Where's the beef

#1 yes :) (btw nice plan)

#2 you can add "MiniOne Racing" to your list.
Do you know Fast Lane Carnage? it's a game made with the TGE, and it will be released soon.

Christophe

#3 yes from me too :)

#4 I've got nothing :(

...and LT sucks.

Best Regards,
-justin` (rocks pat)

#5 "What exactly do we need to do to get more indy games out there?"

I'm getting killed out here. I'm a one man team. I have almost everything I need, but I can't for the life of me seem to get an artist to clean up... I've went through 3 of them already. I'm almost at the point (gimme a day or so) where I wont be able to finish up this code because I don't have the art to do it... There is only so much you can do with placeholders.

I know why artist don't stay... I move at a very very fast pace, but I cant help that.

I should have a demo by the end of the weekend. I'll show it to you. If you could hook me up with an artist who will follow through, then I'm all set. It's not like I want it for free. I have some cash for them.

Please don't put us on the backburner.

#6 Pat -- I couldn't agree more on all counts. Jeff T's address at IGC last year basically said this same thing -- where's the games, people? At IGC, I was myself disappointed at the number and quality of games on display. And from this poll on the GG associate forum there's a majority that agrees:

###

How satisfied are you with the quantity and quality of indie games being made and put out there?

0% Very satisfied
12% Satisfied
18% Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
37% Dissatisfied
31% Very Dissatisfied

###

In my RTG one year plan, I listed the top five qualities that I've leaned on the most in the past year. I didn't list them in order of importance, but I can conclusively say that the top trait needed is persistence.

I thought Shelled would take 2-3 months when I started. Six months have come and gone. I've got a hell of a nice game, but even from here it needs another 3 months to be "done" and another 3 months after that to be "really done." One year! And not just any year, but a year of daily work, weekly spending, and pushing like hell.

You wouldn't know it by reading my Shelled plans, but I've been discouraged dozens of times, wondering if it's all for naught, if it'll ever pan out, if I should just quit and try something else, something I don't have to force so hard, if my paychecks would be better spent elsewhere. But I'm persistent... patient and persistent. That's the only thing I can guess why so many projects start, but so few ever release.

I went through the dev snapshots of the day when I first joined the community and started with the very first one, then clicked on whatever link was provided, and all of them were dead links or pages that haven't been updated in years, with a few of them bothering to note that the project was on hold or was stopped. The GG dev snapshot archive is a graveyard of dead projects, and may they not rest in peace. It's exciting to launch a new project, to announce a new big idea, to start something new. But once that buzz wears off, you've got a heck of a lot of lackluster unexciting work ahead of you, and few have the reserve to see it through. Cliche but true, "you can lead a horse to water..."

Personally I think GG is quite simply ahead of its time. As video games enter mainstream culture more and more we'll see more people play, then want to mod, then want to make. Within the last maybe 5 years or so, creating music via programs like FruityLoops and GarageBand has just entered the mainstream, and that's just MUSIC... not fully rendered dolby 5.1 three dee interactive dynamic entertainment, an order of difficulty higher (to be sure) than messing with bass lines and midi files.

I'd love to see more indie games released, more active, serious, high quality indie developers, more risks and their delicious rewards... but in the meantime I'm content to relegate myself to somewhat of a pioneer, if not part of the first wave of indie developers than no doubt part of the second, helping to bridge and encourage the third. The best way to do that, I feel, is for me to make games and show that you can do it and you can succeed.

#7 Joshua - I may not have been in the water as long as you, but I feel like we're paddeling the same kind of boat.

Keep your eyes above the waterline.

#8 @Chris: I think the name "BrokeAss Games" sums it up nicely, and without even the need for a byline :)

#9 Quite a while ago when I was fairly young, I thought it was a good idea to write a sci-fi story. My nieve mind told me that all I needed to do was get an idea (which I could contain in my mind in one go) and put that to paper. I went out and purchased a wad of ruled-paper and plenty of decent pens. Armed with what I thought would be all I needed to get my ideas into print, I began.

I was suprised to find a number of unexpected hurdles in my way. The first being that I hadn't actually thought out my story very well before committing to writing but what the hell, writing was *fun*. I was constantly revising passages and characters and ended up just rewriting stuff all the time without getting anywhere but I was having *fun*. The next problem was that I realised that I didn't actually understand the subject-matter as well as I had convinced myself that I did but I didn't want to compromise because my story was going to be so kick ass (*ahem*). I then discovered that writing a book in solitude was rather dull so I asked a friend to help me with it and we restarted another story with great enthusiasm and we initially had *fun* doing so.

