Torque 3D Development - Release!!!
by Brett Seyler · 09/28/2009 (10:33 pm) · 335 comments
We're finally here. Release day!
Download the Torque 3D 1.0 release from your account now!
It's been a bit quiet for the past month while we sprint to the finish. I've been in Europe demoing Torque 3D to publishers, studios and the press (you'll hear more about this soon). Meanwhile, the whole team here has been putting in a monster effort to bring you the most stable, solid release of Torque ever.
If you've already made the jump, you know that this is a whole new breed of Torque. The tools are ground breaking for development productivity. The content pipeline gets your art into Torque at light speed and live asset updating lets you iterate on your content in tools of your choice and watch them update in Torque instantly.
What's Inside
If you've been following these dev blogs, you've seen almost every feature of Torque demonstrated first hand. You can also find all these details neatly organized on the Torque 3D page as well. So down to details...here's what's in this release:Engine Advanced Lighting* Particle System Revamped Terrain System COLLADA Import Pipeline Audio API Improved Material System Improved Skinned Mesh Performance PostFX System* Improved Water Blocks and Planes Physics (via PhysX)* Live Asset Updating New Tools River Editor Road Editor Datablock Editor Decal Editor Particle Editor Material Editor Shape Editor Viz Toggles Collada Exporter (for Interiors) Improved Tools Terrain Editor Terrain Painter Object Editor GUI Editor | Publishing** Windows (D3D) OSX (OGL) Web (FF, IE, Chrome, Safari) Projects PhysX: Cloth FPS Example: Burg * Limited or N/A on OSX ** Console licenses for all major platforms available separately. Contact licensing@torquepowered.com for details. |
FPS Example? Yes. If you've been a part of the beta groups, you've seen "FPS Genre Kit" as a project in previous builds (including Beta 5). We are planning to build out a much more robust and complete for-pay "FPS Genre Kit" (with improved functionality and documentation), but we want to minimize confusion between the projects. "FPS Example" has all of the same functionality as "FPS Genre Kit" from the betas. What you're seeing here is less content, but primarily a renaming.
Now, some of you are wondering "what's Burg?" Here is your answer...
In a couple weeks, we'll also be releasing Rasmus Deguchi's War Machine demo. Check it out here:
What about...
Gerhard's stuff
From the beginning, we've been very impressed with Gerhard was able to do with older version of Torque. I had hoped to ship Torque 3D with at least one demo of his stuff, but we encountered a few obstacles. Gerhard lost the artist he was working with and on the programming side, we struggled to keep his projects compatible with the Torque core, particularly GFX. Demos like "Wetness", "Depth of Field", "SSAO", and "Soft Particles" all showcase some great artwork and clever extension of Torque. We now have all these technical features in this release and neatly integrated in the PostFX system, with the exception of Wetness. We're going to follow up on that and build a nicer, more flexible implementation of Wetness into PostFX. See the discussion of that here. Much <3 to Pat Wilson and Sickhead for doing all this kickass PostFX stuff, including Light Rays, Scatter Sky and yes, even lens flares / coronas.
Undercity Demo
The Undercity Demo was built primarily to show at GDC last March. We're really proud of what Logan put together for us and we're looking at doing more work on this demo before releasing it either as part of the forthcoming FPS Genre Kit, or as a FPS Example.
Pacific Demo / Forest Kit
The Pacific Demo is built using Sickhead Games' Forest Kit foliage technology add-on. The Forest Kit is slated for a release to coincide with Torque 3D 1.1. This branch is already being actively worked on and you'll hear more about both the 1.1 release and the Forest Kit add-on in the coming weeks. Tom's already posted a nice teaser showing ground cover materials being properly lit by both Advanced Lighting, and Basic Lighting, all with wind animation.
Barricade Demo
The Barricade Demo was originally built to show off Torque technology circa 2006. Yikes. Sickhead Games are working on an updated version of this to be released in the near future.
