Beta Testing?

#1 I wouldn't usually consider Beta testing - better known as bughunting as a "present", but hey, whatever floats your boat. ;)

send scotch in October

#2 Hopefully it's coming in the next couple of weeks, can't wait to get my hands on the new version

#3 I'd hope April, like they said it would. (Wouldn't have pre-ordered this early if I knew they might not). That would suck too, because T3d I was giving a little hope, and I would hate to be disappointed this early in with T3D.

#4 @Neill: I'd guess a number of people pre-ordered immediately, partly because they assumed the April beta talk meant that they would have their hands on it shortly. So I doubt you'd be the only person feeling this way.

Personally, I'm itching to see it just to get a look at the new editors, and get a general idea of what kind of port I'm looking at. Though I wouldn't want to actually start doing any porting until it hits release, as I'm guessing things will still be changing and being added during the beta test period. So in my case, it slipping until May wouldn't really affect me too much, except from an interest standpoint. I'll be happy when the beta becomes available so I can get a glimpse at what lies ahead.

#5 As I think Matt Fairfax has said in a couple places, we've been targeting late April for a couple months now. There are 4-5 MAJOR things that are still like 90% of the way there and need to come together, but it's possible we'll get a successful beta out this month still. I have my fingers crossed. I want it too =)

Apologies to anyone disappointed by the wait. There's ZERO chance of this stretching out into a really big slip (TSE for example). We're super close. People are working crazy long hours, weekends included, to get this all to come together, but it would be silly to try to package up what we have right now just to get something out. If it's a beta, it really needs to be a beta. That means all major features complete and ready for use. The majors we're focused on for the beta are Collada, World Editor & Toolbox, Lighting, Web Publishing, and to whatever degree we can, performance.

#6 You know, you might as well just say that the beta will come out when ever it's ready. That's how I see it. When they said beta comes out in April, I thought to myself it will be a few more months until it's ready.

#7 I had to get It now, because the upgrade discount was going to be valid until final release so I was told. They were targeting the final release for May, that's what the e-mail response says. I am of the edge of my seat about getting my hands on It :)

#8 With a beta in late april / early may, I really hope to not see the final version until July.

Having been an iTGB and TGEA guinea pig in the past, I've no interest in a 3rd master class catastrophe release. Master class catastrophe release means a release thats rushed out just to cut the early adopter pricing as soon as possible, instead of getting the technology on a stable 1.0 level.

That beeing said, I'm none of the "early access" guys, so I can't say much about the current state other than what we have seen in the videos shown so far, but if I recall correctly, this kind of video also existed for TGEA before its release and it took over a year and TGEA 1.7 to finally be able to use the shown things in "not highly specific situations" (we were actually forced to backport a TGEA 1.0.3 project to TGE to get all functionality that was meant to work to work as intend)

#9 Well I'm looking forward to the product whenver it comes available and would rather they hit the nail on the head and take a few more weeks.

#10 @Mr. Rollins - ditto!

I'm sure that the methodology of creating an engine is fairly different to way games themselves are developed as engine building seems a more organic process, constantly evolving over time as code comes and goes, functions and technology change (tge>tge1.4>tge1.5 -->tgea1.3>tgea1.7>tgea1.8 --> T3D1.0).

Whilst a game or other "finalized" software goes through alpha (adding functions) to beta (stop adding functions ... find functions don't work ... hunt bugs) to gold (release into wide blue yonder ... then patch).

At least that's how it got explained to me years ago.

No point beta testing something if you're going to add functions a bit later that will cause a major rewrite.

#11 WHAT!?!?
you mean they dont have a " make my game ENGINE button??"

#12 in the begining there was "the game engine", and the game engine was devoid of lighting and physics, so the programer said : "let there be lighting!" and there was dynamic lighting. then the programer said: "let there be physics!" and there was physX, and he saw that it was good.
but the game engine was devoid of life, so the programer create the adam and eve packs, and it was good.
but the game engine was devoid of companion life forms for the adam and eve packs, so the programer said: "let there be AI!" and there was AI, but the AI was bad, so the programer summoned a fury of precipitation particles to wash away the bad AI, and it was so, save for the few FSM's that where floating in the backup drive.
time passed and the FSM's grew and became plentiful, and began to build a collada tower that would reach into the heavens, and the programmer was not happy with this, so he made them all speak a different language, some spoke c++, while others spoke java, some spoke c#, while others spoke torque script, and there was confusion in the mega-terrain, and the tower was never completed

#13 It would be delightful if the platform would remain "finished" long enough for a garden of resources and discussions to grow up about it and flourish, resources and discussion specific to this version of the engine--moreso if it is as disparate from its predecessors as has been stated again and again.

As much as I am looking forward to working in the new editor, the new expanded terrain tools in particular, it would be my hope that the PTB take as long as needed to get everything in the box and then nail the lid on.

#14 Weeks or not, beta is beta and noone expect a 100% working beta except garagegames crew.

Beta = Bugs, simple as that, we preordered knowing that.

I for one, need it rather sooner then later, so we can do some asset import test and getting set up to squeeze the maximum out of our assets, so basicly i got 2 people waiting for me to give them some specs :).

#15

Quote:Weeks or not, beta is beta and noone expect a 100% working beta except garagegames crew.

Beta = Bugs, simple as that, we preordered knowing that.

+1 :)


Thought for your specific purpose it wouldn't help. From what mentioned, the optimization is one of the things thats done right now especially.

#16 @deepscratch - great post put a smile across this coders face

#17 @Netwyrm: I'd much rather have an engine that is constantly improving than worry about resources going out of date. For the most part its easy to upgrade most of those resources, from a coders standpoint at least. In some cases it isn't as easy, but there's always the option of sticking with the older version.

#18 Agreed.
Its often wise to actually remain with the version you started with unless there is a major issue preventing you from doing so as there is never a guarantee that some behavior you before saw as a feature or used for your benefit actually was a bug and won't exist anymore, breaking more than only a single line of code or a script.
We commonly backported fixes in technologies into our own older version based branch, as this normally leads to less unpleasant surprises.

#19 @J.C
I think hes referring to large scale(releasing whole new engines when they could just use one engine and upgrade it.) Because most patches won't break a resource.

#20 I'm patient... Take your time please =)