A little later, to my suprise, I discovered that collaborating wasn't always as fun as it seemed it would be on the first day when ideas were flowing. This was getting hard and dull. All I wanted was a kick-ass story but I didn't want all these problems to stand in my way, I just wanted results and I wanted them *NOW*! bwaaarr!!!

Many years on, I fully understand where I went wrong; I was trying to write a huge story with lots of complex characters, plots and scenarios without any prior experience. I was trying to build a rocket-ship when I could barely build a paper-airplane and I saw all the books out there that I wanted my story to be like. My friend was enthusiastic only because he'd not tried writing before. When the problems appeared, all enthusiasm disappeared. I should've done a handful of short stories first to get me started and get some wins under my belt. Finishing something is such a buzz!!

The analogy here is, of course, purchasing an engine so that you can have *fun* writing a game. It isn't *fun* writing a game!!!! It's bloody hard work first with fun-icing layered on top.

The lack of good quality games doesn't suprise me as much as the lack of smaller games that should be everywhere with all the cool technology GG brings to the table. Surely everyone doesn't make the mistake of attempting a Half-Life rip-off? It's hard to believe that so many people would set their goals so high so that they can't achieve stuff.

I'd love to have every developer post to a list with a single genre game they'd love to write. Would the majority be FPS, platformer, RTS, parlour, shootem'up etc?

It ain't the tech or the documentation, no way. The machine gun could simply be lack of experience, too lofty goals, too much tech as a distraction, too much hobby-programming (playing with the engine). I guess nobody said you had to make 'products' with the engine when you can have so much fun just playing. Who knows what the motivations are when you purchase TGE/TSE/T2D etc.

There are exceptions of course (as mentioned above) and some great games are being produced.

Okay, it's late so I'm going to stop rambling now...

- Melv.

#10 @Josh
Fast Lane Carnage is made by a 7 persons team, and they all have a game development experience in previous jobs.

#11 I think Melv nailed it in the head. I've been sitting on my copy of the engine forever, and as I continued to think about all my *big ideas* over the years I realized that I had pie in the sky goals that realistically couldn't be achieved. Recently I bought 3d Game Programming All In One, which finally pulls together all the little dabbling I've done over the years. I've actually written a design document that satisfies my concept for a fun game, technically easy to produce given time, but... there's always a but...

It's hard to get started! I have a slew of reasons as to why, but I guess it boils down to being serious. I think that I'm finally getting it all straight in my head, and might actually buckle down here in the next couple weeks and get into the groove, but it's hard to do that first step. I guess I could equate it to writing a college level English paper. The first paragraph is freakin' hard to get started, but once you bust out that thesis and introduction the rest of the paper flows.

#12 I will not comment on others as I am fresh into the development scene, on a professional level. On an amatuer level I know the biggest source of problems I encountered was the team we had put together to work did not do so because of a combination of distractions and a surprise to the team that development was, indeed, hard and often times not enjoyable work. Distractions were understandable on the amatuer level - new video games coming out all of the time, MMORPGs sucking up people upon demo, etc. The surprising point was the members of the team that stopped working and or quit due to the fact that what we were doing was not "fun".

I think part of the problem I see from a very new perspective is people think making games is indeed this enjoyable experience that is easy to do. I mean really, video games are their passion they will love it, right ? But a quick exposure to everything it takes and finding out there is no shortcuts to hard work and following through with your dreams shows people they got into something that reqiures dedication not found in other places. I dont blame them at all either. For what few rare voices you have telling people up front "Game development is a hard labor of love that a lot fail at for " you have a thousandfold voices screaming at the top of their lungs "WOULDNT IT BE AWESOME TO OWN YOUR OWN ENGINE AND MAKE YOUR OWN VIDEO GAME !? IF I HAD MY OWN ENGINE I WOULD MAKE A GAME THAT KNOCK THE SOCKS OF " drowning out the voices of reason and experience.

But in that same light, really difficult to convince people that game development IS HARD and often times NOT FUN without throwing them in the middle of a fully expectant project and letting them feel the waves hit them. People convince themselves that no matter what amount of warning they have from those who know better that those voices "just dont have the compassion for video games that *I* have" and away they go convincing themselves again. Coming from a household of programming I knew before getting into it all exactely how serious a commitment development was going to be ...

... my turn at rambling over. Im gonna go do laundry.

Edit: whoooops! should have read the thread, Melv said about the same thing more elogantly, mwuhahaha!!

#13 Once you guys get that elusive "make-game" button working, you'll have Torque titles coming out your ears!

