Informal survey: reason you got interested in Torque?

#21 A little of all of 'em. I got Torque because I wanted to make a particular game, and Torque was well suited to it. And as it turned out, getting Torque worked out very well for my desire to make games...

#22 A.
After a couple of years hobbling something of my own (with no real end in sight) I was happy to find V12, er, Torque.

The real epiphany came when I realized, am I trying to build a game or an engine?

Looking forward to TSE!

#23 Some of B, some of C

I still remebering visiting GG.com shortly after it first launched and thinking "That's nice...but what does this site have that flipcode doesn't?" If I recall correctly, at that point they just had some vague promises of providing technology for the independent game developer.

I'd seen many a promise about game development technology and very few follow throughs so I wasn't holding my breath.

Shortly after the site got re-launched in early 2001, I came back and started to read the forums. I saw that actual proffessional game developers (Jeff, Rick, and Tim) were participating and responding so I got involved. Before I knew it I ended up as one of the first Associates and was helping them prepare V12 for launch.

Prior to that I had developed a small OpenGL engine and had done some light modding of Half-Life. I planned to port the game I had developed on my engine over to V12 b/c it was a very nice fit (Scorched Earth clone in 3D) and also added multiplayer capabilities. Before I attempted that I got involved with Phil and a few other guys who were developing a hoverbike racing game on TGE to get our feet wet with the technology. We actually had a fairly fun demo going before divorce rocked my life. I dropped out of the community completely.

After a long while (almost a year) I began reading the Realm Wars forums and participating in the game design there. A few months later I began to actively develop games again, though I was looking at modding the Unreal Engine and expanding my old engine. Frustrated by the limitations in the design of my old engine in regards to multiplayer, I sat down to design a full-fledged multiplayer engine. As I was working on it, I realized that I was drawing heavily on the networking designs of Torque (it was renamed during my absence =) and that I was ultimately just recreating TGE. It was a revelation! So, I dropped what I was doing and dove back into Torque development. I spent a while looking around at the different needs of the community and decided that I would work to improve the interior rendering (I had done a little work in the area before in my engine). That was more than a year ago and I am on the verge of unleashing the fruits of those labors =)

I also developed a fun little prototype game last August and took it with me to IGC. Bam! BoomBall was a huge hit and is now under development with some really cool guys =)

I have walked in many different roles of game development over the years: from engine programming to network programming to tools programming to level design to modelling to game design and to gameplay programming. I was asked once long ago by a group of interviewers from Monolith and Lithtech whether I would rather build the next great engine or the next great game and I have flip-flopped back and forth many times. For me it is a mixture: building tech appeals to my engineering side but building games is just plain fun. I enjoy that currently I don't have to make the distinction. I can do both when I want =)

So what does the future hold for me? Well, in less than two years I will be moving to Eugene and I plan to be doing this stuff fulltime =) That is how much Torque and Garage Games has influenced me!

#24 D)

I had previously played Tribes 2 and was stoked to find out that the engine that powered this awesome game was going to be released under a very reasonably priced license. So, when V12 (the previous name for the Torque engine) was released, I bought it. At the time, I was working with a friend on a 3D engine of our own (Nascent). We had written and re-written the engine many times. The current version of Nascent had lots of jazzy features (Q2 model/animation support, multi-texturing, pseudo-bump mapping, an embedded TCL scripting engine with full access to the C++ core components, a ROAM based terrain engine, game recording and playback, a Limited Physics Engine, Billboards, multi-level collision detection, hierarchical view-culling, dynamic render scheduling, multiple camera support, yada yada yada?). The problem was that even with all the features we had implemented, there were many more we needed to make Nascent? a well-rounded and functional game engine. To be honest, we didn?t have a real game plan or a concrete feature list. We often added things because they were cool or we thought we might use them. Torque offered a fresh start, and the opportunity to focus on game design and content creation instead of the underlying technology.

[HOW]EdM

#25 D) It is Mac compatible !

#26 More interesting stuff. :) Keep 'em coming.

