Black Isle Studios are hiring!

[Mistress]

<a href="http://www.blackisle.com">Black Isle</a> are looking for <a href="http://www.blackisle.com/employment.html">Intermediate Game Designers</a>.

Here's the details:

<blockquote>"Black Isle Studios, a leading developer and publisher of PC and console role-playing games, is looking for talented Intermediate Game Designers. Primary responsibilities include the design and layout of adventure locales for Black Isle RPGs.
Required:

2+ years of experience in the computer game industry.
Experience developing RPG's for PC or console.
Applicants must complete a design test after resume is submitted. Black Isle Studios will contact eligible applicants.
Experience in Microsoft Word, Excel.
Ability to communicate area layouts and technical design in writing.
Works and plays well in a team environment.
Devoted game player, PC, consoles, pen-and-paper.
Able to work long hours when needed.
Ability to accept and provide constructive criticism.
Critical thinking and analytical skills.

Pluses:
Have created modules or adventures for computer RPGs using existing CRPG editors.
Basic scripting or programming knowledge.
Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, English, Programming, or equivalent work experience.
Basic Familiarity with Photoshop and/or 3D layout tools.
Conceptual drawing skills. "</blockquote>

 

[Rosh]

Here's the details:

Here's the translation.

"Black Isle Studios, a leading developer and publisher of PC and console role-playing games, is looking for talented Intermediate Game Designers. Primary responsibilities include the design and layout of adventure locales for Black Isle RPGs."

"Black Isle Studios, a self-delusioned and nearly broke developer and publisher of PC and console role-playing games, is looking for replacement Intermediate Game Designers (or someone who might have enough imagination and talent to get us out of the Infinity Engine rut). Primary responsibilities include the design and layout of adventure locales for Black Isle RPGs because the current team has very little imagination anymore and needs to resort to poor designs like the Forest, and borrowing from Bob Salvatore's books.

Required:

What we lost when the last guy walked out in disgust:

2+ years of experience in the computer game industry.

We don't care if it was all under Romero.

Experience developing RPG's for PC or console.

We're desperate to find someone for either.

Applicants must complete a design test after resume is submitted.

You got the mouse out of the maze! Congratulations! You're hired!

Black Isle Studios will contact eligible applicants.

If anyone applies.
Pleasepleaseplease come work for us?

Experience in Microsoft Word, Excel.

If you don't work out well in the development area, we'll set you up as a Marketing Drone. We could always uset hose, as Marketing tells us how to make our successful games!

Ability to communicate area layouts and technical design in writing.

We need someone to replace Danien or BrainPuuk.

Works and plays well in a team environment.

Doesn't mind taking the blame for TEH BOSSIS bad ideas and weak promises.

Devoted game player, PC, consoles, pen-and-paper.

No, we don't want someone who develops games and doesn't play them.
We're serious about this.

Able to work long hours when needed.

So we can get that next "Slam dunk!" release out to fleece the morons.

Ability to accept and provide constructive criticism.

Except for on the forums.

Critical thinking and analytical skills.

Except for on the forums.

Pluses:
Have created modules or adventures for computer RPGs using existing CRPG editors.

If we need to, you'll need experience working in "Old Faithful", the Infinity Engine. Also, we'd prefer it if you'd teach us how to work in something else, or very different from what we were taught by BioWare.

Basic scripting or programming knowledge.

Pleasepleaseplease will you code us up an engine, or teach us how to mod an engine so we're not stuck in this rut?

Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, English, Programming, or equivalent work experience.

Puke hasn't been keeping up. We someone to teach our infinite number of monkeys on their infinite amount of typewriters.

