Lazer eyez browz da Madrid skiez

2008-12-05T19:32:00.002+01:00

14 degress top, shining, radiating vapor trail-crossed madrid sky, this is how the day started.

And we are heading to the company Xmas party.

U-u-u-uuuuuuuuuuuu

2008-11-20T21:40:00.004+01:00

So we passed the planned signoff, and the crew is again in this special kind of mental state. When your project gets close to the end, it is indeed hard to keep your motivation up, you already checked everything you could. Fernando, to my right, made like 11-12 full passes on the game, and he is more than halfway through with the 13th. Now he can complete the whole story mode in like 2-2,5 hours. Though his case is special: his builds somehow lack the autosave feature, so when he has a bug to regress somewhere close to the end, he has to get there the hard way. He always plays Mirror's Edge "realtime", as I told him.

So it is basically about waiting for studio to solve the last few remaining issues, so you just do nothing, but are alert all the time.

We got the new builds in the afternoon, test lead asked us to yet again check the most important stuff, cause it "never hurts". I jokingly wrote her that it does, with Merc's first words from the tutorial echoing in my mind: "Training time, Faith. Yeah, I know you hate it, but that fall took you out of comission for a while. And now that you're back you gotta stay sharp. Especially in this city. Celeste is on a runaround duty, so just get to her, and go with the flow."

So I just went with the flow, and I fukin' realized, that there is an unlocalized instruction on the screen, what I saw at least 30 times now. It says "MOUSE X, MOUSE Y" (to look around while holding onto something). It is so goddamn obvious, and yet again, somehow I just never realized that "mouse x" could be, so, it should be translated. We actually do have a word for mouse, in our language. I edited the very same word in the controls menu weeks ago, because it was unlocalized there also.

Now that is weird. The power of context. Though, at the end of the day it only proves that I have trouble focusing on the long term, of which I was kind of aware already. I did this test with 100% dedication (c'mon, awesome game, with my name in the credits), and still, something like that occurred.

The problem with all this, that as I said, we are close to signoff (the first date was yesterday so we passed it already) and at this stage our text database is locked. You can easily understand that, studio does not want any chances that stability gets affected now, so they just don't mess with code, even if it's just a textchange. Usually I wouldn't have had a chance to solve this issue, but thankfully it seems we got an arrangement. It is correct in the database now at least. Can't wait to see that in the game.

Though I probably will have to rely on the eyes of Kenny, who will substitute me, 'cause at 1420 I take off.

2008-11-19T15:59:00.003+01:00

Yeah, I think this rounds it up quite nicely.

If you are interested in the story background:

Story Trailer 1

Story Trailer 2

Story Trailer 3

2008-11-10T01:45:00.003+01:00

I came back from coma at a bit after midday, and spent most of the remaining of the day reading. So, this adds up to the big picture, apart from vampire genes. Maybe.

2008-11-10T01:44:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I mean, it's always fascinating to see a shoeshop open at 10 pm, in the City.

2008-11-10T01:39:00.002+01:00

It's just not right that I have trouble seeing any sense in life until 11 pm, when I suddenly get filled with energy and I realize that are plenty of interesting things to see, read, and do.

Vampire genes are pretty contra-productive in the way of life of the modern western society. Though Spain is still one of the best places to get over the problem somehow.

2008-11-06T00:01:00.003+01:00

My card was calibrated for three months, for some weird reason. So, no, I am not one of the 6%, the 600 employees. I went back after lunchbreak. I've been sleeping all through my newfound free time, fighting the cold and the november gloom.

2008-11-05T09:29:00.003+01:00

Ooooh, this day is starting funky! I went to the gym. No water in the pool. Well, that makes swimming not that much fun. I wasn't in the mood to throw away half an hour with the walk home and back to work, so I headed straight to the office. I flashed my access card but the door gave me the red. Okay, maybe we are not allowed to enter before 9. I try again at 9:01, same response. Not good. Than the first HR girl flies in, I dive in after her. Than this guy comes in right after me, calling me on my name, saying my card is not working because it expired. As long as he is concerned, my contract ran out yesterday. Really sorry, etc, no one told him that it got extended. I'm telling him that it is not extended, it runs till EOY. Okay, but right now I can't stay inside. I didn't feel like waiting for any of my superiors for roughly an hour out in the cold, so I'm home, made a phonecall, standing by.

Anyway, grats to Obama.

2008-11-04T21:48:00.002+01:00

Lenghthy silence breaks. I have to admit that it is all routine now. Phase 2 is closing to the very end, Phase 3 already started in a way. I feel alright here, and I long for home. I killed the tzimisce responsible for those horrid creatures pushing out the Nosferatu from their sewers. I downloaded and watched the Brazilian GP last night, heartbeat at around 170 BPM at the last lap.

And I learned a new word today, pensive. Which described my state of mind all too well at the given moment.

2008-10-22T12:45:00.002+02:00

When will be the ipod water resistant (including earphones)?

That's gonna be the day I buy one.

2008-10-22T10:31:00.002+02:00

First walk to the job, in rain, and wind. I almost enjoyed it!

2008-10-20T12:12:00.003+02:00

"Hit the streets. The more races you win, the better. And remember: don't play it safe. We want 'em to see you."

I heard those sentences for like a hundred times. No more.

So we signed off NFS on nextgen, and a week later on PC as well. I was covering the final days of the PC test too, substituting a fellow countryman leaving.

All I can say is that in my opinion this is the best Need for Speed game for a very long time. It contains every aspect of the previous games of the franchise, apart from drifting, and drag racing, which is a progress, for me at least, I always thought about those as a waste of time. Instead of those, you gotta raise hell in the city quite a few times, and run from police. You got circuits, sprints, duels, and there is a considerable "storyline", with missions (stealing cars, transporting stuff to time limit), quite nicely done considering we are talking about a racer game, with dozens of cutscenes, starring Maggie Q.

And Christina Milian.

And Joshua Alba, lol. "You and me, perro!"

So, as it was disclosed earlier by EA, the development time has been lengthened to 18 months from 12, and they will go up to 24 with the next release. I haven't seen Pro Street, and only minutes from Most Wanted, but I feel that the extra time is surely paying off.

I think KrazyKhris and joel_mustang301 agrees with me on this already...

2008-10-19T22:58:00.001+02:00

I indeed drew some.

Secret project Nr. 1., version 1.0 is done.

I go take a walk.

