ideas into it as well. I honestly have never been one that is overly fond of teamwork sort of projects, mainly because I seem to always get stuck with doing most of the work. But this project has been very different. It's fun and creative and my friend, his name is Kamari, is very into it as I am. We run on a very equal level in terms of what we imagine in the village and the characters and its background and it has really made me look forward to doing this for a living.

I know what many of you may be thinking. "What I'm doing now is not going to be very similar to what I will do when at my work," but if I could get just a portion of that teamwork asset going I think I will never work a day in my life. That is my goal in terms of jobs for me. I want to do something that I look forward to every day. I know I will have a lot to work on to make it into the video game design industry, but I look forward to that. It will be a challenge in many ways and I know I can overcome them. The biggest change I will have to deal with will be moving away from my family. I most likely will be heading off to California for employment and that's across the country from where I live today. As sad as that is to think about having to leave my family...it kind of excites me too? I (and my girlfriend [fiance/wife hopefully by that time]) will be on my own in a totally new environment. Just us struggling along to get things worked out. It's scary! But it's also very interesting to think about. I hate to leave my family and also really hate to cause my girlfriend to leave her family for me...but I am almost positive that is where I will have to go in order to have a job soon after college. Now I realize I will most likely not have a job in the video game design industry right out of college. That just doesn't seem to happen all that often. If I do then that's awesome! Great! But I will not fool myself into thinking that I will because I know it is a difficult industry to get into and also to stay successful in. I look forward to this challenge. I look forward to working with like-minded peers, younger and older, who have as much dorkiness and fascination with the gaming world.

Generally I tell you, the readers, a little bit about what I am going to be doing in terms of designing in Landmark and what games I'm going to be playing in the coming weeks, so I am going to give a very rough look at what I will hopefully do to some extent. This coming week up until March 26 I will be in Landmark. That is all I will be doing. School and Landmark. I must get done with the screenshot portion of my build so I can submit it to the competition/scholarship that I am making it for. So I will post my progress on how that is going soon and then once that is done I will begin my playthrough of Fable III. Yes I did, indeed, buy Fable III and intend to playthrough it. So I will be talking about that once March 29 rolls around and possibly some other games that I will be playing. I might bring up some League of Legends talk here and there, but I personally don't like talking about League of Legends too much because it is a very...I don't know exactly? A boring to talk about game? In person with some of my League friends yeah it is good conversation, but to write about just doesn't sound like a very good topic. So I will try to stay off of that topic most of the time.

Alright everyone I am going to wrap this post up! This was a decent amount of writing compared to my other posts, but hopefully you all enjoyed it and will continue reading my posts! I'll continue writing and hopefully can soon get a schedule down for when I will be posting my next posts. The whole random posting isn't very professional in my opinion, so I am going to try to get some order going on that. We'll see how well that comes out. Well have fantastic days everyone and I will talk to you all later!

Lights, Camera, Drawings!

Hello everybody! I have a quick turnaround for you all with the sketches I drew yesterday that I mentioned in my last post! I forgot that my laptop has a camera on it so I took some pictures of what I drew so I could post them! This is going to be really short sadly because I have a lot of homework to get done tonight. I might have procrastinated some...oh well! Here are the photos!

This is my original concept that I drew! Shows how the people are thin framed and the wing concept I thought of since they are living on a floating piece of land.

This is my pretty much finished sketch of what a warrior/scavenger would look like. I say scavenger because they will have to gather food and such from the "Under" and they need protection. So they would have armor. The armor is light mail and allows mobility with their wings which I changed a bit to look less bat/bird like. It is a girl obviously! 

If you know anything about character development or drawing or have any thoughts really I'd love to hear them! They would be much appreciated! I wasn't going to show the last picture (it isn't that good) but I decided I might as well!

Well I am going to get off now to do my homework! I'll talk to you all later! I hope you have wonderful days!

Continuing with my Clocktower and Experimenting with Drawing!