Warrior Camp Demo
We never got to a point where we were satisfied with the way this looked, so it's been paused until we decide what (if anything) we want to do with it.
Luma's Racing Kit
Still in the works! Luma's been jamming on all kinds of other cool projects, including Rev, but they are working on finishing the Racing Kit in the next few months.
How is Torque 3D licensed?
The Torque 3D 1.x license is currently posted on the Torque 3D page. You can view it there. This document governs the Professional and Studio licenses. You'll find no reference to the "Basic." Why? As I've mentioned on several occasions where it's come up, we were never really hot on the spec for "Basic." It confuses the primary product spec ("Professional" and "Studio" share identical features) in creating a feature delta and frankly, the number of people who've jumped on the "Professional" license has convinced us that a "Basic" version is not really needed. What you'll see contemplated in the EULA we've posted is an "Artist" version instead. What we're considering here is offering a binary only, full-featured version of Torque 3D for $500 / seat. Discounts for owning prior versions of Torque would apply.If you'd like to make your opinion known, log your vote in the form below. We'll defer making a final decision about this for at least a month or two.
No matter what the results, there will be other changes to the Torque product line up as well. Biggest of all, as of November 1st, 2009, past versions of Torque (TGEA, TGE) will no longer be available for purchase.
What's Next?
A couple weeks ago we spun up an official Torque 3D 1.1 branch for work in parallel to the 1.0 release. The primary goals for the 1.1 release are:1. Performance and optimization
This will mostly be targeted at improving Advanced Lighting (shadows), but the uber geniuses at Sickhead and GameClay keep coming up with ways to get cycles back all over the place. Don't be surprised to see huge improvements (over the already great performance) on mainstream hardware and embedded devices in the next couple releases.
2. Usability improvements
We've a bevy of new tools and we're not silly enough to think we did everything perfect the first, second (or 50th) time, so go, use them. Tell us what you like and don't like. We'll keep improving until they are as perfect as they can be.
3. Particle System refactor
This has been in the works for months actually and Pat (with the help of pureLIGHT) is preparing a fully awesomed-out particle system for 1.1. I'll save going into the spec for a separate blog, but it's going to be all kinds of hawt. Here's Pat showing off wiring up 150 point lights in a PhysX "Lightfall."
4. Core improvements necessary for compatibility with Forest Kit
These are ongoing, but expected to wrap with 1.1 and coincide with the much anticipated release of Forest Kit by Sickhead.
5. OSX feature parity
We're obviously a *little* disappointed we weren't able to get Advanced Lighting to run well enough on OSX to ship with this release (see Alex Scarborough's forum post on Advanced Lighting for details), but we're confident that Torque 3D is the best game engine ever released for OSX games. Basic Lighting (what you're seeing in the Burg Demo) is really a very advanced, very fast forward renderer capable of more than any previous lighting system we've had. Objects and materials can recieve up to 4 lights at a time and each light can cast projected shadows optionally. We'd also like find a workable cross-platform solution for physics. PhysX supports everything *except* for OSX, so we're likely to look at Bullet in the next few months. In all likelyhood, we may never achieve feature parity, but we'll push OSX as hard as it can be pushed for you guys, and then we'll push it harder.
The developer community is already on Torque 3D in a big way. Here are some highlights from past weeks you might not have seen. As always, cool, well made stuff contributed back will go into the core for everyone to use.
Special thanks to Sickhead Games for contributing more to this release than I thought possible. You guys rock!
Torque 3D development blogs:
- Post #1 - Kickoff
- Post #2 - Apparatus and Warrior Camp
- Post #3 - Luma's racing kit
- Post #4 - Josh Engebretson and Web Publishing
- Post #5 - Pricing and Licensing
- Post #6 - Pricing and Licensing CONTINUED
- Post #7 - Wetness & Precipitation
- Post #8 - Screeen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
- Post #9 - Matt Langley and the Torque Launcher
- Post #10 - Chris Robertson and Collada
- Post #11 - Depth of Field
- Post #12 - Advanced Lighting
- Post #13 - Soft Particles
- Post #14 - World Editor
- Post #15 - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
- Post #16 - GDC Live Edition
- Post #17 - River & Road Editors
- Post #18 - Beta is UP!