2008-10-12T18:02:00.003+02:00

The problem with the first secret project is that it is now in the phase where it would need some editing, turning it into a well-written form. It will be quite annoying job. And it is hard to keep up the motovation, since, at the back of my head I know that it does not worth too much, not revolutionary or anything like that - though I knew this in the minute I started writing it down. I just wanted to get rid of it circling in my mind.

For example, originality. In-game commercials. It is designable to be not very annoying, it only gives players a deeper immersion in the game world, if there are IRL brands coming up right in front of them. And it's an extra source of income, making the game cheaper for users.

Well, in NFS, there are these big boards all over the city. And they have placeholders on them (blind text), it never changed, some of us reported it as a concern. And a few days ago, one of my colleagues came over and told me, that they are going to be used as online commercials. So they will be filled with real stuff, coming to your platform from the net. In a way, it's amazing, in another way, it feels nice that I've been thinking about this as a possibility but it is already implemented. In my secret project there are areas to improve this, making steps further ahead from simple boards in the game world, but there are a hell of a lot of people thinking very hard along the very same lines.

I have to remember that I started this only as a way to show my dedication and supposed talent in creating fictional content to those who are interested, and get over with this, and quickly. At least for being able to start working on the other secret project.

Maybe I can draw the motivation from sharing these thoughts now.

2008-10-12T17:53:00.005+02:00

The friday was awesome as usual, I spent most of the time with some new faces again. I greatly enjoyed our conversation, of which I remember two main trails, one was a debate about Madonna being a special personality, or just someone with a good backup and nothing more, and also that why certain oldies are still played a lot on radios, and why exactly those are.

2008-10-12T17:34:00.003+02:00

This weekend is kind of slowmo. After the usual friday beers my saturday started pretty rustily, I don't know what is happening but four beers got me real drunk. I spent the remains of the day playing Bloodlines, right after managing our new year's eve a bit.

Than I got a metro ride to get a whopper, and read some paper I brought from home, sitting on a bench. Mostly about this "balkan noir" story folding out, power games played by our politicians having their own private secret services, gathering data about each other.

After that I went home to play some more Bloodines, till 3 AM, and went to sleep. Three hours later I woke up and watched the Japanese GP. I had to realize that nowadays the stewards decide the outcome of a race eventually, and that is wrong. If there are 3-4 serious penalties through the course of a race, than there should be a problem with the rules. Than I slept till late afternoon.

Now I go to see if a shop was open, make some food if it was, if not, then I hunt down a cat or something. After that I force myself to take care of a secret project, and play some more Bloodlines later, probably.

2008-10-08T00:55:00.004+02:00

More and more spaces free up in the office, one-two "despedida" letters arrive to the mailboxes daily. Many faces I just started to know and got to like, gone or going away, soon. Peak is coming to an end. Rain slowly gets regular, mornings are chilly, Uncle Burney burns no more, only shines, when he is in the mood. Friendly melancholy encompasses the Madrid skiez.

A girl with the middle name Rosemary added me on Facebook. Rosemary, what a cool name it is. Cool, and beautiful as well.

2008-10-06T14:59:00.003+02:00

"Anonymous" commenters will be prosecuted. Erased without warning. Yeah, I erase the commenter as well, not just the comment. Get yourself together guys, it's not nuclear physics.

2008-10-05T16:53:00.002+02:00

...and a big Thank You! for all of you who played a role in the episode about my visit, honest. It was awesome.

2008-10-05T00:21:00.002+02:00

The geckonotsomuchinspainratherinhungary blog is back to business. One week spent back home. Laughs and tears, new flats visited, new children met, relationships broke, family drama, friendship drama, old conflicts, new horizons, and the relentless storms in the cup called the Carpathian Basin.

It was strange today to arrive to another country with keys in my pocket.

I celebrated my safe landing with a copa de cerveza in a nearby bar, half eye on the final minutes of Barca knocking out Atlético to 6-1, and other half on the saturday night suburban vibe.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm gonna test NFS online mode on the XBOX, and hand over his winter coat to my PS3 counterpart.

It was good. And it is good to be back.

2008-09-25T14:21:00.003+02:00

I've been waiting for this for a long time now, and so it came. Someone brought geckoinspain to Team Lead's attention.

The response is okay, they have no concerns just yet. I should make sure it stays that way.

Well, at the very beginning, I shared my views and doubts about the content of this blog, and in the office I tried to get information about what exactly is the kind of intellectual property that I should avoid disclosing at all costs. Without any luck.

Of course, the easiest is to just shut up, and write nothing at all. But I did, and still do think that being a game tester is kind of a legend for many, it's a curious job, so why not share the experience. I also think that to some extent, some of these posts only make the water flow towards the mill of my company, generating awareness, and I do it in my free time, for free, out of enthusiasm.

In a way, I leak information, but from a neutral point of view, these infos are more like teasing. I am not doing full reviews of the content... I do not know where the limits are, but that would certainly go beyond them.

So I did an emergency shutdown, and checked the posts. I only did minor changes, only in two cases.

And while I was thinking on how to go on, I had a revelation, a quite clear philosophy about what my approach should be like, writing as an insider.

So, we roll on.

2008-09-22T00:44:00.004+02:00

It was a quite strange experience when I got informed about the Vuelta coming to Madrid by actually facing it. I came up from underground, got a bit surprised about the road closed, and I got to the barriers in the minute the first part of the field arrived.

Of course we all knew it, but seeing it, you can't think of anything else but, wow, they are so fast!

I even saw the heli with the camera flying overhead, so if you watched it on Eurosport, and saw a gecko standing right between the columns of the entrance of the Prado, with it's eyelasers scanning the field zooming by, that was probably me.

2008-09-22T00:21:00.003+02:00

So, it is beautiful, very sharp graphics, but you may not like the style. It is very pure, colors are highly contrasted. It is a concept, though.

Because the story is set in a near future city, hi-tech, surveillance and media everywhere. All grey and metal, and vivid, artificial colors. You play one of the runners, those guys running through the rooftops, balconies, not asking for permission. Providing service for those who would like to have their package, or message, transported safely outside the strictly controlled communication methods. I like the setting a lot.

And what a cute runner!

It didn't went very smooth for the first time, but I talked to testers who have made a full pass, and they say there are parts, when you progressed a bit and got some practice, when for long minutes, you are in the flow , just running, making your way over every obstacle, without any pause. What a feeling could it be.

Still don't know what I'm talking about? Then you better go see it for yourself, even if you are not much of a gamer. Just to see what games can be, where we stand now.

'Cause we are standing at the mirror's edge.

