(Part 2) Best computer & video game strategy guides according to redditors
We found 3,128 Reddit comments discussing the best computer & video game strategy guides. We ranked the 830 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?! LOOK AT THIS MOTHERFUCKER. THE ARTWORK IS GOING TO BE FUCKING FABULOUS. ALL 660 PAGES OF HARDBACK GLORY.
I paid around 100 AUD for the complete set.
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1783293233?ref_=pe_2361882_297267902_302_E_DDE_dt_1
Not sure if the link gonna work, but it’s called Skyrim library volume 1-3. Purchasing them separately will cost you more but each will have distinct cover if I didn’t remember wrong.
Amazon links for the lazy:
Art of Game Design, 2nd Edition
Designing Virtual Worlds
A Theory of Fun
3D Game Engine Design
Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications
There's a nice book detailing the early years of Blizzard, Stay Awhile and Listen
If you like physical books, you can get the Skyrim Library. There are three volumes, and they have all the in-game books inside them, along with pictures and drawings and such.
https://www.amazon.com/Skyrim-Library-Volumes-III-Box/dp/1783293233/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503914815&sr=8-1&keywords=the+skyrim+library
The Master Handbook of Acoustics is a solid choice.
You can apparently get the Fifth Edition for $10 used.
You have to understand at the time, that the idea of just moving something on your own home TV screen was amazing. The graphics sucked compared to the arcade games but it was the best we could have at home, without having to put a quarter in for each play.
Arcade games at the time weren't very complex either. The Atari could generally duplicate the game mechanics of many games even if they looked like poor copies. Games on the Atari also did innovate. Pitfall may seem lame today but imagine it coming out in a world before platform games were common. A world where just rendering a player that looked somewhat human was a graphic breakthrough.
Atari was a phenomenon at the peak of the early 80s video game boom. It may be hard to believe but yeah we got genuinely excited about the games. The two player games were probably the best, since anything resembling "AI" was barely possible. Single player games usually used patterns for the bad guys (common in the arcade too) and getting a new high score was the goal. My brothers and had a book where we recorded the family high scores and we were always trying to beat each other.
Games were almost entirely skill based. The system couldn't handle new graphics for later levels, so everything is very similar throughout the games. There is no sense of beating a level to see the next. Pitfall impressed us because it had 256 screens, which were just rearrangements of a few types of hazards, but still it blew our minds.
The 2600 doesn't hold up, it's an early system with very basic games. The novelty to me is in how much they were able to accomplish with such limited hardware. In particular Activision pushed the system way beyond what Atari itself was producing. The book Racing the Beam offers an in depth look at how some of the games were made. It's really almost a kind of video sorcery. Nothing like how modern systems work.
When you look at the Atari you are looking at the formative years of home gaming. Games were simple but novel because they had never been seen before.
After the video game bust, those of us who were still playing moved on to 8 bit computers which were much closer to the NES in terms of gaming. The expanded amount of storage (160KB per disk side on a Commodore 64!) allowed for games with multiple levels and differing graphics. Computer gaming also gave rise to more sophisticated genres such as RPGs and strategy games.
I still play the 8bit computer stuff once in awhile as well as NES and beyond, but the Atari is only rolled out for the occasional bout of nostalgia. Even when playing with one of my brothers, the most we can stomach is a match or two of Combat or a round of Demon Attack.
You're correct, Atari games ARE generally poor in comparison to what came later. The best you can do these days is to try to appreciate them in context of where video gaming was at in the late 70s and early 80s. And also understand that these first steps directly led to the video games we have today.
One thing you can do to keep these things under control is to purposely limit yourself in your design. Almost any CCG in existence has some sort of underlying design principles that guide what a card can and cannot be, or what a certain faction in the game can and cannot do or be good/bad at. How strong the average creature is, versus how strong the average weapon will be. How many turns you want the game to last, what expected deck size would be and how many cards you want to draw on average per turn.
The magic color pie is an example of one such limitation. Certain colors are good at certain things and not so good at other things. In addition there are the general playstyles that Magic's core design enables such as control, aggro, etc.
There is also some base level balancing for monster cards: a monster of a given strength will typically cost X mana, whereas a monster with a lot of utility will not typically also have high attack.
When you have these core rules in place, it becomes a lot easier to design new cards and get their initial stats right. When a new monster's attack is 3 higher than the average, you already know that it's gonna have to be expensive or have some other significant drawback. You'll already know not to give abilities that are typical of green cards to a new red card unless you have a good reason to do so.
For any given game, what these limitations and guidelines are is going to be radically different, so I can't help you much there. Generally though, you want a decent level of theoretical balancing on these core systems before you even begin to think about designing any detailed cards. Getting into the details before you know how and if your core systems work is a great way to waste a ton of time. Most of all, you need to have a goal for the card you are designing. What is is intended to achieve in the game? What strategies do you want it to enable or counter? From there, and with good core systems, the card will partly design and balance itself.
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As for "pre-balancing", there are a couple tools available.
Guild Wars 2 promised all of these "dynamic events" yet they're just scripted to run at certain points.
You don't need some fancy "AI" working in the background. EVE doesn't have any of that shit. EVE's politics are completely player-run and the game generates stories so interesting, they have been made into real books.
Designing Visual Worlds by Bartle
Theory of Fun for Game Design by Koster is a classic and still largely valid
Tutorials
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Libgdx Specific
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LWGJL Specific
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Engines, Frameworks, Libraries
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Source
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Books
Lets include more nonsense in this pointless debate.
4e D&D outsells Pathfinder!
4e Amazon Sales Rank: #4,549
Pathfinder Amazon Sales Rank: #14,423
Lets all just play the game you enjoy. Who cares which sells better.
It ties back to the concept of restriction as a source of creativity.
To see this fully illustrated, read "Racing the Beam", which is largely concerned with how the basic and confined platform the Atari 2600 provided to the first game programmers directly inspired and influenced modern definitions of genre and expression in the medium.
http://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Collectors-Official/dp/0307891402/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0/177-4086967-1351123
To clarify, KotOR 1 and 2 are direct ports of the original d20 Star Wars game. The link above is to a later version of the game that doesn't match exactly.
This is the version KotOR used.
Wizards of the Coast did it for you in 2002. http://www.amazon.com/Revised-Core-Rulebook-Star-Roleplaying/dp/078692876X
Warcraft Archive includes:
Day of the Dragon (post-Warcraft 2, alliance perspective)
Lord of the Clans (pre-Warcraft 3, horde perspective)
The Last Guardian (non-combat Warcraft 1 perspective)
Of Blood and Honor (pre-Warcraft 3, alliance perspective)
War of the Ancients archive
Well of Eternity, The Demon Soul, The Sundering
Background on the conflict surrounding the Burning Legion that led into their motivation in Warcraft 3.
Rise of the Horde for pre-all Warcraft games, Horde perspective.
Holy shit!! Thank you!!! I could afford the hardcover now <3 <3 <3
Link for the outlaws: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1911015540/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Have you read Empires of Eve?
It's an entire book about the rise and fall of Eve's Corporations and all the politics, espionage and backstabbing that accompanies their conflicts.
Expensive but beautiful. I hope this means Amazon will have it soon, because that's my jam. My search didn't find it yet though. I also hope good ole fashion competition means they will drive the price down :-)
EDIT: found the placeholder - thanks Anthonok
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015214/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_qELPybN3NCCPW
Two books (and you can google talks by the authors).
Jesse Schelle - a book explicitly based on pattern languages (from Alexander's A Pattern Language)
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965
Richard Bartle - how do design virtual worlds / types of players / motivations / etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bartle+designing+online+worlds&amp;qid=1554913435&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1-spell
Both have given talks, etc. etc. etc. that are online, but both books are superb.
I can provide lots more to look at but those pretty much bracket what you are asking for and both authors are VERY knowledgeable.
Bartle was the co-author of the first shared world game, for example.
There are a number of resources on early game development. If you're interested in Atari 2600 games (games were 2K or 4K of ROM, the system had 128 bytes of RAM) there's a wonderful book called Racing the Beam:
http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X
It goes deep into the technical details of several Atari games.
There's also been a lot written about the Apple II Prince of Persia, as Jordan Mechner released the source on Github a couple years ago:
https://github.com/jmechner/Prince-of-Persia-Apple-II
Fabien Sanglard has been doing a detailed code review on his blog.
Looking at how much time and money they put into building their cities throughout the years (this book covers it in detail, but trust me it's a lot) I doubt they'd do it for a $20 expansion.
Awesome. He plugs Racing the Beam, which is a phenomenal book and digs into more details.
this is the book
Chapter 5: Dynamic Layer, Page 68 which summarised the points I mentioned into cheaters (winning yes, game integrity no) and spoilsport (winning no, game integrity no)
I can only recommend this book, the first half is solely about game design and what developers need to look out for.
There are many game series and developers that I've fallen in love with, that I thought would always be on my instant-buy list. Most of those have either fallen in quality or my tastes have changed, but Rockstar is still a developer that I'll snatch up every new game.
GTA 1 and 2 I remember playing hours of on the PC. They were a blast to play, but were fucking hard! So mostly I spent time just causing chaos.
What I remember most in GTA 2 is that I'd drive around, find a bunch of big vehicles like buses and cluster them together. Then get out and blow one up, causing a nice chain reaction. I don't think I ever got very far in either of the games due to the difficulty.
So when I first saw the commercials for GTA 3 I was excited. I remember seeing the cars driving around to a classical music sound track, but not really expecting it to be as revolutionary as it was. I had played the Driver game on PS1, and figured it was going to be very similar.
Boy was I wrong. GTA 3 amazed me at just how open a video game world could be. I could clearly see why it was called a sandbox game. Sure, the missions were there, and I played through them, but the open world with all that you could see and do was something new to me.
I clearly remember messing around between missions, hitting jumps, blowing cars up, jumping and jumping until I got over a short wall, or grabbing a large truck and jumping up onto it in order to reach an otherwise unreachable area.
Everything about it at the time was amazing: the graphics, the game world, the driving mechanics, the radio stations with their wacky commercials and talk radio station. Even the mission structure, where you had some choice over which story line you wanted to contiue next. Or the ability to just ignore the missions for a while and just fuck around.
As some have pointed out, it wasn't the first "sandbox" game, but it really defined it. Much as DOOM wasn't the first FPS, but it really kicked off the genre.
I've bought GTA 3 on pretty much every platform imaginable, and I'm now finishing it once again on Android. Even though it's aged the poorest of the three PS2-era games, with it's lack of motorcycles, true flying vehicles (sorry Dodo) and some of the other advances made in the sequels, it's still enjoyable for me to jump into and explore.
edit:
By the way, I HIGHLY recommend this book to any fellow GTA nuts:
http://www.amazon.com/Jacked-Outlaw-Story-Grand-Theft/dp/0470936371
It goes through the time period of Rockstar when they were still DMA Designs, up through GTA IV. It also includes some of the controversy the series has gone through, including good ol' Jack Thompson. Everyone seems to praise the author's other book "Masters of Doom" about id software, but I found Jacked to be much more interesting.
You can get the 4th edition PHB for only $20.
I always bought previous edition textbooks in college to save money. Shouldn't I be able to do the same with D&D?
edit: /s
I understand now - sorry. I thought you were making a joke about the dice system because it is so free-flowing. I get it now. You did lay your complaints out clearly. I thought you were asking ironically. :)
I personally think that this system is so heavily narrative that it is not going to appeal to everyone. It just isn't. For me, it's breathed fresh air into a hobby that I really didn't care about anymore and caused me to discover a number of narrative-style systems and I find the complication of every single roll to be interesting and fun. I was so tired of just hitting or not and just playing math against terrain, conditions, and ultimately baddie hit points.
It sounds like you favor the "strategic" side of role-playing more than the creative nature of storytelling - and I've said this before on this sub, that's totally ok. There is no shame in playing the game the way you like it! I don't know that there's a way to address the complaints you have for the system without tearing out parts of the spirit of the game. For me, limiting how Advantage/Disadvantage and Triumph/Despair can affect every kind of roll is limiting the game potential both from a mechanical and a player perspective.
Have you played Star Wars d20 or Star Wars Saga before? It sounds like these systems would appeal to you far more than FFG's narrative dice system. They're d20 based and lend heavily to a grid map battle system and a simple "hit or not" system. They've got the Star Wars feel (especially Saga) with that tried and true "roll a d20 and add some stuff and simply hit or not" method of gaming.
Hope this helps - and sorry again for the confusion on your post. :)
TL;DR: The conflict over "power users" is due to the fundamental anonymity mismatch created by a site that creates usernames, tracks user involvement but permits no user identification or community beyond 15 characters and two scores. If you care to learn more, read on. If you don't, the following will bore the shit out of you.
I've given this a lot of thought. I've been fortunate to befriend an extremely intelligent social media guru (in the academic sense, not the SEO sense) and the reading list I've gotten off of her has been illuminating as fuck. The following theory owes its creation to the following books:
You are not a gadget
Predictably Irrational
Reality is Broken
The Starfish and the Spider
Further discussion can be found here and here. I realize it's pretty goddamn rude to front-load a conversation with a bibliography and footnotes but I want to emphasize that this is not something I treat flippantly. I have never had as much influence over the behavior of the world as I feel we all do at Reddit and the behaviors we see and experience are, in my opinion, a new social ground that deserves study. Using the 10/10 rule, I believe that public forums such as Reddit are likely to become the preeminent form of communication in the future and wrapping one's head around the foibles and failings of the medium while it still remains the domain of the early adopter is an investment that will pay off in spades going forward.
First off, the statement "everybody wants to take the idols down a notch" is indisputable truth, for varying values of "everybody." I would say that messages of support are far more likely to come in via PM and that messages of disparagement are far more likely to come in via public forum. The end result is that "take the idols down a notch" is a socially-condoned behavior while "worshipping the idols" is something that will generally get you shunned. The exception is when Reddit at large is busily worshipping you - post something that Reddit loves and people saying "I love this redditor" will get upvoted. Even then, however, the number of PMs of support you get is generally 5x the number of public accolades. The prevailing culture of Reddit is very much aligned with the (apocryphal?) Japanese proverb "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down."
