1.1 Release Timeline
by Gary Hoffmann · in Torque 3D Professional · 09/30/2009 (3:03 pm) · 78 replies
With the 1.0 release being virtually unusable on my computer, I’m thinking I’ll stay on Beta 5 until the next release.
But, I’m curious, whether its release schedule is something like a matter of weeks away or further off, many months from now.
Basically, will it be released similar to the time between betas or should I be expecting a longer wait?
But, I’m curious, whether its release schedule is something like a matter of weeks away or further off, many months from now.
Basically, will it be released similar to the time between betas or should I be expecting a longer wait?
#42
@Brett, We might feel entitled to a feature? Seriously that is a pretty arrogant statement. We are the customer. We also invest money and time into the process by beta testing the many versions of the product before release. Not to mention spend money buying the product itself. So now you don't want to say what will be in the product we have purchased because we might expect it to be there. Yeah we will expect it, and you should deliver.
When you sell us the engine with marketing videos like wetness, it is very disappointing to see you cut it out because you have problems making it work. You make it sound like you guys just change your mind on stuff every week.
How in the world will you ever get anything done if you drop hard stuff so you can work on the easy stuff? I have been doing application development much longer than you have (Yes I am old). I can tell you that if you don't have a detailed plan (a recipe) and stick to it you will have surprise soup. It is a surprise what it is when you serve it to the customer. Well as a customer I want what I ordered, based on what you sell me to begin with. Not surprise soup.
10/03/2009 (1:51 pm)
Quote:This happens all over the place in the engine and often in the tools as well. Sometimes we cut things (like Wetness) when they just aren't working
Quote:You may see us publish a roadmap at some point, but it will be 100% clear that it is non-binding, subject to change at any moment. The reason we may never do this is because once something is seen on paper, a common reaction from licensees is entitlement to that feature.
@Brett, We might feel entitled to a feature? Seriously that is a pretty arrogant statement. We are the customer. We also invest money and time into the process by beta testing the many versions of the product before release. Not to mention spend money buying the product itself. So now you don't want to say what will be in the product we have purchased because we might expect it to be there. Yeah we will expect it, and you should deliver.
When you sell us the engine with marketing videos like wetness, it is very disappointing to see you cut it out because you have problems making it work. You make it sound like you guys just change your mind on stuff every week.
How in the world will you ever get anything done if you drop hard stuff so you can work on the easy stuff? I have been doing application development much longer than you have (Yes I am old). I can tell you that if you don't have a detailed plan (a recipe) and stick to it you will have surprise soup. It is a surprise what it is when you serve it to the customer. Well as a customer I want what I ordered, based on what you sell me to begin with. Not surprise soup.
#43
I was going to make a big thing about cutting Wetness from 1.0, but I realized that I would just waste my hate as SOME of the G.G. employees are just plain incompetent. It is a harsh word and I hate to say it, but it basically sums it up based on their track record.
10/03/2009 (3:17 pm)
@John E. Nelson: I totally agree with you.I was going to make a big thing about cutting Wetness from 1.0, but I realized that I would just waste my hate as SOME of the G.G. employees are just plain incompetent. It is a harsh word and I hate to say it, but it basically sums it up based on their track record.
#44
I wouldn't be surprised if you have many multiples of my experience in software development and I think there's room for a legit difference of opinion on the subject of best dev methodologies, but I don't think we ended up with 'surprise soup' on Torque 3D. I'm probably overstating how loose and agile our practices are, but I'd rather retain freedom in that direction than be bound by something more rigid.
So that's kind of what it comes down to, you either trust us to continue developing a great product at the fastest pace possible, or not.
@Sorin: Yeah, let's not rehash Wetness. I do expect we'll get that feature in at some point. It's cool and that's why I wanted to get Gerhard's implementation in Torque 3D way back in July last year, but things don't always go perfectly. I don't think it's a result of any 'incompetence' (and yes, that's a harsh word). When (not if) we do get something similar in Torque 3D, it will be a far better implementation than we planned for because it will apply to arbitrary geometry in the scene using PostFX.