Hello everybody! I hope you all are having fine days today! I know I am! Today has been a very relaxing day for me! My 8am class was simple and laid back and then I just doodled all day. I've been working so much in Landmark on my current build that I decided to take a break from "building" and picked up a pencil and sketchpad and drew out character concepts for characters that would live in my build! I would show you all my drawings, but I don't have any real way of getting them onto my computer. So I will not be able to do that sadly, but hopefully sometime I can figure out a way to! My build in Landmark is coming along quite nicely I think! I'll put some pictures up of it a little later! I know I've shown my clocktower, but I've expanded from that and am now creating a town that has the clocktower as its focal point. The town is on a floating island in the sky and I've come up with some decent backstory to the build! The people that inhabit the island now are a forgotten race (I don't know the name quite yet) and they combine human traits with a forgotten technique of flying that their ancestors once used. The characters are homely people, but are always ready for fighting due to their need to constantly go to the world below (what they refer to as the "Under") to scavenge for food and supplies. I drew a fairly good concept of what a scavenger woman would look like, but I can't show it since it is on my sketchpad. I'll try to figure out a way to get that into my next post so you all can see! It is rough, but I have never drawn like this before so I think it's pretty good! I'm trying to draw concept art of the landscape of the island, but I really can't get my head around it. The general vague concept art is hard for me to grasp sometimes. I am going to be trying to do some work over the weekend if my tablet pen comes in the mail. I hope to the Lord that it does. I need to work! Plus I'll have hardly anything to do this weekend.
Here are some of the screenshots I've already posted to Twitter!

This is the basic house style for all of the buildings. I did this to improve/speed up build time. The shops all have unique differences that I put to their makeup but the houses will have less diversity.

This is a screenshot of about how big the town is going to be. Not a huge town, but it will be around 10-12 buildings plus the clocktower. Not too bad sized.

Well I am going to end this post for now! Talk to you all later! Have great days!

Clocktower and Competitions

Hello everyone! I am back once again and have a fun new build that I made within the past few days! It's a clocktower! Now I was going to try and do an exact replica of the Bowerstone Market Tower like I had said I would but then I got my creative juices flowing a bit so I took my own spin off of it. It has similarities for sure but it is my own creation. Have a screenshot of it!

Just through in this night time version to show that the clock numbers do indeed glow!

Here it is during the daytime. 

 Now this clocktower is not going to be alone! In fact it will be the center piece for a new build I am doing for a competition/scholarship. So hopefully all that goes over well! I've never really done anything for a competition in terms of designing so it should be interesting.
In terms of other games I have been playing recently...well I haven't. I've been on Landmark for the past week now working out design schemes and such for this competition so my life has been all about designing. Plus I came back to school this past Wednesday so I have had that transition to deal with. I'm learning that I am really terrible at trying to get a regular schedule to my writing on this blog. I just can't get motivated to write unless I have something I want to write about? If anyone reading this blogs themselves and has any sort of advice on that please inform me of it. I implore you haha because I don't have a schedule or anything close to that. Well I am going to sign off for now. I've got a lot of building in the near future and also designing my own character to reside in this "environment"...guh I can't draw characters very well. Oh well! It will be a good learning experience if anything. I'll talk to you all later! Have wonderful days! Stay beautiful!

My Life as a Blacksmith

Hello everybody! I've got some new photos to share about my Bowerstone Market blacksmith build! Personally I think it is coming along spendidly! I'll share some photos...meh I'll show them now and get those out of the way! 

This is what I currently have so far. I will be adding the dormers a bit later. A comparison photo is below this!

I must say all the framework was quite a nuisance but I got it done! Almost exactly minus the stair supports.

I don't have a comparison photo for this one! It was deleted and it's tough to get photos from my tv to my computer!