The reason this attitude prevails is due to the tripartite nature of Reddit and the incongruities it causes. Reddit is, at once and simultaneously,
No one place can be all three of those things without friction.
From a "news" perspective, Reddit could be compared to, say, Gizmodo. The difference is that Gizmodo is a top-down, conventional news site where a select few insiders produce content for a sea of outsiders. The boundary is obvious there - if your name is on the article, you're a for-pay employee. The criticism heaped upon Gizmodo is entirely appropriate because they're journalists. Letters to the Editor date back to the Revolutionary War. Reddit, however, has most of the same characteristics as Gizmodo, minus the editorial wall. So whereas "yell at the name you recognize" is a tradition well-served and understood in the world of journalism, in the everyone-as-editor world of Reddit "yell at the name you recognize" tends to concentrate the insults from those who contribute the least on those who are contributing the most.
From a "video game" perspective, Reddit might as well be Farmville. We see each other's scores growing and when someone else's score grows vastly faster than ours, we're likely to presume they're cheating (particularly when the rules of the game are largely secret and passed down amongst users primarily via folklore). Reddit is also one of the least-rewarding video games ever created, as there are no multicolored sprites or triumphant marches played when a comment or submission scores well. As such, the "hipsterism" of Reddit promotes attacks on those with high karma because, after all, only nerds would spend so much time on a video game that can't even hold a candle to Pac Man. Finally, scores on Reddit are highlighted prominently and are an intrinsic part of the "game" even though the scores hold absolutely no value. Reddit puts "players" in a gold-farming frame of mind without giving them anything to spend their gold on.
Reddit falls apart the most as a "social site." Unlike standard PHPBB communities, you can click on a username and learn exactly nothing about them on Reddit. You can't even see what their top contributions have been. Reddit awards users with a "trophy" for verifying an email address - which occupies the same lofty perch as producing the top daily comment or top daily post on a site with 500,000 users. Reddit is barely removed from the 100% anonymity provided by 4chan - with the exception of the "power users." The fact that we borrowed the term from Digg (where it meant something) and use it here (where it totally doesn't) only makes matters worse, particularly when combined with the poorly-understood mechanisms of Reddit's anti-spam filters. Most Redditors presume that they get a "posting too fast" warning in any given subreddit because they lack the karma to bypass the filter. When I mention it, people are usually flabbergasted that I run into the same problem, despite having a top 20 or 30 combined karma score of all time.
And it's the anonymity mismatch that causes the biggest problem, in my estimation. Ask any redditor to name 5 reddit accounts other than his own and he'll have a hard time. Of those he remembers, dollars to donuts they'll be names that he either a) sees a lot or b) really pissed him off in a flamewar at some point. The rest of it is entirely too anonymous to remember. Probably half of p-dub's comment karma comes from people upvoting him so they could say "do your homework." Probably 3/4ths of L3mm1w1nkz's comment karma comes from his signature "PS I am a shithead." Gimli_the_dwarf, despite having a lot to say and extremely insightful posts, is going to be remembered for "And my axe." This is why novelty accounts flourish on Reddit - they're easy to recognize, easy to remember, and easy to reward.
The flip-side, of course, is they're also easy to punish. The reason Randall doesn't post as xkcd any more, if I had to guess, is that as soon as people decided that xkcd wasn't indisputably funny people jumped on him. That's why so very many of the names that were prominent on this site a year ago are now gone - the opportunities for interaction are so very rare that -
They also released a physical collection of select titles, but its a lot of really good picks.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1783293233/
It's so political someone wrote a book on some of the biggest wars and the politics and events that lead up to them. https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1493555914&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=Eve+online
EVE is nuts and I love the tales that come from it but I've bounced off of it like 3 or 4 times at this point.
Some other people here can probably give you a better answer...But anyways...
Honestly you aren't "new" to computer programming if you've done some Java. I think the best route will be to learn about computer graphics by playing around with OpenGl and all the minor details of C++ you can pick up as you go. (OpenGL is written in C).
As a source this book is a standard university textbook on computer graphics. Don't get the newer edition just get the older edition(linked in previous sentence). You won't learn C++ or OpenGL but the theory behind computer graphics. If you want to get a deeper understanding of OpenGL and have a very good reference by you then consider getting "OpenGL Programming Guide". You could borrow it form a library and return it if you decide it is not for you.
Here is a course taught by Stanford on computer graphics. They are probably one of the top universities when it comes to research in computer graphics and they are involved heavily with some of the largest animation companies such as Pixar. In this course they also cover basic OpenGL.
Here is another course which is more theory and less biased when it comes to a graphics library such as OpenGL (meaning expect to not learn OpenGL but the theory behind computer graphics in this course).
I am assuming by "MechE" you mean mechanical engineer. If so I think you be well positioned because a lot of the mathematics (differential equations, linear algebra, calculus, etc...) you will have a very good understand of which will be really helpful.
Good luck!
EDIT: Correction the lecture series above is from UCBerkley
EDIT: OpenGL is written in C
I'd say it's pretty likely ;)
Edit: Indigo just launched it, and now Amazon has updated the cover photo :).
Right now the hardback is 25.46 for prime members on Amazon.
Red Dead Redemption 2: The Complete Official Guide Collector's Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4pSXBb5HA4YPQ
Divided Kingdoms
I've been very busy at work, so development time was limited this week:
After reading a book on AI (Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI) and a book on emergence (Emergence in Games), I started reading Game Design Workshop; it's a great book so far. I want to read Designing Virtual Worlds next.
See you next week!
These are leaning towards the design and development side, but I would recommend The Art of Game Design and Designing Virtual Worlds. The former is a reference of patterns and questions for game design (including board and tabletop games), while the latter is focused on the design of MMOs and MUDs but the concepts can apply to other things like your typical shooter multiplayer.
> http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Game-Programming-Andrew-Davison/dp/0596007302#immersive-view_1419346106105
Could that be outdated though? Given it came out almost 10 years ago?
You should mention if you are interested in 2D or 3D.
Introductory Sites___
http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/xnacsharp.php
http://rbwhitaker.wikidot.com/xna-tutorials
Books_
http://www.amazon.com/XNA-Game-Programming-Recipes-Problem-Solution/dp/143021855X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1303535910&amp;sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1303535939&amp;sr=1-2
Also I know XNA/C# pretty well so feel free to send me a PM if you have any direct questions.
Yes, there are definitely some scholars that are pursuing projects like this, but I don't think they've necessarily congealed into a proper subdiscipline. You might find some more stuff done around "histories of technology" or archiving: for example, there are some that practice it, like those at Archive.org and people like Jason Scott of Archive Team, or practice in an artistic sense, like Olia Lialina.
As far as more academic scholarship goes, I'm thinking back to a conference a couple years ago to a panel I really liked on Computer Histories (see http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit7/subs/agenda.html for more details). Sandra Braman's work was really cool, and Kevin Driscoll is a classmate of mine whose work I really admire (another cool article he recently put out was a history of databases (From Punched Cards to "Big Data": A Social History of Database Populism). Nick Montfort, the moderator of that panel, has also done some cool work around video game histories, notably Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System.
I'd encourage anyone interested to check out Racing The Beam. It goes into detail how some of the early programmers got as much as they did out of the 2600. The chapter on PitFall! is really great.
My best award on the subject goes to:
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274
Otherwise, I like how the balance is described in
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Games-Guide-Engineering-Experiences/dp/1449337937/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1492365738&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=designing+games
and
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Lenses-Second/dp/1466598646/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1492365764&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=art+of+game+design
This question is covered extensively and IMHO accurately in the first half of Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken". In short, games are not simply a 'better' version of books and movies. They are a 'better' version of real life. Comparing games to books/films/music is comparing apples to oranges.
Games are engineered to provide reliable and reasonable reward for the player's effort in ways that real life does not provide, and in ways other mediums do not even attempt to provide. Succeeding at a goal in a game and getting the corresponding reward has absolutely no corollary in books or film (no agency). In real life, we often work hard for no payoff, and that is a negative feedback loop. Games are (pretty much by definition) constructed as as a positive feedback loop where smart choices and hard work lead to success. They feed that deep-seated need in us as human beings. Books and movies can entertain (passively, statically), but they are a completely different animal than games, which respond to the (active, dynamic) hard work of the player and reward them (actively, dynamically) when they have accomplished their goal.
[Edit: Competing in a sport is a game exactly as much as a video game or a game of chess. They are all artificial scenarios where you are presented with challenges and the agency to overcome those challenges.]
Why read them in the game when you can read them IRL ?
The Legend of Zelda BOTW Piggyback Deluxe guide now availble on Amazon US
https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Breath-Complete-Official/dp/1911015214/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1487351890&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=the+legend+of+zelda+breath+of+the+wild+the+complete+official+guide
Almost definitely not
Back in the day game development almost never paid royalties, it was usually an up-front and milestone payments, or a lump sum upon completion. Many game devs were using the payment from the publisher for their last game to pay salaries to develop their next game
If you're interested, "Stay Awhile and Listen" is a pretty great book covering the origins of Blizzard North, including their history of developing shovelware on contract to afford to develop later games
I'd recommend reading Reality is Broken - Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal. Goes into how reward systems work, especially arbitrary ones like video games.
Well in terms of social interaction gaming, I think more real-life games will be created and played in the future. I'm currently reading a great book called Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal which goes in depth into how games are better at stimulating us than the world is and how alternate/augmented reality games will become much more popular as we start to gamify real-life.
Narratives that derive from game mechanics, in my opinion, exemplify what makes games great. There is nothing better than creating your own story within a game's playground.
Games like Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, where you develop a grudge with that one random Orc that keeps killing you and eventually becomes a warlord. Or games like EVE, which has it's own book on the wars purely created by the playerbase, not by game plot. Or games like Darkest Dungeon where the game creates stories for your heroes, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown where you create stories for your heroes. Even loot games like Diablo or Borderlands, where you can talk about how you got that one epic sword or gun. The plot of these games doesn't make them great - the gameplay narrative does.
Don't get me wrong - some amazing story-driven adventures have come out of video games. We have The Last of Us, Bioshock, Mass Effect, The Witcher, Spec Ops: The Line, Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, and more. They definitely have their place in gaming. But when I'm capable of creating my own story that I can tell my friends about, that was derived from game mechanics and not game writers? That's satisfying. That's what makes games great. And those are the games I can play over and over again.
One of the most important aspects of game design is that the story should always be written first, with the design and technology then being informed by the story. What you need to do is come up with the game you want to make (which hopefully is also a game you think other people will have fun playing), after which you can create a design plan / feature list / implementation plan from that.
I suggest you read The Art of Game Design for general game design information and Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds for MUD-specific information. That's probably a good first step for getting you into serious MUD development.
Edit: link formatting
If you haven't already I highly recommend Racing the Beam. It goes into detail about how the thing was programmed and how the constraints of the system informed gameplay.
The book, Racing the Beam, is a great look into the hardware and programming of the Atari 2600, and it talks a lot about this sort of stuff. It's fascinating.
Another book worth adding
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Joris Dormans and Ernest Adams
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
I'll go ahead and recommend my own book. It's a bit intensive, and is primarily designed for university game design programs, but I've had good reports from many just getting started with game design using it too.
As others have said, Tracy Fullerton's book and Jesse Schell's are also very good. I don't know if either is going to give you the structure you might need though.
Oh, I'll definitely recommend Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development by Jeremy Gibson Bond. He takes you through the basics of both game design and development in Unity, which may be particularly helpful to you.
No, because a lot of people have said so ranging from countless writers, critics, and developers. Did you even read the story below the Sessler sound bite? There's nothing to prove about it being satire. If you're offended by Grand Theft Auto, which you clearly are, you should be. It's intentional.
A much better source of information will be Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, by the author of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, which comes out next month
You might like to read Jacked: The Outlaw Story of GTA as it talks about Rockstar's struggle with content development and the censorship battle they faced. And it's a pretty fun book. :-)
The Warcraft Archive has it, along with "Day of the Dragon", "Lord of the Clans", and "The Last Guardian".
Edit: The Archives (the above, the War of the Ancients one, and the Chronicles of War one) all combine 3-4 of the early paperbacks into one book, and certainly help with finding some of the (now likely out-of-print) earlier paperbacks.
make a game with XNA?
or maybe some books? So many more to choose from...
Head first C#
Learning-XNA-4.0
I found this book to be good for beginners:
http://www.amazon.ca/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1333982472&amp;sr=8-1
Covers 2D and 3D development in XNA.
I'll start off with some titles that might not be so apparent:
Unexpected Fundamentals
These 2 books provide much needed information about making reusable patterns and objects. These are life saving things! They are not language dependent. You need to know how to do these patterns, and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to implement them in your chosen language.
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Good General book
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This book is great if you're going to make a browser based game
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General Knowledge books
&nbsp;
Provide a working moveable 3D model with C++ and DirectX, Very cool.
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More general game base building
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Working product results books, little if any modification needed
Releasing in a couple months (hopefully) 2 Very good books using C++ to develop by.
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Not presented in the best manner but still noteworthy:
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I used to love XNA...but now it's not feasible for commercial development. If you're a beginner to game design...starting out with XNA might actually be useful. It's easy to pickup and put out a working product. XNA is C#
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Working product books, modification needed to make run on current systems
Provides a working FPS game in C++ on DirectX 9. Good for some starting out knowledge for an FPS
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Good for 3D Terrain rendering in DX9...however much of this is outdated...some concepts still apply, and it's not the worst idea to see a working example.
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TLDR: Click links starting at top, buy, read, profit
How about a book? F. Alton Everest/Ken Pohlmann - Master Handbook of Acoustics
Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms is a superb book (the author is well known in the industry). Very detailed, very factual and all about how you'll hear the music in a room. Tons of data and graphs from studies and measurements. Deliciously, also has details on how the specs of a product can be manipulated. You can see a shorter paper by the same author at Loudspeakers and Rooms for Sound
Reproduction—A Scientific Review.
