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What is your occupation / how much time do you have?


Nico A.

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I'm a student of psychology right now and it takes me a lot of time. I really am not sure how much I can allow myself to get involved with The Dark Mod.

 

1. Only install TDM and play a little around?

2. Play seriously many of the missions?

3. Even try to play around with the level editor?

4. Try to make an ambitious mission on my own?

5. Make my own assets?

6. Try to change TDM a little bit to my own likes? Like changing the menu style, working on physics an so on?

7. Become an active member with posting regularly on the forum and working on TDM and missions?

 

Now, when I'm honest to myself, maybe I can only afford to reach the second step. Long, long ago I played around with DromEd, a little later I tried free modeling tools and editors such as Blender and UDK. Still, this was years ago and there'd be too much for me to do.

 

So how much time do you have? What do you do besides working on TDM or your own missions?

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Welcome!

 

I am a Ph.D. in regional studies and work at a research institute. Trust me, you will never have as much free time again as you have as a student. ;)

 

You should definitely try the A-Z tutorial and build a simple mission - it is not hard, DarkRadiant is mostly easier than Dromed, and you can get fairly nice results with a few weeks' work (see an example here which also shows some easy building techniques). We don't always need huge, complicated missions that blow our socks off with complicated technical tricks. Most of us would love a simple map centred on breaking and entering, or infiltrating a small crypt, or what have you!

 

Anyway, enjoy the mod!

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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1. Only install TDM and play a little around - play the odd mission etc

5. Make my own assets? - this also dosen't require deadlines, you just work at your own pace..

 

If your time is limited I suggest the above.

 

As for me I'm a computer engineer and do the following from your list -

 

2. Play seriously all of the missions.

3/4. Used the level editor and have made a few missions of my own.

5. Make my own assets.

7. Become an active member with posting regularly on the forum and working on TDM and missions.

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I am a Ph.D. in regional studies and work at a research institute. Trust me, you will never have as much free time again as you have as a student. ;)

I am a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and trust me, I have a lot more time now that I am working than I had as a student. :D Regular working hours are every engineer's wet dream!!! I guess it depends on your field of study...

 

However, that doesn't mean that I put a lot of time into TDM, apparently. :( My free time mostly goes into finishing up my place, friends and just enjoying the life outside.

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Everyone needs one or many hobbies, you can definitely reach at least item 4 of your list if you don't have dozens of hobbies sharing your valuable free time.

 

I'm in grad limbo. Finished my masters and now I'm trying to get into a phd program (my area is physics) and I'm also trying to find a job until that happens. It's more free time than before, definitely, but it's free time with weight on my conscience. I feel bad for not studying all the time I'm not studying, that prevents me from dedicating more to and getting satisfaction from my other hobbies, including TDM. I do play every new mission! that no one can take from me. I played a then recently released mission (don't remember which one was it) a couple of days from my masters defense presentation, with all the stress and pressure that goes along with that. Whenever I can I try to contribute with models and textures as well.

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Well this turned out to be longer than I had intended it to be, but the "story" is pretty relevant to this discussion:

 

I've programmed as a hobby since my late teens, so I took a job as a software programmer for several years at an insurance company. Despite having a good manager, it was very stressful, I had a ton of responsibility, long hours, overtime, presentations, deadlines, etc etc; it really felt like I was still at work even on my days off. I ended up having trouble sleeping--I'm guessing from the stress. And, worst of all, after expending most of my "mental energy" at work, it was no longer pleasurable to program (or do just about any other cerebral activity I desired) with what little free time I had left. This latter part seemed to be a pattern among my coworkers, but they were satisfied with playing video games, socializing, reading novels, etc etc (not implying there's a problem with this). And despite exercising regularly, sitting or standing in one position for so long was quite bad for my health, but that was something I was willing to endure...

 

But the other things--stress, no free time, lack of sleep, loss of the ability to act on my interests--I really couldn't stand those, so I decided to make a change. Now I'm apprenticing as a stone mason and I have to say I'm a lot happier. The work itself can be pretty simple so I listen to audiobooks during the day to keep me stimulated between joking around with coworkers. Due to the job's flexibility I've been able to reduce my hours significantly and get back to my hobbies (and the energy is there too, because after a short period of acclimation I, oddly enough, find I have both more physical and mental energy at the end of the day). There's also the benefit that my work itself is now my exercise and overall I'm quite a bit healthier. I'm no longer a zombie (and neither are my coworkers).

