MS4 within a few months

#61 @Dave

WOW. I agree completely with everything single thing you wrote. I think that Garage Games might not be realising exactly how much of a carot they are dangling in front of everyone. TSE is so kick ass that it is probably close to waiting for sex having to wait for it to be complete. Yes, we have to respect Garage Games... but DAMN TSE is sexy!!

If I don't get grief over what I just wrote... I am going to be disappointed. :)

#62 @ Anton

Of course I agree with you. And I also agree with you that in a comunity , with a large number of members, for the small proce fo XXX$ , you can actually get more support than licensing the 5 figure Jupiter engine, or the 6 figure Doom 3 engine, due to the nature of comunity, the sheer number of licensees, and the number of discuttions thread (though many have really low technical standings).

In my oppinion, GG can very simple to put itself away from atacks on it;s policy on TSE and keep all the licensees happy. Really simple, since I seen during my life that ppl can be kept relativly happy feeding them very little.

What they should do is get away with their "when is done policy", and post a little info about what they think is cool in TSE, how they want to evolve it over the next few builds, and try to get out some estimates, at least say "wa are aiming for an april relase of those specific features". They should also try to synch internal CVs a bit more often, especially for critical bugs and performance fixes. Like, this issue for batches, I know from nov or dec last year there is a fix, but they did nothing to provide it to us.

Of course, this has the problem with slipping timeframes. But is better to have a slipped timeframe than not saying anything about the engine. It would require of course that GG make efforts to deliver according to the plans they have.

You know, its really small things GG could do to keep everybody happy. Very small, as I said ppl can be kept happy with very little. And always be sure the private forums of licensee are the primary medium on TSe devel, we dont want to dig in blogs, plans, or take hearsay about poss by GG employees on other forums.

You think , Anton, it would have been very hard for them to keep everybody happy ? I think not, but from arrogance or simply by ommsion , they dont do the right thing, Id say.


I also understand what you say with "If you can't be gracious to those being gracious to you... expect to being dismissed. You are kinda biting the hand that feeds you." But its really not me. Im not built that way.
Im the only judge of who is gratious to me. And maybe I had include GG there as well if they commited to public CVS the much needed TSE performance fixes and small bug fixes. I actually did not exepcted from them
Oblivion + Doom3 + Source in 5 months. Just a little curtoasy to ppl which gave them their trust and money for a EA. Trust is important. If I feel that they dont update the CVS often enough, even if stuff is already done, even if it's not stable or working 100%, how can I keep my trust in them ? How can I recomand to other ppl to buy TSE ? I cant. I will recomand them to buy other engines, where features are worked up faster, and their authors or companies have infintly better PR and they tell you what they want to do, and how they try to evlolve the engine, and they lissten to you ?

Take from example C4 engine, a engine which was already discussed in those forums in a flame war, the corporation behind it is infintely better than GG at PR. The author of the engine, Eric Lengyel is always on the forums, always helpping ppl, always responding to criticism on whats wron in the engine, very responsive to bug fixes, a lot of new features are realsed almost monthly or at 6 max 8 weeks. Thats a guy which understood the importance of PR. And he does that despite C4 have the best per-pixel lighting pipeline I seen in any indie engine. Given good art , it can rival comerical engines like FEAR or engine used in Cronichles of Riddick in rendering quality. It also have a very decent set of features, gampleay related, which is continously improved. TSE has the edge of it's terrain engine and the fact that it shipped MBU, but how long will be untill Terathon decides to put a powerfull lod terrain in C4, and a phsysics engine ? And then ? If C4 ships a game as well , and have better PR and listen better to its licensses , what do you think other ppl will choose ?

If Terathon corporation can comunicate with it;'s licensee on their needs on what and when should be done in engine, so can GG.

#63 @Dave

I 100% agree with you. You put it so nicely and suggestive in words. You are perfectly right man. As I said, GG is
a disaster at PR, and that would cost them very little to make it work. Ppl actually demand so little for their patience =)

Your example is totally accurate , and illustrates very well what GG should do.

#64 Damn this is a good thread. It's nice to have a real discussion that I think will actually amount to some positive change. Garage Games does listen and this is pretty important. I think that they will be more than happy to present update information knowing that it is being recieved by people who will not throw it in their face but rather who understand that flexibility in needed on the part of both devs and licensees. This is what being a community has over faceless corporation: communication. :)

#65 >> Damn this is a good thread.