10/03/2009 (5:52 pm)
@John: Yes, exactly. It's that attitude that keeps us very cagey about what disclose re: future dev plans. You are the customer and I want to deliver the maximum value possible by keeping the development team insulated from "marketing promises." Of course, I much prefer to get more feedback from the community before committing to some directions, and often we do, but there are limitations. I don't think it's arrogant to want to retain the freedom to take the product in any direction we choose. I think it's smart and will benefit all the product's users in aggregate, more than a going with a 'detailed plan.' I wouldn't be surprised if you have many multiples of my experience in software development and I think there's room for a legit difference of opinion on the subject of best dev methodologies, but I don't think we ended up with 'surprise soup' on Torque 3D. I'm probably overstating how loose and agile our practices are, but I'd rather retain freedom in that direction than be bound by something more rigid.
So that's kind of what it comes down to, you either trust us to continue developing a great product at the fastest pace possible, or not.
@Sorin: Yeah, let's not rehash Wetness. I do expect we'll get that feature in at some point. It's cool and that's why I wanted to get Gerhard's implementation in Torque 3D way back in July last year, but things don't always go perfectly. I don't think it's a result of any 'incompetence' (and yes, that's a harsh word). When (not if) we do get something similar in Torque 3D, it will be a far better implementation than we planned for because it will apply to arbitrary geometry in the scene using PostFX.
#45
I don't want anyone reading this thread to get confused and think we're going to do this. It's not in the cards at all right now, but I do think it's a nice model and one I'd move to if I thought we could do so without too much resistance from the community.
10/03/2009 (6:00 pm)
@Andrew: It's a different kind of model, for sure. However, I don't think you're getting anything different as a customer than you are with our current model. You look at the product and decide if you want to buy it or not with the understanding that you'll see exactly 12 months of unspecified improvements and new features for free. When your subscription runs out, you'd still have a very stable product and you could choose to renew (at a lesser cost than full purchase) for access to the next year's improvements and new features. It should be easy to make that decision based on a year of watching how much we get done. I also don't think this would fracture the community. Everyone who was subscribed would have access to exactly the same product. If your subscription ran out, you'd still be free to participate in the community, just not download new versions, patches or content.I don't want anyone reading this thread to get confused and think we're going to do this. It's not in the cards at all right now, but I do think it's a nice model and one I'd move to if I thought we could do so without too much resistance from the community.
#46
10/03/2009 (6:01 pm)
@Andrew: re: getting more for your money, I actually think our development updates would come out in smaller, more frequent chunks using this model and that you'd see the same if not more for free (not just small updates) than you would under our current model. 
#47
But calling GG employees incompetent? It has been explained time and time again why wetness has been dropped. If you did not really grasp the reason - which was a very clear one - I think you should probably rephrase that sentence about incompetency.
On the other hand, creating a wetness shader is not hard with the new GFX system. I think you could even do it several ways, since PostFX also sounds very capable of doing just that. The engine is full of great examples on literally everything.
Unless you are making a game about rain, please don't tell me that you would be better off with wetness instead of having a bunch of new editors that you actually use.
It was a brave decision to drop wetness when it turned out to be requiring far more resources to implement than originally expected in favor of some editors or almost all other features we see in Torque 3D now. I applaud the one making that decision. Whoever knows enough about the new GFX system will probably think the same. I *think* I could create that wetness shader within a week, but I'd definitely need more time to create the editors. Who knows how much time it would have taken to create the implementation of Gerhard's wetness stuff when the GFX system was not even finalized? Probably a lot more.
Don't get me wrong, I still think you're right about expecting it after it has been promised. I'm sure it will eventually end up on your plate - that's just the way GG does things, and I have full confidence in them. But you're not really helping by calling anybody incompetent.
