I've done more (basic) statistics in working on my sins mod then you could shake a stick at. Granted a lot of that's because I'm trying to translate a tabletop game, but man would some more advanced stuff be useful. Try it, it may work.

On the subject of jobs, would you happen to have internship openings for people willing to relocate for a summer and not get paid and who are mostly done with their college? I'd be self taught in C++, but I know C and know java like the back of my hand, so it's all pretty familiar. Would you be interested in two years?

One of the current leads on World of Warcraft has a Ph.D in Marine Science.  You don't always need to be in computer science to do this stuff.

Where do you go if all you've got is ridiculous amounts of creativity?

My first job was cleaning tapes in a mainframe data center back in the early '80s. For a season or two back then, I fancied becoming a CIS engineer, not least because the university where I worked had a big factory for those degrees and my high school wanted me to do something technical or scientific.

But one evening, our on-site tech from IBM took a moment to do some 'amateur' guidance counseling. He told me to get a bachelor's in something generally useful like English because I'd be better off learning how to learn in college and then learning something specific in a workplace. That sounded very weird to me until he mentioned that his degree was in English. This was one of those suit-and-tie IBM dudes who crawled around in mainframe guts when things went very wrong.

Your advice is generally true if the idea of studying a technical field in college was to teach you how to do that technical field, but quite honestty it's exactly the opposite. Studies like computer science teach you how to code for a couple semesters, than they'll never help you again in that department. It becomes more about advanced theory and problem solving: What college is supposed to give you. It's one of the major reasons theres so many math majors out there, is because they become excellent problem solvers.

But yes-- I agree. Degree titles mean less and less in todays world. I would never work for a company that had X degree requirement, as it shows how narrow field of view they have. I almost got into it with a recruiter at a natural science career fair because the recruiter basically brushed me off because I wasn't a CS major (I'm an MIS major with cs minor). When I questioned his philosophy he mocked me and said no one but CS students pass our exam. I'm not sure how he can reach that conclusion when he only recruits at natural science fairs. I went and talked to the competeing company(which DOMINATES his) two rows over and ended up with a job offer 2 weeks later that I did not accept because I had one better.

journalism?

No, no: you need to start a political blog!

No, no: you need to start a political blog!

Nice update. I hope all goes well on the trip.

On the topic of jobs, I always get killed on the "relocate" componet... 

maybe you can beat up kryo until he can't do his job then take his place.   Since he's workin' remote.  (I think island dog is too)

As this gawl-danged innernet ages, I'm getting pretty convinced that you're more likely to get fully remote work if you're a contractor (1099) than if you want to be an employee (W4).

On the whole, folks who are at least adequate managers tend to need to share physical space with their subordinates. (It's a primate thing, I suspect.) Add the overhead that goes with a traditional FTE salary line, and it is little wonder that most employers want to be able to put their hand on your shoulder and ask you to work more than the forty hours your contract specified for the week.

I appreciate the work done on fonts and shading, I am confident that it will make the game even better.

However, the things which made MoM an epic game were not fonts and shading, it was the depth of the gameplay.  The multitude of units, heros, spells, the depth of the tactical battles, the joy of exploration and city building and the difficulty of winning against the AI.  Thes and other elements of game richness, such as the complex economy you discussed earlier, are what will make a great game.  I would encourage you to remember that depth and complexity of the game are what make it a classic success, not flash and eyecandy.  While depth flash would both be nice, if you can only do one well, make it depth.

Thanks!

Somehow I doubt my pay could sustain Spartan's uber-computer

Well the good news is I don't think Stardock knows how to make an ugly game. And so far they have batted 1000 on gameplay as well. I am with you, I would prefer an ugly game with that special sauce that made MoM a great game than to have a beautiful game with no depth. I am with you the TONS of spells and huge variety of units were critical, and the possibility of a complex economic model has me drooling. In ~ six weeks we will begin to see how well our hopes and expectations are met!

Yes, but crappy fonts can really ruin a game. You'd be suprised how much time gets spent on any software project just trying to get simple things to not suck. Not look awesome, just not suck. Even stupid crap like a build script that you've spent 2 days messing with because the OS is convinced you've got a file open from the last compile when you really don't, so you have to throw in a loop to delete the previous compile, retrying on failure...

Seriously, they're not dawdling time on something like fonts if it doesn't matter. Have a little faith in their skills.