~Heh.

Sorry Pat, couldn't resist. =\

#14 Where's the beef?

In my BELLY!

Now give me a popsicle stick so I can regurgitate it out for ya!

(At least I didn't mention it coming out the other end, then my games would be...)

I've been 'withheld' from my workstation for about 3 months now, and unless something pushes this rotten, redneck community here to help me get it back, or I somehow come up with the $250 ransom on it, I think it's gone for good (if the bastard hasn't tossed it in the sound yet like he threatened).

Hmm... I could always ask if GG could send some lawers down here and sue the hell out of them for stolen software! They do have my copy of TGE after all.

I was just getting into TGE, too! :'(

If it wasn't for my lack of a system that could run TGE, I'd be working my ass off to make a game just like I was before it was stolen.

Oh well. I'm not giving up at least!

- Ronixus

#15 If you want more indy games, having decent art tools works. Ive been a TGE owner for years, and am still waiting for some decent tools that an artist can use.

It might just be my personal ignorance, but I dont like fighting my engine to see results.

#16 I feel the starters are decent but lacking, even the FPS starter you need to modify to have multiple weapons and I don't know any FPS with one weapon.

I think it would be fun for the community if you held a contest and had people re-work the starters into more complete formats. This gives the community a buzz to play with, gives GG a more solid foundation with thier starters, and if documented correctly would definatly drop alot of the harsh learning curve of torque.

Prizes could be simple perhaps a commercial license of TGE or some of the content packs or something.

A game engine is only as powerfull as the community that supports it, and as such Torque is one of the most powerfull engines I have ever seen however there needs to be a way to help the initial learning curve.

#17 3D is hard!
Amazing, really. Increase the number of dimensions by just 50%, and you might expect it to get 50% harder. But, Noooo....

#18 Since these are comments on a plan that is being blunt, I'm going to be blunt to, sorry if I offend anyone *shrug

Quote:but I dont like fighting my engine to see results.

Quote:A game engine is only as powerfull as the community that supports it

excuses (though I like your attitude David, much better than Myk).

You can throw all the excuses out the door, the window, whichever is your preference ;) The power is not in the tools, its in the user. The tools are simply tools, they don't make a game, they don't create anything, they simply do what you tell them to do. If other have used the same tools to make a couple AAA titles as well as some games that have been ported to Xbox live arcade, I highly doubt its the tools that are at fault if you cannot.

the Starters are meant to be starters, not entire games. If they were entire games then everyone would have the same game just moded. Also the art tools are fine, sure they could use some work, are they getting some needed love? yes! Can you get art into TGE without nearly as much trouble as people bitch about, another yes! So those who use excuses can pull their heads out of their asses, get to coding, making art assets, exporting, or keep on complaining for all I care, just means my games won't have competition.

"Where's the beef?"

I will answer that question in 3 months at IGC... what about you (to those that make excuses)? will you still be making excuses?

#19 Not stating to make an entire game just expand the starter a little, like 2 guns which gives people the ability to see how to load up as many as they want. The door mod for animating a door, alot of 3d shooters are indoors and have doors I understand the speed that tribes 2 was played that doors would of been a hinderance.

There little additions that could polish it off a bit better, The community factor is there, the help from the programmers of the engine are there but alot of people start this with little or no mod knowlage. Heck I remember modding duke nukem 3d years ago and had fun with it.

Some people do get frustrated with the art pipeline however it has gotten alot better. Cartography Shop has done wonders over what we had with quark and Torque Constructor is on it's way as well. Blender is a good free solution and last I checked Dreamer was looking into making it "feel" like 3ds max. Alot of the people who use the torque engine like myself cannot afford $3500 for 3dsmax so it limits our tools. Milkshape is good but inability to do vertice selection and modification in the 3d viewport is a hinderance.

Gamespace I would buy but I didn't care for the interface just didn't feel good and I read too much in thier forums that the bones system can hose at anytime killing tons of work.

The google search engine has made searching the site incredibally fast which helps just think there needs to be a hair more polish. If you take a look at the racing.starter it has incorperated waypoints, and checkpoints which when I first played with torque weren't there. Thats the racing polish it's not a full game but you have a really sturdy foundation to start with.

No offense was taken btw just giving further depth on my view.

I feel with the onslaught of the new art tools, a game like illumina on the horizon to show off the FPS all over again, Lore out of the hanger, and a little polish and some up to date tutorials to get everyone up to speed then there is no limit. Also I feel after the first TSE game ever launches if marketed correctly will drive business like crazy due to it's AAA quality.

#20 Well said @ King Tut