I remember how happy I was about seeing the shape editor make it into the engine. Nobody was expecting it. I was gonna have to spend a LOT of money on having a huge bunch of my art assets modified and re-exported, but then it was just a few clicks for me to add new nodes to them. That saved me more $ than developing wetness alone would cost me. That's my experience about it.
Edit: Wow, 3 posts from Brett while I was typing. :)
10/03/2009 (6:13 pm)
@Sorin: I understand your frustration, and I can understand you agreeing with with John. It is perfectly normal to expect what has been promised to you. But calling GG employees incompetent? It has been explained time and time again why wetness has been dropped. If you did not really grasp the reason - which was a very clear one - I think you should probably rephrase that sentence about incompetency.
On the other hand, creating a wetness shader is not hard with the new GFX system. I think you could even do it several ways, since PostFX also sounds very capable of doing just that. The engine is full of great examples on literally everything.
Unless you are making a game about rain, please don't tell me that you would be better off with wetness instead of having a bunch of new editors that you actually use.
It was a brave decision to drop wetness when it turned out to be requiring far more resources to implement than originally expected in favor of some editors or almost all other features we see in Torque 3D now. I applaud the one making that decision. Whoever knows enough about the new GFX system will probably think the same. I *think* I could create that wetness shader within a week, but I'd definitely need more time to create the editors. Who knows how much time it would have taken to create the implementation of Gerhard's wetness stuff when the GFX system was not even finalized? Probably a lot more.
Don't get me wrong, I still think you're right about expecting it after it has been promised. I'm sure it will eventually end up on your plate - that's just the way GG does things, and I have full confidence in them. But you're not really helping by calling anybody incompetent.
I remember how happy I was about seeing the shape editor make it into the engine. Nobody was expecting it. I was gonna have to spend a LOT of money on having a huge bunch of my art assets modified and re-exported, but then it was just a few clicks for me to add new nodes to them. That saved me more $ than developing wetness alone would cost me. That's my experience about it.
Edit: Wow, 3 posts from Brett while I was typing. :)
#48
It simply just doesnt work out how it is planned. People just need to understand the process and difficulty involved in the programming process. GG is working hard on the product, and They are working as hard as they can without burning themselves out to work out all of the bugs that are known. they may not be able to tackle the bug until way later, maybe because they simply dont know where the bug is coming from exactly, or maybe it will make a change to the product that they dont want yet...
Either way, Just understanding the process GG has to go through to make a release possible will help the overall community.
10/03/2009 (7:26 pm)
I am a Software Developer myself, And I make a release plan with every thing I see could be possible for the release. By the time the release comes, maybe only a couple of the planned features made it in, and people get angry, mainly because they dont understand the process involved with programming something with over 100k+ lines of code, or because they dont want to understand, either way. Im programming a software called "Windows Helper", which I had initially planned a 1.0 release this week, and it wont happen even this month. It simply just doesnt work out how it is planned. People just need to understand the process and difficulty involved in the programming process. GG is working hard on the product, and They are working as hard as they can without burning themselves out to work out all of the bugs that are known. they may not be able to tackle the bug until way later, maybe because they simply dont know where the bug is coming from exactly, or maybe it will make a change to the product that they dont want yet...
Either way, Just understanding the process GG has to go through to make a release possible will help the overall community.
#49
Sorry for my poor choice of words in my other post.
10/03/2009 (8:52 pm)
@Konrad: Very well said. I totally agree, but what frustrates me more than anything is that this is not the first time something like this has happened. With this release, broken promisses were supposed to be a thing of the past. Yet, here we go again. But I do agree that T3D is leaps and bounds better than anything GG has released before and the tools are a better choice at the moment than the Wetness Shader.Sorry for my poor choice of words in my other post.
#50
10/03/2009 (9:38 pm)
Where/when exactly did we at GarageGames promise that Wetness would be Torque 3D 1.0? 
#51
Understood. I think your idea would work well for owners as long as the frequency of updates/fixes etc was fairly standard. It would be a balancing act for GG employees, but I think it could also be more of a stabilizing manner of business for you guys.
