Will TSE/TAT/TGEA ever be completed?

#41 There's nothing wrong about questioning when a program or item will be finished, especially when people have paid in advance for it.

#42 Milestone 4 was just released and it seems like you guys that are complaining want a completed milestone every month. Well why not I say. Maybe GG should put a milestone out every month JUST GIVE US THE GARBAGE and a hacked together milestone that possibly will have over 5 million bugs or so. Me personally, I would rather have quality work that has has been tested, so I have less work to do.

#43 Your sarcasm is really not warranted..

i believe you misinterpret my meaning.. i am NOT expecting a milestone each month working or not etc.. i am simply asking for some sort of schedule or timeframe of when i should start looking to check for future updates, and what might be contained in them so that i do not duplicate functionality etc..

it's not unreasonable to expect that i can look forward to a milestone every six months for example, depending on what is to be implemented in them..

right now, i have no idea at all of when or what to expect, other than i am a registered early adopter.. but what exactly does that mean? that what i currently have is good enough? if that is indeed what it means, then i'll get to work adding the functionality that we need.. if that's not what it means, then what might i expect?

that's all that my question is about..

so far all i see are a lot of responses about folks being complainers and how folks should be grateful etc etc .. and i believe we are grateful, but that does not change the fact that some of us would like to know what's going on.. not to hold it over GG's head etc, but so that we might make internal decisions about our own milestones etc..

TGE's great and all, but it is totally unsuitable for our purposes.. TGEA on the other hand, is..

should we start creating our own editors? or will that be in the next milestone? and if so, roughly how long? if it's going to be in a relatively short amount of time, we'll focus on something else..

these are all valid questions especially since TorqueX is around the corner..

#44 You guys really want to try and work out in the games industry. You are spoilt in many ways, because normally game developers have to BUILD thier engine first AND THEN make thier games.

If you dont think that people have to modify all of those engines youre talking about. Why is it that Valve had to switch from Quake to Quake 2? Or 3DRealms have to switch from Quake 3 to Unreal?

3DRealms are STILL adding stuff to unreal engine 3.. thats right.. theyre MODIFYING an engine they must have spent near a million dollars on.

Doesnt this give you pause for thought? Doesnt it make you feel like actually engines shouldnt be considered "final packages"??

#45 Sorry, bit of a rant there. But the principle is still valid. Dont expect final code for your game, or even applicable to your game. Expect to have to do work, even on the core of the engine. This is no different than multi-million dollar engines.

#46 I do agree about the asset pipeline though :)

#47 @Phil

None of us here are 3DRealms or Valve. Unreal3 isn't marketed toward indie devs either.

I would argue that people should expect a game engine to "work". You say 3DReams is STILL adding stuff to Unreal3, that is the case. However, they certainly aren't trying to fix the engine to compile. They are adding new functionality that they desire for their game.

I think we should be able to expect the engine to work without modifying code, as long as we aren't trying to add additional functionality. I am by no means saying TGE/TGEA is broken, I just feel that it isn't feature complete. When I purchased TSE EA I thought that their would be WYSIWYG editors for terrain. That has been scrapped for now. I don't know what to expect.

#48

Quote:I am by no means saying TGE/TGEA is broken, I just feel that it is feature complete.

I assume you mean "isn't feature complete"...

In which case I would agree as well... it isn't feature complete. Then again it isn't supposed to be feature complete and we let you know it wouldn't be feature comlete yet, this is in fact an Early Adopter.

#49 @Matthew

I must have edited that right before you posted. I was mostly referring to the features that where said to be included that where wiped off of the MS list. To me having the terrain editor wiped off was a huge let down.

#50 @Matthew

To be fair, MS4 was announced as feature complete.

#51

Quote:To be fair, MS4 was announced as feature complete.

True, but the reference to the engine being "feature complete" (at least as I've seen it in this thread) is that the engine is feature complete and bug/problem free, when clearly it is still in Early Adopter and though it was announce as "feature complete" it was clearly stated that there still are issues and bugs to be fixed.

Brian Ramage's Plan Talking about MS 4

Quote:TGEA is coming along well, and we're feature complete at this point. From now on
its a cycle of bug fixing, testing and feedback until we're done.

#52 I guess I just feel like features were taken off just to reach a milestone sooner. The editor being removed was huge. So while TSE is now "feature complete" as in it has all of the features it will have for release, it is feature incomplete for what was advertised when I purchased it.