- Post #19 - Light Rays, Undercity, and the Material Editor
- Post #20 - Mass Market Hardware
- Post #21 - Beta: Part Deux
- Post #22 - Marching Towards Beta 3
- Post #23 - pureLIGHT
- Post #24 - Lighting, Terrain, and Cloth
- Post #25 - Beta 3!
- Post #26 - Documentation
- Post #27 - Beta 4!
- Post #28 - Shape Editor
- Post #29 - Beta 5!
- Post #30 - Collada Import GUI Dialog
- Post #31 - 1.0 Release!!!
- Post #32 - Coming Soon!
About the author
Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.
#262
Torque defined a market and a trend, by democratizing technology unavailable at the time for those starting to come toguether behind the word Indie.
However is really important to remember that on that oportunity, the technology was already developed, with the financing and backup of big names, with big pockets.
Now, its responsability of GarageGames to keep up with the times, to improve the technology, and justify a bussines at the same time. You get the picture.
10/02/2009 (8:04 pm)
@Rene, good words.Torque defined a market and a trend, by democratizing technology unavailable at the time for those starting to come toguether behind the word Indie.
However is really important to remember that on that oportunity, the technology was already developed, with the financing and backup of big names, with big pockets.
Now, its responsability of GarageGames to keep up with the times, to improve the technology, and justify a bussines at the same time. You get the picture.
#263
Exactly my point -- with that price-point for an "artist-only version", GG may very well force cash-strapped developers into some shady practices. It's already been pointed out by others that many on their dev teams are volunteers -- I'm dubious that they will be able or willing to pony up $500.
Also, with previous versions of Torque, only the programmer was required to purchase a license; artists could use a demo version to preview levels and artwork. Why is that not the case any more?
10/02/2009 (10:19 pm)
@ Philip: Quote:"Why not just download a pirated copy and use the exe from that?"
Exactly my point -- with that price-point for an "artist-only version", GG may very well force cash-strapped developers into some shady practices. It's already been pointed out by others that many on their dev teams are volunteers -- I'm dubious that they will be able or willing to pony up $500.
Also, with previous versions of Torque, only the programmer was required to purchase a license; artists could use a demo version to preview levels and artwork. Why is that not the case any more?
#264
I love that with that logic it can somehow come back to us 'forcing' someone into doing something illegal in order to have our software.
10/02/2009 (10:23 pm)
Nobody forces anyone to pirate anything or resort to shady practices. If you do, you are an ass, and hopefully when your game comes out it gets pirated so you can see it from both sides.I love that with that logic it can somehow come back to us 'forcing' someone into doing something illegal in order to have our software.
#265
I feel forced to take that fourth beer... Mhhh beeer.
No choice, GG forced me! GG forced me!
10/02/2009 (11:42 pm)
Too late Kenneth!I feel forced to take that fourth beer... Mhhh beeer.
No choice, GG forced me! GG forced me!
#267
If you cannot afford tools, or they are inappropriate for you and your team, then there are always alternatives. Piracy *is not* an alternative.
10/02/2009 (11:46 pm)
Quote:Exactly my point -- with that price-point for an "artist-only version", GG may very well force cash-strapped developers into some shady practices. It's already been pointed out by others that many on their dev teams are volunteers -- I'm dubious that they will be able or willing to pony up $500.You buy Office/Visual Studio/Windows/Photoshop/Flash/3DS Max, etc, you pay for a single licence allowing a single developer to use it. Does Adobe offer massive discounts to your team becase they are volunteers? Hell no. If you give your copy of Photoshop to someone else, even though they are in your team, are you doing something naughty? Hell yes.
