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caraigWell, the job interview wasn't. It wasn't for a job, and it wasn't an interview.
Basically, what 3D Mirage has going was not that they were looking for interns. They were looking for applicants for their TRAINING PROGRAM which ends in a 40-hour internship. A training program which costs about $2500, AFTER you get "paid" $1000 as an intern working for them.
For what it's worth, the person I talked with on the phone didn't really say I would have to PAY for the internship, either. I found this out when I hiked all the way into bloody Manhattan for what I thought was going to be a job interview and talked with one of their 'lead animators.' Basically they put you through a 3DS MAX training course over the course of 12 weeks, 6 hours a week (this is defined as "intense training." "Intense training for me was what I got in Florida, where you had 4 hours of class and then 4 hours of lab EACH DAY for 2, 3, or even 4 days a week. Then they get 40 hours of work out of you as an intern. *sniff*sniff* What's that smell? I wasn't THAT close to the Fulton Fish Market when I went to the interview. How odd....
Anyway, that was the FIRST annoying thing that happened today, and inarguably the most mind-numbingly irritating. But the guy whom I talked with was nice, though all the same I'm gonna be giving this one a pass.
The second irritating thing. I stopped by a game store I hadn't been to in years, The Complete Strategist on E. 33rd St. near the Empire State Building. A bit of a hole in the wall but always with a darn good selection. I amused myself by flipping through White Wolf's ending to the Mage line, where they pretty much admitted that, yeah, the cosmologies of all their lines in the WoD were incompatible. I also took great amusement in seeing a new version of Ninja Burger by SJG there. Fun stuff.
Now, I used to be heavily into Star Fleet Battles. As a starship combat system it has a lot of complexity and there was, for a long time, a net-based fan following. Most of the net-based fan following kind of ended when Amarillo Design Bureau introduced their rather draconian Internet policy, to wit, if it's related to ADB they own it. I didn't give much thought to it before.
Anyway, at one point, after Steven Cole (the "SVC" of SFB, the designer and chief engineer of SFB) gavea list of the sectors of the galaxy in the game. Now, there've been some inconsistences in SFB, an d in this particular case it relates to SFB's strategic counterpart game, Federation and Empire. The maps in F&E are square, flat, linear; there's no curvature to them. Assuming the lower edge of the map is the edge of the galaxy, the galaxy as portrayed on the maps would have to be incredibly huge to show no curvature at that scale. To the best of my knowledge, only one or two other people tried to make a "radial" galactic-scale map for F&E. After SVC made his list of galactic sectors, I was the first one to map out the sectors visually and in such a way as the F&E map *gasp* made sense! SVC at one point even gave the map his blessing. I was actually pretty pleased, even though I knew ADB owned the copyright on that map.
Anyway, one thing I had to finagle in it was a reason why the empires in SFB/F&E couldn't get any closer to the core than they already had. So, just out of the blue I postulated the Storm Zone, a big, wide band around the core that extended about halfway to the edge of the galaxy, filled with a pretty much eternal roil and boil of ion storms. You could go in there but it wasn't recommended and it was pretty much a barrier to any sort of travel. Basically, what I did can be found here. It got quite a bit of praise at the time, actually.
Flash forward to, well, today. I had heard that SVC had published his own map in one of the semi-quarterly publications devoted to SFB, Captain's Log. So while I was in Complete Strategist I rifled through them to see the published chart. Which I had, indirectly or more directly, contributed to. And it was there, glee! And the Storm Zone was there, too! Gleeglee! Oh, wait... there's no acknowledgments. At all. Not even me. Whathufuh? That Storm Zone didn't pop out of Zeus's forehead, you know.
Ah, well. I'm not going to raise a stink about it. It was high time I deleted my SFB pages anyway; I don't play it anymore nor do I come up with new meeble for it. To my mind, and for my preferences, Attack Vector is more appropriate.
Anyway, that was my day! I'm pretty sure the 3D Mirage thing is some kind of scam to get more workers in their door without paying taxes or something like that. It's some kind of loophole they're exploiting, and I imagine it's going to bite them rather hard. Sorry, guys; I just mortgaged my soul to pay for a school that was about 450% more "intensive" than your program. Ciao.
Basically, what 3D Mirage has going was not that they were looking for interns. They were looking for applicants for their TRAINING PROGRAM which ends in a 40-hour internship. A training program which costs about $2500, AFTER you get "paid" $1000 as an intern working for them.
For what it's worth, the person I talked with on the phone didn't really say I would have to PAY for the internship, either. I found this out when I hiked all the way into bloody Manhattan for what I thought was going to be a job interview and talked with one of their 'lead animators.' Basically they put you through a 3DS MAX training course over the course of 12 weeks, 6 hours a week (this is defined as "intense training." "Intense training for me was what I got in Florida, where you had 4 hours of class and then 4 hours of lab EACH DAY for 2, 3, or even 4 days a week. Then they get 40 hours of work out of you as an intern. *sniff*sniff* What's that smell? I wasn't THAT close to the Fulton Fish Market when I went to the interview. How odd....