All this aside, I want to say.. for me, I am very happy with T3D. It's really amazes me that some of the features listed can only be found in engines that start in the 6 figure range. I do understand you business model/focus and think in the long run, it will serve GG well.
ps - Wetness was never.. ever.. promised.
LK
10/03/2009 (9:53 pm)
@BrettUnderstood. I think your idea would work well for owners as long as the frequency of updates/fixes etc was fairly standard. It would be a balancing act for GG employees, but I think it could also be more of a stabilizing manner of business for you guys.
All this aside, I want to say.. for me, I am very happy with T3D. It's really amazes me that some of the features listed can only be found in engines that start in the 6 figure range. I do understand you business model/focus and think in the long run, it will serve GG well.
ps - Wetness was never.. ever.. promised.
LK
#52
No, it was never explicitly promised, but the perception was when T3d was first advertised, we were showed some really nice movies containing, items like the Pacific Demo(the forest kit), the Wetness and Percipitiation Blog by Brett, now dont you think its possible that this confusion occured becuase for a T3d blog, these items were presented and i dont see anywhere in the t3d blogs saying that it wouldnt be in.
So the question is, was it a misperception that was put forward, but never clarified. Or was it something planned and then shifted to accomodate workload.
10/03/2009 (10:01 pm)
www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/16083No, it was never explicitly promised, but the perception was when T3d was first advertised, we were showed some really nice movies containing, items like the Pacific Demo(the forest kit), the Wetness and Percipitiation Blog by Brett, now dont you think its possible that this confusion occured becuase for a T3d blog, these items were presented and i dont see anywhere in the t3d blogs saying that it wouldnt be in.
So the question is, was it a misperception that was put forward, but never clarified. Or was it something planned and then shifted to accomodate workload.
#53
I guess the answer is no, as you would cut yourself from the market completely unless you have a money tree that grows you the compensations required to pay all the legally entitled refunds.
@Brett, anyone from GG: I fully understand that development is not simple, I've seen it many many times.
But you also have to understand that you use your marketing agressively to put your products and company in a position you aren't.
People were patient with TGEA which until TGEA 1.7.0 would have been a plain flat refund by law (if anyone doubts it I still have the original product page from the MS4.x EA license somewhere around, I backup those for any tech I buy at the date I buy it should I ever require it to proof the legality of a refund request).
Then iTGB came around and people are still waiting to see half the advertised feature list as you know.
10/03/2009 (10:07 pm)
Michael: question is do you prehype it and sell it with that marketing? Do you actuall force it into market by dropping all old stuff?I guess the answer is no, as you would cut yourself from the market completely unless you have a money tree that grows you the compensations required to pay all the legally entitled refunds.
@Brett, anyone from GG: I fully understand that development is not simple, I've seen it many many times.
But you also have to understand that you use your marketing agressively to put your products and company in a position you aren't.
People were patient with TGEA which until TGEA 1.7.0 would have been a plain flat refund by law (if anyone doubts it I still have the original product page from the MS4.x EA license somewhere around, I backup those for any tech I buy at the date I buy it should I ever require it to proof the legality of a refund request).
Then iTGB came around and people are still waiting to see half the advertised feature list as you know.
#54
But no, now there is T3D and the whole shit repeats again.
I really hope that you please understand that people are not as patient anymore if you request multiple times the license fees of before ( 3 - 20 times depending on the team size and how the pricing of the artist version and the team licensing work out )
Either get the tech in place or get the head of the PR in place, because one side is significantly broken to a degree thats critical.
To name a few things on that list that you advertised and/or advertise on the product page while you actively sold licenses for the technology
1. Wetness
2. Ingame browser rendering
3. Documentation (that topic gets kind of worn of. 3 releases, 3 times not there). if you check your T3D advertisement on documentation you will realize that those include the whole amount of TGEA sections, yet the 1.0 release has 95% of that cut. calling it near empty would be appropriate. From past communications with various people from GG I'm pretty sure its not michaels fault and I don't blame it on him as he does great work on the docs. But the problem is there thats just a sad fact.
