Torque Game Builder goes Feature Complete!

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David Stewart   (May 10, 2006 at 04:46 GMT)

WOW!

Great news!

Hokuto   (May 10, 2006 at 05:36 GMT)

Great job guys

Konstantin Teterin   (May 10, 2006 at 05:48 GMT)

And what about mac verison? Will it be done?

Joe Bird   (May 10, 2006 at 05:50 GMT)

Amazing work. Thank you.

Justin DuJardin   (May 10, 2006 at 05:55 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Kostya : I edited the initial post to reflect that Mac and Linux builds will be available shortly. We only have one Mac guru and he's doing about 500 things right now. If the community wants to provide a build that works on Mac, it should really only be a matter of updating the project file and rebuilding the binary.

I'll keep you all updated on the status in the forums!

Cheers,
-Justin

Lion Jin   (May 10, 2006 at 05:58 GMT)

WOW, Great!!!
Edited on May 10, 2006 06:06 GMT

Kirakorn Chimkool   (May 10, 2006 at 06:55 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

I'm waiting for this!
Great news!

Jared Coliadis   (May 10, 2006 at 07:42 GMT)

Yes, I can finally continue work on the adventure core interface! Well, whenever I'm not buried in schoolwork. Thank you all very much.

Steve Bisson   (May 10, 2006 at 07:47 GMT)

cool ! i ran my game using beta3 and everything worked beautifully ! :) i was afraid to encounter many headaches. Thanks for making it easy !

Dennis Harrington   (May 10, 2006 at 07:50 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Looks great. Thanks!

Anders Linder-Noren   (May 10, 2006 at 10:45 GMT)

Cooool! I have still not purchased it :/ Need to get my ass around soon, before i have dreweled my keyboard to history. Great work, guys!

Corey Martin   (May 10, 2006 at 13:20 GMT)

I'm out of the loop TGB-wise.. Has full networking support been implemented yet, or is it still turn based?

Chris Labombard (TGEA License)   (May 10, 2006 at 13:33 GMT)

Has the physics been stabalized? Beta 2 and previous had issues where if the game lost focus the physics went nuts, and things would jitter like mad if not brought to rest when colliding with multiple other objects (under a constant force).

Jon Frisby   (May 10, 2006 at 14:39 GMT)

Given the extremely finite Mac development resources you have at your disposal, why aren't there any Mac-related bounties?

-JF

Don Hogan   (May 10, 2006 at 14:43 GMT)

Many, many thanks to all the folks involved!

Stefan Lundmark   (May 10, 2006 at 15:32 GMT)

Full networking support is in?

John Klimek   (May 10, 2006 at 15:52 GMT)

I really really really really hope that the physics are stabilized and that full networking support is implemented........

Paul Dana   (May 10, 2006 at 16:08 GMT)

NICE going justin.

I'm also voting for stable physics.

I realize "full" networking it not likely.

Vashner   (May 10, 2006 at 16:21 GMT)

You guys rock...

Corey Martin   (May 10, 2006 at 16:33 GMT)

@Paul

Why isn't real-time networking likely? As an early adopter I was given the impression that this would be a feature of the engine :(

John Klimek   (May 10, 2006 at 18:04 GMT)

Full networking support is one of the only reasons I bought the engine.....

Gabor Borbely   (May 10, 2006 at 20:04 GMT)

Totally Awesome!!!

Justin DuJardin   (May 10, 2006 at 21:14 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Re : Full Networking support - We have full networking support as outlined in the product page for TGB.

Re : Physics changes - We are feature locked on this product and have received huge feedback that people are absolutely tired of re-working already functioning parts of their games to support large, sweeping changes to the engine. We will not be making any changes to the physics before release--unless of course it is to fix functionality that is not acting properly.

[Rant]
You know, I'm not sure if you all are aware, and so I'd like to clear this up--we are but human at GarageGames.

As some of you may be aware, being human limits us to only being able to physically work 1 80-100 hour week per developer. We gladly do it because we love our community and want to provide you with the best possible product that we can.

However, responses like this, after having upset loved ones to stay late at the office for the sole purpose of getting you a release ready sooner rather than later, really kind of grinds my gears.

We try to give and give, because we value our community more than anything, but if I'm not being too bold, could you please refrain from demanding a mile every time we slave to give you an inch?
[/Rant]

Edit : Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback thus far, we're doing our best to do right by you all as best we can :)

Thanks and Cheers,
-Justin
Edited on May 10, 2006 21:15 GMT

Chris Labombard   (May 10, 2006 at 21:37 GMT)

Quote:

---

We will not be making any changes to the physics before release--unless of course it is to fix functionality that is not acting properly

---

It has never acted properly.