2008-09-17T23:56:00.004+02:00

But what I wanted to write about is, that John seemed particularly excited, in the letter. It's not a really good thing that the acquisition didn't work out, I guess, but still he is looking forward to this coming season, which is maybe the strongest of the company so far.

Because of the lineup.

That could be deemed corporate bullshit, but what I certainly see is that in the sense of "innovation", this games are promising.

You could get all the info about the biggest titles, from the Games Convention, Leipzig, just a few weeks ago. To mention some: Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Red Alert 3, Sims 3, Spore, Need for Speed Undercover, Littlest Pet Shop.

How come they did not start the list with Littlest Pet Shop?

So, last week, when we had some spare time, I took a sneak peak of Mirror's Edge. And that is what the next post will be about.

2008-09-17T23:43:00.002+02:00

"Coz I want to believe!" - this is what one of the italians said when the conversation was about that such an immense quantity of semen is really possible to have in store, or is it fake.

2008-09-17T23:30:00.003+02:00

Mr. Riccitello Himself writes a letter to us, to all of us, sometimes. I even believe that it is really him, not a PR guy. Like me. Coz I want to believe! His last letter was about not buying Take Two eventually. As you probably know or suspect, gaming industry is no different from other media industries in the way, that one important way of making sure to stay on the top of the jungle, is to buy other companies. So, those guys would still code "teh shit", but at least the company can splash a fat EA logo on the product, apart from the logo of the workshop it comes from, generally. Plus, all these game designer masterminds just might cooperate, and they can have the background, what only a multi like EA can offer. Mutual benefit.

Or so I think, the humble, disposable soldier serving in the outernmost trenches of game design.

2008-09-17T23:21:00.004+02:00

Well, there was actually something I could hardly call nothing.

Some of you might remember my first contact with the Alien Spanish Potatoes. They are a different species. One thing I did not know, is that they go bad this quick. The rest I leave to your imagination.

Kitchen Horror is always a part of the story, when a man goes living on his own. Maybe I write a short story about it.

2008-09-17T23:16:00.002+02:00

Darn, it's 2315 already, and nothing happened tonight just yet. Things are spinning on insane rpm. I was on webcam with mum. 2008, what a thick year it is, and the last few laps are still ahead. Most of that time is here, in Madrid, for me.

2008-09-14T15:53:00.000+02:00

...and to win a race!

2008-09-13T20:10:00.003+02:00

Just a quick remark about Sebastian Vettel's stunning pole position: he achieved that driving a car which is effectively a Minardi. The same people in the factory in Faenza, same spirit, under Red Bull livery, with a bit more generous budget, and under Gerhardt Berger's command. I'm happy for them.

Hats off to the genious, waterwalker german, the youngest F1 driver ever to start from pole.

2008-09-11T23:39:00.004+02:00

I like particularly this one from the NFS Undercover soundtrack. Me myself is surprised a bit too, but hey.

Electrotumbao!

2008-09-10T01:08:00.000+02:00

It's raining.

2008-09-08T10:55:00.002+02:00

Here's the New York Times article on Spore. The author nicely expressed what I also felt about the game. Recommended!

2008-09-07T20:16:00.005+02:00

Spore is on the shelves now, so I gotta say a few words about it, because I had the luck of seeing it in action.

It is almost awesome. Totally the top of all this kind of games, next level, no doubt about it. The promise of always totally different evolutions, creatures designed by other fellow players inhabiting the planets you visit is amazing in itself. While taking a quick view of the game over the shoulders of the tester who was introducing it to me, one uncomfortable question evolved out from the ancient soup of my whizzing nervetracks: "Okay..., so what?"

Basically you go through evolution, but somehow, something is missing from the big picture. Why? What is it for? If you fail anywhere, die, you just spawn back again, losing mostly nothing, but time.

Though, as I just wrote this down, the thought striked me, that, hell, isn't it the same about Life? I mean, there is no real aim, no real answer, as far as we know (apart from the ones you can optionally take, offered by any religion), so just what do I expect?

Anyway, the game looks like it has a very robust architecture, meaning now that there is a lot of space for many more ideas and possibilities, especially concerning the further improvements of multiplayer options, which are surely to come in the future expansions, and even in patches. Imagine a galaxy inhabited by uniquely designed, evolved, sentient creatures' societies, each controlled by one player, and these just competing for dominance, forming alliances, creating symbiosis or bitter rivalry.

Give it a go, and tell me how you feel about it.

2008-09-07T19:48:00.004+02:00

Bank Job is so cool. Statham really had it a long time coming. Deserved something deeper now, than the bangbang action heros, and I knew that he can take it. The coolest about the movie is that it is something like Guy Ritchie, but so much different, because it at least is based on a true story. Fun characters, England, documentarily realistic 1970 (Jaguar police cruiser? pwnage.), thrill, investigation, different threads all getting jumbled up in that one bank safe.

And there's this awesome hottie with those frighteningly sparkling eyes, and I'm totally not talking about the main character, femme fatale-ish Saffron Burrows, who looks a bit like Burt Reynolds, imho.

2008-09-07T19:42:00.002+02:00

"Just kill it, man!"

Funny, when you realize that some expressions describing certain situations are just the same in english as well.

2008-09-03T21:11:00.001+02:00

How nice of last.fm is that it just mixes up a song to my words here.

Siena Root: Summer is old

2008-09-03T21:01:00.003+02:00

Budapest is shrouded under the summer-end gloom during this time of the year, but Madrid just starts to get lively. Everyone's flowing back to the city from wherever they've been chilling out, three restaurants or bars got opened for business just in the very block I'm living in, traffic on the surrounding roads tripled at least.

2008-09-03T20:33:00.005+02:00

Though the game is still quite far away from ready, and we have done what we could at this stage, days ago.

So the finnish guy next to me, who is generally this low-voiced, calm guy, start to seem freaky from the utter boredom. He is beating now the computer in solitaire quite regularly. Others usually play a game they have installed, the luckiest ones have net access. This is why I start to hate the norwegian in front of me, who giggled all day long, surfing through a probably very funny content, which is a shame, because he has nothing else against him, apart from him having net access and me having not.

Not that I have the option of getting bored. Hun LT is a bit undermanned, so there is always a manual to check. LPS and Sims Store looks like really done, but even only a few days ago, there still were some bugs to regress (check if they were really fixed), well after signoff.

But nowadays sometimes he just turns off the hardware, and stares at the blank monitor. I'm afraid that something terrible is gonna happen, if we don't get a usable build very soon.