Anyway, that was the FIRST annoying thing that happened today, and inarguably the most mind-numbingly irritating. But the guy whom I talked with was nice, though all the same I'm gonna be giving this one a pass.
The second irritating thing. I stopped by a game store I hadn't been to in years, The Complete Strategist on E. 33rd St. near the Empire State Building. A bit of a hole in the wall but always with a darn good selection. I amused myself by flipping through White Wolf's ending to the Mage line, where they pretty much admitted that, yeah, the cosmologies of all their lines in the WoD were incompatible. I also took great amusement in seeing a new version of Ninja Burger by SJG there. Fun stuff.
Now, I used to be heavily into Star Fleet Battles. As a starship combat system it has a lot of complexity and there was, for a long time, a net-based fan following. Most of the net-based fan following kind of ended when Amarillo Design Bureau introduced their rather draconian Internet policy, to wit, if it's related to ADB they own it. I didn't give much thought to it before.
Anyway, at one point, after Steven Cole (the "SVC" of SFB, the designer and chief engineer of SFB) gavea list of the sectors of the galaxy in the game. Now, there've been some inconsistences in SFB, an d in this particular case it relates to SFB's strategic counterpart game, Federation and Empire. The maps in F&E are square, flat, linear; there's no curvature to them. Assuming the lower edge of the map is the edge of the galaxy, the galaxy as portrayed on the maps would have to be incredibly huge to show no curvature at that scale. To the best of my knowledge, only one or two other people tried to make a "radial" galactic-scale map for F&E. After SVC made his list of galactic sectors, I was the first one to map out the sectors visually and in such a way as the F&E map *gasp* made sense! SVC at one point even gave the map his blessing. I was actually pretty pleased, even though I knew ADB owned the copyright on that map.
Anyway, one thing I had to finagle in it was a reason why the empires in SFB/F&E couldn't get any closer to the core than they already had. So, just out of the blue I postulated the Storm Zone, a big, wide band around the core that extended about halfway to the edge of the galaxy, filled with a pretty much eternal roil and boil of ion storms. You could go in there but it wasn't recommended and it was pretty much a barrier to any sort of travel. Basically, what I did can be found here. It got quite a bit of praise at the time, actually.
Flash forward to, well, today. I had heard that SVC had published his own map in one of the semi-quarterly publications devoted to SFB, Captain's Log. So while I was in Complete Strategist I rifled through them to see the published chart. Which I had, indirectly or more directly, contributed to. And it was there, glee! And the Storm Zone was there, too! Gleeglee! Oh, wait... there's no acknowledgments. At all. Not even me. Whathufuh? That Storm Zone didn't pop out of Zeus's forehead, you know.
Ah, well. I'm not going to raise a stink about it. It was high time I deleted my SFB pages anyway; I don't play it anymore nor do I come up with new meeble for it. To my mind, and for my preferences, Attack Vector is more appropriate.
Anyway, that was my day! I'm pretty sure the 3D Mirage thing is some kind of scam to get more workers in their door without paying taxes or something like that. It's some kind of loophole they're exploiting, and I imagine it's going to bite them rather hard. Sorry, guys; I just mortgaged my soul to pay for a school that was about 450% more "intensive" than your program. Ciao.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 02:40 am (UTC)For what it's worth, forgetting to give credit is apparently a pervasive issue for gaming companies. I know of several folks, myself included, who busted their chops for one particular gaming company, and were never paid, or got our names consistently misspelled, or had their (requested by the authors) input ignored. In one extremely distasteful episode, which killed any desire in me to ever help these folks again, one of the company owners laughed in my face when I politely asked whether I'd finally receive credit in future printings of a book.
I've been told this is the case in most gaming companies. In all these cases, of course, I don't believe there was any true malice. They were just a bit sloppy, a bit careless, a bit indifferent to their clientele... and eventually all the good volunteers left.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 06:52 am (UTC)I'll let it wash. Those who really liked the work I did will remember it and know that I came up with that idea. Besides, ADB has that freaky-opseudo-evil copyright thing. Since SVC didn't oput any acknowledgements there, not even his own name, it's not like he's directly claiming he did the work.
But I have made very certain to take down from my SFB pages anything I'm going to be 'recycling' for other projects.For that matter, I've pretty much taken down everything there.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-22 08:53 pm (UTC)No FUCKING way!
Date: 2004-12-22 06:57 pm (UTC)But these guys deserve some kind of award. They hardly even dress it up, it's so transparant. How can ANYONE call 6 hours a week for 12 weeks 'intensive' training? You get more intensive education taking casual night classes at a community center in knitting or fencing or 'How to use Microsoft Word'. What a joke.
And 40 hours of internship??!? How can they call ONE work week an 'internship'? Wth. You're right, it's a scam, a money making scam to boost their revenue, and get a few minor week long modelling projects done for free.
I'm so sorry to hear that man. I was so hoping you'd get a real job there!