General Discussion

Nick LaMertina, a Sound Designer for Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's Stargate Worlds has written a fantastic blog post over at the game's official site. We have asked for permission to re-publish it here at MMORPG.com as it serves as a grreat example of a developer struggling to do the best job possible on a project and also of an artist struggling to ply his trade in the games industry.

There are some days things just plain refuse to work, and fault never lies with just one person or circumstance. The software is crashing, the MIDI routing hiccups, the instrument doesn’t perform as expected, or there’s an unannounced support task that inhibits or destroys my momentum. Or sometimes it’s even an outside issue (or frequently, issues) that affects my composure at work.

It’s often frustrating when I’m trying to accomplish something, and I know, I just know, that I’m fully capable of delivering the goal I have in mind, but one roadblock after another comes up and inhibits my progress. Sometimes it’s my own fear of failure (or success!) that holds me back. It’s very easy to get discouraged and feel like the end goal is an impossible task and not worth pushing to, especially when dealing with an art as emotional as music. It’s frequently a lonely experience, speaking, reading, and writing in a language that most can only topically understand, and no matter how much I try to disconnect myself from the work, I’ve never been able to reduce that emotional bond to my work. It is singularly my greatest strength and my most significant weakness.

Read it all here.

Although it has nothing to do with the game in in anyway, it was a great read. 

Kind of makes you step back and ask yourself "do I really like what I do for a living?" 

In the end, it only matters if you like what you're doing.  No one else's opinion should change that.

Thanks for posting this, it was a great read.

EDIT-  Don't mean to be a burden, but you spelled great and play wrong.

We have asked for permission to re-publish it here at MMORPG.com as it serves as a grreat example of a developer struggling to do the best job possible on a project and also of an artist struggling to ply his trade in the games industry."

That guy loves what he's doing. Check out the video about how he's making different sounds for one single object, it's quite impressive. So far, SGW seems to be paying alot of attention to little details.

Good read. I go to music school as well... and I'm looking to showcase my work for the industry soon. Theirs times when the technology involved in music, especially nowdadays with sequencers/midi and I suppose coding when you get to games, that it gets really overwhelming. I'm not too tech savy, but I know that having some knowledge of it will definitely be important in getting my music into games. So, yeah, I appreciate the read. The love of music will keep me going even when technology rears it's annoying face.

technology is good! but I hasten to understand it.

nah 'ply' is a word lol :P

think its similar to 'apply'

ply   // ", "6"); interfaceflash.addParam("loop", "false"); interfaceflash.addParam("quality", "high"); interfaceflash.addParam("menu", "false"); interfaceflash.addParam("salign", "t"); interfaceflash.addParam("FlashVars", "soundUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fcache.lexico.com%2Fdictionary%2Faudio%2Fluna%2FP05%2FP0562200.mp3"); interfaceflash.write(); // ]]>  Audio Help   /pla?/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[plahy] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, plied, ply·ing. –verb (used with object)

If you are going to correct someone's mistakes, make sure you know what you are writing about.

Oops, my bad.  I thought he was using the word "play" instead of "ply", my vocabulary isn't very deep. 

Sorry, my mistake

"Basically this is a really long way of saying that I wrote something cool this week and I’m really, really excited about what I’m accomplishing with it."

That's cool.

yeah... I majored in art and minored in music.  So I guess thats full time gas station attendant, part time fast food server. 

I need to hurry up and finish new portfolio for next job run.