This is only your merit. You where smart and tactfull enough to actually make this thread have value and
you made me explain the way I (and the minority which is not happy with GG )see things , instead of putting
them in a way which "makes ppl histerical" as Dave said. GG should be happy to have ppl like you in this community , which are open minded , intelligent and try to draw value from things that are on the edge of disaster.

You should also be an example for a big bunch of other members of this community, which are unfortunately light years behind your intellectual level.

#66 OK, so this thread inevitably spilled over onto IRC ... at which point I realised something ...

I am arguing from a professional developer's point of view. I don't know what Dan's point of view is, but a lot of the people who are complaining about TSE seem to be people who dont really care about shipping games and just want something shiny to play with.

Clearly, the two points of view are entirely different and not in any way relevant to the other. Thus nobody is going to agree with the other side.

Just agree to disagree and let this thread die.

T.

#67 @Dan

Thanks.

And don't take offense to Tom B's 'shiny toy' response. He's a good guy. He's just a little weary of complaints... valid or not. He hangs out in IRC and gets the brunt load of BS that passes thru there. Take his agree to disagree as his way of saying 'it's cool'. Even if he swears it isn't.

#68 @Tom Bampton

>> I am arguing from a professional developer's point of view.

Do you think your the only professional developer ? I think It;s a mistake to generalize. You are arguing in the first place as "you" and second only as a "proffesional developer". I would also agree with you about the shinny stuff, if the rendering tech in TGE would not be severly outdated today. Heck, whats wrong on having better
rendering tech ? Most engines out there kick the shit out of Torque at this chapter. The value of TSE so far is TGE, because thats the underlieing technology which "ships" the game. But Im not debating TGE , but TSE set of features.

TSE stands for Torque Shader Engine. "SHADER" . Implictly GG recognized that TGE renderig tech is outdate, and they need a new product sporting the ease of use of Torque, and a moder, shader driver renderer. You see, they did that to reamin competitive on the market. They even asked more money on this.

So, Im argiung from the point of view of a "me" then from the point of view of "a professional devloper" and thrid as a "customer" that while TGE tech ships games, TSE layer is what I payed for as well. That means ..

#69 @Anton:

Quote:The game I am working would need TSE with lighting and shadows completed and it would need it within a month. I could sure use knowing when it's coming.

I think this could be one reason for GG not to give out estimates though. In your case I'm sure you'd understand if they said we should have shadows and xyz implemented and in CVS within the month that the time estimates might slip, get put back and end up months away as priorities shift.

There are probably plenty of the people in the community though that would take such things as gospel. The moment shadows were not in within the month the forum posts and complaints would begin demanding to have features we were "promised".

Personally I would only consider using TSE for a production game if I was sure I was capable of adding all the missing features myself. If I need cross platform support then I wouldn't use TSE unless I knew I could fully implement the OpenGL side of the renderer. IF and only IF I knew I had those skills then I'd start using TSE and perhaps get a nice time saving suprise when GG implement the feature for me and release it. But at least I would know if they do not, I can add it within the time constraints I have.

I'm all for knowing whats coming in an upcoming release (albeit without dates) and a weekly or every few weeks announcment (or even just posting into a TSE updates thread) what has been done would be nice.

In response to this thread in general, I think complains about a companies policies are hit and miss at best, unless we work at that company we've no idea of any internal circumstances GG are facing. They may have paying clients requiring new tech or specific changes to the engine that would take priority for a time. Sure there may be problems with workflow that causes products to take longer than they should, but the only people that can judge that are those working with or within GG.

TSE is EA and GG have never given firm dates as to when the engine will be complete. There have been hints at when they want the engine to be finished, but what they want and what is deliverable based on changing circumstances is another matter. Anyone that buys an EA product should accept that the product may not be usable until it reaches a final release and that it could take many years to do so. Those that are unwillingto accept that should return to the normal practices of waiting until the first version of a product ships before buying in.

#70 @Gary Preston

That's why I can't consider TSE for development of a game being released this soon. I don't have enough time to implement the features even if I wasn't implementing them in the kind of scalable way GG is. And that is exactly what Jeff Tunnell says about whether to make your game with TGE or TSE. :)

By the way, your Tetris Tutorial rocks!! I loved it!! It sure helped me this week as I took over finishing work on a Tetris like game made with TGB that I could tell was obviously based off of your tutorial. I read thru your tutorial and learned how to make a game like that and was able to go from there to add on functionality. Thanks so much for contributing that to the Torque Developer Network. It kicked ass!!