Also, with previous versions of Torque, only the programmer was required to purchase a license; artists could use a demo version to preview levels and artwork. Why is that not the case any more?
If you cannot afford tools, or they are inappropriate for you and your team, then there are always alternatives. Piracy *is not* an alternative.
#268
But with that said, I don't appreciate the implication that I'm planning on stealing T3D! GG has been a pretty damn cool company with a great community, and the thought of illegally acquiring a GG product bothers me as much as it bothers you!
I think the real concern which some of us have been trying to express (and have mostly been ignored or marginalized, i.e. stuff like "If you were serious about game development, you could afford it...") is that -- since we cannot currently afford T3D, and since TGE and TGEA are being thrown out -- we will no longer be able to participate in the Torque community, because GG is pricing us out. I mean, I get the premise that GG wants to cater to more "professional" or "serious" developers, but since when did "professional" or "serious" equate to "rolling in mountains of cash"? IMO, there should still be an option on the table for us "cheap-ass unprofessionals" and TGEA fits the bill rather well! It also makes sense that it would serve as a stepping stone to T3D, i.e. someone could purchase TGEA now and transition to T3D later.
And look, everyone just stop with the argument that T3D is AAAAA and super-cool and neato and stuff. We are all (painfully) aware of that! But it still doesn't make it affordable for some of us! Don't get me wrong, I think $1000 for T3D is still a fantastic price for all the potential coolness. But $500 for an artist-only version... it just doesn't seem worth it, especially when there was no license requirement for artists in the past. So I ask again:
With previous versions of Torque, only the programmer was required to purchase a license; artists could use a demo version to preview levels and artwork. Why is that not the case any more?
@Phillip: Piracy may not be an alternative for you (or me), but it's clearly an alternative to those with no money and no scruples. And may I point out that no one has mentioned how increasing T3D's price has curbed piracy, because you all know it's rather the opposite if anything.
10/03/2009 (1:02 am)
@Kenneth Holst: You are correct -- "force" is not the best word for it; GG isn't holding a gun to anyone's head or doing anything like that. But let's go ahead and replace "force" with "encourage" then; that certainly fits. Because it's a simple fact that the more something costs, the more likely people are to acquire it in a illegal manner if they want it badly enough and don't have the cash. (Or in the case of an EULA, they simply put it on /ignore and pretend otherwise.)But with that said, I don't appreciate the implication that I'm planning on stealing T3D! GG has been a pretty damn cool company with a great community, and the thought of illegally acquiring a GG product bothers me as much as it bothers you!
I think the real concern which some of us have been trying to express (and have mostly been ignored or marginalized, i.e. stuff like "If you were serious about game development, you could afford it...") is that -- since we cannot currently afford T3D, and since TGE and TGEA are being thrown out -- we will no longer be able to participate in the Torque community, because GG is pricing us out. I mean, I get the premise that GG wants to cater to more "professional" or "serious" developers, but since when did "professional" or "serious" equate to "rolling in mountains of cash"? IMO, there should still be an option on the table for us "cheap-ass unprofessionals" and TGEA fits the bill rather well! It also makes sense that it would serve as a stepping stone to T3D, i.e. someone could purchase TGEA now and transition to T3D later.
And look, everyone just stop with the argument that T3D is AAAAA and super-cool and neato and stuff. We are all (painfully) aware of that! But it still doesn't make it affordable for some of us! Don't get me wrong, I think $1000 for T3D is still a fantastic price for all the potential coolness. But $500 for an artist-only version... it just doesn't seem worth it, especially when there was no license requirement for artists in the past. So I ask again:
With previous versions of Torque, only the programmer was required to purchase a license; artists could use a demo version to preview levels and artwork. Why is that not the case any more?
@Phillip: Piracy may not be an alternative for you (or me), but it's clearly an alternative to those with no money and no scruples. And may I point out that no one has mentioned how increasing T3D's price has curbed piracy, because you all know it's rather the opposite if anything.