Master Handbook of Acoustics is also good.
I know this isn't an Internet resource, but if you're interested in learning Unity and game design at all, this book by Jeremy Gibson is really helpful. He actually used to be one of my professors in college, and he was an amazing instructor. This book is a great resource to get started. I know it's a bit of an investment, but definitely something you won't regret.
You might be interested in this book, dated but still quite relevant. Has a nice animation framework that it walks you through:
https://www.amazon.com/Killer-Game-Programming-Andrew-Davison/dp/0596007302
There are free draft chapters online:
http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/%7Ead/jg/
First, I'd recommend that you keep the box and all of the components in good condition, so you can consider re-selling it once you're done with it. The Red Box seems to be out of print and is selling for far above its $20 MSRP, and if you can recoup some of the money you spent on it to buy some resources that will have more lasting value, it might be worth it (depending on how highly you value your time), since you will have little use for most of the contents of the box once you're through with the initial adventure.
Or, if it's not too late, you may want to cancel your order. The Starter Set is a relatively gentle introduction to D&D, but not necessarily the best one and certainly not the cheapest.
To prepare, you might want to read, and have everyone else read, the quick start rules. You can also have the players choose pre-generated characters from that document and print off the corresponding character sheets. The Red Box method of character creation involves running through a solo "choose-your-own-adventure" book, which you might not want to do 3 or 4 times in succession for each of your players. Note that the the quick start rules uses slightly different versions of the character classes presented in the Red Box, but the characters/systems are compatible.
You will not immediately need to create your own group adventure, as one is included with the Starter Set.
Also, as an alternative to the Starter Set, /u/Dracoprimus posted a bunch of links to free adventures. You can also choose to run one of these adventures after you finish with the Red Box.
However, neither those those links nor the Red Box will not give you the resources needed to build your own characters or advance them past level 2, nor do they contain the info a DM needs to create his own campaign, or extensively modify an existing one. For that, I recommend getting the following resources (buying some of the books used may yield a good savings):
With those three products, you have everything you need to run a level 1-30 campaign. A D&D Insider subscription can substitute for those resources to a large extent, and supplement them with tons of content, but it's most useful as a convenience and reference. I would still recommend getting the core books even if your group has a DDI sub.
On top of that, a few game aids are nice to have:
This concept is often referred to as "gamification", and there's some fairly interesting research going on in that field not only with respect to teaching by using games, but also with respect to making tedious aspects of everyday life more engaging using game concepts. Most of what I've heard/seen about it is either the work of academics or indie studios, but I can't imagine AAA developers are going to ignore it forever.
If you're interested, some links:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamification
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850
Here are the links to the guide on Amazon (EU).
Deluxe Guide UK
Deluxe Guide ES
Deluxe Guide FR
Deluxe Guide DE
Deluxe Guide IT
Just got myself a ripped Breath of the Wild soundtrack, and I thought "man, this thing is a total mess. I need to clean it up!" So I went to amazon's high-res photo cache and got to work! It's based on the awesome-looking Piggyback guide: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1911015214/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
I'm also prettying up the tags on the soundtrack, which I'll post when I'm done if there doesn't end up being a better one floating around first.
Enjoy 😄
Piggyback is the publisher of the official Red Dead Redemption 2 guide. They basically sell official guides for games and are one of the best (very nice layout, no spoilers, etc.).
They always have some sample pages of their guides on their website. I posted the links to those samples as they are not linked on their website right now.
You could buy the guide here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015540
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G8UL474/?tag=codofhon-20
Also Patrick Wyatt's blog is a good read too -
https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/
Yes, for their physical items. Try adding a digital Kindle book to the cart, and it won't let you: https://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Legendary-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474
https://i.imgur.com/f5LA5hq.png
Or a digital movie: https://i.imgur.com/T3u4HAT.png
Digitals play by different rules. Guess which one EGS sells? Even iTunes and Google Play will do the same
I'm actually kind of liking that Empires of Eve book.
Never played the game myself, and it only covers the period from the alpha/beta through 2009, but it's been a neat look into "The Great Wars" that happened early on.
Shirley's Fundamentals of Computer Graphics is a good textbook.
Pharr's Physically Based Rendering goes more deeply into the fundamentals.
To add to that... you're definitely going to want to make sure your math skills are up to par. Linear Algebra, calculas, stats... The first is probably the absolute most important (everything about display, rendering, etc... is derived from concepts in Linear Algebra really), and the other two help in making things more efficient, faster, or emulating complex objects/systems.
The book Fundamentals of Computer Graphics by Peter Shirley is, in my opinion, an absolutely fantastic book on the subject. It does a fantastic job of building your fundamentals before diving into deeper and more interesting topics. It's basically what I used to do things like learning how to make a raytracer, renderer, etc... from scratch. Lots of fun :)
Looking at the course posted by jbos, it looks very similar to one I did in University myself. So it'd probably be a great start.
I know what you're getting at... But when you're turbo-failing at something, having it belittled as "just a game" makes it worse.
Yes, it IS just a game. However, at that moment in time it's not. It's important. It's like you're saying "Wow, you can't even succeed at unimportant shit, so you should just give up."
The "game" may be trivial, but the ability to push through and accomplish something without giving up is a valuable lesson also.
Also, in many ways it isn't just a game. "Games" teach problem solving, critical thinking and hand/eye coordination. "Games" can help us solve real world problems.
All the in-game books but, sadly, minus the books included in the DLCs.
Link here for anyone interested, it's really a gorgeous box set for a decent enough price.
https://www.amazon.com/Skyrim-Library-Volumes-III-Box/dp/1783293233/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1536683679&sr=8-4&keywords=the+skyrim&dpID=51036TG4nHL&preST=_SX258_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
Says it comes out September 12th on US Amazon
The Skyrim Library - Volumes I, II & III Box Set
Just came up. Not available yet.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Deluxe Edition: The Complete Official Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015214/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_d8DPyb71E9BSF
Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire
> Two companies. Two opposing cultures. One multi-billion-dollar video-game empire.
> Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I invites readers to discover the origin of the two Blizzards—Blizzard North, a studio built by gamers, for gamers, and Blizzard Entertainment, a convergence of designers driven to rule their industry.
> Composed from exhaustive research and hundreds of personal interviews, the Stay Awhile and Listen series divulges the fated meeting that brought the two Blizzards together, the clashes that tore them apart, and their transformation from grassroots democracy to corporate empire.
> At the center of it all—Diablo, a hack-and-slash adventure through the darkest recesses of Hell that changed online gaming forever.
> Stay Awhile and Listen - Book I also explores...
> * How Diablo evolved from a turn-based, solo adventure to a lightning-fast online sensation
In the book Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire , one of the chapters mentions how with Warcraft 1, they made the game, and then they worked on the story (both with Warcraft & Diablo). And with Warcraft at least, there was a section where it said they just threw one of the employees into a recording booth and told him to make up the story on the spot, which would later be used for the cut scenes. In my opinion, even the greatest authors would need to take a bit of time to make sure it was a coherent story. By improvising it, you're just asking for the need to retcon later on.
I second everyone's Masters of Doom recommendation and wanted to add "Stay a While and Listen" about the formation of Blizzard. A great mix of story and technical detail.
&#x200B;
https://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Legendary-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474
There's a lot of history on Diablo and the developers behind it in David Craddock's book "Stay A While and Listen" and the turn base origins are mentioned there too. He's interviewed much of the staff across the whole Blizzard North company. I worked at Blizzard North for a few years on what became Diablo 3 up until it was shut down in 2005 and the project was taken over by Blizzard in Irvine.
http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Blizzards-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474
You can get this book electronically as well.
If you are interested in learning more about the development of Diablo I highly recommend the book Stay Awhile and Listen. Lots of great interviews and gets really in depth on how a games was made back then.
Recording Studio Design. Philip Newell
Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers. Cox/D'Antonio
Room Acoustics. Heinrich Kuttruff
Sound System Engineering. Davis/Patronis.Jr/Brown
Home Recording Studio. Rod Gervais
Master Handbook of Acoustics. F.Alton Everest
Some are heavy on the acoustic theory some are more practical but all really good resources. I'd also second the John Sayers forum.
This is pretty handy.
Get yourself a minor in mechanical (or possibly even seismic if your school offers it). Opens up anything dealing with transducers or how sound waves behave in a medium within a space.
Maybe pick yourself up a copy of Modern Recording Techniques to get a feel for what's going on hardware wise in the field. If you want to do more with the actual acoustics side of it, then grab Master Handbook of Acoustics. As a former EE major (I split before I graduated), I've also found Practical Electronics for Inventors handy to have around, even if only as a quick reference for things. Even has some theoretical refreshers in there if memory serves me correct.
If you find that you want to get into working with instrument amplification, then I'd recommend picking up Ultimate Bench Warrior since, to my understanding, tube circuits aren't really dealt with at the university level anymore.
Hope at least something in here is helpful.
(These are all (non-fiction) books. If you want research papers I can give you a bibliography of things you might find a few interesting things within.)
Virtual Reality by Howard Rheingold is a very good place to start for a founding in the history of VR (right back to the invention of the HMD by Ivan Sutherland in the 1960's) but was written before the current reignited interest in VR that Oculus has triggered;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virtual-Reality-Revolutionary-Computer-Generated-Worlds--And/dp/0671778978/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1396019470&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=virtual+reality+howard
If you like Rheingold's writing style then The Virtual Community might be of interest to you. Not directly related to VR, but as VR becomes more mainstream (& especially with players such as Facebook expressing interest) it is only a matter of time until VR becomes a popular interface to virtual communities;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262681218/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
If such sociological aspects of computers/VR interest you, then Sherry Turkle's books are fascinating;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262701111/ref=oh_details_o09_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0684833484/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262012707/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
As somebody else already mentioned, Infinite Reality is a nice read, but is very 'light' on science/technical detail;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0061809500/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
If you like your cyberpunk fiction then Cyberspace: First Steps is great - it even has a foreword written by William Gibson;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0262521776/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
For more of a brain-fuck read, take a look at The Cyborg Experiments;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/082645903X/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
For basic virtual environment/virtual world background I can recommend these two (Richard Bartle is the guy who invented MUD1);
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0131018167/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0631182144/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
And if by 'the VR experience' you mean 'immersion' or 'the sense of presence' then the first section of Virtual Space is a good start before diving into back issues of MIT Presence;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virtual-Space-Spatiality-Inhabited-Worlds/dp/1447111001/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1396019722&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=virtual+space+spatiality
Not for nothing is this book called "Racing the Beam" :)
Bioshock 1 & 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction & Blacklist ran heavily modified versions of Unreal 2.5, with Bioshock taking a few things from 3 that were able to be ported back to the older engine (mainly graphical effects for the water and fire). Once you know your way around an engine you can really make it do some absurd things within it's limits. While not technically dealing with game engines a good book on this is Racing the Beam, which basically shows you how the Atari 2600 was made to play nothing more complicated than Pong and everything after the first two years or so of the system was people having to essentially perform magic to make it do what they wanted.
The art and...
FREE ACCESS to the interactive world map– Code inside
The interactive world map includes over 150 location maps covering all 9 Hold cities. Each map shows the locations of every vendor, trainer, skill book, NPC, and unique item in the realm. You can toggle points of interest on and off and zoom in and out.
If anyone wants the link to the actual hard cover guide, and not just the ebook one. The hard cover from amazon is actually cheaper.
http://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Collectors-Official/dp/0307891402
16 €
Terrifying. As. Fuck.
GNARLY!
If I happen to win, I'm pining after this!
> a 1 person RPG
Do note that making a good JRPG combat without a party is way more hard. Your better of with rouguelike mechanics for one character.
JRPGs without the tactics grid could be considered the purest form of a economic engine discussed in the book.
But you don't need to read it. Really you only have a few factors to analyze. The enemies and their abilities, the players and their ability and whatever resources it has like health,mana,tp,time/turn-order,items.
It's all about things that you shouldn't do which all boils down to don't make things boring and repetitive with filler combat, and things should be properly paced so as to not frustrate the player.
You can have a element of attrition and resource management where its all about conserving your resources. I believe Desktop Dungeons is the purest form of this that is pretty much a puzzle. A Dark Souls flask system on checkpoints would work well with this concept so that it won't punish players too much and make the game unbeatable and gives you more leeway on the resources.
I think what your talking about is a systems focus. I just read a book on this topic, I think it summarizes quite well what your thinking about. It's called Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design. I definitely recommend checking it out, I found it very inspirational as a designer.
I wholeheartedly recommend Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development by Jeremy Gibson.
It's a really hands-on book and focuses a lot on the iterative cycle of design -> prototype -> test -> redesign.
It also gives a really good intro to Unity development so you can get stuff moving right away.
Disclaimer: I was Jeremy's TA for several years while he taught at USC, so I'm a little biased. But I saw him take students with no design or programming experience at all and - over the course of a semester - get them to create some pretty compelling games.
http://www.amazon.com/Jacked-Outlaw-Story-Grand-Theft/dp/0470936371
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the book, Jacked. It's by the same guy who wrote Master's of Doom. It's a great book and mainly covers the development of GTA up to GTA 4, but also gives a glimpse into the rise of Rockstar. I highly recommend reading it.
Edit: Grammar. I suck.
PDF.
Amazon
if your talking about game programming, i just got Killer Game Programming in Java from O'Reilly, it's a pretty good start.
However, if you're talking about game development, as in how to actually think of a game, i suggest The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. Very good book IMO.
Did you get your start with Killer Game Programming in Java? . The timing loop reminds me of reading that a while back, but I bet that's a common enough way to do it.
If you are not aware of this, KOTOR was based off of the D20 version of the Star Wars role playing game. (It was published by Wizards of the Coast. They lost the license and Fantasy Flight Games picked it up, but FFG's version of the game is not the same system.)