2008-09-03T20:22:00.003+02:00

The other thing which pleases me greatly is the soundtrack. It seems they took another step away from the mainstream, and approached the audio metaphor of speeding through the city from a wider perspective. The widest selection of genres are represented again of course, there was not one performer I recognized. Though we have none of those tags appearing on the screen, so I have no idea who am I listening to.

The garage and map background titles are downtempoish tracks. Once when I switched to the PC from the console to take care of something, I had stayed on the map for a good twenty minutes, with my headphones up, just nodding slowly, as the tracks were looping by.

2008-09-03T20:07:00.004+02:00

"Suspect is driving a blue Ford Escort."

What I particularly like in NFS, is the police radio, you are tuned to their frequency. The dispatcher is a woman of course, with that typical practical voice of her, communicating all the time with the guys out on the street trying to catch me. There are some distinctive voices, and they are very responsive to what happens in the game, realtime, and it all sounds very realistic, especially when they lose visual contact and suddenly one of them catches sight of me again.

2008-09-03T20:06:00.000+02:00

Jenna Jameson has an autobiography. Need.

2008-09-02T19:42:00.003+02:00

I went by the potatos three times yesterday in the hypermarket. I thought they are mangos, or something similar. They are yellow, and they have an awful smell.

2008-08-31T22:10:00.002+02:00

What I forgot to mention about friday night, is that it is always nice to hear someone saying your home city is the most beautiful city he ever saw, and he did see many parts of Europe. Even if you heard that a few times, indirectly. When you get it in your face, it is different.

2008-08-31T21:55:00.005+02:00

One of the most massive (it is kinda hard to find the correct word) days of my life, but no doubt the number one this year, was the day when we went to play paintball with my wow guildies to an abandoned soviet army barracks facility, than chilled out from the bloodshed and adrenaline rush in a thai restaurant having dinner and beers, and after I saluted my comrades for the last time and kissed my bride-back-then goodbye, I headed off to a goa party, the first one in my life.

The first goa party is probably like the first in many other mediums, like the first sex, or the first joint. I will carry the memory of that night, and the following morning, for the rest of my life, no doubt about that.

2008-08-31T21:53:00.004+02:00

I am listening to Zozobra now. What is particularly cool about this album (Bird of prey), that it's last song is called "Laser Eyes".

If I ever had an own website with a flash demo on it, one minute of this track would be the background music for that for sure.

2008-08-31T21:26:00.003+02:00

We went to play lasertag yesterday, as a company recreation event.

I did play paintball on a few occasions, and I was interested in trying this kind of game as well. Fun. Though it's quite the same as it was in the early nineties. We had one facility of this game in Budapest, it was the same franchise (Quasar), then another opened, both went bankrupt pretty quickly, but my citypunk friend told me how it was. We were like fourteen. All that is changed that the vests are less bulkier. (A guy told this on the train heading home. He was nine back then.)

Otherwise, you are still running around in a dark dungeon of wooden walls with no roof, disco lights and loud club music, have bases which you can assault and defend. Particularly the second match was exciting, more tactical than the first, when we were just butchering each other in the midfield. Unlike paintball, this is more about just having fun, paintball is more like a sport and the fever of battle. Though the 30 minute matches are quite exhausting, I did not felt that it bring out the most of me, like paintball did. My thighs hurt like hell though, from all the crouching and jumping up to shoot the guy hiding on the other side.

Of course it was fun, especially because of the social aspect. I spent quite a lot of time talking with Michaela (I may misspell her name here), but the norwegian guy was there also from last night, classic nordic beard and raver tee, and the polish journalist too, whose name sounds the same as you say cat on my language in a kind of coolish way. Sorta like "cool cat".

(Macsek, pronounced: Machek)

2008-08-31T01:45:00.006+02:00

We have a new flatmate. She is living in the toilet, floating. I call her Marcy. I think Keko brought her to our home, since only the two of us are using that particular bathroom. It seems that Marcy plans to stay for a while, and thus I could not use the toilet today, because I don't really want to bother her, well, me neither would be happy if someone would just open my door and take a leak on the floor of my room. And she is very stinky. And it will probably get worse, maybe I won't be able to use the bathroom at all in a day or two. And it will bring the task of bringing up the subject to my other flatmates, which would be so uncomfortable, I just might get to hurt someone's feelings.

2008-08-31T01:08:00.003+02:00

Friday, beers at the usual place. I had conversations with four guys mostly.

The norwegian has studied finance, his aim is to become a game producer.

Two polish, one is a law student, wondering whether to go back to the uni in october, for his final year, or have half a year of holiday.

The other has been writing articles for every polish gamer mag, playing basically every game worth mentioning, throughout the years, and pretty much disappointed by the titles of the present, for not bringing up anything new, the companies playing it safe all the time. The good game has a good story.

And the UK born irish kid, game designer university class student, and internet culture hero, in the meaning of a dutch newspaper selecting their youtube video as the second best cover for Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", right after Nelly Furtado's.

When I looked on my watch at around 0040, I had absolutely no idea how and when did the last three hours fly by, so I really had a good time in the company of these exceptional individuals.

2008-08-27T21:49:00.000+02:00

"Spain is all chilled out, no rat race or anything."

2008-08-27T20:59:00.004+02:00

A polish guy went home, and there was this farewell-beerdrinking few days ago. I think the first kind of social event I attended here, and I did laugh my brain off.

"So the reason why the blacks have big cocks is that the more you go down to the south, closer to the equator, the women's womb is placed the deeper, to protect it from the big daily temperature changes."

"You're only saying that 'cause your italian."

"Yeah, and I'm coming from the SOUTH of Italy, way down to the SOUTH."

Hardcore porn and heavy metal were the main trails of the conversation, and on the paulaners went. Godspeed, Siergiej.

2008-08-27T20:26:00.004+02:00

Did you know that they bring out many nextgen (PS3, XBOX) titles to current gen (PS2) as well? Like, FIFA?

Well that was what we were busy with throughout the weekend. Basically not our job to language-test it, but after a routine checkup it became apparent that it is a no-go, and we must iron it out.

Funny thing is, PS2 versions have more content, for example, more options in manager mode, than the nextgen. It was the case last year also. No idea why. It is dozens of euros cheaper, graphic is of course tuned down, but in other aspects it is the same, or even more.

It's nice that they still support their previous console imho. Though, they can still make nice money out of it probably, so why not.

2008-08-26T20:18:00.003+02:00

OMFG, I did not know that the birthday party-day of Hungary is actually the birthday of Howard Philips Lovecraft as well.