I do apologize for the "super HD" pictures of the original building. I had to take photos of my tv screen (not a tv capable of HD) on my sister's ipod and email them to myself. So the quality is about as good as they are going to get. I do have another photo I will actually show later. If you have played Fable II and remember the Bowerstone blacksmith you might remember that there is a carriage partway inside it. I had to get some help but I managed to get a carriage for my build and I must say it looks pretty good! 

I'm going to turn away from Landmark now for a little bit and just briefly talk about myself some and what I've been up to recently! Well I have been on spring break as I said in my last post and it really has been quite a boring break. Well excluding this past weekend. I go back to school tomorrow sadly, but I've only got 8 more weeks until the year is up! This past weekend was fantastic. Best weekend of my life if I had to judge. I got to go to my girlfriend's college and see her plus spend the night up there with one of her friends. Said friend introduced me to a mod of super smash bros. and it was pretty cool! It was called...uh I believe it was called "Project M". Basically it combined Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The controls were a bit slow, but all in all it was a solid mod. Sadly...Roy, my boy, sucked something awful. I'll forgive the mod makers for that. In terms of games I am going to be playing in the near future, I will be purchasing and playing through Fable III on the PC. I'm not buying it for the gameplay however. I'm buying it so I can get a good view of the buildings and to be able to have it up on my second monitor while building in Landmark on the other. So there is that! I don't really have any games I am looking forward to this year so far so I doubt I will be buying many games. Oh! I got a job! Well it's a summer job but it is one I will like a lot I think. It's at a store called Rocket Fizz and it is a soda pop and candy shop. They also sell really cool vintage tin signs and play older music from the 60's-80's. Some big band stuff too. So I am looking forward to that once I am done with school! 

Well I am going to wrap this post up I think! I don't have a ton to say right now and I think I'm going to get back to building. It will be hard to build without being able to look directly at the game but I hopefully can get some idea from the photos I took...we shall see! I'll post a photo of the next build I am going to do once I am done with this blacksmith. Still in Fable II. And there are photos on the interwebs so that will help me out! I'll talk to you all later! Have fantastic days!

Back and Ready to Write!

Hello anyone and everyone! I am back and ready to write! As you may know from my previous posts I was struggling with my calculus II class and I am glad to say that it is done and over with. Whether or not I passed remains to be determined, but it's all up to the Lord now! I am currently on spring break (got 8 inches of snow two days ago) and I was putting off writing because I wanted to play through Fable II and for some reason Lionhead did not make Fable II for the PC (they should) and so I had to wait until I was home with my Xbox. If you read my last post I talked a little bit about how I played through Fable: The Lost Chapters again to try out the anniversary edition and that is what made me want to play through Fable II again. I spent a solid 5 days playing it and have beaten the main quest so I decided it was time to write some more!
Now as much as I love Fable: The Lost Chapters, I must now conclude that Fable II is my favorite Fable game. Not only that but it is my favorite game of all time I would say. Some of you might be wondering "Why?" Well I have played through Fable II 4 times now but it wasn't until this last time that I truly could conclude that it was indeed my favorite game. The reason this past play through confirmed that for me was because I looked at it in a new light. Because I am wanting to be a video game designer I decided playing through older games again to see different aspects of them would be good for my own design knowledge and ideas. As I played Fable II again I fell in love with its world all over again. Fable II's fantasy based world has to be the most immersive world I have ever played in. Look at the Bower Lake region for instance.

The grass is lush and green. The flowers alongside the road/trails are all different colors and shapes and sizes. The water looks amazing for the game being made 7 years ago! The place is just so whimsical yet completely realistic. Fantastically fantasy yet surreal-ly real. And the lighting of the sun was the cherry on top. Seeing the vibrant orange of the sunrise or the bright yellow of the mid day sun or the rich rerange (red-orange; pronounced reh-range). The light flickering off of the lake...gosh it just seeps into my soul! That is what I want to make. That is the feeling I want to get across to players with whatever game I make. I want to help make a game that has that feel to it. I think this is what people who don't understand or criticize video games fail to see. People who look briefly at the game then toss it out don't look close enough! LOOK CLOSER! Look at the minute details that the creators made! Take Fable II for example since I'm already ranting about it. Take a look at Bowerstone Market for a sec (picture below).

