Tech Debt

To quickly reiterate, I started this blog as a retrospective to reflect on the work I've done to see if and where I'm growing or what lessons I've learned, as well as to give updates to those that care. It's been a few patch cycles since my last update so here we go.

First, let's catch up on the champions I've helped put out since my last post! Torvald is a gauntlet wielding shield recharging champ. For this guy I was responsible for his 1p character and weapon tree while training the new associate artist on his 3p character tree. Beyond the regular setup, Torvald required some material work which I took on (my last job had me doing this quite a bit so I enjoyed jumping back in). On top of that he required some new tech to be made to lock on to champions and have an IK feeling of the wrist.

Here's Torvald's introduction video:

Up next we have Maeve, the cat-esque dual blade carrying champion. She was also a lot of fun to work on because she got new tech as well (a double jump) and her duality of the weapon made for some interesting troubleshooting. For this champion, I again was responsible for her 1p kit and monitoring her 3p kit progress by the associate tech artist and jumping in when needed. 

Here's Maeve's introduction video:

Overall, creating champions and setting them up and then maintaining them is something I'm very comfortable with. If there ever is a champion that truly does stump me I'll be sure to do a focused retrospective on it. Which now that I think about, may be one of the champions we have planned coming down the pipe since they will be the first to do "X".

Now that those are out of the way, I want to dive into the deeper part of what I've noticed for a while but figured I'd put into words and share. A lot of studios share similar traits and hurdles. By that I mean, no matter where you go there is going to be days where you feel like you're having deja vu from a previous studio. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Studios need to turn a profit to continue making games even if it disagrees or conflicts with your own personal agenda. Which being a Tech Artist might happen a lot because there is something that can always be done better or something that you want to fix that just doesn't, or can't for that matter, make the patch build no matter how hard you fight. So what I've learned from my time in the game industry is that if you want to get those things in, you have to go above and beyond. Now this may seem a little counter intuitive to some, as they may see it that they get paid just to do A-C so they never bother exploring or fixing or working on M-O but a well rounded Tech Artist has the ability to do A-X, the problem is they just need to find the time. 

When I got brought onto Paladins, it was in its closed alpha stage where significant foundation work was being implemented, ripped up, and rebuilt. This equated to a lot of quick iteration and not necessarily the best practices or processes. Fast forward to today and I've already made great strides trying to resolve some of these lingering issues but there's quite a bit left to tackle. I have a personal list that continually grows faster than shrinks that I'm constantly trying to chip away at in my free time. Some patches I can, other patches I can't. For the most part, the items on the list have no major impact on the game itself or if they do, they aren't immediately noticeable by the community, so trying to quantify it in a way so that it gets added to the schedule is next to impossible...especially when my department is pretty small and up against the clock. However, there is pros to getting them fixed, not just forward facing but internally as well because it holds merit to the devs whether they themselves know it immediately or not. Mostly I get messages of praise from my co-workers days, weeks, or even months after I've fixed something letting me know I made their job easier or that they learned I was the guy that quietly did this in the shadows, which is rewarding so I continue forwards. The downfall to this however is that you can easily burn yourself out. There has to be a happy balance of "I know I have this much work to get done this patch so I can take on this back burner task" and you have to be willing to stay late if need to be to see everything through.

Beyond all that, I am getting another new associate tech artist! Which eventually means after I train him up I then will have 2 associates that can take care of the lighter loads that still require attention while I can knock some tech debt down much faster and stress free. Plus, relying on them more will allow me to start getting some really cool forward facing functionality in which is what I love doing. Hopefully I can continue to train them as well as I did the very first associate tech artist I had, and they too will come to understand the principles of going above and beyond by doing quality work that supports the entire team that they can be proud of.

Lastly, I am going to GDC this year! I am so excited and eager to finally be going. Ever since I was in college I had wanted to go and now 6 years later I am making my first trip with a few guys I work with. It was either put it off another year or pull the trigger and make it happen. I will definitely have a post about how GDC went, if it met my expectations, give a recommendation if it's worth it, and decide if I'd ever go back. Until then I started tweeting. There's so many social platforms out there to keep track of, I always just considered Twitter to be a distraction, but because of my decision to go to GDC I decided to be more active by posting "In the Life Of" tweets and start following other game devs. Plus, I'll be updating my portfolio this weekend!

Keep on keeping on.
-Ben