One of the Old Ones must be sleeping under the huge plain, which makes kind of like a third of the whole territory of the country. That would explain a lot. It is probably a very flat one.

2008-08-26T01:37:00.004+02:00

Gaaaargh, it's been 30 days ago, and it definitely shows.

2008-08-22T22:43:00.002+02:00

Overtime! No weekend this week! Some serious poll of shit hit the fan yesterday so our little club of Hun LT have all been reassigned to do what has to be done.

2008-08-22T22:22:00.002+02:00

So this is my first own project. I bug it on my own account in the reporting software, not just taking up where someone left.

This is why I' ve been moved again, to the NFS "project table". To the place that would be voted the worst place easily, the right-back corner of the room, like one meter from the kitchen door of our level, so there are like 150 people who are walking over right behind my back, at least two times a day, sometimes just swarming the kitchen to have a chat, and when italians or french do it, you can imagine what is it like. And the temperature after six falls below unbearable. I sat in long sleeves all day but in the evening it's not enough. I get depressive from the cold, so it does not help my mood or motivation at all. Suffer!

So, no complaints, just facing the challenge, being positive, but well, it sucks. I feel like Milton there.

2008-08-22T22:14:00.004+02:00

My favourite bug is the car what looks like it is connected to something with a huge, stiff leash on the left of it's roof. That leash or stick just goes all the way out of the picture, to the upper left, like the car would be connected to a top of a skyscraper or something.

What makes it real tiring that dark parts are dark. Totally. That's what I meant two posts before. And since it's a city with overpasses and skyscrapers and tunnels, there are races when you go more in the dark than in sunlight. And hitting the good-old "ice cream truck" frontally in the tunnel because of that is soooooooo frustrating.

2008-08-22T21:37:00.003+02:00

So I got a need for speed...

The builds we are working with are still quite early in development, at least in the extent that they should be almost ready when they get in front of us. But this is usually the case with NFS., unlike other games. This is the 09 spec of course, it bears the name NFS: Undercover, already plenty of material can be found on the net about it. Basically we play a street racer who goes working for the Police. Guess what, the only way to catch the big boss is to "get their attention" and go up the ladder, the same way as in NFSU. (That was the last NFS game I played, at least.)

Since I'm convinced that the "career" is still quite far from what the users will experience I say nothing more, but it looks like it will be a nice game. Oh, and I test it on X-BOX.

The girl is Maggie Q, kinda hot, but nothing like a Brooke Burke, imho. Though she is there to bring the chainsmoking, rigorous cop hottie in black costume and red lipstick, and it's fitting.

2008-08-21T20:48:00.002+02:00

Cult of Luna thunders faintly from the speakers, Lucía is crooning softly while washing the dishes. I stare blankly at the monitor, feeling dizzy from the crawl through the flashes and pitch black tunnels of the yet heavily bugged Need for Speed, with body still as cold as dead meat from the chill of the kitchen door of Level 4, directly at my back, as exposing myself to the slowly fading power of the greyish afternoon halo proved almost completely futile.

2008-08-21T00:21:00.003+02:00

Oh, and I gotta ask Teresa if she ever heard about a man called Slartibartfast.

2008-08-20T22:26:00.003+02:00

Happy Birthday, Hungary! Today we celebrated the founding of the state, holiday of course. And I mean, all the people back home, 'cause for an unfathomable reason, the spanish don't take it as something to celebrate. So I did work.

The founding of the state happened in 1000, on 25th of December, or 1001 January 1, actually. We can't be sure, you know, statistics were quite hazy back then. So twentieth of August also stands for the New Bread. We are an agricultural country you know. We could feed thirty million people if we wanted to, or would be allowed to do, just so you know. So, a bunch of my friends went up to the roof of a parking lot building at Deák Square and watched the fireworks from there, probably, did ya guys?

2008-08-20T22:24:00.000+02:00

As you can see, my naming policy is kind of ad-hoc. I soon have to rethink the whole concept of the blog. I will share my thoughts on that later.

2008-08-20T21:58:00.005+02:00

That meant that I took over Ádám's computer, and freed myself from the cacophony of the spanish girls. To my left sits Elena, a truly lovely russian gal, with whom I think we actually made friends, or something like that. She is that kind whose presence kind of fills you up, broadcasting something we call "lifejoy" back home, all smiles all the time. And you can do nothing but love the english accent of russian women, of course.

To my right sits Teresa, a norwegian, with all the mystery and the icy blue eyes of the land of the fjords. She is working on Harry Potter. (Which is kind of interesting, as the release of the movie was postponed until mid-2009, so we should not hurry too much with the game. Maybe it will be released before the movie? That would be totally illogical, to say the least.) When I threw a glimpse at her screen sometimes, waiting for Pet Shop to boot again, I saw some norwegian, and that language looks indeed cool. You can hardly say anything about that country what is not utterly cool anyway.

Yeah, good place to sit, huh? Well, it's past, 'cause I've been moved again, to possibly the worst place in the whole building, but that's a different post.

2008-08-20T21:34:00.005+02:00

This week I've been busy with a game called Littlest Pet Shop.

(cutscene: Dexter, lying on the floor of Deedee's room, whispering: "the horror.........")

Yeah, exactly as you imagine, your task is to entertain cute little pets with cute little games, from the straightforward ones like going over a stick, balancing, to the slightly sicky ones like making falling walnuts crack before they hit the heads of the pets standing, to hide-and-seek. I was totally hooked on hide-and-seek. I played that a lot of times when I needed to earn Kibbles to buy the train ticket for the next incoming pet. The game ends when you get the pink rabbit.

It was that I took over from a guy who was leaving our ranks, right before signoff, so he actually made a complete handover, gave me all the info, for one last day of testing the game. Anyway, signoff didn't come, and than it did not come again, like the star, or swallow. We were saying that signoff is "always tomorrow". But unlike the star, or swallow, eventually it did come yesterday, so off the lovely pets go.

Signoff namely means, that the game is kind of ready for handing over, so you make a full pass, play through the complete game, and only report anything if you see something utterly big bug, like "KURVAANYÁÁÁÁD!" written in the description of a toy, or totally jumbled characters, or something like that. It is highly unlikely, but that is how it works, you check and recheck, so the kids get a nicely localized game.

It's not bad though, just funny of course, when a group of twentysomethings are submerged in a bright-coloured toy world of an army of jumping, smiling, sniveling creatures. If you happen to have a seven year old daughter, buy it. Sure success.