#269
I do hope the best for GG and the Torque community, even if I end up somewhere else in the near future.
10/03/2009 (1:06 am)
At any rate, either y'all at GG understand where I'm coming from, and are willing to take steps the mitigate the issue or y'all think it's a non-issue and will do nothing.I do hope the best for GG and the Torque community, even if I end up somewhere else in the near future.
#270
10/03/2009 (2:10 am)
Just want to iterate that I wasn't trying to implicate that *you* personally had any intention of pirating our stuff Kevin. I didn't get that feeling from your message at all. 
#271
10/03/2009 (5:55 am)
Kevin - thats probably the most lucidly argued post in this thread so far. I guess GG know their market but I really think they are shooting themselves in the foot with this move. If you're trying to get a small team together and expecting everyone to work as volunteers then TGE/TGEA are the ideal tools to start out with because of the points you've made. Its inevitable that some projects will fail, but when your project starts to show some success and the potential to earn some income, then you could migrate it up to T3D. Thats basically what I expected the Torque development route to be, with TGE/TGEA as stepping stones to T3D. But this route is gone from Nov 1st and I still don't think the why has been explained in any of these posts so far. (Of course, GG don't have to explain why, but it would be nice!)
#272
actually it HAS been answered profusiasly throughout this thread
TGE/A are very outdated
they will not be officially developed anymore
selling to new comers not aware of this would feel to them like beeing cheated
they no longer represent what GG wants TorqueTech to stand for
Also it has been pointed out at least twice that GG IS still providing a cheaper engine for those who can't get in the T3D bandwagon just yet - it's called TX3D and costs less than TGEA used to.
10/03/2009 (7:37 am)
@Adrianactually it HAS been answered profusiasly throughout this thread
TGE/A are very outdated
they will not be officially developed anymore
selling to new comers not aware of this would feel to them like beeing cheated
they no longer represent what GG wants TorqueTech to stand for
Also it has been pointed out at least twice that GG IS still providing a cheaper engine for those who can't get in the T3D bandwagon just yet - it's called TX3D and costs less than TGEA used to.
#273
Yup, I have seen those points made in other posts, I just don't understand them! Take a look at my avatar, sometimes it needs a hammer to knock information into that thick skull!
But briefly:
TGEA is not outdated, its just not next gen any more.
TGE is outdated, but still very capable for a lot of people's needs (Buccaneer for example started out as a TGE project before moving up to TGEA).
Selling to new customers is not cheating them as long it's made clear that these products are now only community maintained and T3D is really where its at. As far as I can see this approach is more likely get GG new customers who might now be considering C4.
Anyways I will shut up and go away now since this blog is really about T3D and it does look amazing, especially with the added PureLight goodness.
10/03/2009 (8:17 am)
Luis,Yup, I have seen those points made in other posts, I just don't understand them! Take a look at my avatar, sometimes it needs a hammer to knock information into that thick skull!
But briefly:
TGEA is not outdated, its just not next gen any more.
TGE is outdated, but still very capable for a lot of people's needs (Buccaneer for example started out as a TGE project before moving up to TGEA).
Selling to new customers is not cheating them as long it's made clear that these products are now only community maintained and T3D is really where its at. As far as I can see this approach is more likely get GG new customers who might now be considering C4.
Quote:they no longer represent what GG wants TorqueTech to stand forI can't argue against that one!
Anyways I will shut up and go away now since this blog is really about T3D and it does look amazing, especially with the added PureLight goodness.
#274
No one said any of them isn't good for anything anymore - they're both perfectly good as always been.
If they hadn't said they would remove them from the store and just said (as you say they sould've) they wouldn't keep developing it, then people would be complaining about they asking for money on tech they don't support
10/03/2009 (9:30 am)
Quote:TGE is outdated, but still very capable for a lot of people's needs (Buccaneer for example started out as a TGE project before moving up to TGEA).
