Moaning about GG?

#1 I agree with you completely.
That's the problem with any company that gives people a place to voice there opinions: Some of those time those opions are bad.

There is alot to be learned though. If the majority of the posts are complaining, then there's a reason for it. If not then you know your doing all right.

The sad thing though is that to learn some things you need to hear some things that you may not want to. I know I hate to be told that I am doing something wrong. It has to be even harder for someone to hear this stuff knowing that thousands of others are too.

But yeah, the whining for the sake of whining is too much. I don't even work for alot of these companies and I get mad when flame wars start.

GG is doing a good job. They make a product that is good and listen to the masses when something needs to be done. What more could you ask for?

#2

Quote:
GG is doing a good job. They make a product that is good and listen to the masses when something needs to be done. What more could you ask for?

exactly!
IMO GG Community, Code Snipits, Resources, Pack's = best stuff in the world!

#3 So basically you moaning about yourself ;)... I know i do that constantly...

You have to remember that most people here don't have a budget... So it's working on projects after real life work... Then there's the kids.... the wife... and your normal social life that makes it harder... And another thing i've noticed is that there's isn't enough teams around here... every second person heads of wanting to make HIS dream game... Unfortunately those dream games are too big to do with a one man army... and you/they also don't have the budget... What happens? They fail, get frustrated and loose interest... Understandably... That's why they bought TGE in the first place.

My story was... In the beginning I got Torque and had too little time to learn the ins-and-outs... I eventually decided to sit down for 2 hours every night after work and go through documentation and the stuph i downloaded from the forums during the day at work (no Internet at home). I decided on a project and it was too big... I had another idea.... too big, and all this happened off course when i spent about a month on it already... which in my eyes are a waste of time. Now I'm stuck having no idea of what I want to do...

I think there should be more community based projects... And i know i'm gonna flamed for this... but something people like... not Realmwars... I know there's alot planned for and what not... but hey...

What I would like to see is more general community projects so they chunks people bite off isn't too big...

But GG is cool!... At least I can say I belong to the coolest community on the net :)

#4 People will moan, its a fact. They also have a right to moan about x not being done, after all most of us are paying customers.

However, I think most people realise that the gg peeps have to decide on a plan and prioritise things, and put some stuff on the back burner that someone may rabidly declare should be a priority because 'they' need it.

From what I can see though, the gg peeps are professionals, and realise that they can not please everyone, and handle their criticism in a professional manner. Thats really important to me. It reassures me the tool I'm investing a lot of time on is in good hands, and maybe if I ask a silly question after being up all night (like my 7am bedtime last night attempting to get day/night cycles to work) I'm generally not going to get a snotty reply.

Of course thats not true for everyone, but when is it.....

#5 @FruitBat: absolutely!

@Mark: you have to have an fxSunlight object in your mission for updateSunPosition to be called :)

#6 I have one, it only updates the light if I bring up the editor for the Sky object and apply it, and the time scale gets all screwy. I'm going to have to reapply the patch to a clean tree and try again.

Cheers.

#7 @FruitBat: *BOOM!* you said it perfectly!

Thank you so much GG!!!

#8 Hummm. I may as well do some talking...

I work for a software company (Compuware) and from experience we, programmers, must have a protocol to follow as well as a workflow. In this protocol and worflow we must make room for people who complain because that is the way we can find what portions of our product need improvements/fixing/testing. So, moaning is not a bad thing unless you are just being unreasonable and annoying as heck...

What would happen if people never complained in some way or another? Developers would consistently code without a sense of direction of what it is that customers find most important and is needed in the applications we use... What else? Developers will not be able to find problems in the product(s).

A difficult part in the developing environment is the fact that you do not have time to write perfect and pretty code. Why? Because you have deadlines. But once the product is released, it is up to the user to let the programmer know what does not work and what could be improved. Of course it is nice to hear when things work, but normally users do not take the time to say that the product rocks...

I am sure that the chaps here at GG do know that moaning is not a bad thing because that is the most effective way of finding the little problems that are difficult to see unless people use the product. And they also really appreciate our taking our time to say that this stuff pretty darn good and to moan so that we can make it even better, which is why they are trying to make an even better engine, TSE to continue feeding our hunger!