 

Of course it's not without difficulties. The pay is a lot less, and I've had to adjust my living for that. I haven't been able to justify the cost of health insurance ('merricuh). I definitely couldn't "afford" a family. Most people look down on manual labor, and while this can be irritating at family gatherings, it's often only a somewhat patronizing attitude--probably not even intentional (only a few times have I gotten genuinely snide comments from people, usually a kind of annoyed skepticism). Any semblance of retirement doesn't seem to be likely (but the 401ks offered by American companies are a joke anyway). So iit's no paradise. You need to weigh what's most important to you.

 

 

So this is how I balanced my "time for hobbies" dilemma with my occupation. The issue is of particular concern to me because, to be honest, I consider my hobbies as my happiness. Also, I have considered starting my own business and "making my hobby my occupation," but I'm of the belief that making it "marketable" would mean too much stress and too many compromises--to the extent that it would no longer be a hobby and thus defeat the purpose. I don't mean this as an egotistical thing (i.e. it's not a "my aspirations are too grand for this" sort of thing). Rather, what I enjoy is spending excessive amounts of time obsesseing over things--something incompatible with that context.

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I'm a teacher and a parent of two young children, which leaves me very little free time most of the year. The Dark Mod is pretty much my only hobby, but luckily it allows me to do art, create worlds, and play video games, which pretty much sums up my recreational interests anyway.

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I work from home and for private companies who source out to me for a variety of projects. Currently I am working with a rather large multi national company but due to my NDA I cannot discuss which company it is or what I do for them but the pay is great so I can't complain :)

 

Working from home can be very nice as you don't have set times to be at work, you only have to make sure a project is completed by the due date. Occasionally clients check to see how progress is but usually they let you do your own thing as long as you keep producing quality results they won't care, also being able to sit around drinking soft drink, eating potato chips and getting paid to just work in your boxers is great too!

 

However like all jobs it does have some negative sides such as constantly having to fight distraction, when you're at home it is very easy to get distracted from your job (like what i'm doing now) also if you don't have good time management skills you will run into many problems as all projects have strict deadlines that need to be met and if they aren't you can run into many problems.

 

Outside of my job which usually takes up between 20 to 40 hours per week (depending on the scope of the projects I am working on), I still find time to sneak away and play some FM's and also record vocals for people here and there. I just recently finished up recording a new guard voice set which took a while but was really fun and also doing some voices for Sothas FM the Lich Queens Demise which was also really fun. I guess you have to work/study of course but you also have to make time to live, not many people on their deathbeds say they wish they spent more time working and less time having fun so enjoy life while you have it!

 

I once saw on a youtube video a great quote (which rarely happens in youtube comments) but a pretty good guitarist was covering a whole music album start to finish just playing along to it in the background and it was really good and most people enjoyed it but of course there was a negative person saying "wow you must have too much free time on your hands to be doing this you need a job!" and someone responded with a great response "if you don't even have enough spare time to play guitar for 45 minutes then YOU have no life and need to make more spare time" which is true I guess it's all about balance.

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Me? I'm an insane scientist doing my crazy experiments in my secret (and dark) laboratory. It is not a surprise why insane scientists are so common in popular culture as the job needs certain... qualities. It works the other way around too: initially normal people start to develop these qualities because of the exposure to all sorts of interesting substances and ideas.

 

If all goes well, I'm about to finish a large achievement -a mind numbing undertaking- in the near future. After that there is the big dark unknown. Who knows what will happen then? Big dark unknowns have fascinated scientists through all times in history.

 

Recent experiments in genetics have yielded two genetically superior speciments, which I have to tend on my free time with my trusty assistant. Because of these derivatives (with improvements!) of me, I don't have that much free time anymore, I'm afraid. I have some hobbies, but recently I have started ramping down my time expenditure on these in order to avoid burdening my assistant with too much work. Good assistants are difficult to find these days.. ;)

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Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I'm a student yet. It's a bit sad I encountered TDM only a year ago. I had much more time 2-3 years earlier. Anyways, beside some all day stuff I have some time doing my thing. And if everything went as suppossed to be, I can start a graduation in october, were I will only work hald-day, leaving me more than enough time to keep contributing here.