Basic Familiarity with Photoshop and/or 3D layout tools.
Conceptual drawing skills. "

We need help making 3d images. The last table we made was a foot thick! Please help us, because we desperately need to move to 3d games because that were all TEH TRENNDY MONAY SI!!!11!~!!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

["Black Isle Studios, a self-delusioned and nearly broke developer and publisher of PC and console role-playing games, is looking for replacement Intermediate Game Designers (or someone who might have enough imagination and talent to get us out of the Infinity Engine rut). Primary responsibilities include the design and layout of adventure locales for Black Isle RPGs because the current team has very little imagination anymore and needs to resort to poor designs like the Forest, and borrowing from Bob Salvatore's books.

You sure "Developers" is right there, Rosh? How about "Infinity Engine Mod Makers", instead? Hohoho!

It'll be a sad day when they make their own engine though, I'll miss retiring that jab.

We don't care if it was all under Romero.

Stevie Case spent two years under Romero. Nudge-nudge!

You got the mouse out of the maze! Congratulations! You're hired!

Applicant: Two words.. jump puzzles

BIS Human Resources: I like your thinking, chief!

If you don't work out well in the development area, we'll set you up as a Marketing Drone. We could always use those, as Marketing tells us how to make our successful games!

You know, BIS is looking at this from the wrong angle. What they really need to do is move from a business model to a religious cult model.

Think about it. They already have a fairly dumb fan base that's filled with socially inept people with money. They could just get them to join their "cult", and give BIS all their money and assets while they live on the "commune" somewhere in Southern California.

When the communal living facilities gets full, all they have to do is wait for a comet to appear in the sky for a mass vacancy to occur. Antifreeze and kool-aid are fairly cheap, and dixie cups wouldn't put them much more in debt.

Not only that, but BIS would be tax exempt.

It's win/win all around!

So we can get that next "Slam dunk!" release out to fleece the morons.

I thought "working long hours" refered to playing BF1942 with Odin. Or playing strip RPG with Chris Avellone's Fallout PnP rules. Last one to get the power armor, typically around level 4, has to run around the perimeter of IPLY offices naked!

Except for on the forums.

I think by criticism, they mean a complimentary post that doesn't end in, "THANK YUO BIS! ICYWIND DAIL 2 IS TEH BESTEST ROLL PLAYING GAEM EVAR!"

Critical thinking and analytical skills.

Except for on the forums.

I wonder if this was added after Puuk was hired.

If we need to, you'll need experience working in "Old Faithful", the Infinity Engine. Also, we'd prefer it if you'd teach us how to work in something else, or very different from what we were taught by BioWare.

Converting the Doom source to make a CRPG is a plus!

 

[Spazmo]

I wonder what Rosh and Saint_P will do if Jefferson turns out to be an well-rounded, open-ended, and altogether excellent RPG. I guess then they'll really start reaming BioWare...

 

[Rosh]

I wonder what Rosh and Saint_P will do if Jefferson turns out to be an well-rounded, open-ended, and altogether excellent RPG. I guess then they'll really start reaming BioWare...

You mean I'd have to start again?

I'd also probably die of shock if BIS did something original. I'm still convinced PS:T was a fluke, but I'd guess it was because it was from the PS King's Field like game canned.

 

[HanoverF]

Applicants must complete a design test after resume is submitted.

Pfft, pikers, be like BioWare and steal ideas from people without making them go through a ridiculous application proccess first. Much easier.

 

[Chadeo]

Does anyone know how many people are left at BiS from the fallout days or from the work on Torment?

In the gamespot article about the end of Torn it sounded like at least a few of the grunts know how to write and design an original game. It just seems like they do not have engine programmers or a marketing department that even knows what a video game is. (I love this quote "At one point, they wanted us to make it an "Arthurian legend" game--I think only because they could understand King Arthur as a discrete brand. ")

Really I think BIS's problems have about 90% to do with being run by the desire to make the most money in the fastest amount of time. It seems that all large companies will try and do anything they can to milk some current trend (D&D brand!) into the ground, without realizing what made it a trend to start with.

