Stardock is looking for developers and artists to work on our upcoming games ranging from the fantasy strategy game, an RPG, an MMORTS, and of course future versions of GalCiv.
So what do you need to do to work at Stardock?
Here is the check list:
If you think you or someone you know may fit this basic criteria, send us your resume. bwardell@stardock.com and jobs@stardock.com should do the trick.
Also, no interns, co-ops, etc. We're looking for people who are ready to get into making cool stuff right now and stay at it until the game is done.
A few other things about Stardock:
Effective C++ is something every C++ developer should have read at least once. Another good book for those with a solid grasp of C++ is Design Patterns, which will stir your creative juices.
Do you folks at Stardock do real OOP?
Also, does anyone know how Plymouth, MI compares to Rochester, NY in the climatology area?
I certainly DID all of that and much more... ya gotta understand the mere pressure of release date breakpoint to grasp what is really involved; anything that was bent up and recompiled between morning and afternoons could end up locked all the way to the 17:00'o'clock rush for "homes".
There i still was - staring at the buggy results hoping someone else would notice.
What sleep.
Slurp... another gush of coffee, cold and yet even the best indent structure couldn't slap back to my face unless verified - twice & over.
Programming is (or in my case, WAS) fun -- when you know what to do & when.
I second Cari's recommendations on the Effective C++ and Effect STL books. They will help you to get a better understanding of how the language and STL classes work so you can use them, well, more effictively
As long as these helped you fix the Query images = Planet tile names & descriptions when i click on any 72 locations found on multiple consecutive surfaces in a scan mode loop - i'll be happy with v2.0 and beyond.
Jeff Bargmann, the lead on Impulse is form Rochester NY. It's similar climate.
You are destined to get hired by SD
I would love to work for you guys but unfortunatley i'm on the wrong side of the atlantic, don't have much C++ experinece neither although i work with VS (C# and VB.NET).
You make fantastic products (i've lost many an hour on galciv 1 and 2 ).
Good luck in your search for new employees .
Well, I've heard it argued that C++'s OOP isn't "real" OOP, but I hated that teacher anyway. We do use inheritence, polymorphism, templates, etc.
On a more serious note; how's the crime rate in Plymouth being that close to Detroit?
well in the uk we have better genral weather than plymoth michigan and a experianced programer would be paid £40k so that would be $80k (lol love the exchange rates) and as to the hours most programing is 9-5 basis so its 40 45 hour weeks only problem is you need to live in cambridge or london to get some of the best jobs and lets just say i had to sell my kidney and half my liver to get a house.
Nice. But do you overload your operators?
I find the Rochester, NY type climate almost ideal. Cold, snowy winters and moderate summers. Lots of clouds though; even more than Seattle. Looking at a map, I would guess that Plymouth, MI does not get the lake effect snows, nor the snows associated with Noreasters, but does participate in the nice midwestern storms. I must have snow!
[Rant] I'm salaried at 37 hours and get bitched at for being "overpaid" (hah £25K is *not* overpaid) yet I've done plenty of 50+ hour weeks mailed a code-dump home and worked on it until the sun came up again and I've never claimed overtime, and the ungrateful sods want to cut my working week to 17.5 hours.[/rant]
I've long since gone off C++, the only time I use it now is when I'm porting stuff to C# - I'm not hardcore like my mate who used to program for real-time comm devices in asm :/ (I swear if he explains how he decoded DTMF tones to me again I'll kill him)
Really I don't think C++ is a great langauge but is still used highly in gaming industry and I don't see that changing anytime soon until a new programming language comes out that can really take advantage of multiprocessors which game programmers seem to have an issue doing.
I'm currently in an upper level programming course that foucses on cocurrent programming in C with OPenMP and MPI so we address these issues and it seems like a new language or extending an existing language is the best bet. Now someone just has to do it!
But for application devlopment, I love java. I was a C++ fan boy until I actually was forced to code in Java while I worked at IBM and now I'm hooked. And no the Java is slower than C++ thing isn't true anymore, infact java keeps getting more effient each release you can google about it if you want more information on why they can keep improving speed while C++ cannot.
But when it comes down to it, it depends on the problem at hand and who your working for, if your working for microsoft they love C++, if your working for IBM they love Java. If you work for Apple they love Objective C and Java, so everyone is different.
By the way people at Stardocks, do you guys use Direct X or Open GL or did you create your own language based off of the engine for demigod?
Do you have any UK or Aus bases?
Im doing year 12 programming and got an A in year 11 for a subject called programming comp games using flash and either java or C++ lol was good fun.
other than that im good with all the rest, but Austalia is where im at.
Send me a message when you check this thread, thanks.
I'm setting up their UK office for them shortly. I'm just waiting for them to make me an offer I can't refuse.
I'm afraid this is misleading. Java is still significantly slower than C++, although it is true that they are working on closing the gap. Many a time I've had identical code in C++ and Java and Java runs at about 1.4x as long. However, I can't attest to how the gaming industry uses it since I haven't worked there, so their coding style may give Java an advantage that allows it to catch up.
Ack, wrong continent for me. And I don't do 3DMax that much. XSI can wipe the digital floor with Max's behind anytime!
And, not related to Stardock offer, we europeans do seem a bit spoiled by our "laid-back" working hours and tendency to actually have a life outside of work. 50...60...70 hours a week!? So basically, all you do is work, eat and sleep (maybe). Thats... not healthy.
Anyway, when it comes to art design&production, my hat's off to anyone who can pull a 14-hour shift and still actually be creative. As for programming, I'd imagine the last third of that shift is where you get all them nasty bugs to fix later.
OK, hopefully I have these in order.
Plymouth actually has a low crime rate. We're probably about 30 minutes drive from Detroit so it's not like we're getting crime creeping over the border.
In some cases.
We use DirectX and so does GPG.
It definitely helps if you have knowledge of DirectX but it's not strictly required.
Mostly only cell phone games (and maybe casual or educational games) use Java because performance is a big issue in games. A lot of game developers, particularly console developers, use mostly straight C code since templates, overloading, and virtual functions create overhead and games are very heavy performance software. Hardware is starting to get to the point where it matters less, but DirectX makes game programming so much easier so C/C++ is going to be the language of choice until OpenGL has better driver support and more power.
On another note, if any of you who are sending in your resumes have never made a game, start working on one now. You're going to be competing against people who have gone to Full Sail or Digipen who have had to make a significant project every year for four years and people who have been programming games in their spare time for fun. We want people who are passionate about making games and if you've never worked on a game, well that doesn't speak much for your passion.
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