Well, I'll just say that (at Epic at least) I've never seen the artists bored. We can't hire enough of them, in fact. They have maybe a month of down time once a project ships and then they're slamming again on the next project. There is never a time when the artists are sitting around looking for something to do. There is always something to be optimized or added, not matter what part of the project we're on.

But maybe Epic is unique in that regard... 

Most animator's I know resent QTEs, and think they're too much work for too little payoff.

I honestly believe the largest factor behind QTE events is due to publishers behind the projects. Most care little for any subtle tweaks and design work you do milestone to milestone, so something like an awesome QTE (or new level that's had environment art done... or new attack moves with effects...) is very visual and quick to demonstrate. 

...artists are always busy. Thanks to this 'next gen' world of ours, artists are getting hit the hardest to produce huge amounts of work. Most of the methods for creating realistic worlds haven't gotten simpler in the last years, only the technology to run them at a decent framerate. 

Yep, art is definitely the bottle neck in a lot of modern projects. As I said, we can't hire artists fast enough. Every time we hire one, they get immediately consumed by the content creation machine. We just can't seem to fill it up! 

. . . is very visual and quick to demonstrate.

Yeah, you've definitely got a point there.

Probably the reason why I have a different working idea of art is because I mainly do game for xbox live, where production is much shorter than AAA titles. 

QTE is a game design ego thing and a marketing tool. Visually striking parts of the game that are extremely complicated to realize within the design frame the game has previously established with the player, but someone can't stand to kill their baby. Enter; MR. QTE.

Also, it lets marketing put together a trailer of "gameplay" that looks completely fucking bad ass without any of those annoying consumers actually having to do anything meaningful with the product.

Some game people should just get into movies or machinima. 

i had to contribute. uhhh, gogo deathwing, ninja Nefarion. This is what i got:
Mish'undare, Circlet of the Mind Flayer
Brestplate of Ten Storms
Bloodfang Vest
Boots of the Shadow Flame 

Holy cow I just took a shit and it was amazing but you know whats really amazing... the fact that i have a brown guy in my house and my house hasn't exploded from a fucking GIHAD bomb. Omg now he has his pants down and is chasing a goat! fuck shit i think he's onto my games. Oh madness this is i don't know what to do with myself. wait... maybe ill just.... RAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR PWWWN NOOBS FUCKSHITCOCKS ASS TIT SUCK DICK CUNTi just want to have the longest thingies in eXISTENe NO WAY! meow 

First Post. 

it depresses me that i recognize the things mentioned in 15579 as stuff from WoW. 

I just realised that in real life, I still write capital Qs as Quake Qs. Started doing this a decaded ago and it's totally ingrained now. Hurrah! 

and seeing this really attractive chick drawing her 'E's like back to front '3's. I've been doing that ever since...

Hmmm....... 

As pi 

Q.... T.... E..... (!#@*) 

I really hope that I am not the only one who thinks of Travail everytime the letters "qte" are mentioned. 

i draw a cock. EVERY TIME. 

I don't have that language pack installed. 

....but it;s still how I always interpret Starbuck's posts. 

I'm gay for you too. 

I'm a bit late, but I haven't had the chance to do more than just quickly browse posts for a few days; I finally did more than skim your response to Lunaran, and found myself getting a little irked about it.

Just a few opinions to offer:

1. People who tend to Take Great Umbrage (as you do) about stuff relative strangers post on the internet generally have a tough time of it on the internet. Sorry about that. <--Not sarcasm.

2. While Lun can be a sarcastic bastard at times, and tends to be argumentative and have strong opinions, I find that those qualities often go along with intelligence and passion, of which he also has healthy portions. "Poison to the community" (wow! drama++) is about the last thing he is; he's been here far longer than you and contributed a hell of a lot more.

3. I don't know about Lunaran, but for my part I'll respond to your posts in any fashion I damn well please, unless moderators have something to say about it. "Don't talk to me ever-ever-again and I won't talk to you, ever-ever-again." is operating on the level of about a 5-year-old, and it's not really how this shit works.

Just sayin'. 

Does anyone know of a freeware program that can convert .flac files to either wav/mp3? 

http://flac.sourceforge.net/
flac -d *.flac gets you .wav.
http://lame.sourceforge.net/
lame -V 0 --vbr-new gets you .mp3. (Use -V 2 if you are not some who can hear flies fart.)

Or just use Foobar, it's got some conversion tool on rightclick (you will still need FLAC and LAME installed). 

Isn't it nice that FLAC is a free and open format? That way you are guaranteed there is a free software to use it.

*whispers something about Ogg Vorbis* 

Appreciate that mate!