Here is a link to the core book on Amazon.
Just googled the player handbooks for older editions.
3e: $3
3.5e: $19
4e: $14
>It's possible that it already exists, of course
Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are both highly regarded video game recreations of the Dungeons and Dragons rule sets, but they are built on 2nd and 3rd editions, respectively. Dungeons and Dragons Online is also built on a somewhat modified version of the 3rd edition rules.
>I'd like it if someone could tell me what version would be the best to make as a game
4th edition, the current edition of Dungeons and Dragons, is probably your best option. It has a very gentle learning curve, and the mechanics are easy to understand. It also lends itself very well to play on a grid due to its emphasis on tactical combat. In my experience (I'm a software developer), portraying the world in a grid makes things super easy.
>I need someone who know the rules of D&D and can explain them to me
You should consider checking out "Dungeons and Dragons Encounters" at your friendly local game store (link has a search box to find your nearest location). They run hour-long weekly sessions, and provide pre-made characters. It's a very easy way to get acquainted with the game, and they always welcome new players.
The game is a bit big for someone to explain via reddit, but if you feel up to it you could pick up a copy of the Player's Handbook or the "Red Box" starter set.
>I'm not sure if it's legal to make it
Provided that you don't actually use any of Wizards of the Coast's intellectual property, you're fine. Things like "Elves", "Dwarves", "Halflings" and other things from classic fantasy are fair game. Specific things like the names of feats and powers might be a little more dangerous. The easy way to get around this is to make users type the names themselves. If your user has to type "Dragonborn" in a field titled "race", no on could blame you for it.
>With this I must say that my skills are limited, and therefor I won't be able to make it 3D, and I'll only be able to implement a limited AI. The game will be playable online with friends.
You may consider just building a "virtual table top." Essentially it's a program that emulates having your game group (3-6 players and a Dungeon Master) at the table. You need a gridded map, dice, icons to represent characters, and a way to handle character sheets.
There are several very good virtual table top programs in existence, but that shouldn't stop you from building one. I've built one myself (entirely in Javascript), and it was an incredibly fun project.
Again, keep in mind I'm talking about 4e. The Player's Handbooks (1, 2, & 3) are the ones I'd go with, starting with Player's Handbook 1 since it has a lot of general reference on rules and so forth (though some have been changed with errata). Each one has a number of races and classes that you can choose. For PHB1, it has Elves, Eladrin, Dragonborn, Dwarves, Humans, and Half-Elves (I may be missing one) as far as races, and Clerics, Warlords, Wizards, Rogues, Rangers, Warlocks, Fighters, and Paladins as far as classes.
Edit: Link
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=xna+4.0&amp;qid=1572921190&amp;sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/XNA-4-0-Game-Development-Example/dp/1849692408/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?keywords=xna+4.0&amp;qid=1572921301&amp;sr=8-6
Find a copy of this and read the section on monitor placement
http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/mixing-secrets-small-studio
And/or a look at
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040
Literal chapters of information required before anyone can give you anything that resembles a helpful answer to your question, unfortunately. Acoustics are pretty complicated.
some general thoughts from my side:
=> only AFTER you have done this, finding proper treatment options and suggestions from other users will be sucessful
Cheers
> In 1996, Richard Bartle published a study of MMO gamers that eventually led to his 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds, which was at the time the de facto MMO genre's design bible. Of course, this was before World of Warcraft hit the scene, but many of the principles Bartle laid out still hold true. In fact, if you don't believe me, take it yourself: GamerDNA still has an online test based on the Bartle study.
>
> Bartle categorized players based on their interests in the game; I would like to do the same this year as I did last year for Star Wars: The Old Republic since it's a good way to measure the game against the average expectations of certain types of players. Bartle divides us all into Achievers, Socializers, Explorers, and Killers. I'll explain what each of those means as I discuss the different aspects of SWTOR. If you know what that means and so you have a point of reference, my profile is SEAK, which means that I interact with all types of players.
>
> For fun, I've added a grade-card-style of rating system: A, B, C, D, or F. Just remember the information I give about that score counts for more than the score itself.
> ----------------------------
> ###Achiever: A-
> Under Bartle's scenario, an Achiever likes points. These are the people who like to see the numbers go up. I think all MMO players in some fashion are achievers. We like to gain levels or make our armor stats better or fill out little achievement boxes. It might seem as though I'm making light of this type of gameplay, but I'm not. Although I only scored 20% on the Bartle test for Achiever, I do have the drive to fill in some of the Achievement boxes.
>
> Specifically, SWTOR did really well for Achievers when it came to events. Even with my low Bartle Achiever score, I couldn't help but fill in the boxes for the Rakghoul event or the Bounty Hunter event. The conquest system introduced during the Galactic Strongholds expansion was an extension of the base achievement system extended to the guild as a whole. Conquests didn't just introduce the gated guild content; they also rewarded players for their individual accomplishments.
>
> The only reason I couldn't give the achievement system a higher grade is that the game would be better with more varied and dynamic events. The rakghoul event might have been in a different location each time, but the tunnels were exactly the same and so were the quests. It would have been a bit more interesting to change things up a little. I wouldn't turn down more events, either.
>
>----------------------
>### Socializer: B
> Many people who glance at the Bartle study believe that Socializers are roleplayers. It's true that roleplayers are a part of the Socializer sphere, but I don't believe that all Socializers are just roleplayers. I know many people who play MMOs because their friends do and they like to hang out with friends and play the game solely because of the social interaction. I know very few people who play MMOs completely on their own, but even those player are a fringe part of some sort of social circle.
>
> Star Wars: The Old Republic would have likely received a lower grade in the social area if it hadn't been for the Strongholds expansion. Strongholds were an amazing boost to roleplayers and socializers. On my server in particular, there are roleplay events on a regular basis in Strongholds, and most of them couldn't happen the way they do without this expansion.
>
> On the negative side, there is no chance that we will ever see anything like chat bubbles in this game, and the other in-game chat systems are rudimentary at best. And although the group finder pops are now fast because of the tactical flashpoints, it doesn't exactly encourage socialization. My suggestion for next year -- assuming chat bubbles are out of the question -- would be to include more games for players that include social interaction. I know Pazaak and Sabaac have been suggested, and I believe those kinds of games need to be introduced as soon as possible.
>
>---------------
> ###Explorers: C+
> The name Explorer kind of gives away what these players look for in a game: secret, hidden places and exciting points of interest. It's easy to forget in a linear MMO to step off the beaten path. These players will step off the path no matter what kind of MMO the game is.
>
> Because of the narrow, linear story SWTOR presents, it's going to be hard for this game to receive anything but an average grade. However, there are quite a game mechanics that encourage players to step off the narrow road. I'm not a fan of the datacron jumping puzzles, but there are some people who love them. And with each new map, there are similar puzzles. But I think this game improved its standing with conquests and event because they require you to explore the areas we would normally not explore if there hadn't been some sort of event or achievement in that area.
>
>----------------
> ###Killers: D-
> Although Killers in the Bartle papers like to pit themselves against other players, it's not just PvP in the MMO sense that excites the Killer type. Killers also like to measure themselves against other players and show off achievements in that regard. You'll find many Killers checking their status on leaderboards. For them, it's all about the competition.
>
> I can understand the drive to prove that you are better than the next person. Not all that strive for that are looking to lower other people so that they can feel better. Some are just trying to better themselves. I believe there are two keys to making a game work for Killers, and although I might make this sound simplistic, I understand that it's a little more complicated in execution. The first key is pitting players against other players or providing opportunity for players to do so themselves. The second is to allow players to compare themselves against other players, skill to skill. Right now, there are multiple arenas for players to pit themselves against other players in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but the game falls way short on the comparision part.
>
> BioWare has introduced systems like ranked rewards and leaderboards, but those cater only to one type of Killer: the type who favor arena deathmatches. And it's safe to say that not all advanced classes are geared to work in deathmatch. To top it all off, PvPers saw only one new ground map this year, and there have been no additions to Galactic Starfighter since its official launch at the first part of this year. The D- is well deserved.
>
> From achievements in PvE to Roleplay to PvP, Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn't fare too badly for a game that's three years old. Last year, I gave Galactic Starfighter praise, but unfortunately, there just wasn't a lot of follow through. However, the game did turn the tide socially. For me, it's seemed to be in a slump. Heading into 2015, the BioWare team will have to pick up the pace to retain the high rating for Achievers and take on the tremendous job of bolstering the Killer side.
>
> That's my yearly report for the game. What's yours?
One more thing, of the thousand hours of programming, easily 100 hours went to squeezing the game onto the minisucle 8kb (or maybe this was one the 4kb carts). For anyone interested, http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1299461261&amp;sr=8-1 "Racing the beam" is a pretty fascinating study it what it took to program these older games.
Good list, I'd add:
Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost
More related to early computer gaming:
Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-playing Games by Matt Barton
Computer Gaming World magazine archives
Get Lamp, a documentary about adventures in text
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy
Matt Barton's Youtube series about classic computer games
Quite technical and highly recommended - Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System.
Does look into how limitations of the platform (Atari 2600/VCS) influenced the game design, implementation and creativity on the platform with several in-depth (down to looking at assembly code) case studies of a couple of games.
Very good read!
Hardcover Guide $70-$90
I don't know if you live in the US or not but they still have them on their site.
They know people just use the internet, so smart guide makers will put awesome stuff like art galleries, interviews, etc in it. I always buy those.
The Mass Effect 2, and Final Fantasy XII collectors editions were quite well done I thought, personally.
Plus the Skyrim one comes with a interactive map, which sounds cool. I just like the cover.
Oh shit, it's back in stock. orders one post-haste $23.99 on Amazon for the hardcover, retail is $39.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307891402/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details
Yup! Official Nintendo seal and everything. Although some people say they find the internet more useful (and cheaper, of course). For example, fake vs real painting comparisons aren't in the book. It just tells you to compare with the catalog for yourself. But it does have the entire catalog and this version actually has slots for check marks if you have the item! (last game guides didn't; it looked ugly if you wrote in it). So if you like physical copies, I recommend it.
I am dying for this book
I love reading the guides and seeing the clothes patterns.
This is the one I have, but I know I didn't pay that much for it then. https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Crossing-Prima-Official-Guides/dp/0307897079/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1478815507&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=animal+crossing+game+guide
You might consider getting The Prima Strategy Guide.
It provides a lot of guidance / information that can smooth over some of the less intuitive aspects of the game.
The guide also maintains some of the same aesthetic of the game, by which I mean that it is very colorful, bright, and friendly in its layout and style. She might just enjoy thumbing through the item catalog to see all the neat things she could obtain.
If you do not want to spend money, point her to thonky.com guides. The guides might be kinda overwhelming, though.
The cute / happy tone of the game might be something she appreciates. I think it's a good idea to offer this.
I don't see Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design get enough credit around anywhere;
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274
If you've ever played with Machinations, you'll know how cool it can be. This book goes into really deep mechanics that you can actually play with.
It's a bit dry, but it's the most comprehensive mapping of actual game systems I've come across
Ah yes... the positive feedback loop. There are many ways to address this. First a book recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274/
The section on feedback loops (both positive and negative) is worth it by itself.
So for our game, we have a similar challenge. It is a mini-RTS where you get resources and those resources allow you to use mechanics that can give you an advantage which can aid you in getting more resources and so forth. Additionally, we have fighters that are produced. Resources can help make more fighters, or by taking additional planets (the sources of both fighters and resources) you can create more. Hopefully this make sense.
To ensure the game doesn't have win-switch runaway leader situation, we've added a number of negative feedback loops. For example, after a battle on a planet, the player who loses the planet (and who will also end up losing the fighter/resource production) gets a "rebate" in the form of some "fighter that escaped" and "resources they took with them".
This slows down the runaway leader situation and widens what we call "the valley of struggle".
Another way we manage this is having powerful mechanics that can, if timed well, disrupt the runaway leader. One mechanic we have is "doomsday". If the aggressor sends many fighters to a planet, the defender can activate a "doomsday" on the planet which will eat lots and lots of fighters, closing the gap between the loser and the winner. By using price and cooldowns, we limit this from being abused by the leader while still allowing well timed usage by the loser to reduce the gap. We have several mechanics like this.
The final mechanism that has had the most effect is cooldowns for mechanics. This ensures that even if the leader gets a fighter/resource advantage, they can't abuse any of the mechanics to widen their gap too fast. In fact, because the cooldown can be long, it requires being very picky about when to use some of the mechanics otherwise you could leave yourself defenseless.
There are other tricks we've used such as diminishing returns on production (thanks /u/waterlimon!) so that as the leader accumulates more planets, he gets diminishing returns on the fighters/resources produced on each planet.
Finally, lots and lots of playtesting between me and the artist testing game length, tipping points. We have a replay mechanism that allows us to view all the stats of the game and the "balance of power" as we call it, an algorithm that lets us determine who is winning at any given point. We watch that balance to see if we are seeing the type of game we want... with lots of tension, some back and forth, and hopefully around the 5-10 minute mark, the tipping point is reached by one side or the other.
Hope that helps!
https://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274
This is the book that describes these concepts. I literally ordered this book a few days ago.
Game Mechanics is definitely helpful with understanding what the moving parts are, and it introduces a visual notation that I find useful in the planning stages.
By far the best tools to balance game mechanics is a spreadsheet and a working knowledge of math. Book on both might be helpful too.
Merry x-mas :)
I think in general it is recommended to keep your day job while you're getting started. I was in your shoes too (though much older), I wanted to quit my job and just make games. I still do, but not having an income would suck. So I ended up deciding I'll keep my full time job and work hard in my free time, and so far it has been satisfying. With that said, I'm still working on my first game. It's good to have dreams, but don't do anything reckless I guess.
I got started by reading a book on game design and prototyping. To be more precise, it was this book. I learned a ton by reading it, though some of the later chapters are getting a bit dated and don't translate to Unity 5 so well. Despite that, I feel like I have a pretty solid foundation to work with and I've been pleased with my progress.