Now this is a bit more of a posed shot than I wanted to get but it still shows a lot of what I am wanting to say. This is my favorite place in all of Fable II. This town square is fantastic. I love the houses first off. If you just look at them you'll think they are just A-frame roof style houses, but look closer. Do you see the slight curve the roof has? Not only that but the curve gets sharper as it goes further up! Then the tip is flared up slightly more to emphasize the tip of it all! Now look at the upper portion of the houses. Just looking briefly you get the Tudor style of home feel, but what sells it? Why does it have that fantasy feel? If you look at the far right house you'll see it. The outside edge of the wall sections just below the roof are curved inward. Do we see this in real architecture? If you want a house that will collapse then possibly! But no generally not. But in video games there can be anything! The walls could be floating off the ground and the designers will just call it magic or magicka or haunted or you name it! Something I have noticed as I pay closer attention to the environments of video games is that every town has its own theme/design style. I always knew that "Oh well Bowerstone is an upscale town so there's stone and a clock tower and nice houses and stores. And Oakfield is more of a farm town so the houses are more old time farmer houses and there are just little vendors instead of full blown stores, etc etc," but I see now even more into that now. Bowerstone for example has the Tudor style home with the A-frame roof that curves at an increasing slope. Also all of the houses are two story houses whose second story has a hangover someplace and if there is a major shop (Weapons, Clothes, Barber, etc) then it has a building from which it sells. All of the buildings in the Bowerstone Market are worth more than 10,000 gold and all of the windows are the stained glass type of window. From this view I cannot tell if the windows are actually stained glass or not but I know they aren't clear glass. I never have looked into a game as much as I have now to Fable II and I am so glad I did because it's making my mind race with ideas! Even now I'm looking at the clock tower (my favorite structure in Bowerstone Market) and I'm seeing just why it looks so fantastic! The four legs get broader as they reach down, but if you look at the mid section of them you will see that they get skinnier towards the center then broader. Just that aspect alone gives the portion that the players see up close a whole new perspective. The whole tower is not a rectangle all the way to the top either. For one it is tiered and two it gets skinnier as it approaches the top. Then as the upper section reaches the top framing, it flairs out! It is not prominent at all, but just enough so that your eye catches it and you like what you see. I'm not going to get into the lighting because I feel I've geeked out a bit much as is!

I am a dork I realize. Many of you probably think "Wow you have too much time on your hands to look at a game like this" and you are probably right! I have nothing to do, but this is truly fascinating for me! If all of the games I one day create can cause just one person to be blown away like I am now, then that game was a success to me. Gosh, video games hold so much in them that some people just don't see and that makes me so sad. They are just games, but they are also more than just games. They act as escapes from the stresses of life and as conduits of your childhood dreams of being a knight or prince or princess or _________. You fill in the blank. Just because you grow up does not mean you have to let your childhood fantasy dreams go. I know I haven't! I put them into almost every game I play and I've played a lot! 

On a side note since I'm wrapping up, if you are at all interested in what I am making in Landmark I must confess that I haven't played it since I got home. I have been too wrapped up in Fable II! But I will say that my next goal is to recreate the Fable II Bowerstone Market Blacksmith. I don't know if I will be able to but I shall try! So if you are interested in seeing that check back every day or two to see my progress! Now that I am done with calculus I should be less stressed and less busy so I can write more often. I'll post pictures and such and I'll probably talk more about the other games I've been playing! Thanks all who have made it this far! Follow me if you liked this blog or follow me on twitter! My profile name is The Engineer or look up @AllTheWifeSteal (League of Legends Thresh Reference and also my summoner name). I only use twitter for Landmark, but I'll happily accept anyone who wants to follow me! I'll talk to you all later! Have a fantastic day!