Plan for Mark Frohnmayer

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Mark Mozynski   (Dec 17, 2003 at 23:28 GMT)

I don't understand. If this is the same net code torque has, why would anyone pay 'more than torque' for it?

Wouldn't it make sense to get the cheaper option that also does more?

Brian Smith   (Dec 18, 2003 at 00:59 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

My guess is that there's been improvements as well as a degree of refactoring, which isn't necessarily a trivial task. I'd be willing to spend a little if there's some value in it.

Granted, there's little incentive to purchase something that's nearly the same as what you already have - and even more so if it's making it's way back into Torque.

Ben Garney   (Dec 18, 2003 at 01:06 GMT)

Yeah... breaking the net code out cleanly isn't an entirely trivial task; being able to buy JUST the net code with a cleanly documented interface is pretty handy, 'specially if you don't want to have to learn just how it interacts with everything else in the engine.

Mark Frohnmayer   (Dec 18, 2003 at 01:15 GMT)

To make it clear - some of the fixes will make it back into some future version of Torque, but the refactored net code (ie, divorced from the rest) will not, anytime soon. It's not a trivial job to yank the net code out of Torque for use in a non-Torque game, especially if you don't know what is and is not the net code :)

The question when evaluating the product for your game is - is it worth the price (whatever that may be) for the task you want to apply it to? The TNL will come with standalone documentation, easy to understand samples, and will be much better suited to non-Torque projects than what the $100 Torque license gets you.

Jarrod Roberson   (Dec 18, 2003 at 16:07 GMT)

It is worthing paying for the effort it took to decouple the netcode from the rest of Torque. No trival task!

Luc Jordan   (Dec 19, 2003 at 14:08 GMT)

Besides which -- and this is probably just because I'm a capitalist imperialist consumer whore -- I think they could probably charge 3 times what they're charging now, and I'd probably buy it.

Or, even better -- for some reason, I would never plunk down $1000 to buy Torque in one go. But for some reason, there's a part of me that's been conditioned to think that it would somehow be more acceptable to pay $100 every month for access to Torque -- I really think I'd probably end up saying "Well, ok," if I was told that now that is the only way to access it.

Shit -- every time I take my car to the mechanic, I get bent over and spanked to the tune of $150 and up. Torque has been one of a very few purchases that has never let me down -- and all I do is fuck around with it from time to time.

Go ahead.

Mark Currie   (Dec 22, 2003 at 23:53 GMT)

This is a great idea. I've been looking for a good replacement to Direct Play.

Luke *V8motorhead* Jones   (Dec 28, 2003 at 21:03 GMT)

I dont like you Luc!
I and many others could/would not pay $100 for access for anything.
Its people like you that help make the world an expensive place to live.

So what makes the netcode able to be charged more for than torque.
Torque is the whole engine right, netcode is just that (with a few tweaks/whatevers) and you get that netcode with the engine.
Now sure if you wanted just the netcode, then to buy it seperate would be nice, but charging more than for the engine would just be silly!
It would make the TGE seem even more pathetic (not saying it is), since the netcode is worth more outside the engine than included with.

Nevermind.... Why charge more for a specific part of the engine?

Jeremy Easoz   (Dec 31, 2003 at 21:24 GMT)

Good idea, but I would be a little worried.

Luc Jordan   (Jan 04, 2004 at 23:56 GMT)

Luke -- it's because of value.

Even though buying the Torque engine gets you a huge value for little investment, you have to factor in demand. Because Torque is a game engine, and moreover, one that costs to license, it will likely not be attractive for people that, say, are putting together a Proof-of-Concept "next-generation" Instant Messaging or 'business chat' component (with separate 'boardrooms' where multiple meetings could be held in real time with real interaction between meetings if necessary -- I pulled that out of my ass, but you see what I mean).

Or, of course, for people that want to put together a 'MMORPG', but don't want to spend the time abstracting all of the important parts of the Torque code. Having the networking layer separate would allow you to MASSIVELY modify the core network functionality, without having to keep the rest of the engine functional.

But most of all, I'm thinking about business applications. Myself, I came within a mental hair of specifically reccomending Torque as a component of our next major upgrade -- the idea being that since the system we are upgrading is contingent on organizing data by location, and getting approval to transfer assets between locations, and transferring control of assets in real-time, etc, it might actually be easier to go whole hog and use the Torque GUI engine for the data entry portion -- but use Torque's powerful 3d engine for displaying understandably the reams of organizational data, putting the location/building information in some kind of context, and displaying the state of assets as they are on the server, instead of 'as they are on my spreadsheet'.

I decided not to, obviously, but the Torque networking layer has the kind of powerful real-time networking that we're resigning ourselves to doing without as we're preparing our current upgrade . . . time to put a bug in someone's ear! :D

Vashner   (Jan 14, 2004 at 16:49 GMT)

So we will be able to recompile our torque projects with this improved netcode??

Jarrod Roberson   (Jan 23, 2004 at 23:47 GMT)

Luke get a job and quit complaining you commie :-)

If you don't see any value it something, it is simple don't buy it. If you do see the value but don't want to pay then keep quiet. Very simple capitalist economics 101

The net code is definatley worth more stand-alone, just like a car is worth more in parts than it is in its whole.

Ben Garney   (Jan 25, 2004 at 21:18 GMT)

Randy - probably won't be a drop-in replacement, but you could certainly port Torque to use the TNL without much pain.

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