/digipen/ - DigiPenitentiary

>>5
Interesting board concept, anon. Why are you so pissed at DigiPen? How many 8chan users do you think are here? Should we raid them?

>>28
well, what if we raided it in terms of spreading the word about this board, to the students and staff?

the resulting drama could spark a shitstorm.

>>32
Maybe lurk a bit and wait for this board to get traction? I'll definitely plant some seeds. There's no doubt that as a place that, for a school that has a reputation of turning aspiring game creation people into real game creation people, they don't do anywhere near what they're supposed to. 80% of what you learn at the school is self-taught, or accumulated from osmosis from other students who have done the same.

I'll gladly anonymously crusade against the school and its bullshit practices. Just give it time. Allow for the internal shitstorm to brew, then take it to the greater Internet.

People need to know that this supposed bastion of video game learning is not what it seems. Especially prospective students. I see high school and younger kids by the 100s trudging through the school on tour on a weekly basis, and I want to tell them all, "listen, man, this school ain't all it's cracked up to be."

Keep checking in on this board and reading what people have to say. Wait for the threads about the female-only Facebook gossip group. Wait for the thread about the son of the school's president, and how the class he spent 1.5 semesters teaching was complete and total bullshit. Wait for the tell-alls of comfortable industry dudes who are happy to be where they are, but are even happier to tell about the drama and the bullshit that transpired while they were still in school. Wait to hear how much parking at the school costs, and how the number of students that choose to park in the empty lot at the adjacent unused building are growing more and more every year. Wait for the people who want to rant about spending a month or more on a feature of their game's engine that, while ultimately The Right Thing To Do, ends up not directly counting towards their grade

If this board gains enough prominence, there's even a chance that positive change will be made, and the school will turn into what it SHOULD be, instead of this outdated shitshow focused on regional accreditation over education of the existing student base.

There's a story to be told here, and it's one that I cannot do alone. I need more students, both former and current, to chime in with tales of bullshit and woe, to emphasize that I'm not the only crazy one here. I'm but one of many.

>>28
I'm still pretty stockholmed.

Gotta suck up to the Triad all day every day until they recognize my engine.

>>33
fair nuff, but just know, this won't show up on google. they'll have to find it by other avenues.

maybe if you want to reach the un-initiated, go to >>>/agdg/ and warn them.

>>37
ehh maybe but from what I've seen in the past /agdg/ is kind of a shitshow, there's a couple good posts here and there but then a lot of hand-wringing and rape simulator talk, and none of that is relevant to making games. /r/gamedev is kind of the same in many ways.

I have a huge writeup on the school in progress but as it stands, it's very easy to identify who wrote it. I might reword it and pare it down and just shit it out, and then put the full-length identifiable one up in a couple years after I'm long gone.

"female-only Facebook gossip group"

You have piqued my interest.

>>55
Not being a female I don't have access to it, but there most definitely is one and it seems like nearly all females who are accepted to DigiPen and seem like they will stick around are invited to it.

It is a private, hidden group, so it won't show up on the profile pages of those who are in it.

I'm told that it contains posts about not just feminism and being a female in the games industry but also talks shit about specific people, all male, i.e. who is creeping on its members etc.

All I know is, if word got out that there was an all-male hidden private facebook group to gossip about females, there would be a witch hunt and it would end with my head on a stake.

>>62

>>an all-male hidden private facebook group to gossip about females, there would be a witch hunt and it would end with my head on a stIck.

Can…can we do this? Just to see the outcry?

>>584
Yeah go ahead, your funeral.

>>584
..You're new to how this ridiculous drama shit unfolds, aren't you?

>>977
I know some people talk shit about it, but I would honestly say the BS in CS/GD is worth it. If you want to be an indie dev you -must- know how to prototype your own shit. So honestly, the CS classes are invaluable.

What I've gotten so far:
>Experience designing mechanics. Making shit work the way I want it to work.
>Practice implementing those mechanics.
>General CS knowledge.

Really, at the end of year two, I can say that the shit I was capable of doing over the course of a whole semester (GAM100, the first game project course), I could easily do in a weekend. If you're really going to be successful, you've got to have one of those "aha!" moments of brilliance, and this school won't necessarily help you there, but it will help you take that killer idea, and think about all the ways to avoid having it needlessly fail.

>>977
>I want to be an indie dev. Is DigiPen worth it?
Yes.
>I was really considering joining the BAGD program
Not with that. If you're a programmer as in RTIS/BSCS, more or less the same degree, then I'd say yes. Why? Getting to form teams that you mean on a daily basis, hopefully your team is that, is such a major pro of the school.

Why RTIS/BSCS? You want a job right? You want to work in the industry right? A game designer has a harder time to achieve that simply because (assuming your definition of indie is a small studio rather than no publisher ie Valve is indie) they don't have the money to keep a person to come up with ideas when everyone else can do the same. Programmers are valuable. Plain and simple. Everyone else can easily replaced by a programmer, usually. A person with T skills usually ie I'm strong in programming with some decent secondary skill such as modeling, sprites, textures, game designer, or producer, etc etc.

But you seem like you want to be a designer and BAGD in my opinion is uhh.. worthless. BSGD on the other hand is in a gray area, they're pseudo programmers and pseudo designers in theory. In reality when you get hired you're going to be a gameplay programmer or a rapid prototype guy. Both if you're on the project long enough I suppose. As long as your projects aren't bare minimum and you aren't socially retarded then you'll get hired, because you're have a T skillset in case they ever need the other half of you. As far as I can tell from grads and what I see with current Digipen teams.

I've seen "socially retarded" thrown around a lot, this has to be an exaggeration. Granted there are quite the variety of people in the world, but there can't be THAT many people who attended a fucking university who don't know how to talk to people.

Also, how is James Portnow shit? Like I get his view on gamergate doesn't even make sense, but he seems like he has a lot of valuable knowledge on game design.

>>993
"Socially retarded" is accurate. I've seen people physically brace themselves to be passed pieces of paper during class.

Portnow is an egotistic jackass, and while he has some decent insights into design, 1) is no longer at the school AFAIK 2) only worked on CoD and Farmville and 3) is a terrible professor who doesn't ever. grade. anything. I'm sure some of the GDs who came after or before me can elaborate more than I can though. (I managed to be in a bubble where I only interacted with him in the GAT120 classes I sat in on)

>>993
You'd be surprised. Think about what Digipen is and why people would come here. Anybody else would think twice about coming to a private video game school. I wouldn't say everyone is socially retarded, but there is quite a bit. As far as I can tell, it's usually a designer.

My favorite were the kids that wore ponyshit everyday during my freshman year. Most dropped out since.

>>1020
And the ones that didn't just stopped wearing ponyshit all the time.

>>1020
>>1023
That isn't true. There is at least one student who still does this and he's a third year.

>>1035
My mistake, though in hindsight I guess I know who you're talking about. Maybe I've just tuned out the brony crap.