No one said any of them isn't good for anything anymore - they're both perfectly good as always been.
If they hadn't said they would remove them from the store and just said (as you say they sould've) they wouldn't keep developing it, then people would be complaining about they asking for money on tech they don't support
#275
You're wrong. I know there are lots of reasons why one would think it makes sense to offer 3-5 tiers of Torque products, one to serve each class of developer, but in the end, confusion and quality perception matter.
The fact is that the "indie" game developer / amateur / hobbyist is no longer underserved. In 2001, they were. Desperately. Today developers with just a few hundred dollars to spend have a bevy of options to choose from including many free choices. Torque may be out of reach for some of these developers, but in reality, I doubt it. Torque will always be too expensive for someone as long as it's not free, but we've priced our product in a teir that we feel fairly represents it's unique value in comparison to the competition. This is a teir where we are comfortable we've not made Torque inaccessible to any developer who's going to spend more than a few hours using it. Adding an 'Artist' license for $500 really brings this accessibility to a wide audience.
If we thought we could make more money selling Torque for $100, we'd do it in a heartbeat. We want to grow this team and accelerate our development pace even further. We also want to keep the most productive, positive parts of this community together and foster greater engagement. We don't want everyone. Unfortunately, it's often the people who pay us the least who demand the most and contribute nothing at all back to the technology or the community. If those people leave because $500 or $1000 is too much, I think we'll have a better (if possibly smaller) community for it. We want developers who are friendly to others, productive and generous. We'll kill ourselves building a better and better product to serve those people. That's what the Torque team has been doing for the last 2 years.
You can be sure that the people making these kinds of decisions about where to take Torque in the future are interested in making money. Lots of it. But we don't want to make lots of money to hoard it away and coast. We're far more ambitious than that. Everyone who works on Torque could probably make more money personally doing something else, but we want to compete, to grow, and make something really impactful for the industry. To the degree we can build a sustainable community around that effort, I think we'll be able to go even faster and accomplish even more. Even if you don't buy Torque 3D, I hope you're supportive of those goals.
@Adrian W:
10/03/2009 (10:04 am)
@Everyone making the "this will be bad for Torque revenue / business" argument: You're wrong. I know there are lots of reasons why one would think it makes sense to offer 3-5 tiers of Torque products, one to serve each class of developer, but in the end, confusion and quality perception matter.
The fact is that the "indie" game developer / amateur / hobbyist is no longer underserved. In 2001, they were. Desperately. Today developers with just a few hundred dollars to spend have a bevy of options to choose from including many free choices. Torque may be out of reach for some of these developers, but in reality, I doubt it. Torque will always be too expensive for someone as long as it's not free, but we've priced our product in a teir that we feel fairly represents it's unique value in comparison to the competition. This is a teir where we are comfortable we've not made Torque inaccessible to any developer who's going to spend more than a few hours using it. Adding an 'Artist' license for $500 really brings this accessibility to a wide audience.
If we thought we could make more money selling Torque for $100, we'd do it in a heartbeat. We want to grow this team and accelerate our development pace even further. We also want to keep the most productive, positive parts of this community together and foster greater engagement. We don't want everyone. Unfortunately, it's often the people who pay us the least who demand the most and contribute nothing at all back to the technology or the community. If those people leave because $500 or $1000 is too much, I think we'll have a better (if possibly smaller) community for it. We want developers who are friendly to others, productive and generous. We'll kill ourselves building a better and better product to serve those people. That's what the Torque team has been doing for the last 2 years.
You can be sure that the people making these kinds of decisions about where to take Torque in the future are interested in making money. Lots of it. But we don't want to make lots of money to hoard it away and coast. We're far more ambitious than that. Everyone who works on Torque could probably make more money personally doing something else, but we want to compete, to grow, and make something really impactful for the industry. To the degree we can build a sustainable community around that effort, I think we'll be able to go even faster and accomplish even more. Even if you don't buy Torque 3D, I hope you're supportive of those goals.