2008-08-20T21:23:00.002+02:00

We used the term Schwarm as "object of desire, admiration", because we misheard something on german class. Well, we hardly paid attention. It comes from the verb "schwarmen".

2008-08-20T20:30:00.003+02:00

So since I've become this international guy, I registered on Facebook. The first of the contacts became Shipi.

In high school, he was this strange guy with extremely low voice, dumb smile, a general lack of awareness, a dark, long hair, and metal band tee. He loved Fear Factory. He lended me the Demanufacture, I only listened to one and half of the tracks of that legendary album, something I truly feel bad about ever since. When he asked how I liked it, I said it was "interesting". He was interested in flying, so he came with me once to the airfield. When asked how he liked it, he said it was "interesting". He worked hard through the day and got his ride at the end. We've been to Boston as a kind of student exchange. We actually slept in one big bed. How funny. We were fifteen. He was class D, we were C. He was working out. So he was big and strong.

We never became friends, probably because he was a weirdo. And though I always attracted weirdos, being a friend of one is a huge responsibility. And in high school, you are so busy with everything else, like staring at your schwarm hopelessly from a safe distance.

So, probably the last thing I expected to see is salsa listed as one of the hobbies of Shipi on Facebook.

2008-08-20T20:17:00.000+02:00

"You're a living bug."

2008-08-18T23:22:00.002+02:00

Through the course of the weekend I stepped on the next level of the internet user evolution, and installed a torrent client. I had my share of using filesharing software (ouch), but not this kind yet, which is the chic lately.

So, now I go playing Half-Life 1 and listening to the new Portishead, as a soundtrack, before I go to sleep. Good night.

2008-08-18T21:29:00.003+02:00

And well, the Hun LT guys were not very open for socializing, as they worked all three days of the long weekend flatout on FIFA 09. Signoff is coming.

Overtime is not so bad actually, as one of them said (I will name him as soon as I figured out a feasible nick) as you don't have that much to do on your weekends. They pay the extra and the meals for that day also.

Yeah, you can spend your time, no doubt about it, but maybe you see it a bit different when you are an expat. I dunno yet, I'm rookie. But I can imagine it so. There's no way I would just hop over to granma', or chill out with homies at the bank of the Danube oxbow at Áporka, at least.

But anyway, when you are spinning Harry Potter for five weeks straight with no weekends, well, your mental procedures probably get a a little distorted.

2008-08-18T21:05:00.003+02:00

"We produce more garbage than back home" - said one of the guys. "The spanish use more packing material, for example when you buy meat at the butcher you get this little plastic plate, and so on."

"Whatever." - I thought.

Then, when I opened the pack of croissants and saw that every tiny piece is packed into another small plastic pack, I thought: "Holy Crap."

2008-08-15T17:30:00.002+02:00

Next week we will reach cruising speed. I will work now fulltime. I got my flat. I got my bank account. All systems up and running. Recon of immediate surroundings done. We have the coordinates of minor and major shops and other lifesustaining facilities. We will check the swimming pool, to see if daily visit was possible.

Only have some minor paperwork left to take care of. This means that next week we can initiate Phase 2.

2008-08-15T17:05:00.005+02:00

When I woke up, the flat was already empty. Since all my flatmates are spanish or have the family nearby, they are gone. I suppose. So I am the king of the hill for three days. I'm sitting on the sofa with the notebook in my lap, a bunch of colored women running around in circles in the background. Tempreture is surprisingly low, so I'm drinking tea, with milk. One reason is that I found no lemon, the other is that we kind of get to like it this way on Malta. I'm also fitted with peanuts, dried pineapple, and something else I don't know the name of, but tastes okay.

I will ring a Hun LT guy whose number I got, to check if anything was on through the weekend. I doubt so.

Looks it's gonna be like this, then. Chillin', browsing the net, leaving half-eye on the Olympics, and working on the secret projects.

2008-08-15T14:26:00.004+02:00

There's a song that really makes the hair on my back stand, when I hear it. It is often played on our national radio channel two nowadays (they broadcast mostly music, so you can give it a go).

The title of the song is "Star or Swallow", performed by the band Kispál and the Badger, if translated.

You can watch a live performance of the song here. And if you do, please let me share my humble trial of translating this unique lyric with you:

You did not come too early,

But time, I had a lot

And great pal of me he became

And we’ve been sitting in pubs

Waiting for you

Bangin’ each other’s backs,

Sending drinks

To women in blue

Ain’t suspecting even their own pasts

chorus:

Stay home, watch TV

Every channel shows fully dark trains,

They just go, no passengers,

There’s only two, standing in the buffet car

Drunk

The one looking sick is me

Too bad they show me right now,

I glorified God just a moment before

We didn’t really get into it,

You come anyway,

And why would we, why anything

For such a small time

And then you did not come,

We moulded the sitting,

With my pal, Time

Into life

(chorus)

Afterall, it’s all the same

I knew you were not to come,

You were star, in the evening,

Swallow in the day,

The sowing is done on every land,

Every woman is alright,

So that’s what I leave here for you

You star or swallow,

(chorus)

2008-08-15T00:24:00.002+02:00

Ummm, not that I have much to do. I tried my best to get to know people, but I'm yet to score a party invitation or something. And I don't feel like sightseeing at all. And especially not walking alone.

I am living here, not being a tourist... I will have plenty of time on my hands to go looking around.

2008-08-14T23:16:00.004+02:00

Today is holiday in Spain. As my Hun LT colleague put it, there's a holiday in Spain "every time a saint tripped over a branch". I will keep track of them, this three-day-weekend caught me by surprise.

2008-08-13T22:23:00.002+02:00

Sims is disgusting. We only a test a kind of webshop, where you can buy stuff like columns and windows and gargoyles to the garden of your tiny moron. A website. Than we downloaded the stuff which can be bought, to see if everything appears correctly localized in the game as well.

Gargoyles are cool actually, but this game is terrifying.

I mean, I played WoW for like two years, we were slaying monsters, dividing loot, crawling dungeons, using our array of magic spells, bashing each other with big, unrealistic blades, halberds, and the like. I think that is normal. You log on, and doing something different, which is not coming front of you on the street, you don't see it sitting on the bus. This what is scary about Sims. It's like "Okay, we know that you are a miserable fuck in real life, so go and build your pretty house, buy pretty clothes, use your pretty exercising machine, go talk to your pretty friends, make your digital little avatar to achieve his goals in life, now that you have failed in achieving yours."

And there are many stickers in the office, showing that it went over 100 million copies sold.

100 - fuckin' - million.

Our society is sick. Push the button.