#27 A and C

I purpused the license and put it on a shelf for 1 year :)
Was mostly making mods and maps and mutators for the unreal
engine and some others.
People really liked what i was doing and asked me do stuff to other games to.
So i decided to make my own game ,because i got limited in what i was doing with textures,sound,weapons and moore.
I really think i did the right choice i tried other engines but this community + engine is the best out there .
So now im on my way making my game and hope for the best.

#28 Interessting stories and lot passion in here.

A

Since the age of 13 (pfiou, I have 38 !), I always dreamed to do a game but never had the time to do it having always lot of work with self graphic publicity company and beeing a singer-musicien. I remember at first, having bought a little graphic program on my XT, I think it was called Deep Paint Deluxe or 3D paint deluxe, something like this, and I had made some graphic with it with the intention to do a game. I was dreaming to do a game where you see the ordinary world really big, like if you where really small, travelling into it. What is funny is that this is exactly what we are now doing as a game, except that the concept and gameplay is now really more elaborated :). So TGE and GG give me the chance to make a dream come true :).

I tryed and search every engine that exist on the net to find the right one, with the right tools for me. I had seen Torque and was "saliving" at it, but I tought it was too hard for me because I was a really novice programmer. I finally decided to buy it because it was the best looking one, plus you had the codes to play and learn with, and having the impressive names behing GG had made me feel secure :). I then discovered with TORQUE, that my past experiences with programming had followed me and that I was not that bad at programming and that I liked that much. I have to say that the ressources helped me learn much (I think I tryed them all, hehe). I was taking the time to understand what the guy that had made the ressource was doing and I ended working in almost every parts of TGE, making the engine more and more confortable to look at and beeing able to do my own little things and modifications. I was lacking on some maths thou, but my little brother Eric took the hat of the programmer and did it impressivly fast, doing everything we need, so I returned to my main job, the graphics, models, level, etc, and our first game is now almost completed.

So, to resume, what makes us choose TGE is the GG guys that made this engine, the powerfull tools that come with it even if they was hard to learn without much docs at that time, the power I'm feeling when I'm in the engine, the torque scripts, the codes to be able to modify it to fit our games, the great community. And I don't talk of the ridiculous price to get it : 100$ ONLY ! It's less expensive then other low level commercial engine where you don't even see the source codes !

#29 I'm definitely an "A".

As a hobbyist game creator I've been working on a game engine in my spare time for nearly ten years now. It's been a very on and off, slow process and the trouble is with the low time commitment I've got to the point where I'm just tracking technology changes and never getting to write the actual game itself. When I saw torque I realised it could solve 80% of my problems in one hit.

The one issue I had with it was that I never intended to release my game as a commercial proposition and the old licensing wasn't very compatible with a free game release. The revamped licensing seems much better for people like me.

Now that TSE is out I've grabbed it too - so now I get funky shader graphics for almost no extra effort! Gotta love it...

#30 D: I got the engine mainly as a training vehicle; to learn more about game programming, to get a chance to see the various algorithms I've read about in action, to get a feel for what's involved in 3d art production, and to understand 3d representation.
A: One day... soon.
B: Perhaps, although South Africa is rather lean on gamedev companies.
C: Community and GG staff are an unexpected bonus.

#31 Interesting. So far, by my count, there are about 16 A's, or people who primarily got interested in the engine in order to make their own game.

Then there are about 5 B's (countine me) who wanted to use it to learn/build from in order to break into the industry. There are about 4 more B-like people who wanted to use Torque to learn from, or to build tech on, but not necessarily in order to break in to the industry. So, 9 in that uber-category of general tech programming/learning.

Then there are a few C's and unclassifiable D's. Neato!

#32 A and B for me.

I found this place my senior year of high school and was instantly hooked (I'd been wanting to make a game for years). I'd say I've accomplished both of those goals, I've learned a hell of a lot, built a strong portfolio, and I've made a game :D

I LOVE YOU GG!!!

