A Person Learns Game Development 4
by J L · 04/14/2009 (5:06 am) · 8 comments
So whats changed since I last wrote one of these things? I have found a couple people who can code, I decided to make the game I am working on NON-MMO style It will be a simple FPS game with a RTS twist. Landed a new job, so now I am home every night instead of being cramped up in my dog box for 3 weeks at a time. Went and took my practice GED test and scored 594 out of 450 which they said was great so now I am going to get my GED I hope within the next month or so. Then I plan on taking Computer Science at the local college here as that will help me understand programming. So on to the good stuff which includes a few good reviews and ONE MAJOR BAD review.
Well what can I say I first wanted to do a nice MMO style FPS but that has changed to something more simple. If you do not have the help or the skills to code, like I do not have then get away from MMO you won't do it unless you start small. (I've heard that somewhere before) I am going for a game that will be a simple FPS with some RTS elements in it. I know I can accomplish this, cause it is not beyond my grasps. I do have a new person with me ho is learning the scripting side of Torque now, he can code in C++ and he is finding it rather easily to learn.
I recently purchased the TGEA upgrade so I could have a bit better graphics and whatever else it has. All I can say is that it seems more optiized for network play, that's the feature I was worried about. I learned how to get CTF into my game this week almost completely with help from the forums. I had to ditch CSK cause I do not know how to port stuff over to TGEA. I can say that I like the world editor a lot more due to it has a cleaner interface, you have different views you can select and a lot more other features at the click of a mouse.
REVIEWS
Lets start off with the Combat Starter Kit(CSK). Let me say this, I am impressed with this kit due to the fact that it can take a lot of time out of development, yet I am not so impressed due to the lack of support for it. The CSK is wonderful for the beginner like me, it pretty much has everything you could want, even the bugs. However I do not like the fact that the support takes a long time to answer, even on the dreamgames website if you post there it's a minimum of 3 days before anyone answers. I still have a private message asking to let me in to the private sector of the CSK at dreamgames which is still not been read. But all in all I will give this pack a 3.7 out of 5
Male Advanced Character Kit (MACK)
Next we have Male Advanced Character Kit(MACK) This feller here is very MUCH WORTH EVERY DIME I SPENT ON HIM. I really suggest anyone who is a coder, modeler, or whatever your specialty is to buy this pack. It has all different kinds of stuff with it. I mean the pack is a bargain for the $60 I paid for it. I had no problem dropping it in and it worked right out of the box. 5 out of 5
Modmaker Weapons Pack Combo
What can I say about the Modmaker Weapons Pack Comboexcept for it is crap, DO NOT BLOW YOUR MONEY ON THIS. I have requested a refund from Garage Games on this pack because it simply put is not worth $50 let alone $129 The quality of the sounds are not too good and I had to hunt these sounds down myself WTF. Everything is full of bugs. This pack should be removed from the Garage Games website as it is not being supported by the developer anymore.
In short this pack gets a 1.0 out of 5 and thats just because the models are decent quality. I would'nt say AAA as it states but decent.
Also if you do not believe these statments check here on others who bought this turd that some moron slapped on here and called it a pack.
Link to my rant. Also if you search the forums a bit you will see I am not the only one who had problems with this pack.
Well what can I say I first wanted to do a nice MMO style FPS but that has changed to something more simple. If you do not have the help or the skills to code, like I do not have then get away from MMO you won't do it unless you start small. (I've heard that somewhere before) I am going for a game that will be a simple FPS with some RTS elements in it. I know I can accomplish this, cause it is not beyond my grasps. I do have a new person with me ho is learning the scripting side of Torque now, he can code in C++ and he is finding it rather easily to learn.
I recently purchased the TGEA upgrade so I could have a bit better graphics and whatever else it has. All I can say is that it seems more optiized for network play, that's the feature I was worried about. I learned how to get CTF into my game this week almost completely with help from the forums. I had to ditch CSK cause I do not know how to port stuff over to TGEA. I can say that I like the world editor a lot more due to it has a cleaner interface, you have different views you can select and a lot more other features at the click of a mouse.
REVIEWS
Lets start off with the Combat Starter Kit(CSK). Let me say this, I am impressed with this kit due to the fact that it can take a lot of time out of development, yet I am not so impressed due to the lack of support for it. The CSK is wonderful for the beginner like me, it pretty much has everything you could want, even the bugs. However I do not like the fact that the support takes a long time to answer, even on the dreamgames website if you post there it's a minimum of 3 days before anyone answers. I still have a private message asking to let me in to the private sector of the CSK at dreamgames which is still not been read. But all in all I will give this pack a 3.7 out of 5
Male Advanced Character Kit (MACK)
Next we have Male Advanced Character Kit(MACK) This feller here is very MUCH WORTH EVERY DIME I SPENT ON HIM. I really suggest anyone who is a coder, modeler, or whatever your specialty is to buy this pack. It has all different kinds of stuff with it. I mean the pack is a bargain for the $60 I paid for it. I had no problem dropping it in and it worked right out of the box. 5 out of 5
Modmaker Weapons Pack Combo
What can I say about the Modmaker Weapons Pack Comboexcept for it is crap, DO NOT BLOW YOUR MONEY ON THIS. I have requested a refund from Garage Games on this pack because it simply put is not worth $50 let alone $129 The quality of the sounds are not too good and I had to hunt these sounds down myself WTF. Everything is full of bugs. This pack should be removed from the Garage Games website as it is not being supported by the developer anymore.