2008-08-11T22:36:00.005+02:00

I did sympathise with the philosophy of Wii. I saw one in use for the first time. I couldn't help feel like looking at a retard, suffering from some disease causing the nervous system going into extreme overdrive.

2008-08-11T22:30:00.003+02:00

Oh, and guess what, they are testing a game on Wii. So add up the furious shaking of the controller, as she tries to persuade her horsey to run faster and jump over the next obstacle, her dozens of bracers just clanking with the rhythm.

2008-08-11T22:19:00.004+02:00

Our section is more cramped than the place I sat with the Hun LT guys. Six of us are sitting in a line. Three of them, starting from my left, are ones with spanish motherlanguage, some of the guys in front also, so the chick right next to me is in a constant web of interaction. In other words, she just does not seem to be able to shut up for more than 30 seconds.

And when you try to focus on something (be it figuring out how to get out of a house-building-screen of a bizarre childgame running on german), and 4-5 people are submerged in idle chat right next to you, on an other language, of which you actually do understand every third-fourth word - thus making it impossible to take it like a kind of ambience sound effect - laughing out feverishly every once in a while, well, your nerves start to get itchy. We either go and be friends AND my spanish improves a lot very soon, or the bitch will bleed.

2008-08-11T22:10:00.003+02:00

It was a weird feeling, walking home from work. Brand new stuff. Since I am actually able to walk, I never traveled less than 90 minutes on an average workday, and in the last ten years, it was rarely under 150. The uni, than the job. Now it's like 25. I had to come to Madrid to experience that. I so much deserve this after all the suck on the various types of public transport.

2008-08-11T22:05:00.004+02:00

But I almost got the first phase of Mirror's Edge. They just delayed it for a week eventually. Yeah it would probably only mean checking text documents, or just maybe, the menus and stuff, but I assume we just might would catch a glimpse of the gameplay, or a few days later on. And it's Mirror's fuckin' Edge, dude. If any of you had no clue about this little groundbraker, you seriosuly go on youtube and check the gameplay trailer. It's something new.

2008-08-11T21:45:00.002+02:00

I got my first project today. Woooot. I was planning to write about the first game with great pride, but, well, MySims does not really "makes the peasant go blind", as we say back home. It's basically Sims for kids. I can't really tell you more, 'cause I never went close to even a box containing Sims before. I built a house, than watered an appletree, gathered ten apples, gave it to the mayor. The games we test are in alpha, so barely similar to the ones that will go to the shelves. This build for example had no saving option. Our job was a preliminary check, much like going over a checklist, which did not even made it necessary to know the target language. We tested the german localization, a brazilian guy and me. Both kind of nubcakes. Most of the checks were irrelevant, I saw no date and time, or numbers in the scale of thousands, of whiches we should have made sure they are in the correct format, appropriate to the german grammar. (They are for example writing 1000 like this: 1.000 )

And guess what is the very first rule in the document concerning german localization guidelines...

2008-08-09T23:09:00.001+02:00

ToDay is D's birthDay. Yaaaaay.

2008-08-09T23:02:00.003+02:00

Bytheway, I don't know if it is the charme of the outlander, or what, but it seems ridiculously easy to interact with total stranger women. I mean like: "Hi! I'm new in this house, this is my first day!" "Oh, really? Well I'm just here to visit someone, but you can call me later if you want!" "Umm... okay!"

And I was just a teensy-little bit exagerrating here.

2008-08-09T22:59:00.002+02:00

Oh, and the Sol friday nightlife is... intense.

2008-08-09T22:24:00.005+02:00

My new home is in the Madrid suburbs, area of condos, steps away from the station called Parque de Santa Maria. I spent most of my life in condos, so it is smilingly familiar. Though this area would be a top-level condo in my country. Condo, residential area, dunno how to say it exactly. Big tall buildings, crammed with people. Built few decades ago. This one is quite new. Playgrounds, shops, supermarkets. Even the faces are familiar.

I missed my chance at the supermarket, I need a few more days to get into the rhythm of the operating hours of the Madrid services. I was getting near dehydration so I went out. Back home, there are always some bars at the bases of these buildings, there must be one here as well, and must be open, since it's saturday night. Like a homing missile I closed in on M-40, like I knew where I was going.

The place probably did not earn it's name from the grenade launcher, rather from the highway, which runs nearby. Awesome, fresh burger, friendly prices, condo atmosphere. People sitting around talking in the dim light of the setting sun, around 10 PM. Dogs sniffing around, teens shouting after me, demanding cigarettes.

And they even had water and beer for takeaway, so I will survive until the shops open tomorrow morning.

And there's a wide bikeroad running next to the noisewall of the highway, probably all along it. Which means that it technically runs to the door of my workplace, which is also right beside the highway, a bit further down to the East and South. Hmm.

2008-08-08T19:23:00.002+02:00

I'm moving out tomorrow. My new home is situated within walking distance from the office, or one metro station. Three spanish guys and a couple lives there, the woman is peruese. They speak english, but this also means that circumstances are up to improve my spanish. They have wifi of course, net was priority one. And there's even a swimming pool at 10 minutes walking, allegedly, which was an aim with low priority, so yaaay. Looks cool.

Trivia: the previous inhabitant of the room which will be mine from tomorrow, was an italian guy, who also is working for EA as a tester.

So tonight I go taste the friday nightlife of Sol, as a way of waving goodbye.

2008-08-08T00:20:00.001+02:00

Bytheway, I lend the term "relapsed into laughter" from this video.

2008-08-08T00:19:00.003+02:00

"When did it rain last time?" - I asked the czech girlfriend of Roman.

"Three weeks ago. And it took five minutes." - she said, and we relapsed into laughter.

2008-08-07T23:58:00.002+02:00

So these hungarian guys (I will refer to them, and us, as Hun LT from now on) are ancient roleplayers. One of them lives together with a girl working also here, she opened one of the very first rpg shops in our country, it was called "Sárkányfészek", Dragonnest. They knew the whole scene in and out, so we submerged in some nostaliga. I heard about most of those people they mentioned, just from being the part of it from the outside, through newspapers and events, clubs and shops. Small world, small subcultures.

2008-08-07T23:37:00.003+02:00

Still no project. I'm like a ghost in the shell of the glasstowers, flowing from here to there, checkin' out this and that, but usually sitting right between the hungarian guys, who are debugging FIFA 09.