I don't necessarily blame GG for the loss of some features. Sometimes in life all of us get overzealous and promise things/features that just aren't possible with our limited time/resources. I just feel a little put out. As someone who is more of a level designer than a programmer, my uses for Torque technology are getting thin. I have always felt that Torque is definately a programmer's engine. Yes I know...game engines are for programmers. However, more than just programmer's need to work with the engine.

I don't want to have to export import export import to get the terrain working how I need it. Real time terrain corrections would save me a big headache. I chose Torque for it's ability to support great terrains. That is no longer a plus...

#53 I don't see a whole lot right now in MS4 that would hold a project back. The only problem I have with it currently is the atlas pipeline, which is pretty cryptic and takes way too much trial and error to get a good looking terrain. It's still workable though, just takes some time. Rest of the stuff is pretty simple to add.

I do agree though on the communication. Right now it seems like next to nothing has happened in about 3 months, CVS has gone down, and people are confused because there isn't much chatter on what is going on behind the scenes.

#54 The only thing that would make me feel better about the wait would be DX10 support. I could only wish...

#55 Screw DX10, I want Atlas tools and I want them... In a fairly realistic and reasonable timeframe!
No rush, The sooner the better though, I'm half way through creating the rest of my game systems and it'd be nice to create terrain that will compile properly to show it off ;)

#56 @Mincetro - The Atlas tools would certainly be nice if/when we get them. I think DX10 will be awesome though. Take a look at the Crysis DX10 video over at ign. It looks awesome.

#57 Depending on your target audience, DX10 is a waste for a lot (most) indie projects. No older hardware or previous OS support, and most indie projects won't be be pushing the GPU hard enough to make it worthwhile. It would be nice to see, but I don't see it as being a high priority.

#58 I think this thread is a replica of something that appears every 6 months or so, about as long as it takes to get a critical mass of new people using the engine.

The continuing problem with GG is communication, *not* how much work they do or don't do on the engine. The last time this happened it was acknowledged by the staff in forums and in their plans/blogs. Then we had a little flurry of stuff to let us all know what was happening, and then it all died away again. As a result (and nobody should be surprised) lots of people are frustrated again.

I can't concieve that GG are working without a solid plan that includes at least major tasks and milestones. So what would be the harm of sharing it with the customers? OK, it would hold a gun to your head, but so what? Every professional in the software industry has the same gun to their head.

Communication is the key, if there are regular updates and now and again you say "Sorry lads, this bit was harder than we thought, it will take a few more weeks" then I'm pretty sure 95% of your user base would be behind you. But a continuing vacuum only creates good old FUD, and these threads keep rearing their ugly heads.

I don't want to dilute my message above about communication, but when people raise legitimate questions it would be nice if the fanboys and endless horde of "associates" didn't tell them to shut up and be good children and to just mindlessly obey. Hijacking threads with loads of "Just be grateful" messages doesn't answer any questions and only breeds resentment. Strangely enough most of us are adults and only ask questions when we feel we need an answer.

All the best,

Dave.

#59 Prolly MS4 is "feature complete" but lighting in this engine is terrible , does not work on all objects, Atlas is unlit , I never seen uglier and more aliased shadows, and , above all lighting is *slow* . TSE can still be a good product, if somebody will get its lighting system fixed so it works decently. And fix those very ugly ugly shadows.


Now , Carlisle will want you to beleive that Unreal 3 engine is roughly in the same state like TSE, with partialy working lighting solutions ... and 3D Realms have to "add stuff" to it. Thats fine, but Mr Carlisle should understand we dont care about Unreal 3, not about 3D Realms.

I also dont have to be grateful to GG for anything. I payed the price for a product they sell, the price payed was the one they asked for, so why should I be grateful for ? Doing business? Hell no. They could ask 1$ or 1M for TSE I couldnt care less. If they think TSE has a market as an AAA engine and can be licensed for 1M, I wish them all the luck in the world in the new market.

The "you should be grateful" , "you payed XXX US$ for an AAA engine, so shut up", is mindless bullshit. I dont have any reason to ge grateful, nor do I payed anything else than the price they asked for their product.

Thats right, they evluated the market , the product, and with free will they asked "XXX" US$ for a product.

#60 Now that Dan Partelly has raised his rude head, this thread is locked.

Yes, once again Dan, you've gone over the line. We've gone down this path before, and you do not have the "he means well, let's see if he can be polite this time" leniency we've given you in the past.