In short this pack gets a 1.0 out of 5 and thats just because the models are decent quality. I would'nt say AAA as it states but decent.
Also if you do not believe these statments check here on others who bought this turd that some moron slapped on here and called it a pack.
Link to my rant. Also if you search the forums a bit you will see I am not the only one who had problems with this pack.
#2
I called Mr. Pearson today to discuss what is going to happen with this pack, I only got voicemail though, left a message stating that he needs to do something about it as the product is full of more bugs then a $2 hooker at a $0.10 prostitue convention in Nevada. Lets hope he makes right to the people who have purchased this or tells me STFU or something.
04/14/2009 (6:09 am)
@KonradI called Mr. Pearson today to discuss what is going to happen with this pack, I only got voicemail though, left a message stating that he needs to do something about it as the product is full of more bugs then a $2 hooker at a $0.10 prostitue convention in Nevada. Lets hope he makes right to the people who have purchased this or tells me STFU or something.
#3
04/14/2009 (4:14 pm)
I agree -- nice to see reviews. I've contemplated picking some packs up, but without knowing if they were really as good as stated, I decided to pass.
#4
I'm glad MACK keeps getting 5/5, we tried so hard to keep it cheap and include as much as possible without "making your game for you".
We had to draw the line somewhere, lol.
I started the CSK, but that's an ugly story for another day possibly, so I'll keep it short.
We were going to include the MACK and FACK packs with it, but we were told by our partnering team that it was junk and it was taken out.
CSK was originally a list of resources I put together after several months of playing BF2 and seeing that Dream Games needed a new project.
Allot of those resources are script and no porting is required so you should be better off than you think.
It's a shame the CSK source wasn't commented with credit to the original resources or they'd be easier to look up and port the pieces rather than the whole.
As for the Modmaker Weapons Pack, I bought it mostly for the models, which I liked. Being a coder I only wanted parts of the code and UI so I didn't really notice how the stock functionality worked. I also didn't buy the combo pack so it was a bit cheaper for me. I just thought some of the guns were sexy. :)
04/15/2009 (12:22 am)
Thx for the kind words about the MACK!I'm glad MACK keeps getting 5/5, we tried so hard to keep it cheap and include as much as possible without "making your game for you".
We had to draw the line somewhere, lol.
I started the CSK, but that's an ugly story for another day possibly, so I'll keep it short.
We were going to include the MACK and FACK packs with it, but we were told by our partnering team that it was junk and it was taken out.
CSK was originally a list of resources I put together after several months of playing BF2 and seeing that Dream Games needed a new project.
Allot of those resources are script and no porting is required so you should be better off than you think.
It's a shame the CSK source wasn't commented with credit to the original resources or they'd be easier to look up and port the pieces rather than the whole.
As for the Modmaker Weapons Pack, I bought it mostly for the models, which I liked. Being a coder I only wanted parts of the code and UI so I didn't really notice how the stock functionality worked. I also didn't buy the combo pack so it was a bit cheaper for me. I just thought some of the guns were sexy. :)
#5
04/15/2009 (4:36 am)
@ BAG lol, junk, what the CSK gave us was junk not MACK. I would have greatly given an extra 100 for the pack had MACK been in there. I just still can't believe the quality that MACK brings to the table for the low price he is. 
#6
04/15/2009 (5:16 am)
...and she....FemaleACK Pack is on sale as well! 
#7
04/15/2009 (6:37 am)
Yep I'm a she (FACK) pack owner and it's a great pack... 
#8
I keep hearing such awesome things about the MACK/FACK kits! I'm definitely going to have to look into those sometime in the future.
I never really considered the Modmaker Weapons Packs -- too many negative reviews (I miss those product reviews!) but lots of praise on blogs (it all just didn't add up in my opinion).
But the CSK is one of those kits that could be great (could have been lots better!) if you wanted to use it straight out of the box (with quality art) or just to mod it. But if anyone wanted to use it to learn from or port parts of it to an existing game then that was a headache from hell. I ended up taking the "features list" from one of their blogs and finding all of the relevant resources and working from there and now I can play my own BF2 clone in TGEa!
04/15/2009 (7:05 am)
Yes, reviews are awesome! Instead of endless praise and fluff it's good to hear someone's hard and serious appraisal about a few of the things found here.I keep hearing such awesome things about the MACK/FACK kits! I'm definitely going to have to look into those sometime in the future.
I never really considered the Modmaker Weapons Packs -- too many negative reviews (I miss those product reviews!) but lots of praise on blogs (it all just didn't add up in my opinion).
But the CSK is one of those kits that could be great (could have been lots better!) if you wanted to use it straight out of the box (with quality art) or just to mod it. But if anyone wanted to use it to learn from or port parts of it to an existing game then that was a headache from hell. I ended up taking the "features list" from one of their blogs and finding all of the relevant resources and working from there and now I can play my own BF2 clone in TGEa!
Associate Konrad Kiss
Bitgap Games
Thanks for the heads-up about the weapons pack. Also, the CSK looks nice, and I will probably get it sometime later, but with little support, everyone will think twice before getting it. And the MACK - I got the MACK too, and I agree with the 5/5. :)