I'm fairly desperate for some help from developers

[Generalfrisk]

EDIT: If the moderators would prefer this to be in a better forum I'd be happy to have it moved

Hey all, a quick overview of me. I'm an aspiring video game designer, and I'm a little stuck in my degree right now.

Currently I'm taking classes to major in Systems Programming, but my classes haven't gone stellar since my first one. All of my other classes I get As and high Bs, but my second C++ Teacher was not very... on track and collected. So I'm missing a LOT of critical information I need for my later classes.

All of this has led to me somewhat of a career choice crisis. What i'm most interested in is balancing. Stuff like deciding on and creating new content. When I see patch notes, I want to do what those people did.

So my questions will be limited to this:

Are the developers who do balancing programmers?

If yes, what are the most important languages to master?

If yes to first question, do you have any recommendations to remedy my lapse of knowledge


If no to the first question, what do you recommend i major in to accomplish my goals?

Thank you so much for any helpful input you may offer! I'm really struggling in my classes and i'm starting to freak out.

[Elsif]

Probably the wrong forum for this question.

[Generalfrisk]

Where would you recommend I put it?

[Elsif]

There's a general topic forum somewhere, or even a general gaming forum.

[Kataroku]

I think you're looking to be a game / level designer. They tend to use tools (made by programmers) to adjust the knobs, lay out encounters, implement quests, etc.

It's probably a bad idea to focus on just one tiny aspect of game design though, that being 'balancing'.

[Elsif]

If the mods are nice they'll move or redirect it.

[Generalfrisk]

I think you're looking to be a game / level designer. They tend to use tools (made by programmers) to adjust the knobs, lay out encounters, implement quests, etc.

It's probably a bad idea to focus on just one tiny aspect of game design though, that being 'balancing'.

Definitely! Balancing was certainly just an example, but to me the titles have somewhat murky meaning. A designer, a developer, etc, sometimes refers to artists, programmers, even producers! I'm uncertain what the actual title of my aspirations might be.

If you have any info for me I'm open ears, I'm computer savvy and a long-time gamer, but like many I have shockingly little info on the background of making it happen

[Kataroku]

Well programming is all about managing the underlying systems which typically have nothing to do with gameplay at all. Rendering, networking, asset management (loading textures, sounds, models), database queries, etc.

Then you have the artists who make all the textures, models, terrain, etc.

Sound engineers (?) produce music and sound assets.

And finally the designers. You can have different types of designers like sound designer, art designer, software designer, game designer, level designer, etc. These are typically the people with the vision and direction - they tell the plebs what assets need to be made in order to create the game. A sound engineer doesn't care where their music is going to be played in the game - it's up to the sound designer to provide direction (mood, types of instruments used, etc).

[Servos]

First career tip: Research venues for career discussion. MMO-C Wow General Discussion??

[dextersmith]

What do you mean by balancing?