This is why, while I still have a ton of respect for the work that BIS has done (FAR FAR FAR more than the bioware hacks) in the RPG field, I am not holding my breath for them to release a new torment. I think our only big mainstream hope at this point for a good RPG is from the Trokia folks who are not chained to Interplay (Perhaps BIS will one day sell the rights to the fallout world to Trokia...how cool would that be).

Still if bioware just made engines, and BIS did some decent mods (like Torment) I would happily buy them. I just wish BIS would stop trying to compete with bioware for most linear story line called an RPG.

 

[Rosh]

Well, IPLY's marketing dept. has got to be some of the worst, most clueless idiots I've ever seen. That the developers have swallowed and believe their crap is even worse.

The only thing I have any measure of respect for BIS with is PS:T. But, as I've noted before, most of the development on that likely came before Fallout's release. The head guy for that game isn't around anymore, if I recall right.

BIS' work has lately been about "slam dunks". with the lack of work done on them quite obvious. The hatchet job done on Fallout 2 was almost unbearable, and I'm afraid if it was any worse, the franchise might have been killed then. The bugs did do that for some. BioWare is making KOTOR into the same dreary crap they've spewed, with crap pathfinding and little interactivity Hell, even BIS had to resort to crap design "ideas" like jumping puzzles (as I hear) for BG:DA, and the Forest has done a good bit of killing replay for IWD2.

I'll agree Troika is one glimmer of hope, like Spiderweb. If their project happens to be Temple of Elemental Evil, then it should be very entertaining to see their implementation of it.

 

[Chadeo]

I have been a bit skeptical about indy games, but if my impressions of zero-sum are any indication, I think I will really have to give Spiderweb a chance as well.

Very odd having new RPGS to play after playing the same 4 over and over.

Oh and while I agree that FO2 was not the same as FO, it still had wit, and style. I am a bit biased though as my introduction to the fallout world started with it, not the first one. Perhaps if I had done things in the correct order it would leave a worse taste in my mouth.

 

[Spazmo]

The only thing I have any measure of respect for BIS with is PS:T. But, as I've noted before, most of the development on that likely came before Fallout's release. The head guy for that game isn't around anymore, if I recall right.

Actually, the lead designer for Planescape: Torment was the much-maligned Chris Avellone, according to my PS:T manual. However badly he may have messed up in Fallout 2, the Fallout Bible, and Icewind Dale II, I think he deserves some credit for his work on PS:T.

I'll agree Troika is one glimmer of hope, like Spiderweb. If their project happens to be Temple of Elemental Evil, then it should be very entertaining to see their implementation of it.

Where did this rumour come from? Who said what?

 

[mythic]

I can't believe the guys behind PS:T and Fallout 2, two of the greatest RPGs ever (though I admit I haven't played the original Fallout), are receiving so much flame from you.
Unlike Bioware, BIS at least knows how to make a good linear game with great story and atmosphere.
And yes, the IWD games are hack and slash (and I don't like them much), but at least they have focus, unlike the BG series, for example.
Spazmo: What's wrong with the Fallout bible?

 

[Spazmo]

Rosh or Saint_P would be better stuited to answer that question... Basically, Chris Avellone has written some stuff in the FOB that he came up with all on his own and that simply doesn't work. This thread is a good example of some problems.

 

[TwoBirds]

Oops. Here I thought I had joined an RPG discussion community, not a BIS bash-fest.

My mistake.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I can't believe the guys behind PS:T and Fallout 2, two of the greatest RPGs ever (though I admit I haven't played the original Fallout), are receiving so much flame from you.

You should play the original Fallout, then.

PS:T and Fallout 2 both borrowed their mechanics from Fallout, but neither one live up to it. Fallout 2, for example, plays like it can't figure out what type of game it is. The setting in it is disjointed. Fallout, on the other hand, was consistant all the way through. There was no "The High Tech Town", "The Western Setting Town", "The Gangster Town", and so on in Fallout. It was homogenous. Then again, Fallout was developed over the course of three years, whereas Fallout 2 was tossed together in ten months.