@Adrian W:
Quote:TGEA is not outdated, its just not next gen any more.This is correct. It's just not as nice an experience as Torque 3D, particularly for new users and non-programmers. It won't matter though if a new user picks up TGEA and and get's frustrated because it took 10 minutes to get their art in the engine. They'll be annoyed and will probably never look at Torque 3D at all. That's bad for everyone. That person could have been the next Gareth Fouche or Gerald Fishel. I don't want to risk losing those people because we didn't put our best foot forward, in a very clear way, with someone new to Torque.
Quote:TGE is outdated, but still very capable for a lot of people's needs (Buccaneer for example started out as a TGE project before moving up to TGEA).Again, it's just not as nice an experience. The tools are terribly crude compared with what we have now and the headache for an artist is just absurd. If you know how to use it, yes, it's *very* powerful, but the learning curve is very harsh for non-programmers.
Quote:Selling to new customers is not cheating them as long it's made clear that these products are now only community maintained and T3D is really where its at. As far as I can see this approach is more likely get GG new customers who might now be considering C4. they no longer represent what GG wants TorqueTech to stand for I can't argue against that one!I think that's been clear for TGE for quite some time. For TGEA, yes, it's probably surprising to some, but that is precisely why we're fully honoring the investment in TGEA toward Torque 3D.
Quote:Anyways I will shut up and go away now since this blog is really about T3D and it does look amazing, especially with the added PureLight goodness.Thanks. We're very proud of this release. It's been our longest, most heavily resourced development cycle to date. I can't wait to wow you guys with the next one. Our developers just get better and better and we're adding more talent to the team all the time now, thanks in large part to the people who believed in us early enough to pre-ordered Torque 3D. Thank you all.
#276
The only thing I really disagree with is that the people who paid the least demand the most and don't contribute anything. I really don't think contributions have much to do with whether someone paid $100, $300, or $1000... it is more based on individuals... and often times individuals at studios aren't allowed to share resources.
I think that GG's history shows a strong community and probably a record number of resources and bug fixes shared by users, MANY of which were rolled back into the engine core... and are even in Torque 3D today. Also, many GG employees, past and present, started out as community members.
... then, as today, there are folks around the Torque community that complain and demand stuff more than work... and who thrive on causing turmoil. This is an aspect of all online communities and will probably hold true into the future. It takes a certain amount of zen to ignore these people entirely... but, having spent a LOT of time in the GG forums and running some rather large communities myself, it is almost always better just to ignore them and not engage.
Anyway, have fun on your latest travels... jetlag can be fun if you embrace it :)
10/03/2009 (4:41 pm)
Thanks Brett, lots to digest there... I think the business logic is completely sound and the benefits, obvious :)The only thing I really disagree with is that the people who paid the least demand the most and don't contribute anything. I really don't think contributions have much to do with whether someone paid $100, $300, or $1000... it is more based on individuals... and often times individuals at studios aren't allowed to share resources.
I think that GG's history shows a strong community and probably a record number of resources and bug fixes shared by users, MANY of which were rolled back into the engine core... and are even in Torque 3D today. Also, many GG employees, past and present, started out as community members.
... then, as today, there are folks around the Torque community that complain and demand stuff more than work... and who thrive on causing turmoil. This is an aspect of all online communities and will probably hold true into the future. It takes a certain amount of zen to ignore these people entirely... but, having spent a LOT of time in the GG forums and running some rather large communities myself, it is almost always better just to ignore them and not engage.
Anyway, have fun on your latest travels... jetlag can be fun if you embrace it :)
#277
$1000.00 for T3D while not cheap for some, is far from expensive. I am first and foremost an artist. I had no problem considering T3D at it's price point. It took me acouple months to save up to get it, but I did. I could have went another route.. purchased an engine with no source and lower tech, but I choose not to. I could have gone the free route and picked up one of the several open source engines out there, but I did not. Instead, I went with T3D, not just because I trust the people working on it, or the community that is so helpful with suggestions/code snippets/packs, or the employees who actually actively respond to forum posts and emails.. but because in the end, there is not a single engine in it's class that can touch T3D.