#33 D then A

Im primarily an application developer. I've been developing and maintaning "business" softwares since 1992. I believe I've done the whole business cycle and the last 3 years, I've been leading a team in developing an Object Oriented Multi-dimensional Database server (its done and works great).

To relieve stress, I've been doing non-business applications during my free time. I actually started with Genesis3D before I stumbled on Torque. So its primarily D for me then A.

#34 Mainly A), but also liked the fact how the Tribes games were and thought man if only I could get a hold of the this engine I could create something really cool and a friend told me about TGE, I looked at the price, got my self a summer job, and then finally bought a license back in 2002! :)

#35 Mostly A, a little D.

I began, as many others, by making my own engine. I was not a very skilled programmer back then, and alot of the stuff was way over my head, but I got some impressive results. However, at that point, I didnt want to spend years writing an engine, I wanted to make games! And that's exactly what Torque seemed perfect for.

I bought it the day it came out (as V12), and have been working with it since. I've changed projects once, a little over a year ago, and while we've gotten alot done, my main goal has kind of changed from "making games" to learning. I've used torque as a platform to develop and test some various AI techniques.

I designed a pathfinding system completely unlike anything I've ever encountered so far, and it seems to work rather nicely. :) Right now, I'm working on low level AI scripts to get some more advanced behavior out of my bots. Of course, I've still been plugging along at my game (which relies heavily on the AI code), and overall, it's been a great experience so far.

Hopefully, I'll come out of all of this $100 short, with years of first hand experience, and maybe even a fun game. :)

#36 It's tough trying to break into the 'biz' as a designer. It seems there's hardly anything out there to help you unless you carry around a fat wallet. An artical in Next Generation Magazine led me to what seemed as my best option at the time, DarkBasic.

But something seemed awkward about DB so I decided to do my own searching.

Investigating different engines and other tools, I came accross the TGE and Garagegames and now I'm stuck. It was so appealling, at the time I thought that DarkBasic was my best option untill I researched the capabilities of Torque. From the extensive graphical capabilities and full code, to the intuitive community and resources, not to forget the awesome netcode, it turned out Torque was exactly what I needed.

And once I found out that those at GG were more concerned with presenting killer games instead of making an extra buck, and that the price of TGE came with a chance to really release a game, my path was set.

Now, in the next few days, I will see what I can do with TGE!

- Christopher Dapo

#37 I'd have to answer A and B.
I've always wanted to create a top-notch game/sim. I've been a programmer/sysAdmin for many years and it seems I've always done work for "the other guys" or for my users. And while that can be fulfilling to a certain extent, it wasn't enough.
So,I did the research, checked out a number of possible engines and dev enviroments, and Torque came out on top in all catagories. Multiplatform, cost effective, fantastic support in the TGE community, scripting similar to C/C++ which I'm fluent in, modifiable source code. The TGE will be my weapon of choice!
I believe the Internet affords small operators (indies, if you will) unique opportunities to create and market their goods that don't exist anywhere else. I just want my piece of the action.

To all involved with the TGE, creators and users alike, thank you for your vision, dedication and hard work! Count me in the ranks of a very satisfied TGE user!

#38 A) for me. Ever since my Dad started selling Xerox computer systems (no HD, 8" floppy, text only monitor, minimal RAM counted in K) I've been working on games, if only for my brothers and I. This included the TI44/9a and later the early IBMs.

I tried several game engines a few years ago, including WildTangent, and finally settled on Torque. I really am not sure that even if I were offered a job with a game company, that I'd take it. I simply love the freedom of making the game I want. OTOH, I'm sure it'd be some valuable experience.

Torque is a lot of fun. I've been cautioned to look to newer engines to keep up-to-date, but with the advent of TSE I'll probably hang with it and see where it takes us. I've just put too much time into TGE at this point not to. :)

-Eric F

#39 Top secret. I wiil tell ya in 6 months ;-)

#40 C it was an idea ffrom the leader of my NWN guild we were gonna make a mod but he came up with of the idea of makeing our own game in tourqe but plans didnt work out i still maintained interest but dont havbe the money for it