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Sharessa

Reality Bites

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So, inspired by something I read on Something Awful last night, here's an idea for a thread. What did you want to be when you were younger and what are you now? As for me...

Wanted: To be a musician, or failing that, an archeologist or game designer.

Am (age 25): Working in a restaurant kitchen and making barely enough to pay rent, let alone bills, thus putting me $1500 in debt. Oh yeah, and no one is fucking hiring around here.

So yeah, share your broken dreams, or possibly your great success.

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I wanted to work on computers for a living. That's kind of what I was doing up until July of last year. Then I got myself terminated somehow (I still don't agree with why), found myself working at a Halloween store until November, and now I've been unemployed and collecting meager benefits for the last five months. I'm not in debt yet, but damn it sucks being out of money.

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Wanted to be a computer game programmer, now I'm into electronics. Not that it's easy or anything. But I'd say it's easier than programming.

Strictly from thread starter's POV, I'm still in the younger stage. No job, mostly aspirations.

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wanted to be: rock star, archaeologist (because of indiana jones) or a successful writer. [edit] i forgot about videogame tester.

i am: a bartender...i do still write as well as make music and even tour sporadically, but these excursions are funded by my bartending job so i can't really say there is any kind of success there.

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I wanted to either design games or become a lawyer (one courtroom drama too much). Instead (?) I'm studying software engineering, which means I'll probably end up working on software contracts for big faceless corporations to help them make even more money while getting gray hair at an early age because of impossible clients and fellow workers who don't know how to write Hello world! even in Python.

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I wanted to be either an astronaut, a forester or a teacher.

After spending nearly 7 years in the oil industry as a contracts manager, I gave it up and I'm now a teacher. I have been for 16 years. Now, I have to figure out how to become a space-faring educator specialising in trees... ;)

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I wanted to be a movie director but instead I'm a mainframe programmer. The money is good enough that at least I could risk changing careers if I had the inclination.

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Wanted to be a professional musician of some sort. Doing soundtrack or production.

I did an apprenticeship at a tattoo shop that I never used besides extra cash every so often.. I'm a manager at a music store. Close enough I guess.

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Enjay said:

Now, I have to figure out how to become a space-faring educator specialising in trees... ;)


very ender wiggin

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The Lag said:

very ender wiggin

Heh, I can't believe I didn't spot that. I love the Ender series.

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Figured I'd want to do some high-tech computer management/support job.

Then I realized I hate computers and everything to do with them.

So now I'm just going to school.

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I wanted to be a paleobiologist as a child but my half-assed approach at high school resulted in no university excepting me. I'm 22 so the window is pretty much shut on that subject.

I'm a freshly graduated multimedia student that sucks at action script and despises databasing. I'm going to apply to a music/sound design school soon to carry out my interest as a musician (The only thing I like in life. But at 22 the window to fame is slowly shutting) But my all to wise father who holds my inheritance thinks working in a coal mine is a great job as long as it pays into a pension and has dental is quite against that. But the man is now 68 so...

Lüt said:

Then I realized I hate computers and everything to do with them.

Amen brother.

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I always wanted to be a programmer, be able to make simulations, games and cool graphics.

The I figured out that I hate math and the amount required to do so was more than I cared to do. I came to the realization that I'm better at designing these things and having other people do the work for me.

That being said I'm going to school for a degree in visual arts (concentration in graphics design), and hopefully a minor in computer science.

Currently I have 2 jobs: Janitor for a School. Customer Service, Sales and Tech Agent for a corrupt and evil totally awesome megacorporation and I absoultely despise love it and would never say anything bad about them.

EDIT: I am ungodly awesome with a mop and vacuum cleaner. FEAR ME!!!

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I wanted to be a writer living far away from civilization. Now I'm doing graphics as part owner of a small company.

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Enjay said:

I wanted to be either an astronaut, a forester or a teacher.

"You're British, scale it back a bit." - Eddie Izzard, probably butchered. :P

Lüt said:

Then I realized I hate computers and everything to do with them.

Yeah, same thing happened to me. After taking a class in Basic, I realized I was way too terrible with math to get anything to work right. Then after owning my own computer for a while, I realized they're all unreliable pieces of shit that break down for no explainable reason at random. So yeah, that ruined my whole dream of ever being a game designer. If I ever become an accomplished musician or writer, though, I'd love to work through the medium of computer games.

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Lüt said:

Then I realized I hate computers and everything to do with them.


The exact reason I'll never enter a career with computers, despite my 'knack' with them.

As for this thread, I dunno. I never really wanted to do anything. So far I'm achieving that.

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Technician said:

I'm 22 so the window is pretty much shut on that subject.

How so? I was 28 when I gave up work to go back to college as a student and retrain as a teacher.