10/03/2009 (10:08 pm)
In both cases people recommend and requested that GG starts to advertise what they have on the product, giving other stuff as inofficial potential view into the future.But no, now there is T3D and the whole shit repeats again.
I really hope that you please understand that people are not as patient anymore if you request multiple times the license fees of before ( 3 - 20 times depending on the team size and how the pricing of the artist version and the team licensing work out )
Either get the tech in place or get the head of the PR in place, because one side is significantly broken to a degree thats critical.
To name a few things on that list that you advertised and/or advertise on the product page while you actively sold licenses for the technology
1. Wetness
2. Ingame browser rendering
3. Documentation (that topic gets kind of worn of. 3 releases, 3 times not there). if you check your T3D advertisement on documentation you will realize that those include the whole amount of TGEA sections, yet the 1.0 release has 95% of that cut. calling it near empty would be appropriate. From past communications with various people from GG I'm pretty sure its not michaels fault and I don't blame it on him as he does great work on the docs. But the problem is there thats just a sad fact.
#55
The reality is that it is one of many features added and removed over the course of development. If your game or your decision to purchase T3D was riding on this one effect, then I can understand being upset. For the majority of T3D users, why is it such a problem? Do you have a problem with the features in T3D that they added in place of it?
10/03/2009 (10:09 pm)
While I agree that there was the implication that wetness would be in T3D, I don't really see why its such a big issue that it was left out. If this is the kind of flak the GG get for missing one feature, I wonder what it would be like if they announced and then missed a delivery date?The reality is that it is one of many features added and removed over the course of development. If your game or your decision to purchase T3D was riding on this one effect, then I can understand being upset. For the majority of T3D users, why is it such a problem? Do you have a problem with the features in T3D that they added in place of it?
#56
People though are not entitled to anything thats related to dev plans / technology experiment blogs unless you sell those features actively. I would suggest to introduce a special "R&D experiments" blog with corresponding disclaimers etc to show of such experiments that might come in future versions.
10/03/2009 (10:09 pm)
Stuff that are not features just must not be on the page where you talk about features but on a "examples what you can do with it" page, otherwise it becomes a feature and people, even if you disagree, are entitled to it.People though are not entitled to anything thats related to dev plans / technology experiment blogs unless you sell those features actively. I would suggest to introduce a special "R&D experiments" blog with corresponding disclaimers etc to show of such experiments that might come in future versions.
#57
By the experience I've so far with GG, I would recommend you to not use subscriptions, I can guarantee you that it will backfire if you don't get your communication, "hype fullfillment focus" and PR in line.
Instead go with the modelling application way once the initial support period is over, likely post 1.1:
Have 2 large releases per major version, a .0 and a .5 release.
The .0 release is always the big fat thing, fast amount of major new features, reworked / all fresh code base, etc, like TGE to TGEA to T3D.
That upgrade would be priced pretty high (by the price of T3D at $1000 per source dev, I would rate such an upgrade at around $400 from the previous .0 version (so 1.0 to 2.0) and about $220 from the previous .5 version (1.5 to 2.0)
The .5 release is a smaller one. It adds significant value to the given major version but it does so on the same codebase etc. As examples from the past, the 1.7 + 1.8 TGEA releases would be something along that line or adding specific common use addons into the core as it happened with TGE 1.5 would be such a thing (AFX / forest kit / ... for example ). I would see the prices for such an upgrade as well in the range of $220
users who upgrade from .0 to .5 to .0 should pay slightly more than a straight .0 to .0 upgrade as they had the benefits from the .5 and used it too. Above price ranges cover that due to the 10% higher price for people with both dot release.
10/03/2009 (10:10 pm)
As for the upgrade plan: I fully agree that a subscription plan or alike is the only way to go.By the experience I've so far with GG, I would recommend you to not use subscriptions, I can guarantee you that it will backfire if you don't get your communication, "hype fullfillment focus" and PR in line.