I am working through this
Game Design Prototyping and Development
I am enjoying it so far. I have done some coding before but the pace in the book is nice and slow
My local library had this book. I'm using it, its pretty good.
To the classics by Schell and Koster I would add one that goes from game design to working prototypes (and one could argue that prototypes are constitutive parts of game design):
Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C#
>There must be some rule or perhaps some kind of formula that enhance the enjoyability of a stage.
No single rule or formula, but several rules of thumb, and different approaches.
Some books on game design include Rules of Play, which breaks down games into a very fundamental perspective (imagine understanding an apple by analyzing its atoms), and Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development, which is much more functional, discussing the procedures involved with testing and tweaking your levels to be what you want it to be.
More specific to your case though (and easier to read), there's this guide for Mario Maker level design
These are the series of texts I have been pointing students to, in addition to the online tutorials available.
Unreal Blueprints Book: http://www.amazon.com/Blueprints-Visual-Scripting-Unreal-Engine/dp/1785286013
Unreal C++ Book:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-C-Creating-Games-UE4/dp/1784396575/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0HFNGR8P5ZFQ95SRHQRH
My Favorite Unity3D book:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Game-Design-Prototyping-Development/dp/0321933168
I've been very impressed with Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development by Jeremy Gibson. The first half of the book talks about game design in general, then goes into a basic overview of C#. The rest of the book consists of a series of tutorials that get increasingly more complex. I'm not sure how helpful the tutorials and programming info would be laying in bed but the game design stuff is definitely fun to read by itself without a computer.
Jacked: The Outlaw Story of GTA
I remember a redditor telling me about it, talks a lot about the media reaction to the game.
There's an interesting book about the GTA series called "Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto," that goes into some of the history of the series (amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Jacked-Outlaw-Story-Grand-Theft/dp/0470936371). The author goes into the development of the first game at DMA and how one of the original programmers was adamant about following traffic laws, etc. while playing the game, and was opposed to the idea of the game existing as a promotion of crime for its own sake.
Using that as a jumping off point, I tried a play through that involved following all traffic laws (I didn't pay much attention to karma in general, per se). Unfortunately, you end up failing a bunch of missions by doing so. So, while some moral choices are left up to the player, there's no doubt that you're supposed to at least drive around like a maniac if you want to complete the game.
UK Links.
Paperback.
Hardback.
One thing that helped me a lot with that "staring at the screen" problem was getting into game development from scratch.
This book was the one that got me out of that phase and onto creating my own projects and coming up with new ideas to improve what I've written, so I always had new work to do:
http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Game-Programming-Andrew-Davison/dp/0596007302
It's a bit dated now as it was published in 2005 but I think it will still help you.
Find something that interests you. So what kind of a person are you, do you want to see your end results or do you want to solve hard problems that never look pretty but are fun to solve? What are the projects that you thought of. You say you want to make games, did you familiarize yourself with a graphics API? Multimedia API? If you're doing 3D graphics unless you're a guru in matrices you'll find hard intersting problems. Try doing things incrementally. Decide on something basic you want to do and add features as you like. I don't know how many large projects you've worked on but the devil is really in the details.
Can't vouch for the quality but maybe books like this, this and this.
The Knights games are kind of a mash up for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which was later branded as the "Saga Edition" of the official licensed tabletop game. There's actually a subreddit for that (now out of print) game, /r/SagaEdition, but I can't say how it compares to the current official game, and if I'd recommend one over the other.
http://www.amazon.com/Revised-Core-Rulebook-Star-Roleplaying/dp/078692876X
You should try to get ahold of one of the Star Wars rpg books. You will not have to adapt things or figure out how magic into the force. The Revised Core Rulebook is $22 on Amazon right now and the system works great. The book will also give you a bunch of the lore, species, and technology you will need to make a great game.
A word of warning Star Wars plays differently then D&D. It leans heavier on the roleplaying aspects with an increased use of social skills. It is not go to a dungeon and kill monsters.
Also Wookapedia has so much information about the Star Wars universe. It is a great reference guide.
the core rulebook is on Amazon for ~$10 used. That is a good starting point for you guys as well. There are no starting adventures in that book, but I know that there are lots of free adventures avalible online, Here are some free adventures published by the game makers.
I've run the first adventure on that second link before for my gaming club before. It is solid.
there are 3, but the second and third cover more classes and more advanced topics, the first covers all the basic classes as well as how to create characters and rules of the game etc. The starter set is merely to just get you going quickly without inundating you with too much at once.
http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Roleplaying/dp/0786948671
If you are planning on playing 4e with a group of non-gamers, go for the Red Box since it's relatively cheap and is designed for non-gamers. It's not the complete version of the game, it's a tutorial adventure to teach players some core concepts .
If you decide to go with the full game, you need the Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. These are three separate books. There are other volumes to each of these (for example PHB II) but you don't need them.
There's also an online subscription called D&D Insider that I've never used, but it seems like about 50% of people find it invaluable and the other 50% call it a racket.
Downsides to switching are well covered in this thread. Personally I found 4e to be so oriented towards combat that every other part of the game suffered. It felt like everything except the tactical combat module had been tacked on half-heartedly.
But this is after 20 years of playing older editions of D&D, so I may just be predisposed against the design changes they made in a way that newer players won't be. You may love it, and that's all that matters.
I think the better question though is what are your reasons for choosing D&D? Is there something about the system that makes you think you'll like it? What are you looking for? What did you like and dislike about Pathfinder? There are literally hundreds of other systems out there, you may want to look around at some of them, and I know /r/rpg loves to give recommendations if you want them to.
If you are really serious about learning and wanting to play D&D, I would strongly advise getting the 4th Edition Player's Handbook. Then after that I would suggest getting the Dungeon Master's Manual.
There are a ton of places online where you can download PDF copies of the books if you don't feel like shelling out the money for it.
Once you have a copy, read it, cover to cover. If you find yourself reading through it quickly, you know you are getting into the right hobby for you.
Understand that all play groups are different. Some are more relaxed when it comes to the rules, and care more about the role-playing aspect of the game. Others are rule nazis, and make sure that the game is played to the T. You need to find the right balance for you to make the hobby interesting.
What is most important to make D&D work is to have a thoughtful Dungeon Master(DM). One that is able to control the group, have an average to above average understanding of the game, and make for a fun experience.
If you have any more questions, PM me. I live in Atlantic County, about a 45 min drive to Tom's River, but I might be able to help you out.
EDIT** This goes for everyone in this thread that are stating that they are new and want to play. Let me know and maybe I can start to organize something, I don't mind teaching new people 4E rules.
Monster Manual $22.76
Players Handbook $19.62
Dice $4.88
Pretty sure 4e books aren't $40 anymore.. And yeah, 4e character creation is going to probably be a PITA. I assume character creation will take a session for most games. Make pre-gens or do it individually with each player...there are solutions to this problem.
Unless CoC has massively changed since I looked at it ten years ago, there's very little freedom in character creation, skill are pretty terribly split up and so the major selections are what archetype/class am I, how do I split up my few skills I'm free to choose, and do I have a gun (a standard one from the book) or some mundane equipment like flashlights or a car or whatever. Do I have it about right? Even winnowing all your choices down in D&D 3.5, that's fewer than most characters have, even simple ones like fighters and rogues.
You can find a physical copy within the World of Warcraft: Archive book, it does also contain Day of the Dragon, Lord of the Clans and The Last Guardian.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Warcraft-Archive-World/dp/1416525823/ref=pd_cp_b_3
Alternatively you can get the kindle version which you can probably convert to PDF if you really need it in that form.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warcraft-Blood-Honor-Chris-Metzen-ebook/dp/B003ZDOVGI/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404458575&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=of+blood+and+honor
Hey man,
If you're truly interested in Warcraft lore, I HIGHLY recommend that you look into reading the Warcraft books. It really is the greatest story I've ever had the pleasure to hear. These books are absolutely incredible man, thinking of it now gives me goosebumps. I'll give you a link to two books to start out with.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Chronicles-Christie-Golden/dp/1439172722/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1496848271&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=chronicles+of+war+warcraft I have no fucking clue why this is so expensive, I suggest looking around to get a better price. I got mine for like 20 USD a few years ago. This book is SO AMAZING, BY THE LIGHT! If your going to get any book, get this. This is the first one you want to read because they all go in order which helps you gain a deep understanding for the chain of events.
https://www.amazon.com/WarCraft-Archive-WARCRAFT-Blizzard-Entertainment/dp/1416525823/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=1416525823&amp;pd_rd_r=AZECSF70JK8PY7RWJ99N&amp;pd_rd_w=MuXiq&amp;pd_rd_wg=nqJsx&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=AZECSF70JK8PY7RWJ99N
After Chronicles of War, this is the book you want to read. Super, super interesting stuff in this one. Please man, do yourself a favor and get these two books. I promise you, you will be so hooked into WoW after you read these haha.
I would ask for their the Warcraft archive or War of the Ancients Trilogy.
That ends up being 7 books for around $10-15 total, so it wouldn't eat up the whole budget, and all of them are great.
"Of Blood and Honor" is available in the WarCraft Archive.
https://www.amazon.com/WarCraft-Archive-WARCRAFT-Blizzard-Entertainment/dp/1416525823/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=warcraft+archive&qid=1554300081&s=gateway&sr=8-1
It's not the best to start with because two of the characters come from a previous book.
I recommend starting with the [WarCraft Archive] (http://www.amazon.com/WarCraft-Archive-WORLD-OF-WARCRAFT/dp/1416525823). It has four books in it:
You can get all 4 of those books individually, but if you're going to read War of the Ancients, read at least Day of the Dragon first.
From there, read War of the Ancients (it's a trilogy, but they have a "single print" edition).
And as a stand alone, read Rise of the Horde! It tells the story of the original Horde and how the developed on Draenor. Makes a lot of the events in WoD make more sense.
From there, there are tons of books, I can't say they are all good, but I've not been disappointed in any of them. But those are what I started with, in that order, and it gave me a MUCH better sense of the lore pre-Warcraft III.
Amazon is where I bought Warcraft Archive actually. I paid $17 USD for it Link to Amazon.
yeah, you should be worried. substantial changes from 3 to 4, let alone 2 to four.
I used this:
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
but back in 3.1 days.
I have been in the exact same boat as you. I'm about to start actually coding a game finally after a year of letting the idea stew. I have been reading a book on XNA 4.0 which does a great job of describing object-oriented approaches to constructing some basic components. Even if you don't want to code for XNA the structure of the code can be used in just about any language.
The author of the book hosts all of the source code for his tutorials on his website, so you could always look through those as well.
Here's a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620
The AppHub tutorials are very helpful. As many suggest, starting simple is usually best. I probably should have stuck to a single screen game for my first try but instead I spent a lot of time learning how to use a third party library to help be import a level.
http://create.msdn.com/en-US/
Also, if you are looking for a book, I just got this book as suggested by many and its great.
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620
My favourite XNA book was this one but the book only goes up to XNA 3 https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-XNA-Game-Studio-Unleashed/dp/0672330229 (source was updated for XNA4/MonoGame here http://chadcarter.net/xna-game-studio-3-0-unleashed-book-source-code-updated-to-work-with-monogame-and-windows-10/)
For XNA 4.0 I liked this one https://www.amazon.com/Learning-XNA-4-0-Development-Windows/dp/1449394620
Are there even any specific MonoGame books?
Game Engine:
Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory, best you can get.
Game Coding Complete by Mike McShaffry. The book goes over the whole of making a game from start to finish, so it's a great way to learn the interaction the engine has with the gameplay code. Though, I admit I also am not a particular fan of his coding style, but have found ways around it. The boost library adds some complexity that makes the code more terse. The 4th edition made a point of not using it after many met with some difficulty with it in the 3rd edition. The book also uses DXUT to abstract the DirectX functionality necessary to render things on screen. Although that is one approach, I found that getting DXUT set up properly can be somewhat of a pain, and the abstraction hides really interesting details about the whole task of 3D rendering. You have a strong background in graphics, so you will probably be better served by more direct access to the DirectX API calls. This leads into my suggestion for Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX10 (or DirectX11).
C++:
C++ Pocket Reference by Kyle Loudon
I remember reading that it takes years if not decades to become a master at C++. You have a lot of C++ experience, so you might be better served by a small reference book than a large textbook. I like having this around to reference the features that I use less often. Example:
namespace
{
//code here
}
is an unnamed namespace, which is a preferred method for declaring functions or variables with file scope. You don't see this too often in sample textbook code, but it will crop up from time to time in samples from other programmers on the web. It's $10 or so, and I find it faster and handier than standard online documentation.
Math:
You have a solid graphics background, but just in case you need good references for math:
3D Math Primer
Mathematics for 3D Game Programming
Also, really advanced lighting techniques stretch into the field of Multivariate Calculus. Calculus: Early Transcendentals Chapters >= 11 fall in that field.
Rendering:
Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX10 by Frank. D. Luna.
You should probably get the DirectX11 version when it is available, not because it's newer, not because DirectX10 is obsolete (it's not yet), but because the new DirectX11 book has a chapter on animation. The directX 10 book sorely lacks it. But your solid graphics background may make this obsolete for you.
3D Game Engine Architecture (with Wild Magic) by David H. Eberly is a good book with a lot of parallels to Game Engine Architecture, but focuses much more on the 3D rendering portion of the engine, so you get a better depth of knowledge for rendering in the context of a game engine. I haven't had a chance to read much of this one, so I can't be sure of how useful it is just yet. I also haven't had the pleasure of obtaining its sister book 3D Game Engine Design.
Given your strong graphics background, you will probably want to go past the basics and get to the really nifty stuff. Real-Time Rendering, Third Edition by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines, Naty Hoffman is a good book of the more advanced techniques, so you might look there for material to push your graphics knowledge boundaries.
Software Engineering:
I don't have a good book to suggest for this topic, so hopefully another redditor will follow up on this.
