first day at Obsidian Entertainment

well, sick of blogging, but good to be historical. My how time flies.. well after 6 months of confusion, today was my first day at "the new job." I accepted it not even a full week ago, and just a couple of days ago I was still stressing over "should i pass? can i pull out, is it too late.. should i just snap and go to new york!!?"

Yeah, there's no way that stuff can't still be lingering in my head, at least not for a little while. I am getting lots of weird feedback from all sorts of people "why did you do this?" Next time I have major life decisions to make I will just keep them to myself, apparently.. haha. Anyway, Obsidian is.. NOT Neversoft, that's for damned sure. Completely different vibe. It is weird being "the new guy" again, the one who gets introduced in a flash to tons of more-established-at-that-studio people. They put up a little message on the company internet board "welcome to Ron Alpert!" And then there was a brief monday afternoon company meeting "Welcome Ron Alpert from Neversoft" (clapping) Yeah, I guess I have a little bit of an image now.

Actually it was a really terrible 1st day. I didn't have an awful drive in, in fact it took me exactly one hour (whew!) and the traffic wasn't crippling as I was expecting. But all day I was nursing a fresh new cold, sneezing and dripping all day to the delight of onlookers and new fellow coworkers (do you detect my sarcasm?) If not for being my first day I'd have taken it off, actually. But I soldiered thru it - got all my apps installed, all my quick keys and custom-software configurations set up.. did some paperwork, and started soaking up the design docs for the project I'll be spending the next year and change of my life living intimately with.

To reiterate - Obsidian is NOT NEVERSOFT. Not by a longshot. This place is relatively "new" (2003) but borne of the ashes of an older company with many of the same principles - anyway, probably at least as old as NS if not a little older, but completely different style. NS is all about the punk rock and roll "bad boy" culture, this place is more of the "laid back 'we're a production studio'" vibe. Not as hectic and intense.. it's gonna be weird to adjust to a more "normal job," but i do know one thing - the game, while not my usual cup of tea, has some potential to be a GOOD looking piece of software, regardless of how it ends up selling. I can tell there's a lot of room here, for a guy like me to really come into my own on the graphics side. Well, we'll see. NS trained me for speed, efficiency and juggling technical issues (frame rates and delicate poly/texture budgets, etc) and this place looks like it will be more relaxed in those areas (new console gene, completely different game format). Unfortunately I can't discuss the context here, for the time being...

OC still pisses me off. Yeah, it's very pretty and I will adjust to the drive. If today's commute is "the usual" then I will be satisfied. There's some folks who can't stand being en route to work more than 15 minutes or so, and I can understand that. I have to keep this apartment though, I need to be where my fun is at. It's all a compromise.

We'll see how my attitude is in a couple of months.. hahaha.

To conclude, I'll say I am super-driven now to start picking my life back up from the limbo it's been in. I want to start pushing forward with my plans for "the next step," because whirling around in an endless semi-circle is suffocating to me. I keep picturing another name on my resume, at some point it is gonna be 2009 and what have I got to show when that comes? Another name. Another studio. I can't do this same schtick forever. It's so tiring to think of.