Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General The hard life of a game programmer shrimpo's story

Well seems that our favorite shrimp is keeping at dairy of his days at Larain. (interesting read). Not much new things (couple of screenshots) but if you want to know how the inside a a gamedevelopers studio works this is your cup of tea. Only in dutch. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" />

Helleuh!

Crash!
Poor Kris I know exactly how you feel. And at our school we don't call it bad karma. We have a similar name for it X-radiation (the X stands for the name of a person Who can crash a PC by looking at it (realy just looking at it) We have to keep him grounded in the computerlabs )
Magic

Seems they have been up all night to prepare a demo for the game magazines (PC Gamer).So whoever suggested in a previous thread to have a demo in PC Gamer has to live with it that they made the larians stay up and work till 5 hours in the morning. So have a good night sleep larians you more then deserve it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

fun to read isn't it

Not for those not capable of Dutch, isn't it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

But lucky that I speak Dutch, isn't it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, I've been reading it now, and it's really fun ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Although I didn't understand everything, the overall tone was noticeable for me - "bad Karma" ... "chaotisch Testing" ... etc. . <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />

And "very very soon" sound for me like beginning of March. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Alrik.

P.S.: Will there be more parts of that series ? I'm quite eager now to read them ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

idd and maybe sooner. Theire working around the clock to have the demo ready for a mag like PC gamer,... . Probably for in the march issue. So the demo needs to be theire before march for the presses. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

And I also hope theire will be more of Shrimpo's stories. He has a unique way at looking at things. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

I loved Shrimptv on the television, I still remember the part where they tested out the gamecube.

Well I'm pretty bored right now so i'll translate it for you guys <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
check back in a li'l while

translation "Helleuh"
Most of you will probably have been wondering what was going on with me the last few months, it has been a long time since I last had written anything for Shrimplife.
The wildest speculations went around, my favorite was that I was abducted by the Russian Government in order to perform scientific experiments concering the influence of games on someone's brain .... well that was almost correct!
The reason why I've stayed in the background in Happy Happy GameShrimpLand is beacause I'm helping my buddies at Larian with getting beyond Divinity out in time! The games has to go gold very soon so we are very busy with laying the final foundations (translation a bit odd). You know, the one's that weigh the heaviest !

But what does El Shrimpo do there instead of making alot of noise? Well, I thought it was intresting to stand on the other side of the game industry. After 7 years of standing on the side of the press it seemed pretty funky to stand on the other side of the battlefield : the game developers. So I didn't hesitatie when Lar asked if I wanted to do QA for BD, it intressted me tremendously to actually help make a game and see it go gold, with all the stress and bloodshed that precedes that

Maybe you find it instresting as well to see a behind the scenes look of what goes on in a game dev's studio. it's the last few weeks before the gold status, so i'll propose to lar if I can't make a diary, it could be intresting! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Shrimpers that were happy that there was so little Shrimpo around SG these last few months, too bad (ehm...can't translate the ryhming part <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ) ... Soon enough I'll be back in full force! Nastier than ever <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

thx for being bored........and ......I will! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

translation of crash!

<i>At the moment Shrimpo is at his buddies with Larian studies to help them with finoshing BD, this is his diary of what happens behind the screen with the creators of DivDiv while they lay the last foundations to their new game!
</i>

What is my job exactly with Larian studios? Well officialy i'm the QA Manger, which is an exaggerated name for : Quality Control. It comes down to the fact that I have to make sure that the game is fun to play, nothing more, nothing less. The story of BD plays out in 4 big acts, and yesterday i left act 3 behind me and thus i made my first few steps into act4. This means that ACT3 in it's current state is 'playable' and fun if i'm done with it and that therefore testers can be start with it. For a few weeks we have had 3 or 4 testers a day here and the testers today where the fist victims to test out act3


The first few tesdays on a "fresh" act are always chaotic and today wasn't and exception; there was one tester hoe had alot of crashes during the loading of savegames. No problem, i gave those savegames to our L33T bugsquasher; Krist Taeleman. This 23 year old codemonkey from Ternat usualy manages to kill the most persistant bugs without alot of trouble but today he suffered...*grin*...the 'crashing savegames' worked perfectly on his computer en no matter what he tried the crashing tester kept on crashing. After countles tries and hours later poor Kris was getting desperate and he proposed an Uber Fix : "That tester has bad karma, get him out of the testroom pls!

Below is a foto of a pretty emotional Kris <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

translation of magic

(same title as before)

Had a busy day today because the BD demo had to go to the big [nocando] magazines (pc gamer and the likes)so most larian Imps had to work trough the night!(the hard life of a game programmer). While everyone here was occoupied with the demo, I took a look at act4. The fact that the lead story designer Bronthion was standing a suspicouly large omount of time at my desk made me assume that act4 was his (wrong translation i know) Parade horse (just his prime stuff you know).
And after playing one day on act4, I can't blame him! I refuse to give out details so I can't spoil anything, but I can say that it IS 'different' <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Kris, the coder that had a crisis yesterday from the Bad Karma tester worked until 5 in the morning on the demo, and that has left it's mark! This morning he changed some stuff on the treasure generation of magical items resulting in me findingd a very nice ring on a creature, look for yourself on this screenshot, LOL ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />



phew, not bored anymore

Thats awesome, thanks Yannos! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />

No problem, i know it's filled with mistakes and typo's but it's easier to mess up when translating something directly, so sorry for that!

Thanks ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Thanks Morbo, it's very interesting. And like Alrik i would like to read the sequel of this story.

@ Yannos
Many, many, many thanks for the translation.

@ Yannos
Thanks very much for the translation

@Shrimpo
Thanks very very much for you allowing us to see into the studio thro your eyes. Hope you enjoy act4.

very enjoyable read.... two <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> and thanks to all who made it possible,

including you....bad karma guy! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

I'll translate the upcoming articles too

meaning, the demo has been shipped.

Does he really write "the big [nocando] magazines" ? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />