Second thoughts about Torque..

#21 The main reason I can see there being a small BigCommercialRelease:TorqueDevelopers ration is that alot of the young, ambitious teen developers (Like Myself) Can't be bothered and go off to do other things.
For others, Game Making is something they do, not do as a job.

#22

Quote:
What i meant really is since there is a pre-packed FPS demo starter for Torque and it would obviously be the easiest way to go at first, how come none has made a complete good looking and good playing SINGLE PLAYER FPS game that makes Garage Games so proud of it.

Honestly I think you answered your own question there. Why go the path of least resistance in the first place? There's no challenge in making an FPS, its been done many times and the engine is setup for it by default.

When I first joined this community, coming up on 3 years soon, I noticed that there was a natural aversion to the FPS. Varying reasons were that they had been done to death, that there was less challenge involved as it was there by default, but the most significant reason back then seemed to be simply because the engine was already well known as an FPS engine. The majority of the community wanted to show off the fact that it was more than that.

#23 Honestly i think that the reason that there was a natural aversion to the FPS is because people couldnt do it with Torque. They all thought it is so easy, but for some reason it wasn't.
And please lets not be kidding ourselfs, if you think that the current Torque FPS starter is a complete engine <LOL>> to be capable of leting you make a single player FPS so quickly and easy that actualy people was imbarassed to do it because it would be cheap and it wouldnt be a challenge for them, oh friend then you have much more to learn. Find another excuse to cover Torque's weaknesses.

Guys i'm not the enemy, i like Torque and that is the engine that i'll use to develop my ideas, but the truth has to be said. Actualy i feel more like i'm stuck with Torque. I've seen so many people complaining in this forum because they couldnt make a single player FPS, and you tell me that they were avoiding it because it was obviously so easy and set up by default. And at the end of the day, i though people is using Torque for fun and as a learning process to develop dreams and ideas. So you tell me that all those hundreds and thousands of people registered with Torque over the years, none had a little dream about making a single player FPS. Well then i feel like i dont belong in this planet...lol.
They changed a few folders around and they called it FPS starter, they moved some other folders around and they named it Racing Starter or something.

Yeah right

#24 First of all, I'm not making excuses to cover Torque's weaknesses, I'm plenty familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. You asked for a reason why there have been little to no FPS Torque games released and I gave it to you.

Yes, "setup by default" was a bit of exaggeration, and starter.fps is just that, a starter. How about we go over the basics of what is needed for an FPS? Collision, in there. Player characters, in there. Weapons, in there. Inventory system, in there. Particles, in there. AI, not there. Terrain, in there. Obstacles, in there. The basics are there, in theory the only thing one would need is more content and game logic and they would have a full FPS. The complexity of one's vision and experience with the engine then becomes the main hindrance. Also note that nowhere did I say that it would be easy, just less of a challenge, and that would be assuming little changes to the source.

As far as what those that bought Torque over the years intended to do with it I can't say. I guess I should have said vocal majority as one can never tell what the quiet ones in the back are up to. I personally had no intentions of making an FPS whatsoever, I made a party game. Whether I'll ever make an Indie FPS game in the future, who knows. Only if a really great idea for came to me. Currently I am working on an FPS-ish project, but that's another matter unto itself.

I guess in the end the idea I was trying to express was the fact that people around here are Indies, and Indies don't follow the norm.

#25 Hi Scott,

yeah the "excuses to cover Torque" was a bit general sorry.
I totally agree with what you say like i do with most of the guys in this post. Good points guys, i havent forgot you, i didnt have the time to respond to everyone.

Let me clear a bit something.
I think there is a small confusion in my whole post and i'm sure is because of my english. Guys i was reffering more to a Single player FPS with plot and stuff and objectives (not MP objectives but SP objectives), that's why i had it with capital letters somewhere above. And Scott you very correctly said that there is Collision, Player characters, Weapons, Inventory system, Particles, Terrain, Obstacles and many more good things i agree. You also said that there is no AI in there which is true (although like we all know there is some very good code for Guard unit..and more...) which makes things look even better and more positive.

Now, having in mind the lack of AI in Torque i just asked that: since Torque has all the above goodies and there is AI missing , why none has done a SINGLE Player FPS. Is the upcoming AI pack the solution to everything?
but it didint come out excactly like that, sorry. People took it differently.