If you haven't already, be sure to read about software engineering. It teaches you how to design a process for development, the stages involved, effective methodologies for making and tracking progress, and all sorts of information on things that make programming and software development easier. Not all of it will be useful if you are a one man team, because software engineering is a discipline created around teams, but much of it still applies and will help you stay on track, know when you've been derailed, and help you make decisions that get you back on. Also, patterns. Patterns are great.
Note: I would not suggest Software Engineering for Game Developers. It's an ok book, but I've seen better, the structure doesn't seem to flow well (for me at least), and it seems to be missing some important topics, like user stories, Rational Unified Process, or Feature-Driven Development (I think Mojang does this, but I don't know for sure). Maybe those topics aren't very important for game development directly, but I've always found user stories to be useful.
Software Engineering in general will prove to be a useful field when you are developing your engine, and even more so if you have a team. Take a look at This article to get small taste of what Software Engineering is about.
Why so many books?
Game Engines are a collection of different systems and subsystems used in making games. Each system has its own background, perspective, concepts, and can be referred to from multiple angles. I like Game Engine Architecture's structure for showing an engine as a whole. Luna's DirectX10 book has a better Timer class. The DirectX book also has better explanations of the low-level rendering processes than Coding Complete or Engine Architecture. Engine Architecture and Game Coding Complete touch on Software Engineering, but not in great depth, which is important for team development. So I find that Game Coding Complete and Game Engine Architecture are your go to books, but in some cases only provide a surface layer understanding of some system, which isn't enough to implement your own engine on. The other books are listed here because I feel they provide a valuable supplement and more in depth explanations that will be useful when developing your engine.
tldr: What Valken and SpooderW said.
On the topic of XNA, anyone know a good XNA book? I have XNA Unleashed 3.0, but it's somewhat out of date to the new XNA 4.0. The best looking up-to-date one seems to be Learning XNA 4.0: Game Development for the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7 . I have the 3.0 version of this book, and it's well done.
*****
Source: Doing an Independent Study in Game Engine Development. I asked this same question months ago, did my research, got most of the books listed here, and omitted ones that didn't have much usefulness. Thought I would share my research, hope you find it useful.
> I think if I learn how to program with an aim to work as a software developer and make games on the side, is this viable after just turning 20?
There's nothing wrong with the age of 20. I started school at 20, graduated in four years, and found work as a software engineer right out school.
What you have to figure out is how to make the best of your time left in school: should you take a class or two on programming and graduate on time, or (more dramatically) change your field of study to computer science and spend a few more years in school? That's something only you can decide. If you want to finish your architecture program and graduate in a reasonable amount of time, I can assure you that your math and physics background will be enough to get you work as a software engineer, but only if you can actually program.
Part of working as a software engineer means being able to program in multiple languages. That's because it's not really about the language, it's about the logic. All languages follow certain patterns and while syntax or wording may change, they all share ways to implement the same logic.
It also means knowing what data structures to use for what scenarios. The phrase "There's no such thing as a free lunch" comes to mind. All data structures have advantages and weaknesses and no data structure is perfect for every occasion. Know the differences, know the performance impact, and be able to speak to them. This won't just help you write better code, it will help you land a job. Interviewers love to ask questions about data structures.
As a corollary to data structures, you also need to know your algorithms. You need to know the performance impact of different ways to search and sort, traverse graphs, and find the shortest path (particularly relevant for game programming).
You said you're learning Python and that's great. Python is a great way to learn how to program. It's dynamic, it's friendly, and it has a rich library. Learn Python inside and out, then pick another language and figure out how to do the same things. C++, Java, and C# are all pretty popular in the industry, pick one of those. Once you know how to program in a few languages, you focus less on minute implementation details specific to one language and more on high level abstraction shared across multiple languages. By that point, you'll no longer be speaking in code, you'll be speaking in plain English, and that's the goal.
I don't know many good free online resources for learning languages, I learned mostly out of textbooks and lecture slides (along with lots of practice). There are some links in the sidebar to some tutorials that are worth checking out. Beyond that, I can recommend some books you may want to read.
EDIT: I added Programming Interviews Exposed because it's a good reference for data structures, algorithms, and interview questions
From the 70s? Hell, they still do this today. Here's irony for you: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Computer-Graphics-Peter-Shirley/dp/1568814690
This book has color plates in the middle still. It's embarrassing.
part of being a scientist is reviewing a wide range of references - you might be expecting a bit much from one online source. let me suggest this one and this one, and especially this one are going to have the general graphics pipeline explanation chapters that you're looking for. if $$$ is a problem (and it is for most of us with these texts), perhaps you can insist that your local library gets them?
you can also pick up some good ideas by visiting course pages for some of the more well-known university graphics programmes - some of them have slides online, otherwise check out their reading lists - these guys are the best in the world at teaching graphics. read what they read.
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Courses/cs465/2007fa/
http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/
http://www.cs.utah.edu/research/areas/graphics/
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~badler/courses/cis560.html
but i suspect, your best bet for this sort of stuff is actually Eric Haines' online course, which has a free version. it uses webgl but the main concepts are exactly the same as desktop gl and it's really very good https://www.udacity.com/course/cs291
also, interesting side note - Myers-Briggs has been widely discredited. it's actually based on Jung's germanic mysticism, which comes from ancient European magic. earth/air/wind/fire, alchemy, the four humours, the four personality components etc. etc. not a drop of science in it, but employers insist on you doing it.
"Principles and Practices" is ancient, though as defrost says, the basics haven't changed much. But anything to do with interactive graphics has changed massively, so it's useless for that. The good news is that they're working on a new edition (I reviewed two chapters for Spike Hughes), but its release won't be for a good long while, I think.
I definitely wouldn't recommend the Schneider and Eberly book (not sure why people forget Schneider, Phil's a good guy) - that's really a reference.
Here's our own recommended book list for computer graphics. Our focus is on interactive graphics, so something like Angel's book works for that area. For a more general text, which sounds like what you want, I'd consider Fundamentals of Computer Graphics.
From the other thread, I should check out Frank Luna's book, but again that one's focused on interactive computer graphics and so won't include ray tracing or other global illumination techniques.
Oh, I also don't recommend our book, as it's meant as a second book on interactive graphics, not a first.
I used Shirley's classic Tiger book in my first CG class: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Computer-Graphics-Peter-Shirley/dp/1568814690
But it's definitely there to teach theory, not really provide code. it was more of a side resource alongside custom C++ projects my professor made.
Are your students not expected to know C++ (or at least C) before coming into your class? If not that may make finding resources hard since so many CG books use c++ code and throw OpenGL right at you. Assuming they don't, it may be best to try and follow the approach the Udactiy course does: prepare some boilerplate demos in JS (possibly using a framework like Three.js like the course does) or another language/framework of choice, use the textbook more for optional mathematical/theory references outside of class, and have the projects be based around implementing features within your boilerplate. Even in my OpenGL course the professor provided a bit of structure so we weren't bogged down setting up buffers and other handles.
I find myself attracted to CG part. Not only the Unity part but whole science behind it intrigues me a lot. Here are some resources that helped me a lot for a better understanding on the topic:
Here are some tutorials on various topics that may interest you:
These are the ones that i remember right now :) hope you will find them useful
> Can you give me any more info on what types of things you simulate
There are so many different things. One example that involves physical simulation is rendering. Rendering, turning a 3d description of a scene into a 2d image, is all about simulating the pysics of light transport. Given a set of lights and surfaces you simulate how light bounces around and what a virtual observer placed somewhere in the scene would see. Another example is explosions. Cool/realistic looking explosions for movies involve simulating burning materials, fluid/gas movement, sound propagation, fracture, plastic/non-plastic deformation, the list goes on and on.
Here are some books that might get you started in the right direction
As for programming languages, you're definitely going to need to learn C/C++. Graphics applications are very resource initensive, so it's important to use a fast language. You'll probably also want to learn a couple of scripting languages like python or perl. You'll also need to learn some graphics API's like OpenGL or DirectX if you're on Windows.
I hope this helped!
We need to realize that Reality is Broken and that there are efforts to fix that. Just look at the Quest2Learn school that is gamifying the school experience. I highly recommend Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal, fantastic book that gets you thinking about what you can do to make reality more like a game so you end up not wanting to escape it.
Skyrim Library is a thing
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skyrim-Library-Volumes-III-Box/dp/1783293233/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1540148515&amp;sr=8-7&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=elder+scrolls+book&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51036TG4nHL&amp;ref=plSrch
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elder-Scrolls-Online-Volumes-Land/dp/1783293225/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1540148515&amp;sr=8-4&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=elder+scrolls+book&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=41fgv7bYQrL&amp;ref=plSrch
Don't know if there are any more for earlier games though
You mean these?
https://www.amazon.com/Skyrim-Library-Volumes-III-Box/dp/1783293233
https://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Online-Volumes-Land/dp/1783293225
The Skyrim books are of course somewhat focused on the province of Skyrim, though there is information about Tamriel at large.
ESO takes place all over Tamriel, so the books have information about all the provinces.
Daaaamn. I just saw the collection of all 3 on Amazon UK and I had no idea I wanted these until now. Didn't realise they had illustrations too, that makes them so much more worthwhile than just copy and pastes of the in-game texts. Same applies to the ESO set.
It's 11" x 15" and weighs 9 pounds lol.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Deluxe Edition: The Complete Official Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015214/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_6GRTzbWTWC3SY
I guess I could do media mail but even then just no point
The Deluxe BoTW guide is now 40% off for less than $50 on Amazon.
$24 off amazon for hardcover
Red Dead Redemption 2: The Complete Official Guide Collector's Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_v3XZBb756BTAS
amazon
I looked on several sites. One of the 2 (hardcover) options has 368 pages
( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1911015567 ), the other 384 pages ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1911015540 ). In Amazon Germany, Bol.com (the Netherlands) there are those 2 versions and differences too. But everywhere i read questions about it it says it is the same content. Anyone here who knows more?
You may also like...
Stay a While and Listen.
A book that details the early days of Blizzard Entertainment and how the world's biggest game company came to start up.
its on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Blizzards-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
I'd actually recommend this book if you're interested - I've never played but found the overall history of it fascinating.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M
This is the book I think you're referring to.
Andrew Groen is great, and his second volume covering closer to the present is being written as we speak (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sciencegroen/empires-of-eve-volume-ii)
In terms of looking at map flows, https://sov.space might be what you're after?
I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet. For background on Eve this book is actually pretty great. Since its a reader with individual papers its a bit uneven in terms of quality/value, but the variety of perspectives is pretty great.
https://www.amazon.com/Internet-Spaceships-Are-Serious-Business/dp/0816699089
Also, this recently(ish) published book by journalist /u/AndrewGroen is a great read too. It has some amazing details on some of the intrigues of the earlier days of Eve.
https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M
His talk at Fanfest in Reykjavik a few years back is amazing too, in terms of offering some insight into Eve's history, particularly a pretty fascinating story from Eve's history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-_Hgp6VbFY
Especially if you're looking for a clearer understanding of OPSEC and its history/role in Eve both of these books are pretty great. Mr Groen, if he's still around on Reddit, may have some additional recommendations or resources as well.
note: these amazon links are not affiliate links! they go straight to the books' product pages
Maybe there I was a little unclear with the term "fully understand".
If I read a well documented C++ header-file, I'd say "I fully understand that function now" even though I've never looked at the actual implementation. To me "fully understanding" some code or a software feature (at least on a user level) just means that I know what it does, not how it does it.
I am aware, that there are a lot of great resources on how shaders and computer graphics work in general, like Wikipedia or this book (that's actually sitting on my shelf right now). However every implementation of these general techniques has it's custom behaviour, unique quirks and exceptions. So you're right in stating, that I'm looking for an encyclopedia (that'd be perfect tbh) but one on Blender, not on computer graphics in general.
Right now I just want to competently use Blender's material system, without having to read through their actual source code. I mean just imagine, instead of having decent documentation, people would expect you to read through the implementation of every piece of code and software you'd like to use. If that was the case, no sane person would use operating systems ("Hey, how do I mount a hard-drive in Linux?" -- "It's all open source, just read the code, dude."; sounds weird, right?).
Btw. I mixed something up. I actually have never used HLSL, I used OpenGL. No idea how I could confuse those two...
Before jumping into ray tracing, and then PBRT, I learned computer graphics with this book: Fundamentals of Computer Graphics (Shirley, et. al, 2009)
This book covers all the essential parts of computer graphics, and raytracing is just one part of it.
You should read these two books, The Art of Game Design and Reality is Broken. They're both a pretty good window into what makes games fun in a psychological way.
You're ignoring the immense opportunities for learning present in video games and technology. You might find this article interesting. Or this one. Or this book.
This is my field of research so I get a little stressed out when people make claims like this without thinking through what they are saying, but I hope you may reconsider your position. Also, if anyone else wants more info or good articles on this topic, I'm happy to share; it's quite fascinating.
She wrote this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850
She's kind of an evangelist for playing games...think of her as the Anti-Jack Thompson.
This book has some pretty great insights into the topic. I would recommend reading it to anyone, regardless of how the view gaming.
Sounds like someone else is reading Reality is Broken
Read the book "Reality is Broken" for a discussion of this.
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Is-Broken-Better-Change/dp/1594202850
You may like this book. (Reality is Broken)
this is actually a sound strategy. games have a way of motivating the parts of our brain that get rewarded with goal accomplishment.
for more information on this phenomenon read reality is broken: www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1594202850
Might be a little more on the expensive side but Amazon sells The Skyrim Library - Volumes I, II & III (Box Set) Fantastic artwork and lots of Elder Scrolls history and lore
Thank you so much, I'm glad you like it! The dragon box is a super awesome Skyrim box set with tons of lore and artwork which I received as a gift last year! Here's the link if you wanted to take a look! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Skyrim-Library-Volumes-III-Box/dp/1783293233
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015214/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_S-2FDbJ4ZPZV2
Basically just the official guidebook as a huge, pretty hard cover. Got it a few months after the game was released!