 

Regarding your list. I guess you have a weekend, haven't you ;) . It really depends on how much time you are willing and able to invest. Personally, I do not invest all my free-time in TDM. But this also differs. It's alot about motivation. Building a little mission, is as said before not a big deal. If you go trough the beginners tutorial, and don't be too shy to ask questions in the forum, you should be able to build something good even with only a low amount of time investing. Just don't set your goals too high. :smile:

 

And welcome aboard.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Me? I'm an insane scientist doing my crazy experiments in my secret (and dark) laboratory. It is not a surprise why insane scientists are so common in popular culture as the job needs certain... qualities. It works the other way around too: initially normal people start to develop these qualities because of the exposure to all sorts of interesting substances and ideas.

 

If all goes well, I'm about to finish a large achievement -a mind numbing undertaking- in the near future. After that there is the big dark unknown. Who knows what will happen then? Big dark unknowns have fascinated scientists through all times in history.

 

Recent experiments in genetics have yielded two genetically superior speciments, which I have to tend on my free time with my trusty assistant. Because of these derivatives (with improvements!) of me, I don't have that much free time anymore, I'm afraid. I have some hobbies, but recently I have started ramping down my time expenditure on these in order to avoid burdening my assistant with too much work. Good assistants are difficult to find these days.. ;)

 

But Sotha I thought seeing as you're so far up north you are meant to protect the rest of us south of the wall from day walkers? :P

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I'm a CPA and a financial analyst with a new daughter, but I try to always make time for writing and game dev stuff and can usually squeeze in 20 hours a week. Surprised to see so many post-grads here :-O.

But you should walk having internal dignity. Be a wonderful person who can dance pleasantly to the rhythm of the universe.

-Sun Myung Moon

 

My work blog: gfleisher.blogspot.com

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21+ year veteran of the culinary wars. That, followed by 6 years in the computer fixin' business. I'm currently working in a small town computer shop, fixing all types of pc problems. That and a small touch of Mac hardware repair as well.

All but 1 and 6 on the list.

System: Mageia Linux Cauldron, aka Mageia 8

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Im student of architecture, curently finishing my bachelor project, so pretty much no free time at all.. But it will get change, at least for 2 months, if I succeed. My FM awaits me=)

He was sneeking silently in the night, moonlight was his enemy.

(Im not a native speaker, sorry for all miscleanous caused by my english..)

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I used to provide application support/regression testing with JDS Uniphase and they've had a few rounds of lay offs in the past 5 years and layed me off about 3 years ago. So I was freed of the corporate prison and now run a machining center at a local machine shop that does prototyping work. Its therapeutic compared to my old job and I really enjoy it although it isn't forgiving. In my old job if you make a mistake you hit backspace/delete and carry on. If I make a mistake at the shop, the part is ruined, the tool is broken, I feel like a total idiot, and I've lost sometimes hours of work. It goes with the territory apparently but its extremely frustrating.

 

In my free time I like bicycling on road or off road, anywhere from 60-100miles a week, we also have a couple dirt bikes (with engines) we ride out in the woods on some trails my brother and I built. And I'm slowly working TDM in to the mix. I've been tired when I get home from work lately with the summer heat and we've had weekend obligations the past few weekends but hopefully that will be calming down in the the coming weeks and I can get some things done in TDM.

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Post grad also. Now working as tech support for a great company. I have quite a bit of free time however sometimes my ADHD gets so bad I'll just daydream for hours without realising it. Then there goes all the time I had to work on darkmod stuff.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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2-4 for me (do though cross the word "ambitious" ;) ).

 

Graduated in commercial studies. Now a software architect by day. And enjoying time with my family in the evening / weekends. Once per week I run a RPG group (Pentragon, Call of Cthulhu) with the guys from youth for longer than I can remember. All that leaving but a few hours a week for taffing / gaming. And unfortunaltly even less to work on my map every now and then.

 

Welcome on the forum Nico!

"To rush is without doubt the most important enemy of joy" ~ Thieves Saying

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I'm a human rights lawyer at an NGO. But actually I'm going back to school in a month to (in principle) get in line to be a law prof. Since I have to write a lot, time is an issue... Also creative energy, since I really need to spend it on articles, but I still do little things like map out FM projects or think about plot & readables, so they're at least ready to go when I can work on them.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Thanks for the overwhelming number of responses, it's really an interesting read. Especially since I'm now at kind of a crossroads, and have to plan my future.

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