No mo'. My superiors did not really care enough to tell me in time that the citibank agents are in da house, equipped with my papers, amongst others. So instead of wrapping it up, now I need to go to the bank on my own. Officially, no one of my superiors told me a single fuckin' word since I'm in, I just chase the HR girl. It was a horrible moment, staring into her deer-brown eyes under the eyebrowse curving down with disappointment. She sent two mails about them coming. One to my company address. Which I did not even know I have, since I don't have a workstation yet either. And the gal personally told my supervisor as well, asked to pass on the info to me. He did, via mail to my colleague. Just in time for me to learn that they left the building minutes ago.

No big deal, just pissed me off. You expect to be waited, kind of expect them to arm you up and deploy you to the battlefield. Instead, you barely exist. Feels like back home in a way, familiar at least. So, I had enough of watching others work, learned what I could this way, all my contact info I left for them, now they call me if there are some testing to do.

2008-08-07T23:29:00.002+02:00

Okay, idealista.com is the way to go, much better than anything else. You need room, flat, in Spain, you go there.

I saw one today which will be the one, if the one I go to see tomorrow is not the one.

One one one one one, one.

2008-08-06T00:12:00.002+02:00

I finally understood the basic principles of the Segunda Mano website. This is where I should have started, I found around 6 or 7 ads, that seemed fitting for me, contacted them all, or will call them tomorrow. So, I'm happier now, concerning my accomodation project. Looks way more promising.

And according to my plans, I should should have been asleep in the last 45 minutes already, so that's it for today.

2008-08-06T00:09:00.002+02:00

"The McDonald's of video game-makers.", I heard someone describing EA.

2008-08-06T00:02:00.002+02:00

I'm thinking about whether I should protect the identity of those I write about. I probably should. Though I hate that. How could I describe a character then? Or should I ask them all the time? Very unnatural. My identity is totally compromised, I am the new guy at the hungarian LT, so if someone from EA reads this, I'm just in the crosshair. I don't even know yet, whether I should write about the job. Release dates are known by the public, so it's no big deal if I mention games. And we are so low on the ladder. Probably no probs if they found it, and they most probably won't. Ahh, basic questions of blogger life.

2008-08-06T00:01:00.003+02:00

This wifi kills me. It barely reaches my room, so it goes away in the worst moments. Bah.

2008-08-05T23:41:00.002+02:00

I will try to do that anyway, apart from what I heard about this on my very first day. What did I expect? We got no bosses who could understand a word from our texts. I'm curious how will I handle it, how will I feel about doing extra work, above the necessary. How long will it last. Well, first I hope I can just deal with my share of bugs, report them properly through the software. Well, actually I'm eager to start working. Romantic worldimproving is page 2.

2008-08-05T23:11:00.003+02:00

I told Roman yesterday, the french guy who had been training us, one of my aims here. I am not fond of localization. It is basically for the masses, the content is what it is on the language it's creators dreamed it, translations are just representations of that, be it a movie, a book, or as in our case, a video game. And fact is, almost all of the translated material I ever encountered gave me the feeling, that this could be improved. Gaming has a certain coded language, what you start to understand after few years of spending time in the virtual, and when I saw games in hungarian, it was at least funny, often a pain to look at, and to think about that non-english speaker people actually playing it this way, getting to know the content like this.

So I thought, I will act as the defender of the hungarian player, and I will be ninjaing quality content inside the texts, correcting the shitty job the translators made, if they made that of course. As far as I saw, they usually do. I will improve it, if I have time for that. Roman told me he studied french literature. He loves his mother language. "French has to be nice.", his philosophy. He totally understood me, and he started it exactly like that. Than it just fades away.

Later I told my hungarian colleagues about this. They were like that: "Haha. Yeah, we remember. Nice times they were."

Why? Simple. No motivation. No one taps your back, if you did something exceptionally good. The primary aim is to avoid legal violations, for example, using copyrighted text, a logo without the knowing of it's owner, or something offensive. And the guidelines, of which I will write later, but basically it means there are things that has to be called on their names, exactly, throughout the whole game. Mostly technical stuff. And that is it. Quality text? Nice bonus. Not an aim, in reality. In words, of course, yes, users first. The practice is different. Timetables are strict. You are LT. You work in the trenches of game design. So you do your job, follow the orders, and that is it. Welcome to the company world, amigo.

2008-08-04T21:51:00.003+02:00

I'm tired like a dog. I left the compound at 1730, walked out into the concrete jungle, the desert of glass and stone, into the merciless iberian summer. It was like taking a bath in napalm. It was Mercury. Up there, Uncle Burny just threw it down with careless, selfconfident majesty, enjoying the backing of playing home, the mediterranean, the country of Sol.

Crawling from shade to shade, I bounced upon a leather store, bought a belt. That was the only thing I left home and realized I did so far. All day, my pair of jeans was only held by the cord of my satchel. Baggy style.

Than I visited the first flat on my list. My spanish is miserable, so I have trouble exchanging coordinates with the natives. He finally decided to come to me where I stood at that point, and we walked. For what seemed an eternity, and wasn't really much less of 20 minutes I think. Small room, an ADSL cable out of operation, no airco, kind of ragged kitchen and furniture, though a superb, new building with pool. And an all-too heavily marketing owner, of whom I understood every seventh word. Spanish guy living in the flat, all tattoed, from his style it seemed he is something like a plummer, now working as a waiter, or vice versa. Not so good, not so bad. Not the one, okay for worst case scenario.

I got back to Sol around nine, devoured a double döner with cerveza, bought a bottle of water and a San Miguel (same price, lol), took a shower, opened the beer and smoked the very last remaining cigarette, before my new abstinence time. I'm playing this on loop. I'm tired. Like a dog.

2008-08-04T21:31:00.003+02:00

So, first day in the office! Well, obviously full of stories. In brief, I got trained. A french guy showed me and a german newbie girl how the system works, what is our job, and the softwares we are going to use for reporting bugs and making daily and weekly reports. I signed my contract, received the almighty door-opening ID card. I was introduced to my senior, and my supervisor. And I got to know the my closest colleagues, the hungarian language testing team, right now two strong, plus me, and there's one more who will be back later.

The reporting software looks a bit intriguing, but I'm quite confident I will run it no probs in a few weeks. Not much to worry about since I did not receive a "project", and will probably not for another day or two. So I got no workstation yet, and basically got nothing to do, so I can watch my colleagues how they do it.

The staff is okay. Pretty much as expected, mostly in their early twenties, but maybe a bit surprisingly, there are a lot of girls. Honest. Like 40%.

So, everything looks quite okay at the front of work for now. Which is nice, 'cause I have plenty of things to sort out this week.