Torque's troubles are our troubles
by William Gooding · 11/12/2010 (5:21 pm) · 10 comments
I never thought that my first blog in Torque forums can be my last.
Whatever the reasons that lead GG to the present circumstances are worth right now little more than an academic exercise or point the obvious with hindsight as your friend.
Torque's troubles and IA death is not the seemingly end of an era for a great engine and piece of technology but also shows the risks facing indie and small studios going forward that are reliant on critical parts of technology for their developments.
In the worst case scenario, if Torque goes away and the community disbands, you are holding ALL the source code at your hands. Sure, bugs now have to be fix only by you, and now you have to become an experts in areas that you were delegating to GG people and other members of the community. But at the end of the day, you HAVE the code, and as much pain and delays it might cause you, you still are in Control, even with going forward EULA uncertainties.
New shiny engines are offering you access to binaries through scripts. You have the most critical and disruptive component of your business as a black box. And that is today. If engines become cloud based engines, then you are not holding even the binaries with all the bugs and limitations that they might have
Scripted engines would never allow you to create planetoids as in DaysOfWar or Warscales, MartiansVsOrcs, FOHO and so many others. All you can do is the same ME TOO games that engine is made of, with similar feel and interaction in every game. Making ME TOO kind of games is becoming a faster endeavor, but at the same time you are getting less differentiation, not only in game play, but in areas you consider critical (Physics, AI, etc).
I really hope Torque can survive and is able to retain and attract many of the talented and dedicated people that created, maintained and help it grow
All this makes me think, what if apparently powerful UDK's and Unities around just vanish, and you find that any bug and feature needed for your game won't be fixed ever...no matter what and now you have to decide what steps to take after investing 1 or 2 years of time and resource. What if, you develop in a future hosted cloud engine the next WOW, just to find a 404 page error message when you try to login....
To summarize... engine's world consolidation is going in a direction that is leaving us more exposed and vulnerable than ever, with less control and creative choices, replaced only by shiny effects and eye candy at best
Whatever the reasons that lead GG to the present circumstances are worth right now little more than an academic exercise or point the obvious with hindsight as your friend.
Torque's troubles and IA death is not the seemingly end of an era for a great engine and piece of technology but also shows the risks facing indie and small studios going forward that are reliant on critical parts of technology for their developments.
In the worst case scenario, if Torque goes away and the community disbands, you are holding ALL the source code at your hands. Sure, bugs now have to be fix only by you, and now you have to become an experts in areas that you were delegating to GG people and other members of the community. But at the end of the day, you HAVE the code, and as much pain and delays it might cause you, you still are in Control, even with going forward EULA uncertainties.
New shiny engines are offering you access to binaries through scripts. You have the most critical and disruptive component of your business as a black box. And that is today. If engines become cloud based engines, then you are not holding even the binaries with all the bugs and limitations that they might have
Scripted engines would never allow you to create planetoids as in DaysOfWar or Warscales, MartiansVsOrcs, FOHO and so many others. All you can do is the same ME TOO games that engine is made of, with similar feel and interaction in every game. Making ME TOO kind of games is becoming a faster endeavor, but at the same time you are getting less differentiation, not only in game play, but in areas you consider critical (Physics, AI, etc).
I really hope Torque can survive and is able to retain and attract many of the talented and dedicated people that created, maintained and help it grow
All this makes me think, what if apparently powerful UDK's and Unities around just vanish, and you find that any bug and feature needed for your game won't be fixed ever...no matter what and now you have to decide what steps to take after investing 1 or 2 years of time and resource. What if, you develop in a future hosted cloud engine the next WOW, just to find a 404 page error message when you try to login....
To summarize... engine's world consolidation is going in a direction that is leaving us more exposed and vulnerable than ever, with less control and creative choices, replaced only by shiny effects and eye candy at best
#2
11/12/2010 (6:13 pm)
++ 
#3
Save tutorials and resources as ref for all community !!!
11/12/2010 (7:04 pm)
if necessary the community will must be safe and stay togheter in other location .... Torquerer do not allow this !!!Save tutorials and resources as ref for all community !!!
#5
++ \\ I share the same opinion
11/12/2010 (8:41 pm)
Webspace isn't that expensive anymore. Financially i'm in.++ \\ I share the same opinion
#6
11/12/2010 (11:46 pm)
++ 
#7
I think that was very well said. As much of a shock as this was, when it comes down to it, source means that we can forge ahead.
11/13/2010 (3:47 am)
# <- no idea how I'm the first to do this...I think that was very well said. As much of a shock as this was, when it comes down to it, source means that we can forge ahead.
#8
11/13/2010 (9:58 pm)
++ 
#9
11/29/2010 (12:32 am)
Count me in, the Torque community will never die no matter what happens to Garage Games. I would much prefer Garage Games to be around and remain focused on 3D engines for at least another 50 years. But if that's not in the cards I'm not giving up on the idea that Garage Games started. A chance for an independent developer to create something good and real, and in full control of it. That's something I don't want to see die... 
Torque Owner Quinton Delpeche
Gobbo Games
No matter what ... I think the die hard community members will band together and keep what we have going.
I for one am willing to contribute financially to keeping a Community Torque Site running and will assist in whatever way I can.