#71 A not so gentle reminder that carrying on the idiocy into the IRC channel will get you booted from the server. If you cannot have an adult conversation, keep it off my server.

This has been a PSA.

#72 Yes. You ban ppl because there is anything else you can do. A reminder ? You are pathethic. powerfull bshind a keyboard you are, like Yoda :P You are banning ppl because you dont a support any other oppinion then yours.

#73 I suddenly feel like I wandered into an anti-mod dispute on GameFAQs.

#74 And it was going so well for a few hours.

After all of the effort I put into trying to make this thread become productive and the fantastic posts by many people about a very real and important topic... you guys pop in here without reading what's going on and start it all up again... while calling Dan unadult and unprofessional. Pot meet Kettle.

#75 There was an issue on IRC related to this thread, resulting in a warning kick from the server. If you have other issues with IRC, please email me, I tend to agree that it at times is not the friendliest of places. But complaining about it without asking someone who can fix it, to fix it, is just as bad as contributing to it.

And the point of my post was:

Do not start a flame war here, then jump on to IRC and start the same flame war there, and expect to be treated kindly or well. I have better things to do than chase down european proxies and kickban aliases. If you want to act like a jerk, find another place to do it. And that goes for everyone, not just this guy. I fully expect EVERYONE to be an adult. Issues with IRC should be taken up with Max Gaming staff, specifically me or Adrian. Our contact details are in our profiles. Present a compaint in a civil manner and you can be certain I will review it on it's merits.

#76 The issue is that noone can hear one speaking against GG whithout everything going to flames. Even GG employees, such a Matt[GG] preted on IRC that for example "Atlas terrain is all Ben Garney" (ChunkLod, for gods sake, is Tatcher ulrich ) , "TSE is all next gen" , while so far I seen nothing really next gen inside. If ppl , even employees of GG which works as coders are so missinformed, that Atlas genuinly Ben Garney, what can you expect from the big bunch of ppl ?

I agree that I have to work on the way I present stuff, and at my own PR skills. They suck. On the other hand, a flame war takes always 2 persons. I wonder if you can cosnider a flame war somone telling "TSE is not next gen" "Atlas is not 100% Ben Garney.

#77 Nevermind. Sigh.

#78 -edit-
Deleting your response while I am responding makes me look silly, but I'll let this reply stand. You know what you said, so you can read into my reply whatever.

@Anton:
I'll note that this is NOT an email. But whatever.

I don't know what you expect me to do about it if you don't tell me it's a problem. The next time you have a problem, tell me, I will do my best to correct it. Telling me or the world that "some people" are "mean" isn't getting anyone anywhere.

So, I'll say it again. If you have a problem with someone, or some group, you have to say something to me or Adrian. We're the only two with the authority (please note I did not say "power") to actually try and correct it. Bitching about it here won't do anyone any good. Here, it's just more forum noise where there is already too often more noise than signal. Otherwise, I cannot help you. I am not going to retroactively try and "figure out" who has been mean to whom, that's also a waste of my time. If nobody complains, I am going to assume everything is peachy. Nobody has complained for months. So I assumed everything was peachy. Funny how that works. I only step in long enough to get rid of the obvious irritants, people who steal Torque, people who refuse to behave, people who tell me to STFU when I recommend caution in a conversation. If there is a problem as you have noted, and it's a new problem, perhaps you can help me moderate it, if it seems to be a problem with non-impartial moderators? Please, take it up with me privately.

Immediately after our little episode with Dan, are productive and interesting discussion spontaneously broke out about game development. Funny how that happens on a gamedev channel.

#79 @Dan
I believe you are confusing theory and implementation. If you want to talk theory, then we have Foley and Van Dam to thank for at least putting a lot of it in one place back in the day (the vast majority of it existing well before they compiled it in encyclopedic fashion). If you are talking theory, then it wasn't Ben (and even Ulrich was inspired by others). But if it comes to implementation into the Torque schema, then it was mostly Ben (and Brian). Taking a theoretical approach and applying it is different than hooking into a DLL and claiming the DLL as yours, which is essentially the argument you seem to be putting forward. I was not in the channel, but that's how you're coming across here.

But you are inaccurate about speaking "against" GG without going to flames. Rather, you should amend it to be "I cannot speak against GG without everything going to flames" rather than speaking for a nebulous whole.

EDIT: added the @Dan since there were posts between ours.

#80 If all goes to plan, we'll be working with TSE in 2006.

I am so stoked!

-Josh Ritter
Prairie Games, Inc