Fallout also had the ever present shadow of what was out there, lurking behind the scenes. However, they didn't show you the big, bad boss up until the very end either. Fallout 2, on the other hand, couldn't wait to show off Frank Horrigan, but left traces of the Enclave activity to only a few locations.

Fallout also didn't go out of it's way to fill the game with annoying pop culture references. There were a few here and there in Fallout, but Fallout 2 had well over 200 of them.

Fallout also had several ending locations, not just one. There were countless things along the way, guiding you to the conclusion. It feels like it has a sense of purpose, whereas in Fallout 2, once you leave Arroyo, you're just wandering through level up land until you get powerful enough to take on Frank Horrigan.

You can role play a diplomatic pacifist in Fallout, going through the game without killing anything. It's nearly impossible to make it through the Temple of Trials without having to kill the ants near the doors you have to lock pick and bomb.

Unlike Bioware, BIS at least knows how to make a good linear game with great story and atmosphere.

And yes, the IWD games are hack and slash (and I don't like them much), but at least they have focus, unlike the BG series, for example.

Well, that's the thing. You want to give them credit for making Fallout 2 and PS:T, but what have they done since PS:T? They've pumped out two dungeon crawlers and spent 2.5 years making a 3D fantasy game using SPECIAL that they couldn't even get to market.

They've lost a lot of people since Fallout 2 and PS:T shipped, including a lot of the people that worked on both of those titles. Some went to Troika, some of them went to other development studios. There's one studio, and I never can remember their name, that's working on an XBox RPG that's made up of mostly BIS refugees. They left because they didn't think BIS was going to offer them a chance to make anything unique.

Also, consider this:

• Can you name a character system that BIS has made?
• Can you name an engine that BIS has made?
• Can you name a setting that BIS has made?

Making a linear story for a CRPG isn't exactly hard. P&P RPGers do that all the time. However, the mark of a good CRPG developer is that they can make whole new worlds and whole new systems.

BIS hasn't done that to date. They've merely inherited systems from previous developers who worked for Interplay, as is the case of Fallout, or they've licensed systems and worlds, like all their D&D titles.

But you are right about one thing, BIS is far superior to BioWare.

Spazmo: What's wrong with the Fallout bible?

Go do a search on DAC for Fallout Bible. There's even threads devoted to how the Fallout Bible is radically different from the vision of the original developers.

 

[Rosh]

Fallout also didn't go out of it's way to fill the game with annoying pop culture references. There were a few here and there in Fallout, but Fallout 2 had well over 200 of them.

Sorry, you missed a digit there. Fallout 2 had well over 2,000 of them.

Oops. Here I thought I had joined an RPG discussion community, not a BIS bash-fest.

My mistake.

Doubly your mistake, since blind devotion to BIS is supposed to be performed upon their forums. That's also why a fair number of serious CRPGers don't care to wander in there, because the blind Drizzt fanboyism and other problematic ideals that are anathema to good CRPG design do often redefine ad nauseum. It's really hard to take a look onto their forums and miss those threads, the idiots posting them, and then BIS employees encouraging the aforementioned bad ideas.

So we display a bit of distaste over Puuk wanting to skullfuck Fallout into a FPS version of itself, and others are protected and encouraged to call such developmental screw-ups "innovative". There was one series that really had that change, and it was Ultima. UU didn't do as well as the main series, and for the parallel to be put to Fallout, they'd probably cheese off more of an already precarious position. It's fairly bad when those who could hardly be called hardcore feel really nauseated by Infinity Engine modifications and had to suffer the misfortune of possibly one of the worst-ever licensed spin-offs in the history to date.

As noted before, blind devotion and, to be uncouth, ass-kissing, may be directed towards their official forums. For idiocy in the preferred medium of most BIS fanboys (Real-Time with Pause), you may try #blackisle at Gamesnet.net.