Instead go with the modelling application way once the initial support period is over, likely post 1.1:
Have 2 large releases per major version, a .0 and a .5 release.
The .0 release is always the big fat thing, fast amount of major new features, reworked / all fresh code base, etc, like TGE to TGEA to T3D.
That upgrade would be priced pretty high (by the price of T3D at $1000 per source dev, I would rate such an upgrade at around $400 from the previous .0 version (so 1.0 to 2.0) and about $220 from the previous .5 version (1.5 to 2.0)
The .5 release is a smaller one. It adds significant value to the given major version but it does so on the same codebase etc. As examples from the past, the 1.7 + 1.8 TGEA releases would be something along that line or adding specific common use addons into the core as it happened with TGE 1.5 would be such a thing (AFX / forest kit / ... for example ). I would see the prices for such an upgrade as well in the range of $220
users who upgrade from .0 to .5 to .0 should pay slightly more than a straight .0 to .0 upgrade as they had the benefits from the .5 and used it too. Above price ranges cover that due to the 10% higher price for people with both dot release.
#58
I think that should be realistic out of your view too, right?
Inbetween there would be 1 - x bugfix releases that adress feature breaking, stability breaking or compatibility breaking bugs in the corresponding dot release.
That would not only lead to a clear upgrade path licensing structure but also a better quality.
New releases are much better planable and better tested because you work for months on the same codebase with a longtime clear plan on what you want to achieve and stay / focus with that vision. Thats much better than rapid development as through the beta where his uglyness, lord regression, definitely has struck back.
Nothing prevents you to release "freaky friday" and "experimental R&D features", you don't want to keep in the branch / support as community resources for example. But please keep the long term vision clean and focused. Nothing is worse than jumping visions, TGEA MS 4 to TGEA 1.0 has shown that and that must definitely not happen ever again. A new idea on a major change 4 weeks before release after 6 months of development is not a new idea but at very best "only" a bad idea (commonly a stupid idea as its near granted that it will introduce masses of bugs that will go into the release if the release date isn't adjusted accordingly).
I fully understand that supporting the tech with enough devs if all minors are free is hard to impossible and especially now that the constant instream likely is going to die down as a price raise of 1000% to 2000% for teams is a pretty hefty hit, when put in relation to potential upgrade fees though it becomes a deal breaker for many if those upgrade fees aren't within reasonable borders or if the product the people pay the upgrade fee for does not offer significant enough additions to justify it for a whole team.
I guess others will likely have their own opinions, but I recommend to ensure that you don't exceed 35% to 40% (thats the absolute maximum) of the 0 to go license price for the .0 to .0 release and 20% - 25% for .0 to .5 / .5 to .0 upgrades
10/03/2009 (10:12 pm)
Realistic time ranges between those two large releases would be 7 - 10 months, so you reach an average major version release schedule of 18 - 20 months.I think that should be realistic out of your view too, right?
Inbetween there would be 1 - x bugfix releases that adress feature breaking, stability breaking or compatibility breaking bugs in the corresponding dot release.
That would not only lead to a clear upgrade path licensing structure but also a better quality.
New releases are much better planable and better tested because you work for months on the same codebase with a longtime clear plan on what you want to achieve and stay / focus with that vision. Thats much better than rapid development as through the beta where his uglyness, lord regression, definitely has struck back.
Nothing prevents you to release "freaky friday" and "experimental R&D features", you don't want to keep in the branch / support as community resources for example. But please keep the long term vision clean and focused. Nothing is worse than jumping visions, TGEA MS 4 to TGEA 1.0 has shown that and that must definitely not happen ever again. A new idea on a major change 4 weeks before release after 6 months of development is not a new idea but at very best "only" a bad idea (commonly a stupid idea as its near granted that it will introduce masses of bugs that will go into the release if the release date isn't adjusted accordingly).