Don't mean to upset you Justin, but I would rather the product not be feature complete, then for it to be feature complete without a stable physics engine.

Great work to all the team !

Justin DuJardin   (May 10, 2006 at 21:45 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Chris, thanks for your opinion. I will ask though that you not post things like this in a public plan as there are people who have no knowledge of TGB reading this taking what you say to be true. Our physics system is a good general solution for games and has been used to ship upwards of 10 commercial games. If our physics system never worked properly no games would be shipped. Perhaps you should clarify and say what I believe you're getting at--it doesn't work how *you* think it should.

If you are having problems with this and need help to better understand how to work with the systems provided to you, we have a great community that is willing to help you in the private forums.

Corey Martin   (May 10, 2006 at 21:50 GMT)

*shrug* No need to take anything as a personal slant against the work which has been done thusfar. Anyhow, irregardless of what the product page currently reads, the early adopters were told what to expect out of Torque 2D, and real-time networking was listed. Many people have inquired about the status and eta of such a feature and were informed that it would be fourthcoming in subsequent releases.

Look, i'm not saying im not happy with TGB. I just think it seems kinda crumby to have planned on having support for an arguably major feature, and then for that feature to have been dropped and glossed over with the addition of editors. Nothing against the editors or anything, but T2D (as I knew it back in '05) worked fine without them, but no real-time network support then, is still no real-time network support now.

Anyways, congrats on locking it down for release. Here's hoping we'll see the full, original feature set implemented by the community. :P

edit:: changed 'real network support' to 'real-time network support'
Edited on May 10, 2006 21:55 GMT

Chris Labombard   (May 10, 2006 at 21:55 GMT)

Judging by the responses of John Kilmak and Paul Dana, I'm not the only person who doesn't believe the Physics engine is ready to ship, if it's unchanged from the state it was in during Beta 2. Not to mention the other people who have stated similair concerns on the boards and in irc.

It's not difficult to ship a game that doesn't use physics, or uses very basic physics. but try and do anything beyond a simple platformer, and the physics engine proves to be too unstable to use.

Rather then ask me to take my completely legitimate statement away from a public board, perhaps you could confront it with a solution.

I'm using TGB, I love TGB. I've convinced several people to purchase it. I'm not bashing it here. I simply want the physics engine that's there to be polished up as well as the rest of the engine is.
Edited on May 10, 2006 21:56 GMT

Matthew Langley   (May 10, 2006 at 22:10 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Chris: I think what Justin was getting at here is not that your point may not be valid and he's definately not saying it's bad to voice your opinion and make a suggestion/complaint. He's saying this plan isn't the place for a continued and in-depth discussion on the topic. This is a public plan, you have brought up a topic that if properly responded to would need to be said in a private TGB SDK owners only area, such as the forums. So please direct your responses to there, create a new thread even, but please don't continue it here :)

Gina-Marie \"Netjera\" Hammer   (May 10, 2006 at 22:12 GMT)

I just want to say that I think GG is doing a GREAT job with TGB. It's a better product than anything out there (including a few things WAY out of its price point). Maybe I should keep up better, or maybe I'm showing my "inexcusable inexperience", but I don't really look at it and go, "It's missing this or that." I'm just happy it has what it's got. Everytime you guys add a feature, it's a pleasant surprise and I feel like a kid on Christmas, "Oooo look! It's got *insert great new prototype feature here*! This will be SO cool!"

I don't even care when it doesn't work the first time, or the first four or FIVE times. I know how hard everyone at GG works, and I know what I paid for: an EARLY ADOPTER release that's just gone to Beta. A product I paid a *fraction* of the cost of other things on the market, and which is already noticeably better. You guys keep plugging along, and take the time you need. I can wait.

Chris Labombard   (May 10, 2006 at 22:13 GMT)

Fair enough... i will continue it in a private forum and link it here.

However, I feel it directly relates, as the engine is now feature complete, when there are several owners of the engine who feel this area is not up to par.

Matt Kelly   (May 10, 2006 at 22:16 GMT)

Justin,
Thanks for the hard work, you're doing a superb job. Like you said, there have been a good amount of successful commercial games already released with even the earlier builds. I had been a blitzbasic user for a long time and I have learned to cherish the hard work from the GG developers and community, because it's impossible to find anywhere else.

