I figured that my 1,000th post should be something special beyond a discussion, lost in the storm of a ton of other posts. So I decided to throw out a little bit about my trials and tribulations in game development. For those of you looking to get into the industry, this might be a good guide of things NOT to do, unless you like stress. =)
From waaaay back in time, when I was a toddler, I had a game controller in my hands. I pretty much grew up with the advent of the Atari 2600. My entire family played, mom and dad included. As time passed, I went onto the NES after being amazed by Zelda at a friend's house. I'd go over there and play games for hours on end, sometimes ignoring everyone in the house. I was pretty much a gaming junkie. By the time the NES' glory days came to an end, I had a list of about 300 games I'd beaten. I'd scarcely come down for from my room for family functions, I learned to eat really fast so I'd have more time for gaming. My grandmother, rest her soul, always said that I'd come out of that room as a genius or an axe murderer. I would ultimately take a little from menu A and menu B on that one. 
Time passed on and I got my first PC - an IBM-compatible 286. There I was introduced to my first PC gaming title - Wing Commander. It was laggy as sin, but my friends and I loved it. More games ensued and computer upgrades were had. In the days of my 486, I played great titles on the PC like The 7th Guest, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, etc. The N64 came around and I really wasn't sold on it until the next Zelda game - Ocarina of Time- came out. This would go on to be my favorite game of all time. I think it was because I really connected with adult Link as I was around the same age as he was projected to be at that time. This iteration of Link became a role model for me, as dorky as that sounds. I strived to emmulate the concepts of honor and courage, which helped me to break out of my reclusive gamer shell and start taking life by the horns. I probably owe a lot to that game.
As I'd started college, I heard about DigiPen, the only game design school at the time. Yet, most courses revolved around coding or art, and I sucked at art. I'd attended Hoftstra University in Long Island, NY as a computer science/music double major. I sucked bad at math and couldn't pass calculus to save my life. Programming in C wasn't really my fore either. The last programming language I'd mastered was QBasic in senior year of high school.
After a dumb move on my part via an online relationship with a girl in Australia, I found myself moving there briefly, it falling apart, and returning home. My parents decided to move to Staten Island, NY, the armpit of the USA and possibly the world. I'd resumed college at the College of Staten Island as a music major. It was here that I found a new love - music production. I got involved at the school's radio station heavily, where I became the assistant director of production and learned all sorts of good stuff with ProTools and audio editing and sound design.
Staten Island life was fairly dull, and I went from beta testing games to find something more interesting. I built up a small recording studio in my house, where I messed with audio samples and a drum machine and my guitar. In a search for beta tests, I stumbled across gamedev.net. On this site, I found a group of people looking for musicians for their game project. I joined up with that team, which became Sleeping Dwarf Productions - a team that was ill-fated mostly due to the team lead's personal life going down the tubes. Yet, within that time with them, I acquired other positions in addition to composing. I began to create histories for different creatures, and I found that my writing skills made it easy to create a creature in words that an artist can translate easily. While the game eventually flopped, mostly due to a lack of programmers, I was now hooked and loved doing what I was doing. I eventually would work on a published title - World Fables - a RTS game based on demented mother goose tales- from EST Games. I did audio/sound design as well as voiceovers. This game received some popularity in Germany.
Around the time that Zelda Wind Waker was announced with cell-shading graphics (Oh, the wounds still haven't fully healed), a friend and myself decided to make our own zelda-esque game. We saw a huge hole open for a serious-looking action-adventure game like OOT. So we formed up and started finding other people on the internet. Time passed and several people joined us. Here is where you future devs should take note. We decided that our team of mostly college kids were going to build our own engine, as that was the thing to do, so we thought. We got some very basic tech stuff together, but it never amounted to much.
Development for this title was difficult, as we were never fully balanced. We either had artists but no programmers, programmers but no artists, etc. We had people as departmental leads, like an art lead, who had no idea how to explain to other people what they need to do, it was pretty much a fiasco. Some models got done and animated, but worlds were never built.
In 2005, I decided that our team had been aiming too big, too high. We needed something simpler and easier to produce to show the world what we can do. A FPS game would be perfect. Problem was, we were still buidling an engine from scratch, and we did make good progress with it for a team of now 8 guys, only 2 of them being programmers. Yet time moved on as always, and we were getting discouraged with the flow of things, and we still had no proper level designers, even though I took up the reins and made some demo levels to work with.
We eventually figured out that the only way that this would work out is if we licensed an engine. We tried a few cheap ones and finally this summer found the right one for our needs. We currently are scripting Transient Shift and we can still use some level designers (twesterm, if you're reading this, I still have to tag your friend).
One of the greatest things I can advise to young devs or future devs is this - get out to Game Developer Conference. You will learn a lot and make some solid connections. Also, listen to your team, every guy has something to bring to the table, be it an idea for the game, a suggestion on tools, whatever. Seriously consider all your advice from your team. Lastly, make sure that anyone working with you and under you knows that you value them. Something as simple as "you make life easier for me" is a huge boost to their morale.
Sorry if I bored you to death. No refunds on those precious minutes of your life. 
BTW - WOOT 1,000th post!
