Welcome: first message

Okay, a little about me and why I think we can do this:

My name is Sean McBeth, I'm 22 years old, I'm a Computer Scientist from the Chambersburg area. I currently work in Camp Hill (if you aren't familiar with it, it's just across the river from Harrisburg, they are practically the same place). I've lived in this area for the last (1...2...3...) 17 years. I like the area a lot, and I have a financial interest in staying in the state, so if I can't go to the game industry I'll bring it to me.

In the past, I've been the President for a number of different organizations. I started in highschool, starting a community service group with a bunch of my friends. In college, at Penn State, I served as Pres in the Engineering Club (I know, mucho dorko, whatever). I transfered to Shippensburg University two years later, where I joined the local ACM chapter, becoming Pres the next year. At the very end of my *first* year as ACM pres, I worked with one of my professors to charter a chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the Computer and Information Sciences Honor Society. I was made president of UPE, relected as president for ACM, and elected as vice-president of the Programming Team, for my last year at Ship. This all ended a little over a month ago.

As you can see, I have a very long resume when it comes to running groups and organizations. In this first year of *our* group, I would like to assume the position of president, if there are no objections.

What I'd like to get out of this group: some learning, some contacts, some resume building, the usual stuff.

What I'd like to do with the group:
I'd like to get to the point where we have semi-regular meetings, maybe once a quarter. I'd like for it to be a moderated, open floor format. We'll do most of our work over the internet, but it's always good fun to get together sometimes. We'd get together, maybe have some snacks available, discuss some things, etc. ad nauseum. I have a tendency to ramble on for hours on a single subject when I'm at meetings, so hopefully the open floor format will encourage people to interupt me when I start going over the deep end.

I would like to recruit enough people that we can have democratic elections by next year. To me, having a group large enough to run elections (and I don't mean the "one person runs, so they get it anyway" thing that happens to most groups) is the benchmark of success for a group. It's the point where you reach critical mass and the individual interests (outside of just "keep the group floating") fuel the group forward. If we don't reach elections in two years, I will consider the attempt a failure.

I think those are the main areas of concern, establishing routine and procedure. Any projects we will do will be with that in mind, just trying to get people in the door.

I don't know why I am posting on this thread. It's not the kind of thing I usually reply to but oh well.

My name is Daniel Merritt. I'm 15 and a sophomore in highschool. I don't usually work in groups, usually because I don't know anyone else at my school that knows C++ and my other freinds make things using batch (don't ask why) and Java (yuck!!!!).

I started programming C/C++ in early 7th grade and did HTML in 5th grade. Now I am learning DirectX and OpenGL as well as trying to get Winsock programming (but my winsock book is really old--from the days when windows 3.1 was still big) and if possible I want to get A+ certified this summer (might not happen though because I have a hard time remembering thing like cables and all that other junk. Who memorizes things like DB-25M goes to a male centronics 36?). After school I would like to go to the DigiPen Institute of Technology and get a Batchelors in RTIS.

I don't really know what you mean by group or what people will do in this group. Can someone please explain?

okay, this is the GD Gathering Forums for the Central PA Indy/Hobbiest GameDev Group...

I thought group posts were not supposed to be on the front page or active topics anymore.

I must express some confusion...How is a non-member posting on the group forum?
Or at least that is how it is appearing to me...

Quote:

Original post by dmreichard I must express some confusion...How is a non-member posting on the group forum? Or at least that is how it is appearing to me...

it's open to the public (we can change that if everyone wants). What confuses me is WHY he didn't know where he was posting, because the only way he could have gotten to this thread was to go through our group page.

Its Good to see some activity in this forum. I am currently a computer science major. I will be starting my 2nd year of classes this fall. I enjoy programming in c, c++, and java mostly but can also deal with basic, visual basic, and c#. I have been programming for about 3 maybe 4 years. I took AP java in high school and then decided to study computer science. I think this group is a good idea and I would like to meet a few new people and maybe share some ideas. I would also like to see good group activity. If they are in the group they should at least try to participate. I hope this works out for the best.

Well I guess it is time for me to slop together a very disorganized and messy background. =P

Well, when I was about 3 I would watch my Mom play state of the art games like solitaire and tetris on the computer, and between 4 and 5 I started getting into computers myself. Around 8 I started teaching myself BASIC from the helpfiles in the program on MS-DOS. At the same time I was teaching myself how to rip apart a computer, and reassemble it. I can only recall two failures where the one time I managed to somehow corrupt command.com and another time when I blew up some part in the computer.

When I was around 13 I started getting into MUDs. That's where I started getting into programming, I really wanted to program on a MUD. So I started reading books, and became fairly proficient in C.