I fully understand that supporting the tech with enough devs if all minors are free is hard to impossible and especially now that the constant instream likely is going to die down as a price raise of 1000% to 2000% for teams is a pretty hefty hit, when put in relation to potential upgrade fees though it becomes a deal breaker for many if those upgrade fees aren't within reasonable borders or if the product the people pay the upgrade fee for does not offer significant enough additions to justify it for a whole team.
I guess others will likely have their own opinions, but I recommend to ensure that you don't exceed 35% to 40% (thats the absolute maximum) of the 0 to go license price for the .0 to .0 release and 20% - 25% for .0 to .5 / .5 to .0 upgrades
#59
As an example: Should you decide to add DX11, then it must happen in the regular covered through payment releases.
Also, the official development and the feature wishes from licensees must finally be handled with appropriate priority and if users wish something with high priority thats sold by a 3rd party developer, well then its just bad luck for the 3rd party dev, not vice versa.
I for example can not understand the decision to branch out the forest kit editor aspects for placement etc
Foliage painting is an industry standard for engines for quite some time now, so for me its clear that I expect that this industry standard is covered by T3D 1.5, at very very latest with 2.0
Its one thing to cut potential things like clustering, pvs optimizations and alike (portal optimizations are part of the engines and must apply to anything, including foliage of all type) as well as art assets, thats understandable that one wants to sell that on its own as it is its own thing (comparable to speedtree). But there is nothing, really nothing, that would reasonably explain to my why foliage / detail object / tree painting and auto placement, standard features by 2008, so expected in a 2009 new release, were impossible as part of T3D and require an addon.
People are definitely worried about that and are for good reasons asking themself if we will pay for the engine license, the upgrades AND for standard features ripped out into addons (thats my personal understanding of the Forest Kit requiring the modifications from 1.1 to work and thus beeing postphone till post 1.1) in the future and I would really recommend to get a clear straight line in there, that ensures that nobody who decides whats going into the tech and what not is in the position to sell addons, at least not through GG. Either you are a GG technology developer or a 3rd party addon developer, but both is a massive conflict of interest as they can put themself into overfavorable situations and know upfront which "shortcomming" they can cover with addons (or which shortcomming to create to create a market for something already existing up to a given point). This is not meant against anyone personal just in case its missunderstood as such, but the forest kit was the first time where something has shown up in such a worriing and drastic way that it needs to be looked into, especially also in relation to a fair, open market for all addons devs, as I doubt that others get first hand free support on their work and such insider knowledge (not even in important cases as the 1 month pending AFX2 release and the surprise to Jeff Faust on the TGE / TGEA not beeing sold any longer have shown I think). we all know that the sickhead guys are doing great work on the tech.
10/03/2009 (10:14 pm)
One thing though must be clear either with upgrade fees as well as with subscriptions: Addon selling must be restricted to 3rd parties. No inhouse team or team with significant control over the path of a technology must be in the position to release addons. Thats a clear conflict of interests.As an example: Should you decide to add DX11, then it must happen in the regular covered through payment releases.
Also, the official development and the feature wishes from licensees must finally be handled with appropriate priority and if users wish something with high priority thats sold by a 3rd party developer, well then its just bad luck for the 3rd party dev, not vice versa.
I for example can not understand the decision to branch out the forest kit editor aspects for placement etc
Foliage painting is an industry standard for engines for quite some time now, so for me its clear that I expect that this industry standard is covered by T3D 1.5, at very very latest with 2.0
Its one thing to cut potential things like clustering, pvs optimizations and alike (portal optimizations are part of the engines and must apply to anything, including foliage of all type) as well as art assets, thats understandable that one wants to sell that on its own as it is its own thing (comparable to speedtree). But there is nothing, really nothing, that would reasonably explain to my why foliage / detail object / tree painting and auto placement, standard features by 2008, so expected in a 2009 new release, were impossible as part of T3D and require an addon.