Here's the books:
Legend of Zelda: Art and Artifacts Limited Edition
Legend of Zelda: BotW Official Guide Collector's Edition
Legend of Zelda: BotW Official Guide Deluxe Edition
The Arts book is a collector's item as well as something I'd sift through from time to time. A coffee table book basically. The CE guide arrives on 3/3, so once I beat Zelda once, I'll use it to collect everything. The DE is just another collector's item/coffee table book once it arrives on 3/31.
It's live now on Amazon for $79.99. Amazon will honor the lowest price before release.
Not on sale yet...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Legend-Zelda-Breath-Wild-Complete/dp/1911015214/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=XQA3WREBTB11PKC3EWGA
This one? https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1911015214?me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;ref_=mw_olp_product_details
That's as cheap as I've ever seen it.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dead-Redemption-Complete-Collectors/dp/1911015540
Spend the money you saved by going Standard Edition on the Collector's Edition Strategy Guide? $23.99 if preordered off Amazon...
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dead-Redemption-Complete-Collectors/dp/1911015540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1540315255&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=red+dead+redemption+2+guide
Anyone know why there's two SKUs for this?
$33.50 - https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dead-Redemption-Complete-Collectors/dp/1911015567/
$23.99 - https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dead-Redemption-Complete-Collectors/dp/1911015540/
Ugh. I know about the paperback, Sherlock. I'm talking about these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_mDQZBb974FWWC
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015567/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_aEQZBbMRKZXKX
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Dead-Redemption-Complete-Collectors/dp/1911015540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1539938822&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=rdr2+guide&amp;dpID=51Z-%252BA%252BMHlL&amp;preST=_SX258_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&amp;dpSrc=srch
There is no DLC or micro transactions right now. What might be pretty cool and useful if he doesn’t have it would be the hard cover strategy guide.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015540/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_w7Q9BbAV2S15B
You mean these? They still get made, although one of the companies (Prima) just announced they shut down and are only releasing guides already announced.
The official guide to Red Dead Redemption 2! Here’s the link to buy it on amazon: Red Dead Redemption 2: The Complete Official Guide Collector's Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1911015540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uT6XCbVAX5SBV and here’s the link where you can download it off Reddit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v-nxc0aJ4zJJtKimZKmE-Yg8E9MxDd9h/view?usp=drivesdk enjoy :)
There was a post here yesterday. They're on Amazon right now https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1911015540/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
Hardback - Reg $40 on sale for $24
Paperback - Reg25 on sale for about $17
You want his blood type info and dick size while I am at it? Geez... Sorry to rain on your Wyatt Trump rant. The best answers to your question could possibly be found in this book https://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Legendary-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474
" On August 1, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of Blizzard North. A key reason for the closure was Blizzard North's poor development of what was to be Diablo III which did not meet the expectations of Vivendi. Former Blizzard North staffers including Joseph Lawrence, Wyatt Cheng and Matt Uelmen subsequently appeared in the credits of Blizzard's next retail release, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The work of former Blizzard North artist Phroilan Gardner was also featured in editions of World of Warcraft: The Trading Card Game around the same time. "
https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Blizzard_North
I hope these are what you're looking for.
If I find any additional stuff, I'll edit the post - also if anyone else finds stuff similar to what I linked, feel free to drop info, i'd love to read more of this stuff!
Obligatory Subreddit Plug
/r/TheMakingOfGames - A subreddit featuring a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
Books
Masters of Doom is a book that follows the lives of John Carmack and John Romero, the creation of what became iD Software, and some of the most memorable games of our generation. (Daikatana's failure, Doom, The super mario clone that eventually became Commander Keen, Quake, etc.)
Jacked is a book that follows the creation of what became a memorable game studio (Rockstar Games) and one of the most memorable franchises of our lifetimes. (Grand Theft Auto)
Stay Awhile and Listen is a book that tells the story of the company known as Blizzard and the difficulty of creating Warcraft as well as the fight to create Diablo.
[Hourences] (http://www.hourences.com/product/the-hows-and-whys-of-the-games-industry/) is a book written by someone who's worked freelance / contract for quite some time now. The basic questions this book will attempt to answer are: Why would one want to work in the games industry? Or why not? And, if the decision has already been made, then: What would one look for or expect? How can one pick a good mod (modification) team or a development studio that will fit one’s personality and meet one’s expectations?
Minecraft: The Story of Notch A story about Notch before, during, and after the rise of Minecraft - talks about his family, his life, etc.
Rise of the Dungeon Master the story of Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most influential games ever made. Like the game itself, the narrative casts the reader into the adventure from a first person point of view, taking on the roles of the different characters in the story.
Documentaries / Movies
Double Fine Adventure - A game following the conception and delivery of what would become "Broken Age"
Indie Game: The Movie - Follows the trials and tribulations of indie developers trying to "make it big" and/or "continue to succeed".
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang - Follows how Minecraft was formed, Notch, and the impact the game has made on generations.
Amneisa Fortnight 2012 A documentary that follows various groups doing a "game jam" that eventually became published games.
[Amneisa Fornight 2014] (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd7Y5qXNqV1wDPtdNPjZ-tw0) Same as the 2012, just a documentary following the game jam.
GDC Post Mortems A good variety of games, the ups and downs, from indie to AAA.
/u/knightangel12 was nice enough to inform us that there is actually a book about the creation of Diablo: [Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I]
(http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awhile-Listen-Blizzards-Video-Game-ebook/dp/B00G8UL474/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1458522951&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=stay+awhile+and+listen)
I think /u/dcrypter is referring to Torchlight, by Runic Games, founded by Max and Eric Schaefer, co-founders of Blizzard North.
Stay Awhile and Listen is a good read if you're interested in their early days!
If you'd like to buy the book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M
Would [Empires of Eve] (https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=) qualify for this square? It's a chronicle of the wars that took place in Eve Online from 2007-2009.
The usual cycle is an entity takes a large amount of space, then grows stagnant as they have nothing they need from anyone else. Eventually the good FCs leave or go inactive, and the group's concerns are dominated by money. Eventually their greed outreaches their grasp and they get their shit kicked in by (usually smaller) active, experienced, motivated groups who suddenly find themselves in possession of a large amount of space...
&#x200B;
Some groups deal better than others with this "affluenza", and take active steps to keep their 'content creators' active and happy in an effort to stave of the decay. But to date, every large spaceholding entity in EVE's history have been through this cycle. In the last few years we have seen the fall of:
&#x200B;
(Currently) NC/PL/PH, aka "PanFam"
&#x200B;
Last year: The "Drone Russians" - a combine of Russian groups that held the drone regions for almost a decade
&#x200B;
2017: Stainwagon: Another russian-led group based in the regions around Stain
&#x200B;
2016: the CFC/Imperium: the coalition led by goons which held most of the North (from Cloud Ring to Geminate) - mighty as the Imperium appears now, it's less than three years since it was perceived to be equally mighty, but in only a few months every sov system was lost and many of the previous members left and/or disbanded.
&#x200B;
I very highly recommend The Empires Of EVE for a detailed account of the history of the game up to just before the start of the fall of the Imperium. My understanding is that Mr Groen is working on a sequel
In case you're interested, there's a really great "History" of Eve published: "Empires of Eve: A History of the Great Wars of Eve Online." I've never even touched Eve but I found the book really fascinating - well written and full of exactly the kind of political and technical intrigue that I love reading about.
if you like reading he made a book of the first mayor eve war
https://www.amazon.com/Empires-EVE-History-Great-Online-ebook/dp/B01DONPR0M/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1480806888&amp;sr=8-19&amp;keywords=eve+online
How about a book covering 2007-2009 :)
Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DONPR0M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0QmRCbCG276RX
There might be some edge cases where this is possible/happens.
But honestly it isn't even significant enough to be worth mentioning for actually driving content and the shenanigans that people pull off.
The people interested in rmt are bottling.
The people capable of pulling off big heists are typically far too invested in the game to even consider rmt which will easily get them permabanned etc.
-----
The motivation for people doing things like backstabbing, long cons, espionage, and convoluted plans of bumfuckery comes from how the mechanics of the sandbox allow people to benefit in game from these actions regardless of their "morality". Again, maybe it is a motivator in some edge cases, but rmt is not at all a significant driving force behind what makes eve stand out in this regard
For anyone interested in learning anything about the games history, I highly recommend empires of eve by Andrew Groen (ebook, audio etc.)
Here is the mobile version of your link
A couple of years ago a journalist wrote a book about Eve Online's community and how it's evolved over the years. Honestly, it's a good introduction into how Eve is played and a great read:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01DONPR0M/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
The approach is usually broken into two categories: transmission loss and reverberation.
Transmission Loss is a measure of how much sound (noise) is reduced through partitions (i.e. walls, doors, windows). Increasing the transmission loss of a partition is what most will consider as "blocking" sound.
Reverberation is a measure of the effect of reflections that occur when sound waves interact with walls, doors, windows, ceilings, walls. We can affect reverberation by adding sound absorption panels to a space. Reduction reverberation is what most will consider as "absorbing" sound.
You will need to study up on these concepts to understand why possible options/approaches will or will not be effective and what impact each option will have. https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040
Most noise occurs during movement between classes, so we're less concerned about that hindering studying.
Step 1: characterize all noise sources that occur during class activity (from inside the building and outside).
Step 2: characterize the pathway for each of those noise sources.
Step 3: identify possible solutions to mitigate each source-pathway combination with predictions on effect after treatment.
I'd suggest starting here: http://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Edition/dp/0071841040
Acoustics is a huge topic, grab a book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040/
Immensely popular book, however a little outdated: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167
I had a little luck on this wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_balance
Namely, there is a reference in this article to this book, which sounds interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167
I suggest you take a look through that book and check it's list of references for more publications like what you want. To study this stuff seriously, though, you are going to want to be up on your calculus and statistics.
The types are from Richard Bartle's work in Designing Virtual Worlds. I agree that some of the functions are either overlapping or hard to differentiate. There may be a need for a new typology.
The problem is that virtual worlds are, per definition, not games. They have games inside them, e.g. the entire combat element of MMORPGs, but as such, they are "places of interaction". The two articles I've pointed you to, albeit different in nature, point that out pretty well. As such, and I don't mean this as an insult, the statement "Do you understand that its' a game and has nothing to do with real life?" is something you'd hear from a layman, who doesn't really know what he's talking about. It was -very- real for the people who were raided. [relevant literature] (around chapter 4 or so)
Racing the Beam is suppose to be a good book on old console development and how they tuned graphics to the way CRTs worked.
Racing The Beam is about the Atari 2600 (though it does mention the NES in passing). And you did say "any early-model game consoles". I hope they do one on the NES sometime, it was great for getting some perspective on modern hardware.
I guess you mean that one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X Seems to be about the Atari VCS but sounds interesting neverless, thanks! :)
Amazon book link
Racing the Beam was my recommendation for best computer book of 2009. It's about how the hardware choices of the Atari 2600 shaped the mindset and culture of Atari programmers. It's the only book I know of that really explains how people hack small systems, how brilliant insights become clever code which then becomes essential knowledge for those who seek further mastery of the machine's potential.
For a great analysis of the architecture of one of the most important pieces of Big Iron ever built, check out Jim Thornton's book Design of a Computer: The Control Data 6600 (PDF). It's perfectly readable without electronics training (just skip chapter 3), and you can watch Seymour Cray invent the cutting-edge CPU technology of 1980-2000 -- in 1963.
Racing the Beam covers a lot of these sorts of technical limitations for the Atari 2600.
http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X
Amazon is selling it at about 40% off list price in the US. Amazon UK has a page for it, but it currently says unavailable. May be worth keeping an eye on it in case they get around to putting up some information.
Fuck that. The Hard cover version looks bad ass and should be fun to read through.
Surely the point of the game is to get this one instead. http://www.amazon.com/Elder-Scrolls-Skyrim-Collectors-Official/dp/0307891402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320887462&amp;sr=8-1
Check out the Amazon page description. If you swap between Hard and Paper back editions, the description changes slightly.
I know it's a little late, but wtf.
I just bought this guide and it says it comes with a code for an interactive map. It arrives tomorrow, so I haven't tried it out.
10 or under
I'd love to have the Animal Crossing Guide!
3)I am NOT an artist. I am so sorry for this. I really tried.......
Thanks for the contest!
You can never go wrong with the strategy guide.
I have to say that I think one of my favorite things is visiting the island. I could spend hours alone on there, hunting for those bugs I don't have yet and going on the tours. My favorite tour so far has to be the maze one. Even if I get lost, haha.
New Leaf: The Game Everyone Should Get. xD
In memory of my cousin and 6 of my friends. Its so weird because a) its almost been 10 years, and b) i was totally supposed to be with them. RIP Sammy <3
reallllly want this but, surprise me from my books & dvd list!
A huge water slide funnel looking thing, it was pretty terrifying since I was backwards, but I still loved it! time to end boredom This is awesome because well it's animal crossing. 'nuff said
Here you go
Okay, here are 4 suggestions about theory. There are plenty more, but these are a few of my favourites.
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Characteristics of Games
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design
Theory of Fun for Game Design
Good luck and happy reading.
That's exactly it, I want to experiment with different ideas for the meta game, all of them very different from the source material, and pretty diverse among themselves as well.
I think you might be on to something about a mechanic similar to the Linear RPG; it would certainly be simple to prototype and test out.
One of the goals I had in mind was to focus less on fast, frantic action and more on slower, strategic play. Whether the strategy is in setting up big chains, or choosing when to use certain tiles or which to match when, I'm not yet sure.
I actually just discovered Machinations when I read your other post, and have been playing with it a bit to experiment with some potential systems for the meta game. It seems unfortunately poorly documented, I'm assuming there would be a lot of content about it in their expensive book though.