Now I'm 17, and I will turn 18 on August 24th. I am teaching myself C++ as well as all kinds of different APIs for GUI and Graphics Programming. I am hoping after I graduate high school to get into a college with a computer science program geared towards game programming. But for now, it is a very fun hobby for me.

Well, there is a quickly put together summary(more like...a summary of a summary...or something). Hope you all enjoyed the read. =P

Why hello there,

My name is Justin DeVage, this coming year I will be a sophmore at Shippensburg University. While, not very active in the "scene" I have been programming since I very young age and I consider myself to be a decent programmer. I joined this group because I have lot of ideas (but then again, who doesn't) and I think it would be nice to have a forum to discuss this ideas. Also, I think it would be great to meet other people in the area that share the same interests and passions for me. I personally would like to see this group have meetings, and quite possibly work on a collaborative project to not only boost our own resumes, but for the sheer fun of it. And that is really all I can think of to say at the moment. I do agree though, that getting people in the door right now is our top priority, as we can't do much with such few members.

Sean, I personally, when the school year starts up again, ask around Shippensburg and promote the group as I am sure there are others like us that come from there.

Quote:

Original post by JohnnyCasil Why hello there, My name is Justin DeVage, this coming year I will be a sophmore at Shippensburg University. While, not very active in the "scene" I have been programming since I very young age and I consider myself to be a decent programmer. I joined this group because I have lot of ideas (but then again, who doesn't) and I think it would be nice to have a forum to discuss this ideas. Also, I think it would be great to meet other people in the area that share the same interests and passions for me. I personally would like to see this group have meetings, and quite possibly work on a collaborative project to not only boost our own resumes, but for the sheer fun of it. And that is really all I can think of to say at the moment. I do agree though, that getting people in the door right now is our top priority, as we can't do much with such few members. Sean, I personally, when the school year starts up again, ask around Shippensburg and promote the group as I am sure there are others like us that come from there.

If you haven't already, check out The Cutter Board. There you will be able to get into contact with a lot of people. Look up Mike Angstadt (Eclipse) and Gary Plattenburg (jumbojr). Mike is the president of the ACM chapter for next year, Gary was the president of the programming team last year and I think he's doing it again. Both are very good friends of mine (in fact, I should probably contact them on my own about all this). You can also try to contact Derek Sollenburger about Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the CS Honor Society (you'll need atleast a 3.5GPA for your in-major courses, not overall).

I don't think we met last year, there weren't very many freshman around. If we did, I'd remember you if I saw you, I'm not too good with names.

Last semester, the ACM chapter had started a Stratego-like game project. I had been trying to get them to start a project for a year, and naturally they decided to go along just as I was digging deep into my research project, so I didn't really have a good chance to participate.

My favorite profs were: Wellington, Briggs, Hastings, and Mooney. I liked Arch okay, but it never really felt like we ever did much in class. Schroeder was a waste of time. Never had a class with Girard, but I've heard he is pretty good (he also lives around the corner from me). Thomas... you probably already know. The department is good, actually really good. Any questions, you know how to contact me.

Everyone, we'll probably end up doing a few things with Ship ACM. We should be able to pick up a few members there (maybe three or four), and I know they would like to have something to do.

One of my other goals for the future is to charter a professional chapter of the ACM located in Harrisburg, however, that will not be centered on gamedev, it'll probably end up mostly being on Software Engineering. Shippensburg holds a couple of programming contests, one is open to alumni, and the other they invite alumni to help with, so I'll be going back for those. Lots of stuff to do, guys. Pace ourselves, we can easily get it done.

The only profs I've had so far are Mooney and Briggs, and I enjoyed both of them. I don't believe that we have met, but I do remember seeing your poster in the hall at the end of the year, it struck my eye because I remembered seeing the images on these forums.

Are we leaving registration for this open to all people, even those without experience. I personally know some people that would probably join just to learn and get a feel for what game dev is actually like.

I'd like to see this group as a two-fold endeavour. It would be cool for serious, independent startups to have a place to get together and discuss business, network, etc, a sort of loose confederation. But at the same time, it would be equally cool to have a place for hobbiests to get together, learn from each other, collaberate, and network with each other. All told, the *main* purpose is this networking aspect, meeting people, making connections, and making opportunities out of those connections.

GameDev.net is a great place to come if you are looking to learn. They have the jobs system on here, but it's impersonal and not very large yet (but getting there fast, you'd be suprised at who lists jobs here).

Games are big business, and it's the big business part that you can't learn on your own, ever. However, it can be learned in group organizations; running meetings, running projects, etc. We might do resume writing sessions, we might do interview sessions, blah blah blah.

Sort of a nebulous "University of Professional Career Development" for game dev.

Of course, right now, we don't have that capacity. We are all hobbyists, with only the prospect of recruiting more hobbyists. Trying to get independent developers to join us is like trying to ask a bunch of college students to hang out in the kiddie pool. I'm not sure how to fix that right now.