People are definitely worried about that and are for good reasons asking themself if we will pay for the engine license, the upgrades AND for standard features ripped out into addons (thats my personal understanding of the Forest Kit requiring the modifications from 1.1 to work and thus beeing postphone till post 1.1) in the future and I would really recommend to get a clear straight line in there, that ensures that nobody who decides whats going into the tech and what not is in the position to sell addons, at least not through GG. Either you are a GG technology developer or a 3rd party addon developer, but both is a massive conflict of interest as they can put themself into overfavorable situations and know upfront which "shortcomming" they can cover with addons (or which shortcomming to create to create a market for something already existing up to a given point). This is not meant against anyone personal just in case its missunderstood as such, but the forest kit was the first time where something has shown up in such a worriing and drastic way that it needs to be looked into, especially also in relation to a fair, open market for all addons devs, as I doubt that others get first hand free support on their work and such insider knowledge (not even in important cases as the 1 month pending AFX2 release and the surprise to Jeff Faust on the TGE / TGEA not beeing sold any longer have shown I think). we all know that the sickhead guys are doing great work on the tech.
#60
Another thing on addons: Please, now that you cut the Torque 3d Tech (outside TX) to 1 engine, ensure that addons either are compatible with the current release version in the state that they are sold / distributed or are removed / suspended from store if that state is not taken care of within a reasonable amount of time (30 days)
Those products are basically put "certified" by you as technology seller that they work with the tech as you officially sell them and as such one buying them is entitled to expect them to work.
I think its clear that the one specific kit I've in mind as a worst case scenario is the RTS kit.
I definitely don't want to see such kind of "one drops" beeing featured nor suppoted in any way. If a dev decides that he does not want to support it further, fine, but then he is meant to go so someone who WANTS to bring a real product (working out of the box at that time) with support for the "now technology" to the users can do so without official competition against a ghost.
PS: I hate the new board sorry. Please allow longer postings and intruce something like expanding blocks so people can answer to multiple points without ripping appart postings or doing multiple posts. I don't want to flood the view, I would like to answer to completely different things in a detailed way so people have a chance to see where the thoughts are comming from. otherwise I'm sure that it is beeing missunderstood or leads to bad blood.
10/03/2009 (10:16 pm)
People that are related to companies doing lotteries aren't allowed to take part in the same for the very same reasons nor is insider knowledge a legal thing at the stock market, just to bring up 1:1 comparable situations.Another thing on addons: Please, now that you cut the Torque 3d Tech (outside TX) to 1 engine, ensure that addons either are compatible with the current release version in the state that they are sold / distributed or are removed / suspended from store if that state is not taken care of within a reasonable amount of time (30 days)
Those products are basically put "certified" by you as technology seller that they work with the tech as you officially sell them and as such one buying them is entitled to expect them to work.
I think its clear that the one specific kit I've in mind as a worst case scenario is the RTS kit.
I definitely don't want to see such kind of "one drops" beeing featured nor suppoted in any way. If a dev decides that he does not want to support it further, fine, but then he is meant to go so someone who WANTS to bring a real product (working out of the box at that time) with support for the "now technology" to the users can do so without official competition against a ghost.
PS: I hate the new board sorry. Please allow longer postings and intruce something like expanding blocks so people can answer to multiple points without ripping appart postings or doing multiple posts. I don't want to flood the view, I would like to answer to completely different things in a detailed way so people have a chance to see where the thoughts are comming from. otherwise I'm sure that it is beeing missunderstood or leads to bad blood.
Torque 3D Owner Andrew Brady
My second issue would be.. wouldn't that pretty much fracture the community? I mean, If every update is now a cost(per year), I see this making people choose where to say no to upgrades at various stages depending on their needs. So then, in a couple years.. you have a community using an engine at 5 different stages of development causing tutorials and other things to take 5 different directions. I could be wrong on this, or maybe right but over blowing it.. but these two things is what would worry me the most.
LK
(sorry if this was kinda hard to understand.. not awake yet)