I hope the GG team does not kick me out of this thread for promoting moaning. :)




Cheers

#9 EATING OUR OWN DOG FOOD

When I first got to GG, we were starving-up even more than today, internally we talked about 'eating our own dogfood' a lot. By that we referred to things like making a game in Torque and seeing how difficult it was (we did have the advantage of many games under our belt and having built the engine ourselves) but we also wanted to make a fun game that a small team could accomplish with the tools available. That was when we created Marble Blast.

Along the same lines we've not taken funding from investors or lost control, keeping this dream out of the hands of those who may or maynot be faithful to our mission, but basically 'eating our own dogfood', taking our own advice and self-funding.

Raving Fans - What doesn't kill us makes us stronger
We're still using our tools first, today. Making demos, building Starter Kits and even GIDing.

With Torque 2D I've gotten to watch us again building games ourselves with our own tools. But we hope to hear lots of 'feedback' when we launch T2D. We hope this community does what it does so well and gives us the feedback to not just make the tools better for themselves, but for everyone who uses them.

Thats why we have our trademark 'Early Adopter' releases - showing you want we're working on and making sure the community stays involved, when its the right time for getting input. I don't think I'd pick the word 'moaning' as the right description for useful and intelligent criticism, testing and contributions to help make everything we do better, but we know if the forums go dead from a lack of requests for changes, that isn't necessarily a good thing.

The kind of community contributions, quick bug alerts, requests for new features and positive response we've seen to the RTS Starter Kit has been more rewarding personally than even the higher than projected sales (don't get me wrong we appreciate everyone supporting us with your hard earned dollars).

This is a great community and if one lesson indies can learn from GG 'eating our own dogfood' example is create a web space or use GG to engage your future players in helping you create great games. Of all our teams that have been doing this MaxGaming stands out as working with players on Lore to make it a game the fans own by way of active feedback to help make the game better. Developers who do this will have to learn how to listen with a critical ear to what will make your game better, more fun and most of all the focus of a loyal and rewarding fan base, but the effort is well worth it.

All I want for Christmas is for the whole world to play ZAP!
So if I can leave you with one request of one thing you can do for GG and for this community.

Play ZAP! and tell your friends if you like it.

Yep you heard me (DaPimpn'ator) right in a few days we're going to be launching a new GG title called ZAP! We want to build up the number of people who come to GG to find games to play and we think this multiplayer only game is the kind of viral game that can do that.

You'll be hearing lots more about ZAP! so stay tuned and this holiday season play ZAP! with all your friends.

#10 ZAP! is definitely a game I can get behind and pimp. ZAP! ROX! ;)

....can't wait for d-day

#11 Here is an example of worthless moaning.

This is an actual quote "I can't figure out how to do anything in torque, the community sucks and i have had it for ten days and am really frustrated!"

#12 That quote brings a tear to my eye. So well composed, so poignant, so emotionally charged. The only thing that would have made it stronger would have been a :( at the end. So they get a 9/10 from me.

I can't wait to play Zap. From everything I read from IGC, it's electronic crack. I also cannot wait for Torque 2D.

#13 Even in the last 6 months, I've noticed that GG's resources have gotten better ... ie. the Documentation by EGE.

This is a great resource that I'm working through now. The community also helps to "keep it real".

#14 Heh can see a lot of things to moan about with torque, but on the other hand I have seen a lot of positive things going on, and GG appear to have found some focus compared to 3 years ago :)

#15 Yeah, all I've done the last few days is whined and stuff because I'm relatively new to different aspects of the game dev program, and torque really was a blow, on the contrary it still really interests me. I'm not saying anything sucks around here, to be honest I probably wouldnt have gotten into this business if it wasnt for GG. So cheers to that, but onto my point, Im looking to get torque, sofar ive heard mixed feelings about the documentation, just a checkup, what would you rate its Doc's??

A: is it worth reading
B: Does it have sufficient tutorials and/or guides in it?

#16 A: Most definitely. You simply have to know how, and where, to look. It's getting better!
B: It honestly depends on what you mean by tutorials. The 3D Game Programming All in One is a 24+ chapter book written all about creating a game with every example using Torque, and it is outstanding.
There are dozens and dozens of other tutorials out and about that take some searching to find (depending on what you are looking for), some easier to use than others.

#17 I know what you mean, already have it :), I'm actually really excited to start a game with me and my friends, and since were still in school, we have a little more time than you working guys, so I really just wanna sit down, and finally start making some progress.