Support for XNA 3.0

#21 @James H.

Nice excuse on putting your patience towards your son's. :)

Hopefully it will be out this week Kenneth, December is around the corner.

~DisTurBinG

#22 Despite assurances, there's little chance of us seeing XNA 3.0 support in November, and we probably won't see it in '08, period. Too many weeks have passed. It's almost Thanksgiving and productivity and bug fixing will almost certainly be low this week. That means we're now into December, which is the least productive month of the year.

We can all hope for a nice Christmas present, but I doubt we'll see this software anytime soon.

#23 Thanks for the words of confidence and the magical insight into the workings of GarageGames Mr. Nobody! :)

We are close guys, and I've been pretty quiet on the boards because I've been heads down working with John Kanalakis to iron out the last remaining bugs keeping us from releasing. This has been a complicated release due to how much there is to test. We have VS2008 support, 3D Builder, XNA 3.0 support now, and those require a lot of testing themselves, as well as testing across XP and Vista, so the QA team has been hard at work in doing so.

We are aware of how badly you folks want to get a hold of this, and trust me, we want to get it into your hands just as badly. I can't say for sure when it's coming - just know that we are working very hard to make sure you get a product that doesn't dissappoint you, and will release it just as soon as humanly possible.

Thanks Torque X-ers!!!

#24 I sincerely hope you folks can prove me wrong, Kenneth. But my prediction is hardly magical, and no insight into GarageGames is necessary. Any executive will tell you that you the end of a calendar year is not the time to schedule a software product shipment. Productivity is simply too low.

Prove me wrong. I honestly hope you can.

#25 Hey Kenneth,

Thanks for the update. I appreciate being kept informed and am eagerly waiting.

As a side note: I added this page to my "daily, morning" bookmarks, so if you can just post every evening saying 'how you're so excited to be almost done and how hard you worked on it that day,' it would mean a lot to me. That way every morning it will give me a boost of excitement, renewed faith, and will get me through another day.

Thanks,

Sean

#26 @Sean - was that meant to be sarcasm? If you don't like reading the posts... don't read them. Geez!

@Everyone + Kenneth

Listen, yes we all want this update, and yes it would be great to have it today but wouldn't we all prefer to have it bug free? Otherwise the next forum post will be entitled something like, "I've pushed and prodded and huffed and puffed and made GG feel guilty so they released an update as quickly as possible, but now feature X doesn't work for me properly and feature Y doesn't play sound when it should, but it's not my fault for pressuring GG, it's their fault for not being omnipotent."

Come on guys, give them a break... we all know how hard it is to make EVERYTHING play nicely together when coding huge updates. Have a little heart?!?

#27 That said, I can't WAIT to see it! Hehe.

#28 @Rob
Amen

#29 No, it honestly wasn't sarcasm! But I see how it could have come over that way, so thanks for pointing that out and I am sorry. - I was trying to be funny, but I'm not, which is why I try to be quite... oops. =)

And you make a good point about waiting Rob, bugs are bad...

This page really is on my "daily bookmarks", cause I can't wait!

#30 I'd honestly prefer a buggy pre-release I can start playing around with to a delayed and bug free final release. Its not being impatient when your project deadlines are dictated by a professor as opposed to a manager whom you can reason with. Would be cool if we could get a little more info on what kind of issues you ran into and at what point in fixing them you are, if you don't mind sharing that info. Thanks!

#31 @Sean - I also appreciate being informed, so long as the information being released is reasonably reliable. I very much want this software, but I also would like GarageGames to take their publicly released information more seriously. Larger and more serious software companies would never tolerate such rough release predictions being posted in forums. Bad predictions, when relied upon, can cause quite a bit of money to be lost. The GarageGames leadership should move to a more serious PR process and make official announcements regarding release dates for new software.

@LiquidEnforcer - There is no such thing as a "bug free release." Any reasonably large software product comes with bugs. Right now, GarageGames is going through their bug list and deciding which bugs they can ship with and which they can't. Crashing bugs, data loss bugs, product corruption bugs, or bugs that prevent access to large segments of product functionality -- those are typically a must fix before release. And because we don't yet have the product, I assume GarageGames has a few of those remaining.

All that said, I stand by my prediction: No XNA 3.0 support in '08.

#32 I prefer the "transparent development" process. If I want to be involved with early releases, I can get familiar with the software early and deal with any problems if I am not worried about a stable release for a product.

If I don,t want to be bothered with bugs, I stay away until it is released for production and keep my mouth shut about buggy software ( and extended release times ).

; )

Randy

#33 I wish they'd let people download the old beta in the meantime, I want to try it out.

#34 @Mister Nobody - I'm just curious, do you have a "otherwise" to go after your last statement. Ya know, like in the movies?

Quote:All that said, I stand by my prediction: No XNA 3.0 support in '08.

Followed by:

Quote:(hypothetical quote)or I'll eat a bucket of scorpions...

=)

When my significant other hasn't been looking, I've been using my holiday time to work on TX docs...with the occasional break for Turkey and WWE Smackdown...I figured I want to get the updated documentation out the door by Monday if I want to stay on schedule.

#35 Ah, now I really feel bad...

Quote, Rob Evans:
>>"I've pushed and prodded and huffed and puffed and made GG feel guilty so they released an update as >>quickly as possible..."

@Michael - Dude it's not ok to take time away from your family... unless you're a workaholic like me.

Then again, maybe if mrNobody did post an "otherwise" it would make the situation more exciting yet!

#36 @jydog - "transparent development process" sounds great, but that's not what we have here with the forums. But, it is a good idea. I'd love to see GarageGames publish their active bug lists, including those products that have yet to be released. Now that's transparent.

@Michael Perry - No.

#37 GG,

altough you might not give us a release date, can you at least say which new features beside 3D Builder, XNA3.0 and VS2008 support will be in the release? For example, is there a shadow system now (not just the blob shadows)? Will the new Docs have tutorials for GUIs?

I can't wait to get TX3.0 ;-)

Andi

#38 Documentation - First I'll unify the 2D and 3D docs, which actually requires more work than just putting a few html files in the same directory. Next I will update the existing tutorials to reflect 3.0 changes. Then the new content will start trickling in.

It's like the online docs will get updated more often than the ones that come with the installers. So what I'll do is start offering a link to download the latest documentation. If things go as they seem to be going, I'll have to release new content slightly after the engines drop. However, that won't be more than a week.

I can write a couple GUI tutorials, but I think there needs to be at least one 3D tutorial I should write. More feedback on the docs can be posted in the documentation feedback threads I've created.

#39 Nice to see that things are still moving forward despite the holidays (chortle)!

Guess I'll download XNA 3.0 and VS2008 and start dinking around with them again, in preparation for whenever the V3 compatible stuff ships.

Don't drink too much eggnog! ;-p

#40 @Michael Perry - A few documentation/tutorial requests:

1. Lots of sample projects available for download
2. Lots of YouTube/Vimeo based tutorials
3. Tutorial on building a 3D game with a terrain
4. Tutorial on building a 3D game without a terrain (space game)
5. Tutorial on features of 3D world builder
6. Tutorial on importing and using 3D assets