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Wanted to be a vet originally when I was way young, then sort of changed my mind and wanted to be a game designer of some sort.

NOW - Still at school getting a degree in IT,and finding that it is still interesting to me to work with computers. Nonethelss I don't even have a proper job - I'll be working part-time back at a center for neglected kids for the next two months until I go back to take summer courses and make sure I have the courses I need to graduate on time (which I am doubting I will at this point)

Rockstar actuallly sounds appealling, as I've always wanted to get together with some friends and make a college band just for the hell of it.

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My entire life has been "hey this seems like a cool job" and then after I find out more about it "nah that's gonna suck."

I still dream of being a vocalist for a grindcore band, but to this day I can't find people who have close enough tastes in music that I do. Let alone people with that quality who also play instruments.

I just can't see myself just pinpointing one single occupation and being able to cope with it the rest of my life. I'd rather just juggle a bunch of small low-income jobs.

I've come up with a bunch of gameplans for some really great and unique games, but because of all the sell-out shooters that are all exactly the same but with good graphics being cloned over and over and being bought by everyone, I feel the target market for video games is retarded 12 year-olds that have been diagnosed with ADD but are just deathly addicted to playing Xbox live all day. I feel like if I made the games that I had ideas for there would be a small audience that recognize the true awesomeness of it while everyone else will play it for 40 seconds and go "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT" and go back to playing half-life 2. I'm about to cry just imagining this actually happening.

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Enjay said:

I'm now a teacher. I have been for 16 years.

That's my current aspiration, actually. I'm hoping to start work on a masters in education next year. I'd love to teach Linux systems at my university, or programming at a high school.

Right now I have a job where do a wide range of things: supervising student workers, system administration (RHEL boxes and XP computer labs), audio work, A/V event setups, live sound, and departmental "IT" work.

Growing up I wanted to be either a programmer, a level designer, or a musician. I've done all three now. I've written non-trivial programs for work that have proved to be successful, as well as ones on my own, which I'll likely continue to do.

Level design I did as a hobby a few years ago, but it's been sporadic at best since then. I've got a 98% finished level pack for Doomsday 1.8.x sitting on my hard drive, but need to test it more.

As far as music goes, I have learned to compose and record my own stuff, but I've also learned that I can't bring myself to sell what I write. Hence it is now a very, very expensive hobby. I did actually get contracted to write music for a local game design company at the beginning of the year, though. But an actual paper contract never materialized.

EDIT:
Almost forgot. I'd like to be a martial arts instructor for Aikido. But seeing as I keep missing class (not because I choose to, either), this might take a while.

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WANTED TO BE: Archetect. Can really draw buildings well, especially ficticious very run-down ones, with my amazing ability to manipulate anything in 3D, but I can't do math.

REALITY: Calibration Technician at an electronics service facility.

Granted, reality didn't initially turn out too bad, but after getting my AS in Electronics, and a dead market (bad recession of the eraly '90's), just wound up as a cal tech, or test tech in various places on simple circuit products. My electronics knowledge and training pretty much not ever used since I graduated college, thus like a derelict building, there's nothing left, except the basics and a ton of poop. :) That's the "Reality Bites" part.

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Wanted: Game tester, game designer, professional wrestler, or doctor.

Am: Going to school for law. Amateur filmmaker and freelance artist on the side.

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When I was younger, I wanted to be a "computer guy", ever since I was like 5 and got my first TRS-80 with Space Invaders written in BASIC on 12 minute cassette tape.

When I was 15, I got a job building PCs at a local shop. After finishing high school, I went through a few technician and support jobs. I've worked on a fair few different things from POS registers, speed cameras and gambling machines to ATMs, bank mainframes and telephone DSLAMs so people can get ADSL at home.

Now I'm a network engineer for a business-only ISP, the cash is good and it's pretty cruisy. As I'm an escalation point for problems, the few customers I deal with are usually technical in nature and good guys to work with.

I'm living my dream, and sometimes I have a bad day or things get me down like everyone else, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

Patrick Pineda said:

I am ungodly awesome with a mop and vacuum cleaner.

Weren't you in Space Quest? :)

JohnnyRancid said:

I still dream of being a vocalist for a grindcore band, but to this day I can't find people who have close enough tastes in music that I do.

Where are you? If you're anywhere near a city of about a million people, it's bound to have at least a tolerable local metal scene. And you can always move to Scandanavia. I'd love to live in Finland or Norway, simply because every local band would kick ass! Everyone knows about metal over there, even old people.

I just can't see myself just pinpointing one single occupation and being able to cope with it the rest of my life. I'd rather just juggle a bunch of small low-income jobs.