I think that's a hard enough question even when targeting the general population within that age group. So it can be difficult to find well researched and experientially backed up information even without the more specific target of children with autism. Though I'll also note (as someone with a degree of autism himself), depending on the individual's particular autistic attributes, the condition can actually be a strength for studying something such as game design. The focus on designing rules and working out all the implications for their effects on the gameplay experience can often be a natural fit for someone with autism. At least in my case, the key for effective learning was to grant me the time, space, and tools to explore a subject in my own idiosyncratic way, at which point I could soak up all sorts of knowledge and concepts.
As for concrete recommendations, the one that comes to my mind is to look outside of computers for at least part of your teaching material and activities. I wasn't expecting it initially, but while reading a variety of game design books to improve my own knowledge for making video games, I repeatedly encountered the recommendation to do as much of your early prototyping away from the computer as possible. That is, design board games, card games, sports-like games, party games, and so on. In many cases, you can pull ideas from a variety of game types to build hybrids that do a decent job of replicating the essence of certain video game mechanics, giving you a chance to evaluate how fun the concept is, and if it merits spending time to make a more in depth digital version.
Best of all, it can be free or very cheap, it requires no knowledge of coding, you can do it anywhere (though preferably with a good work table and some craft supplies and standard physical gaming equipment), and you can get results in just a few hours, or maybe even a few minutes depending on the concept. Anything using a standard deck of 52 cards is particularly simple to test, for example.
Two of the books I've already read that had sections helping me think in these terms were:
Challenges for Game Designers is also on my backlog to read and looks very good for this sort of non-digital focus for learning skills that will ultimately be applicable to making digital games.
https://www.amazon.ca/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design/dp/0321820274
This has an approach to mechanics that views everything as a resource, which I think makes it well-suited for idle games. On the down side, it talks a lot about using their software which was made in Flash, and their replacement is now in closed beta. (And apparently runs server-side so in the future they will charge per-simulation? I'm kind of annoyed they don't just sell it as a standalone product.)
I've always been interested in economic theory... some of my thoughts in the game design document were around having two types of economy: a global economy and a local one. I wanted this to have an effect on the player in terms of the strength of the league (i.e. how much money was coming out of TV rights, attendances, demand for the product etc). A weaker league gives team less chance of buying top quality players resulting in lesser ability to compete globally without huge investment from the player etc.
I'm not sure how to tie this into the game without making it too complicated but I did buy a book on game mechanics (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Mechanics-Advanced-Design-Voices/dp/0321820274) so I've been studying the mechanics behind some popular MMO / tycoon type games.
There's a really cool tool by the authors of the book I just linked:
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/
I've used that in the GDD to simulate a few of the sources / drains / converters in the game... balancing the game and making it enjoyable is going to be a real challenge. I'm concentrating on getting the basics of match simulation and a stable server for hundreds of connections before I start with the actual game mechanics itself but something I'm really looking forward to!
I feel the same way at times. I recently found a decent book that points me in the right direction. Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development: From Concept to Playable Game with Unity and C# https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321933168/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_VhXx42O3fAPhR
All I learned about game design started with this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Game-Design-Prototyping-Development/dp/0321933168
Read this cover to cover and you can pretty much make any basic game. The next step is, of course, making more complex games and learning as you go.
Definitely will do, geometry wars 3 should be on the Xbox store soon I think, and I currently have this book just haven't read it yet http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0321933168/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1416064145&amp;sr=8-1. Although I'm against using unity because I like coding the entire low level engine up to high level stuff I will give it a try and Also get the books you recommend.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466586524/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321933168/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
These have helped me out immensely
> I'd LOVE for someone to write a book about all the dirt from inside that place.
It's your lucky day!
I read it a couple years ago so I don't remember the exact details, but it was a good read.
If you ever get a chance to, I suggest reading Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, in the book they talk about how they use marketing tactics from Def Jam Records and put stickers around all around New York to get the logo and name known.
I never heard that story. But this book talks a lot about the Houser's not being happy with the cast of VC, particularly Reynolds.
https://www.amazon.com/Jacked-Outlaw-Story-Grand-Theft/dp/0470936371/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1536273502&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=gta+book&amp;dpID=51P53I6qFnL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch
Thanks getting this and decided to get this as well.
Killer Game Programming in Java https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596007302/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_7c6lxbS4XABBM
I'm basically in the same boat as you. I recently got Killer Game Programming and am slowly working through it. It extends upon what most people would know from normal java concepts, so it's a little advanced for me but it's making more sense as time goes on.
Also there's JMonkey which is a java based engine, so it might be good for a top down game like that. I'm still experimenting with that myself but there are some helpful tutorials there too.
Curious to hear of more suggestions myself though
This question was asked a few weeks ago, and someone suggested this. I haven't read through it yet, though, so I can't give you my take on it.
Besides C, you can also try dabbling in Java and use Netbeans IDE since they are beginner friendly and explain the functions of syntax that you type in
(if you downloaded the 200MB++ help files)
(Try read this one!)[http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Game-Programming-Andrew-Davison/dp/0596007302]
or you can dabble in Flash n post your simple games to flash portal like kongregate/underground. Many indie developer also start from there.
To be honest not much (in OpenGL). I've just got this book, hoping to change that.
EDIT: I didn't get it yet, luckily. I'm looking at the date. 2005. A bit outdated probably. Suggestions, I'm still searching.
I agree with everyone here. While it's confusing to start if you take the time to learn it you'll find it's very rewarding and fun. To do what you want would be impossible. It would not convert well.
However, there is an older star wars rpg that uses an older system that is probably what you're looking for. https://www.amazon.com/Revised-Core-Rulebook-Star-Roleplaying/dp/078692876X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1486065166&amp;sr=8-1 You might want to check this out if you still can't figure out the new system.
Just buy him this of course.
There's the d6 game by West End Games, the d20 game by WotC similiar to D&D 3rd edition, there's saga edition by WotC (which would have made a better basis for D&D 4th edition), and then there's the series of games by Fantasy Flight; Edge of Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force and Destiny.
d20 star wars was actually pretty fun.
http://www.amazon.com/Revised-Core-Rulebook-Star-Roleplaying/dp/078692876X
The Jedi is actually not incredibly OP, which opens it up to a lot of people. Basically blasters are awesome and do more damage...plus the GM made it difficult to get a lightsaber (you had to find the parts and build it, a failed build ruined the parts)
Wizards of the Coast beat you to it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/078692876X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1450719744&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=star+wars+wizards+of+the+coast&amp;pi=SY200_QL40&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51bRzJYtnkL&amp;ref=plSrch
I'm gonna blow your mind with an RPG book!
Yup. Do you have the Player's Handbook? It will tell you how to create your character and what you should roll. Also, your DM should be able to provide some guidance as well. Ultimately, your DM will hold the final word on what is and is not allowed.
So I would need this,http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Heinsoo/dp/0786948671/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344111332&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+4th+edition, to continue playing after what I bought?
This depends on what type of D&D you want to play. I play 4e. From my understanding of previous editions, much more of 4e happens on the table. If you have experience with tabletop games like I, and my friends, had, you should try this out. If not, it's very easy to pick up.
I'm pretty sure that Spencer is DMing a Pathfinder game in the podcast. It's definitely 3.5.
Anyway, back to the starting point. If you're interested in trying 4e, skip the starter set. It's useless. It gives you enough information to get 4 classes to level 2, and incorrectly at that. The provided adventure is boring, and you're not left with a whole lot to do after that.
If you're looking for the cheapest game possible, you'll need:
Players Handbook 1 http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Roleplaying/dp/0786948671/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381660555&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=4e+players+handbook
Monster Manual 1 http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Monster-Manual-Roleplaying/dp/0786948523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381660601&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=4e+monster+manual
Core Rulebook http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Dungeon-Masters-Guide/dp/0786948809/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
If you want to play 4e correctly, these are the three books you need. Characters, maps, and monsters can be improvised as needed.
If you're willing to spend more, I would suggest this map:
http://www.amazon.com/Chessex-Role-Playing-Play-Mat/dp/B0015IQO2O/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1381660750&amp;sr=1-1-catcorr&amp;keywords=d%26d+vinyl+mat
With some wet erase markers (WET, not DRY), you can build any dungeon, castle, or moon colony you can imagine. Beyond those three books, I think this is the best investment you can make to immerse yourself and your friends into another world.
Wizards provides character sheets at the backs of some books, but there are better ones on their website for free.
https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/charactersheet
Last, if you really want to make things as simple as possible, subscribe to D&D Insider.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/tools.aspx
It's worth it for the character builder alone.
EDIT: Don't forget the dice!
My brother got it, and no. The map is kinda cool, and the powers on cards is kinda handy, but I would suggest simply buying or downloading these books.
[The Player's Handbook] (http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Players-Handbook-Heinsoo/dp/0786948671/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1368486398&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=player%27s+handbook+4) Will teach you the majority of the mechanics and how everything works.
While the Monster Manual Will give your Dungeon Master (DM) tons of baddies to kill everyone
There are TONS of more books, but I would start with these and then get the Player's Handbooks 2-3 for more options.
It seems like a lot of money, but have everyone chip in. For these two books its about the same cost as other prime board games, but months of creative, unique fun that's different every time you play.
(Oh, and just get a medium sized white board for the playing mat. Draw out a grid in sharpie and get pieces of paper or tokens to signify the bad guys and party members.)
4th E did not follow that trend. MSRP for the players handbook $34.95. The price history on Amazon shows a price of about $23. That's a going price of 65% of MSRP. If we apply that to the MSRP of 5th edition we get about $32. That's $4 more than 2E in 1989 (in today's dollars). That isn't a big change.
I started with the warcraft archives and was happy. Its 4 books in one and each is pretty solid. Not really linear but each book is good in its own right. Richard knaack and christie golden are both in it. I like knaacks writing style.
https://www.amazon.com/WarCraft-Archive-WARCRAFT-Blizzard-Entertainment/dp/1416525823
Reading the war of the ancients trilogy now.
this is where i'd start. They're more dated than some things (predating WoW), but they're very good stories that capture of a lot of the events that built up to the world we have today. Of blood and honor and The Last guardian are particularly good.
Or buy it second hand? Tried ebay?
http://www.amazon.com/WarCraft-Archive-WORLD-OF-WARCRAFT/dp/1416525823
Whatever order you choose to do, I definitely recommend picking up The WarCraft Archive as it contains 4 books: Day of the Dragon, Lord of the Clans, The Last Guardian, and Of Blood and Honor. Saves you a little bit of money as opposed to buying them individually.
Edit: It looks like there's a second WarCraft Archive for the War of the Ancients Trilogy as well.
If you plan on reading them chronologically then /u/Cereon-EU 's link is 100% accurate, I can personally recommend reading them this way as it is nice to read chronologically.
If you plan on buying them online, buy whichever ones you think might enjoy. If you are going to buy them in store, try to get the Warcraft Archive Amazon Link
and the Chronicles of War Amazon Link
These are good because you get a total of 7 books(Last Guardian repeats) for the price of 4, AND they are all chronological to each other (no books missing in between)
First learn C# then read this book: Learning XNA 4.0.
In the book you learn how to make a simple 2d game and 3d game. Try it out!
This one for basic C# and OOP.
Beginning Visual C# 2010
O'Reilly has great reference books.
C# 4.0 in a Nutshell: The Definitive Reference
From there you can learn Mono for Android (and iOS)
Professional Android Programming with Mono for Android and .NET/C#
While learning XNA game development by example,
XNA 4.0 Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide
And by detail...
Learning XNA 4.0: Game Development for the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7
not trying to be snarky, but hire a pro. randomly, and blindly throwing acoustic treatments into an environment is a quick way to waste money.
treatments are not universal, and different treatments and approaches are used to deal with different issues.
what issues are you trying to deal with by using these "clouds"
what dose the architect, GC, acoustician and the HVAC/ mechanical contractor, and the electrical/ lighting contractor? Any of these parties will have something to say, as you need to know flow treatment will be supported by the building structure, not block HVAC ducting or airflow. not obstruct/ interfere with lighting, work esthetically within the space, meets code, dose not interfere with any installed sound/ pa coverage and then control/ adjust the sound of the room.
all that being said heres a decent enough book start with as far as reference material
https://www.amazon.com/Master-Handbook-Acoustics-Sixth-Everest/dp/0071841040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1467930274&amp;sr=1-1
There we go. get a guide and look up how to be a perfect character. read skyrim lore and learn all vanilla game glitches. have you played oblivion?
-history worth learning- /http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Third_Era
-lore- /www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Main_Page
-guide permalink-http://amzn.com/0307891402
Here is the mobile version of your link
http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Game-Programming-Andrew-Davison/dp/0596007302#immersive-view_1419346106105
Killer Game Programming
> You are mistaken about WotC owning PFRPG. It is owned and operated by Paizo which formerly published Dungeon and Dragon magazine before WotC decided not to renew the contract.
I don't believe I said that. Also, I know about Paizo. I've played pathfinder. Pathfinder is piggybacking on the success of D&D and yet at the same time they and their player base look down on the rest of the gaming community as though they are some how superior. I say that Paizo is milking the 3.5 SRD for all they can.
>These were used to illustrate that D&D's cost of entry is almost double what most of the big players charge.
$66 D&D books != 2x $50 pathfinder books. The PHB only costs $23 on amazon. That's your barrier to entry, that's all you need to get started playing, $60 covers the whole group's starting package.
edit: looked on amazon, $66 for the 3 book set.
You're gonna want to start with reading this book followed by "the war of the ancients" trilogy. Afterward, play Warcraft 3! Not only does it provide some amazing lore, it's a great game.
Afterward, just read books. Any of the books. And if you're still invested, pick up the chronicle books and read those. They are the most up to date, comprehensive overview of WoW's lore to date, but they read like a history book, so they're a bit dull to people who haven't been previously invested.
Have fun!
if you haven't stumbled across it yet definitely give this a read.
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850
Well, this book explains a lot.
EDIT: Before the rush to downvote, remember that you can be constructively critical of a beloved company. Be it Apple or Valve or Rockstar.