Falskaar: DLC-Sized Skyirm Mod Creator Gets Hired by Bungie

[Steven Bogos]

Falskaar: DLC-Sized Skyirm Mod Creator Gets Hired by Bungie

Alexander J. Velicky has accepted an Associate Designer position at Bungie.

Remember Bethesda [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125961-Skyrim-Mod-Falskaar-Adds-20-Hours-of-Gameplay] forums that Bungie, Inc, of Halo fame, has offered him an Associate Designer position.

"I'm very excited to announce that I've accepted an Associate Designer position at Bungie, Inc. I cannot express how excited I am for this. But this thread isn't about me. This is about me thanking you; The Community. Modding has been ~90% of my life for over four years now, and all throughout you were there to support me. I know this will sound weird since this is an open community composed largely of random anonymous people from 'The Internet', but you're kind of like my second family."

Velicky used his forum post to express his gratitude to everyone who had supported him over the years, and answer a few questions over what this means for the future of Falskaar, and his other mod projects. "[It is] still entirely possible [that I will update Falskaar]. I still have some plans that may very well come to fruition. It all depends on after I settle in if I have the time and will to continue," he said.

He added that while most of his modding projects will be put on hold for now, Fallout 4 may tempt him to get back into modding as "I got my serious design start in Fallout 3, so it's pretty likely that I won't be able to resist the draw of Fallout 4 and it's modding tools.

Velicky leaves us with a "corny" life lesson: never be afraid to try. "I set my sights on a professional design job pretty early, I lowered my head, charged forward, and rarely looked back. Of course, I ensured what I was doing had a reasonable chance for success from time to time. But the most surprising of all, is who I've ended up with. I applied to many companies, and Bungie was in my, 'Huge company that will completely ignore me.' category. Well, they didn't and look what it got me."

Source: Bethesda Forums [http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1479196-to-the-community-thank-you/]

Permalink

 

[J Tyran]

Good to see someone hired this guy, Falskaar was a brilliant mod and while it had its problems the actual design of the nation of Falskaar, the areas within in it and the actual plot was almost as good as anything Bethesda added to any Elder Scrolls game.

It was probably an even better designed slice of world than the reworked Solstheim we saw in Skyrim: Dragonborn.

 

[Nouw]

It's really refreshing to see such a positive and rather heartwarming news story here. In any case, it's not everyday someone's hardwork gets rewarded in a way like this.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

Excellent work, I knew he would make it.

 

[MiskWisk]

Glad to see someone hired this guy. He already showed he could work in this field and clearly had a lot of talent. It would have been a shame had he not been hired by someone.

 

[antipunt]

Aww, this makes me feel warm and toasty inside ^_^

 

[Oskuro]

Congratulations for his success.


Now, on to what irks me.... "DLC-Sized"? Like all DLC is massive, and like usaer-made Mods have never been extensive, to the point of being, in many cases, larger (and arguably better) than official expansions (For an example: Desert Combat vs. Road To Rome *and* Secret Weapons of WWII... Or even BF:V)


Maybe I'm old or something, but the use of DLC to me feels almost like an attempt at re-branding what already had a name. What was wrong with addons, expansions, mods or total conversion mods? Oh well...

 

[RicoADF]

Aww, this makes me feel warm and toasty inside ^_^

*Pulls the blow torch away from your feet* Sorry....

OT: Glad to hear, there aren't enough positive stories on here, good luck to him and cudos to Bungie for hiring him. Need more stories like this.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Portfolios like that can hardly get ignored, but I would have expected Bethesda to be the one snatching him up... then again Bungie is doing it's open world thing now.

So kids there you have it, when you dream about your gaming career put more effort into making and less on dreaming.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Good for him.

I kinda expected Valve to snatch him up though. They tend to do that. Case in point: the creators of Counter-Strike, Day Of Defeat, Team Fortress, Alien Swarm, DotA and Narbacular Drop (Portal). As far as I know, most of them still work there too.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Good for him. It isn't rare to see talented modders hired by studios. It proves you are good at the job and that you just love to do it. Jorge Salgado made Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul mod and he was hired by Obsidian.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Fantastic news that he ended up with a well-reputed company like Bungie. He put time and effort into his mods in spades, for no pay and the results demonstrate great talent and skill. It's great that he got an "in" with a prestigious game developer, but Bungie have got themselves a very talented designer, which makes them very lucky too. With proper industry experience he may well go very far.

 

[AntiChrist]

60+ hour work-week and low pay, here I come! - Alexander J. Velicky

 

[Nooners]

60+ hour work-week and low pay, here I come! - Alexander J. Velicky

Hey, he was putting in 60+ hour work-weeks for NO pay before. I imagine he's super-happy right now.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

60+ hour work-week and low pay, here I come! - Alexander J. Velicky

Hey, he was putting in 60+ hour work-weeks for NO pay before. I imagine he's super-happy right now.

very true, and he obviously enjoyed it more than enough to do it for THAT long with no pay? i'm sure he is thrilled to get paid to do what he is passionate about.

 

[EHKOS]

I wish I heard of this mod sooner, it looks awesome. Although I wonder if my current compter could run Skyrim at all low settings without blowing up. Stupid Intel internal Graphics. WHY WOULD THEY PUT THEM IN THE SAME CHIP AS THE CPU?! IT GETS SO HOT!

 

[SajuukKhar]

I frankly don't understand what people found so impressive with Falskaar.

It was flat, landmarkless, land, divined up by implausible mountain ranges, whose only quests were just copy pasted Skyrim ones with different text, and whose main quest features mid-tier mod voice acting, and terrible writing, even more-so then Beth's already mediocre writing.

Nothing about Falskaar had anywhere near the depth of mods like Kvatch Rebuilt, or Helgen Reborn, or even some of the better quest mods from Fallout 3/New Vegas such as Project Brazil, or Someguy's mod(New Vegas bounties etc.), or a quest for Haven, or Alton IL.

Falskaar was just big, copy-pasted, Skyrim landscape made even more dull, it had a large amount of worldspace.... but the overall quality of everything in it was garbage,

If quantity of content has truly become this more important then QUALITY of content..... then gaming is surly dead.

 

[EHKOS]

I wish I heard of this mod sooner, it looks awesome. Although I wonder if my current compter could run Skyrim at all low settings without blowing up. Stupid Intel internal Graphics. WHY WOULD THEY PUT THEM IN THE SAME CHIP AS THE CPU?! IT GETS SO HOT!

It's Intel's fault that you bought a computer without a dedicated graphics card?

It was the best laptop in my price range. It has an i5. I stand by my statement that it is a design flaw.