I'm looking forward to seeing what else you have in store!
Matt
Edited on May 10, 2006 22:17 GMT

Chris Labombard   (May 10, 2006 at 22:23 GMT)

Here's the link to the thread in the TGB Private forums

Matthew Langley   (May 10, 2006 at 22:36 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Chris: Thank you for taking this to the forums. Also, in the end what you state is not a new feature, they are fixes to currently existing features. So the point that the engine being "feature complete" has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Paul Dana   (May 10, 2006 at 22:37 GMT)

I would just like to state that my position is a bit different than Chris's. The physics that is in there now has a few different ways for how it does integration and collisions. The ways it integrates and collides now have some limitations. I would like to see those limitations removed with other modes of integration.

However that does not mean I feel that the physics that is in there now is useless for all or even most applications. Far from it.

I would also agree with the sentiment that it's better to get an official stable 1.0 release out there as a first goal and providing other (better) collision code after that. As Justin points out...there is only so many 80 hour weeks in a week. One actaully.

Jesse Hall   (May 10, 2006 at 22:45 GMT)

Awesome work fellas!

Will Zettler   (May 10, 2006 at 22:46 GMT)

Great job on the TGB, when do you think we'll see a final release going from EA/beta to end result? I was figuring by the end of the year but probs do arise. Just also wanted to say you truly do have a great engine and priced very well I think. Now just think what you save building in this engine vs a Claw style true-pro style engine... you can't beat the price. Again great work guys....

Will
dlstorminc@yahoo.com
Digital Lightstorm
http://dlstorminc.fortunecity.com
Waskom, Tx

Josh Williams   (May 10, 2006 at 23:15 GMT)

Re: physics, I replied here: www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=44069#336786
Edited on May 11, 2006 00:19 GMT

Chris Newman   (May 11, 2006 at 01:59 GMT)

Hey Matt, good job with the animation builder!!
Did you end up using my code as a base or just as a reference?

lol and i just noticed the image map builder too!!!!

They look alot better than the condition i left them in :)
Edited on May 11, 2006 02:13 GMT

Ben Garney   (May 11, 2006 at 07:53 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

From one side of the engine divide to another: Congrats on hitting another milestone, TGB guys!

I don't want to rile things up here, but I do want to weigh in with two things that are important to consider when going with any middleware:

1. Torque (including TGE, TGB, and TSE) comes with full source. You can change, fix, replace, or rewrite any part of it. You are ultimately bound by your own talent and motivation, not ours. We have explicitly designed our technology and licensing so that you, the game developer, have maximum freedom to do whatever you imagine.

2. There is no shipping AAA title on the market which has not had significant tweaks done to every aspect of its codebase to make it work solidly. There is no single-A product which is tweak free. There aren't even any B-level products which have shipped on totally unmodified tech. There might be a few C-level games for which this is true. If you want to make a quality game, expect to make some tweaks. This is true if you use Torque for $80, and even more true if you license Source from Valve for a half a million. It is true if you license Havok or PhysX or Newton.

If you are building your game around a core mechanic, you have to be prepared to make that core mechanic your own. You have to - you need to be able to tweak it, customize it, break the rules to make things more fun, and so forth. If you're OK with your game not working very well, then you'll be fine just taking what's given and going with it.

With proper care and feeding, Torque is capable of being almost anything, and it's a great platform to build on. You can bend the rules a huge amount, too - consider how far some community projects have gotten without doing major C++ work. But if you can't or won't get hands on with every aspect of Torque, you're not going to get as far as someone who does.

TGB gives you a LOT of power but it's not going to make every game flawlessly out of the box with no changes at all. Nor will Source, or BlitzBasic, or Unreal, or anything else out there. Ultimately, we can't do anything more than give you the best tools we can, tools that we've used ourselves in high quality products, and put you in an environment where you can collaborate with us and others to get your idea made into reality.

I'm not saying anyone's comments aren't valid - I think that some good points are raised here - but I don't want people to fall into the trap of comparing us to a mythical product where you have unlimited potential without any drawbacks. We can only work so many double or triple shifts before we start falling asleep on our keyboards, and trust me, it's a short day when we spend less than ten hours a day working on this stuff.

Be patient, trust us, stay in touch with reality, and we'll do our best to get you awesome tools to make games (and other stuff!) with. :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this,
Ben Garney
Torque Technologies Director
GarageGames.Com, Inc.

Aun Arinyasak   (May 12, 2006 at 18:15 GMT)

This product is the best in its field.
Hope to see this little baby grow forward to perfection... :)

keep rocking guys .....best wishes for all of you

Aun

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