I read somewhere once that even very successful people completely change career three times throughout their life. This also would work in well with your above wishes, as you could pretty much go anywhere, get work and make music.

And I agree with you about the games industry. Apart from a few diamonds in the rough, I strongly believe that the aspiration to make new, creative games died around 1995, which is why I love Doom, Diablo, Elite, roguelikes and the early 90s in general so much. Games back then weren't just a re-hash of some previous idea (or a licensed engine with different graphics), and new genres were appearing at almost every major release.

The good old days.

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I wanted to be the inventor of artificial intelligence. Or failing that, sole proprietor of an international conglomerate.

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Well, I'm sort of going in the opposite direction. When I was a kid, I secretly wanted to make games, but I thought it would be too hard. I had literally no idea how they worked and I couldn't imagine anything else but wiring chips together and typing strings of 1's and 0's.

After starting Computer Science classes in college and actually seeing a little bit of how computers work, I'm convinced that this is what I was meant to do. Hopefully, with some hard work and a bit of luck I can crack my way into the industry an actually make games for a living.

And for those who think that games have gone down the toilet, I tend to disagree. It's no surprise that many people here would feel this way, since this is a forum for a game that is more than fifteen years old. Of course people are going to prefer the way things used to be.

A lot of people complain about how every game released these days is a first-person shooter. Well, I just think that's where the industry is right now. Back in the NES and SNES days I'm sure a lot of people were complaining about all the side-scrolling platformers that were coming out. But now that the trash has been cleared and people only remember the classics, people start to think that those were such better times, when they were just as good and bad as they are now.

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When I was small, like six or seven, I felt I was destined to be a garbage collector but thought I needed to be a paleontologist because I liked dinosaurs. Later, during my teens, that became entomology as insects, particularly ants, caught my eye. It happened that things went very differently as I started to discover literature. I do consider I like to write and do editing or language work because I find it hard to be a guerrilla fighter, a criminal or a street bum, though.

DuckReconMajor said:
It's no surprise that many people here would feel this way, since this is a forum for a game that is more than fifteen years old. Of course people are going to prefer the way things used to be.

It's no surprise that those who want to get into the game industry feel that the industry is not bloated and saturated. Of course they are going to place some hope on game development.

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myk said:

It's no surprise that those who want to get into the game industry feel that the industry is not bloated and saturated. Of course they are going to place some hope on game development.

Touché.

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Super Jamie said:

Where are you? If you're anywhere near a city of about a million people, it's bound to have at least a tolerable local metal scene. And you can always move to Scandanavia. I'd love to live in Finland or Norway, simply because every local band would kick ass! Everyone knows about metal over there, even old people.


It's not just metal though. My tastes in music are pretty specific. I like minimal bits of metal, I love hardcore punk, powerviolence, and most forms of grindcore. I like lyrics that are about money and how much of a dirty rotten substance it is. I like songs about political faults and the failure of government. I like songs about war and people being oppressed. Songs about being betrayed by former friends, getting revenge, and irreparable friendships. Songs about murder and people losing their minds due to being oppressed. Songs about fighting, riots, social unrest, etc.

In contrast, I tend to hate lyrics that are about how tough you (or the bandmembers) are, blood, and the questionable existence of god and how retarded religion is.

In addition to that, I hate bands that sound "over-produced". When a bands' songs sound like they've been modified to sound more clearer, the vocals louder and more clear, the guitar with less static and distortion, I hate that. I prefer the loud unbalanced "raw" sound. Like sounding like they recorded it in their own garage. I like my music FAST. I like feedback and the errors the bassist and guitarist make, and the vocalist messing up the lyrics. I like Live recordings for this reason. To be even more specific, I like the vocals to be raspy. I don't care if I can't tell anything that the vocalist is saying. I like them to either be deep or high-pitched screams, a combination of both, or a single medium of the two. I hate when it's way too high pitched like in black metal, but I also hate when they are deep-bellowed roars like in death metal and goregrind.

When songs are fast, loud, and out of control, it has a heavy influence on the feelings of panic and psychopathy, while over-produced music sounds a lot more clean and less threatening, deep roars just sound like "ROAR IM A GIANT BEHEMOTH AND IM TOUGHER THAN YOU", and super high pitched screams are annoying. As far as I know, I can only think of a few people that have remotely the same musical interests as me, but even then they steer off into other genres that they prefer over mine.

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DuckReconMajor said:

Of course people are going to prefer the way things used to be.


Yeah. I too want to be able to program on a machine with 128 bytes of total RAM that can only hold one picture scanline at a time. Talk about boosting creativity...

...on related news, even if unemployed, I'm supposed to pay the local engineers guild insurance fees, which at this point are 1800 Eur/year. Holy shit, that's more than twice the minimum wage around here :-(

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