Now, I'm just one person. I'm not the dictator of the group. If the rest of you come to a concensus and say "No, we just want to be a group of hobbyists that get together for LAN parties every month," that's fine, that's the road it will go. It HAS to be that way, because if the majority of people aren't all signed on to whatever the group is doing, then NOTHING will get done. So, this group is what YOU make of it, I've just voiced my desires.

So, in short, certainly membership is open to those without any experience. It's open to ANYONE that the group as a majority DECIDES it is open to. Just keep in mind that the higher percentage of our membership that are "experienceless", the more difficult it becomes to get more professional people in.

I agree with everything you said. Just right now I feel that since you and I are the only real members, our current main goal should be getting more people on board. Because as it stands now, we don't really have enough people here to attract anyone other than those that we can personally talk to, as we have nothing to show. My personal feelings towards this group would be to use it as a launching point for starting maybe an indy development group as you said in your first post, "Bring the industry to us." so to speak. But for the time being, I think if we get people that are interested in developing games, have the dedication, and know how to program, but just don't know how to program games, then we could just start out small by making some small collaborative games with say you and I focusing on the design of the code and then delegating tasks in a fair way to our new members in a way to teach them how games are made. Then, we can build up a base of people, and have something to show so that way when we all mature as a group, maybe more serious happenings can come of this. If you couldn't tell, I am pretty serious about obtaining a job in the industry, and more than willing to do what it takes to make it happen, and I think that if we seriously try to make this gathering thing work, it would be a step in the right direction.

Hey sup all. This is the Mike Angstadt that Sean mentioned in a previous post. I also go to Shippensburg University and am going to be President of ACM next semester. I'm also going to be an officer for Programming Team (I think Vice Pres...can't remember :/ ) and I'm also part of UPE, the Comp Sci honors frat. Oh, and I'll be a senior next semester, so la de dah. I have Mooney for three classes and am masochistically looking forward to it.

I'm a decent programmer, with knowledge of Java, C/C++, PHP, HTML CSS &#106avascript, and probably some other stuff too. I've never done any programming with games, but, of course, would love to learn. I think the idea of creating this community is awesome. Even if we don't end up accomplishing anything, it can be a great place to meet new people and learn new things.

Justin, let me know if you need help promoting this GameDev group at Ship; I'll be happy to help you out. Just be sure to stick with it and carry your goals out. Once classes start, the last thing you want is more work to do, so keep on trucking. Not to put you on the spot, but I could set aside an ACM meeting or two for you to talk about the group and recruit people (hopefully, we'll have a larger member base next semester). And post fliers. Fliers fliers fliers. Everywhere. You have no idea how effective they can be. Oh, and, as Sean mentioned, post on the Cutter Board. Just get the word out whereever and however you can.

Yes, ACM has (barely) begun creating a game of our own called Shiptego, a spin off of the board game Stratego. So far, we've just been having fun with it and have been jotting down ideas. You can see them here.

No wait, I do sort of have some game development experience. Back in high school, when I was maybe 15, I created this group called the Unreal Editing Newbies. It was basically a community devoted to teaching people how to create maps in Unreal [Tournament]. It was a lot of fun. People really appriciated what we did and if I hadn't been lazy and let it die off, it would have been huge by now. Anyway, just thought I'd mention that...I don't think I remember much about that stuff anyways.

I would love help spreading the word. I've talked to a few people already, and they are interested in joining and know others who may also be interested. Since you are in the ACM and programming team, I am sure people would be much more receptive to hearing about the group from you rather than me, but I would be more than willing to show up and talk about the group with you once we get things more settled. Fliers are a good idea, and a simple one to do as well. I also heard that Mooney has actually be interested in teaching a course on GameDev, so we could talk to him and he would probably be willing to make an announcement for us, or even have some tips.

Well, he's teaching a Special Topics course on game programming next semester, which I'm taking, so he definitely at least has an interest in the subject.

Hello all, my name's Chris Radley. Mike told me about this group and I figured it wouldn't hurt joining. So, about me then. I am a senior at Shippensburg University. I am double majoring in Math and Computer Science and will be graduating in December. All my programming experience has been while in college, except for the class in True Basic and Visual Basic in High School that didn't teach much. That being said I am pretty good with Java and still getting the hang of other languages. I started going to ACM meetings as much as possible once the game project was begun and hope to go this year coming up if my schedule allows me to. Well, thats about it for me, not much programming background but a lot of math and at least right now way too much free time, damn unemployment.

[Edited by - MajorLefty on July 5, 2005 5:11:45 PM]

alright, three ship students, an ex-ship student, and two unknowns.

Looks like this group is going to have a basing in Shippensburg =P

For a while anyway...