As someone who's been around a group of people who did far more than 10x the titles than BIS, who had far more creativity and clue about game design, I still remain much less than impressed with their shlock and drivel. I remain even less impressed with their complacent attitude to keep regurgitating mediocrity in the guise of "slam dunks", which has been proven before to be the mark of a floundering development house to nickel and dime crap projects until they are inevitably bought out for bus fare.

You may find that people here are a tad more discriminating and have been around a while, who are not too impressed by mods if the Infinity Engine and a hatchet job of a good game's sequel that in every right it should have done poorly.

On a side note, for whatever distaste I do have for BIS, I hold exponentially more for BioWare and Interplay/Titus for some of the same reasons, perhaps more.

 

[Sheriff_Fatman]

I wonder what Rosh and Saint_P will do if Jefferson turns out to be an well-rounded, open-ended, and altogether excellent RPG. I guess then they'll really start reaming BioWare...

They'll find whatever bits are bad (let's face it, nothing's perfect) and harp on about those for a couple of threads before going back to their neverending discussion of why BG was shit.

 

[Rosh]

I wonder what Rosh and Saint_P will do if Jefferson turns out to be an well-rounded, open-ended, and altogether excellent RPG. I guess then they'll really start reaming BioWare...

They'll find whatever bits are bad (let's face it, nothing's perfect) and harp on about those for a couple of threads before going back to their neverending discussion of why BG was shit.

*sniff, sniff*

Yup, definitely. Someone take out the trash.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Actually, I hope Jefferson does turn out to be a good game. However, there's several things about it that bother me.

• It was supposed to be announced after E3. It's now midDecember, and there's no announcement. I'm not sure why it's taking them so long to announce it, but that suggests there are either problems with getting a feature list down or problems getting those screenshots looking purdy enough to show off. It could also have something to do with marketting, who knows. It's just odd to say you're going to announce something in March, and it's still not announced nine months later.
  
• It's going to be 3D with an in house engine. They couldn't even do a 3D CRPG with a licensed engine, now they're trying to make an engine and 3D content? This could be the problem with the above.
  
• They're limited in what they've done. If it's a D&D game, it has to be about Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale 2. If it's not a D&D game, do they use SPECIAL again? Lionheart's already using SPECIAL, so how many SPECIAL games do they work on at the same time? If it's a new character system, how well would it work? They've never done a new system.
  
• Can they avoid the silliness of their previous games? Will there be romance plots, for example, which are often pointless and inane. Save the world, with a love affair on the side. These are the things of console games, really. That's where they belong.
  
• How open ended will it be? BIS has only made one open ended CRPG to date, and that's Fallout 2 back in 1998. A lot of those people have moved on. The people there now, for the most part, have no experience making them. Everything done with the Infinity Engine, which is all they've done since Fallout 2, has been linear with a constraining story that wipes out most freedom a lot of people enjoy.
  
• What will the combat be like? Chances are, they'll use the same system that we've seen in the infinity engine games, since that's all BIS seems interested in making these days, real time with pause. Feargus even said that if they make a Fallout 3, it'd be that way. Of course, Feargus could have changed his mind after the ass whuppin' he got over that, but BIS seems fairly set in stone that's their combat system of choice. Even TORN was going to use it.

Really, what Jefferson has going for it is that JE Sawyer seems like a bright guy from the times I've talked and argued with him about things. The question is, how much of his way will he get on the game? We know he liked turn based better than any other system, but will he get it?

 

[Sheriff_Fatman]

I stand corrected. They'll moan about imagined problems before the game is even in announced, then get back to the BG littany of woes.

 

[Rosh]

I stand corrected. They'll moan about imagined problems before the game is even in announced, then get back to the BG littany of woes.