Anyway i got the answear i think guys. I'll definately stay with Torque, i never said the opposite.
And when TSE is complete there is a great future for all, for sure. I cant wait.

Good luck to you all.

Exones

#26

Quote:And please lets not be kidding ourselfs, if you think that the current Torque FPS starter is a complete engine <LOL>> to be capable of leting you make a single player FPS so quickly and easy that actualy people was imbarassed to do it because it would be cheap and it wouldnt be a challenge for them, oh friend then you have much more to learn.

no ones kidding you Exones. the fact is, anyone could take the demo missions, add some new textures and models, and call it a completely original game. anyone experienced with torque could build a simple quake or unreal style shooter in a little over a month, given the art and sound content.

but it's not so much matter of embarassment, as much as it's integrity. if someone were to just take the engine as-is, add some models for the characters and vehicles, and swap out the main menu graphic, some people would say you haven't really created a game, but simply modded torque. there was a big debacle on one of the "Dev Shots" blogs pertaining to this exact issue a couple weeks ago:

www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1213

some people felt this game was too similar to the original torque demo mission to be considered a real standalone game. there's no denying that it's a complete single-player game with story, characters, and missions, but some would feel like the developer is trying to trick people into buying a modded version of tribes 2 because what he did to develop it was too straightforward and easy and anyone could do it.

#27 Exones, there is no deep AI in TGE 'cause, one, TGE started as a codedump from Tribes 2, a multiplayer FPS/TPS game, and also because there are no blackbox game AI middleware solutions on the market. None. All of the middleware solutions require to do a lot of work to get your game where you want it to be : they only give you tools to craft AI for your game needs (and some solutions give you lots of tools).
And a lot of work went into creating somewhat generic solutions that could be leveraged in as many situations as possible.
GG was tiny when it started, and contrary to what people think, they've listened to the wishes of people : people clamored for shaders and what comes with supporting programmable gpus, and they tasked some of their scarce manpower ressources on getting TSE going...
But graphics systems are ultimately very different from physics or AI : they're purely a representation of what's going on in the game, and consequently you can build a powerful, flexbile graphics system, scenegraph based or not, that will allow the eye candy peeps (both coders and artists) to do their thing....
I'm inclined to say that it's a good thing there isn't more AI, or a "catering to hype" physics system out of the box in TGE (and other tge based gg products), because otherwise, a lot of people would just use what's there, and we'd get games with the same behaviour, as everyone would just use the stock behaviours for the most part : I personally think AI systems do a bit better as middleware, since most people don't expect plug and play AI for their games. They obviously want to tailor behaviours to their liking, etc.
Whether physics tend to be used in a more blackbox fashion (to disastrous results for the most part) : you plug in your objects with their parameters and let the system resolve everything for you...
When you leverage it properly, that can be pretty cool, but even with those "blackbox" physics engines there is still a lot of work to be done...
AI is very game specific (and shouldn't be called AI, but that's another debate), and should be treated as such : ultimately, it will give a lot more persona to your gameplay than graphics, since in its widest definition, it's the core of single player videogame gameplay.
Now, GG is not Havok, Kynogon (Kynapse AI Middleware) or Engenuity Technologies (AI Implant middleware), and although they might be approaching or even surpassing the number of employees of some middleware companies, the price they asks are just not in the same league : we're talking something like 50k or more per title (sometimes per title/per platform) for the stuff I've mentioned.
Definitely not GG's pricing, even for commercial licensing....
And to mention of my pet peeves again : the Unreal engine doesn't give you AI or Physics when you license it. If you want to use the Novodex functionality for Unreal3 (or Havok in 2 and 2.5), you have to license those separately, understood ?
Now, why noboby has made a single player FPS yet ? It has nothing to do with TGE, as using what comes out of the box, it's a pretty straight forward thing to build a shooter. It has do with content, content and content : single player experience is a different ballgame from doing a multiplayer fps or tps, and TGE is certainly not hindering you from making one, quite the contrary, as you have most of the basis stuff taken care of, and if you're comtemplating doing an indie FPS in this day and age, you have a competent team with you, both coding and content production wise, so there are no problems there, except getting the game done, of course :)
Hmmmm, could you be saying you're looking for the mythical and ever elusive Big Red Shiny Button that says Make My Game on it ?
Well, that button doesn't exist, and hopefully never will (more crappy, generic games anyone ?), but you can get close to it by financing your own development and hiring apt people to make your game.