GG is not perfect, and I have no problem calling them on something (and teasing them whenever I can hence the avatar). But it's getting old hearing all the "give us your stuff for FRREEeEEEE" garbage (and yes.. $250.00 price tag for this product, is pretty much free). I'm sorry, and i'll probably get flamed for saying that, but it's true.
LK
10/03/2009 (6:16 pm)
Piracy is never an option, nor is trying to use the potentiality of piracy as a reason to try and get a company to bow to other people's desires. $1000.00 for T3D while not cheap for some, is far from expensive. I am first and foremost an artist. I had no problem considering T3D at it's price point. It took me acouple months to save up to get it, but I did. I could have went another route.. purchased an engine with no source and lower tech, but I choose not to. I could have gone the free route and picked up one of the several open source engines out there, but I did not. Instead, I went with T3D, not just because I trust the people working on it, or the community that is so helpful with suggestions/code snippets/packs, or the employees who actually actively respond to forum posts and emails.. but because in the end, there is not a single engine in it's class that can touch T3D.
GG is not perfect, and I have no problem calling them on something (and teasing them whenever I can hence the avatar). But it's getting old hearing all the "give us your stuff for FRREEeEEEE" garbage (and yes.. $250.00 price tag for this product, is pretty much free). I'm sorry, and i'll probably get flamed for saying that, but it's true.
LK
#278
arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/03/sony-bmgs-hypocrisy-company-busted-for-using...
ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/18349/Far-Cry-Dev-Studio-Raided
And those are just the ones that got caught.
10/04/2009 (12:01 am)
@Andrew Brady: Piracy is always an option. No, I am not advocating it or otherwise trying to coerce GG into changing their pricing policy by pointing to piracy -- I'm just making a point.arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/03/sony-bmgs-hypocrisy-company-busted-for-using...
ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/18349/Far-Cry-Dev-Studio-Raided
And those are just the ones that got caught.
#279
And what those links have to do with anything anyway?
All this non sense of putting copyright infringement as a consequence of a price change is uber ridiculous. And the same goes to "oh piracy is never an option, just say no or burn in hell, along with the weed consumers".
Please keep the conversation around the real points, T3D, plans, future, expectations...
10/04/2009 (12:25 am)
My gosh Kevin, the Crytek story is from 5 years ago, and has no confirmation, could perfectly be just a false acusation.And what those links have to do with anything anyway?
All this non sense of putting copyright infringement as a consequence of a price change is uber ridiculous. And the same goes to "oh piracy is never an option, just say no or burn in hell, along with the weed consumers".
Please keep the conversation around the real points, T3D, plans, future, expectations...
#280
So is me going down to the local electronics store and stealing a new computer. Those prices are pretty steep ya know.
@ Novack
I don't recall bringing burning or hell into anything.. or weed where ever that came from. Not sure whether you were referring to me but I stand by what I said.. stealing is stealing.
Everyone must draw their moral/ethical lines somewhere. Some peoples lines tend to bend according to what suit's them at the time. (not directed at anyone in particular).
agreed Josh
10/04/2009 (1:54 am)
@KevinSo is me going down to the local electronics store and stealing a new computer. Those prices are pretty steep ya know.
@ Novack
I don't recall bringing burning or hell into anything.. or weed where ever that came from. Not sure whether you were referring to me but I stand by what I said.. stealing is stealing.
Everyone must draw their moral/ethical lines somewhere. Some peoples lines tend to bend according to what suit's them at the time. (not directed at anyone in particular).
Quote:... then, as today, there are folks around the Torque community that complain and demand stuff more than work... and who thrive on causing turmoil.
agreed Josh
Torque Owner Jack