It's called speculations, troll-boy. It's also far better than people on the BIS forums saying "Fallout FPS - cool!" and then the devs backing them up cluelessly. It's also better than the cattle who would just indiscriminately buy a BIS game because it has their logo on it. Please, for once, use your head before you whine and complain.

As for Baldur's Gate, I could name numerous people who loathe it. The biggest point of irritation is the rut it put BIS into. Yet I've not been griping about it as you'd set up in yet another example of your straw men stacked up with hyperbole and mouth-stuffing. As per usual for you.

PS: Again, you're trolling. Much like that thread on DAC of "Your 'Saint_Proverbius", where you just whined like a twit instead of having anything to do with the discussion at hand.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I stand corrected. They'll moan about imagined problems before the game is even in announced, then get back to the BG littany of woes.

Speaking of trolling.. Need I remind you of your last post on Duck and Cover, where you said:

Baldurs Gate was a boring pile of shit, as were its successors and relatives. It pandered to D&D-esque fantasies, many of which are slightly tamer (and more bland) versions of the same fantasies Fallout plays up to. Those fantasies are what it's all about for most players. You just have to take a look at the topics of discussion on this or any other CRPG forum. People aren't talking about hardcore RPGing - they're talking about sex, drugs, weapons and game mechanics.

So, basically, you can berate Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but when I do it, it's wrong, right?

 

[dogmeat]

why the hell are you still talking about fallout fp? a guy can't say what game he'd want to do? if i work in a game company i can't say what game i wanna do? you guys are playing fallout fascists. as i say there ultima underworld was great, better than most ultima series game, in it's way. but noooo, fallout must remain untouched! no side-series allowed cause purists will die if it's made.

by the way i agree with some stuff, fallout I is THE GAME, fallout 2 is silly. and torment is fabulous.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

why the hell are you still talking about fallout fp? a guy can't say what game he'd want to do? if i work in a game company i can't say what game i wanna do? you guys are playing fallout fascists. as i say there ultima underworld was great, better than most ultima series game, in it's way. but noooo, fallout must remain untouched! no side-series allowed cause purists will die if it's made.

by the way i agree with some stuff, fallout I is THE GAME, fallout 2 is silly. and torment is fabulous.

Then you might enjoy this.

 

[MF]

A mistake many people make is to think companies make games.
They don't. People make games.

Often they're teams of people, sure. But they're still people.

Black Isle is just a name.
A name formed AFTER Fallout's release.
A name tagged on Fallout 2's box because Interplay marketing thought they needed an RPG exclusive brand.

Just a name. The brains and hands that made the game you like aren't guaranteed to be with the same company.

Of course, there are decent companies with content employees who stick together. Interplay's history as a publisher make the complete and utter voidness of a name in itself all the more evident.

It is that which stands behind the name that makes the game. A good resume as a company means nothing if it consists of a completely different staff, barring management.

Marketing knows how to manipulate this. In consumer products like Coca-Cola, that always stay the same, you need a really competent marketing staff. To me, Coca-Cola has always been the epitome of marketing success. From Santa-Claus to Nazi's, they had it all covered.

Using brand names is what makes a consumer's urge to buy this product over that product tick.
One thing IPLY marketing is forgetting, though, is that they're essentially dealing with a dynamic artform that has the essence of literature, graphical art and interaction combined.

I may hate one writer who's book is published by Avon, and love the other, for example.

Closer to the point, I could fucking hate Diablo but love Warcraft or Starcraft. (Although Blizzard clearly states Blizzard North is a seperate house everywhere)

A potential failure in marketing would be marketing Diablo to Starcraft fans and vice versa. If this succeeds, it is due to some shrewd marketing ploy.

A sure and absolute failure in marketing though, would be to dictate Diablo developers to make their game more like Starcraft to appeal to both fanbases. This is doomed to fail.

But I'm stating the obvious, since we all know about Interplay's financial situations.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Then you might enjoy this.

Ohhh the pain! The horrid pain! Stop the pain!!