T2D update?
by Devin McCurdy · in Torque Game Builder · 07/19/2005 (6:03 pm) · 43 replies
I was wondering *roughly* when an update for T2D will be available, and where should I be checking?
Just curious/anxious, is all. =)
*this thread has been edited for content and for time*
Just curious/anxious, is all. =)
*this thread has been edited for content and for time*
#2
Theres also a plan to rename some/all of the prefixes for the T2D classes. Although I imagine a quick search replace would bring your scripts up to date.
As for anything else thats going to break, I've not read about anything, although that doesn't mean there isn't anything :)
07/20/2005 (3:10 am)
The only real thing I know that is going to break is map support. Melv posted a while back that he's implementing a versioning system for the map format to prevent future updates breaking everyones maps. Theres also a plan to rename some/all of the prefixes for the T2D classes. Although I imagine a quick search replace would bring your scripts up to date.
As for anything else thats going to break, I've not read about anything, although that doesn't mean there isn't anything :)
#3
07/20/2005 (4:29 am)
The next release will come soon. ASAP actually.
#4
07/20/2005 (4:43 am)
I'm really just super curious, actually. I mean, I see a lot of references to things that will be implemented/changed, but after some looking, I haven't found any official thread about update info.
#5
07/20/2005 (7:00 am)
After a couple of months you'll get used to it. 
#6
Again just my thoughts on the matter... Those plans referenced should give some good tidbits into T2D's updates.
07/20/2005 (11:25 am)
The way I think of it is either they could be giving us a lot of details or getting the things done. Engines that have a lot of talk usually do little walking... I'd take the implementation any day over the talking :)Again just my thoughts on the matter... Those plans referenced should give some good tidbits into T2D's updates.
#7
Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it.
But then again, where I work, we are required to send out an e-mail (in addition to using source control tagging functionality) explaining each task that we check into source control. And that doesn't stop us from finishing our games.
Of course, we still haven't worked out the whole "scheduling" thing. As in, delivering a feature on a specific date. But, then again, we do at least try to do so, and we at least publicise (internally, as we make games, not engines) when a feature is supposed to be released. I prefer having an estimated ship date that slips by a week or 3 than someone showing up one day saying, "Here's something now!"
07/20/2005 (1:37 pm)
Quote:The way I think of it is either they could be giving us a lot of details or getting the things done. Engines that have a lot of talk usually do little walking... I'd take the implementation any day over the talking :)
Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it.
But then again, where I work, we are required to send out an e-mail (in addition to using source control tagging functionality) explaining each task that we check into source control. And that doesn't stop us from finishing our games.
Of course, we still haven't worked out the whole "scheduling" thing. As in, delivering a feature on a specific date. But, then again, we do at least try to do so, and we at least publicise (internally, as we make games, not engines) when a feature is supposed to be released. I prefer having an estimated ship date that slips by a week or 3 than someone showing up one day saying, "Here's something now!"
#8
07/20/2005 (3:14 pm)
I'm just hoping that no updates is a product of hard work being done on T2D and not a result of resources being snagged to work on other things (like the GG game in production and TGE support of XBox and such).
#9
07/20/2005 (3:58 pm)
I doubt it, they have at the very least two interns, Melv and Josh working on it. I am sure Josh is a little side tracked with all the other crazy stuff Garage Games is doing, but as for Melv and the interns, they are going full steam ahead.
#10
07/20/2005 (9:57 pm)
Is there somewhere I can find info about whats going to be in the update?
#11
07/21/2005 (2:38 am)
Not really. There are some features that might get into the release, but you can't be quite sure there. But it will be really a lot better than what you have now. I have heard rumors that it might also come with documentation.
#12
I appreciate King Tut's task of keep morale up in the forums, but simple stating "Rah rah! Its coming... sooner than you think..."... well that doesn't really cut it. Use the early adopters as they should be used... for tracking down bugs and tuning features sets. As it is, we've been used primarily as a money grab early in the development of T2D. Ok, well maybe that's a little cynical, but still... throw us a bone!
07/21/2005 (5:48 am)
I don't get why it wouldn't have been possible to push out a release or two in the last few months. It is Early Adopter after all, people expect a couple bugs and things that might not be working. It doesn't have to take a week to put together a release... just take a snapshot of the development after a feature has been added (like the physics stuff that Melv blogged about a month and a half ago) and feed it to us hungry animals.I appreciate King Tut's task of keep morale up in the forums, but simple stating "Rah rah! Its coming... sooner than you think..."... well that doesn't really cut it. Use the early adopters as they should be used... for tracking down bugs and tuning features sets. As it is, we've been used primarily as a money grab early in the development of T2D. Ok, well maybe that's a little cynical, but still... throw us a bone!
#13
--edited for clarity--
07/21/2005 (6:42 am)
I must admit that I have been, and still am, a rabid supporter of T2D, but I must say I agree in some part with Aaron, Smaug, et al. It's tough to be on the outside looking in, especially when you're trying to look through opaque windows. Three months is a long time to not get any love from the developers. I don't think it should be difficult to understand by anyone why we should be upset at the lack of updates. It's not that I don't think progress is being made, I just feel as if all of us early adopters are out of the loop and somewhat left behind in the process. I don't think its a coincidence that the forum activity here cut off very sharply in the last few quiet months, silence on one end seems to bring silence on the other.--edited for clarity--
#14
They released the EA way too early. Releasing an early alpha version as EA is going to cause some confusion.
Before it gets heated, I'm using the "alpha version -> not all main features implemented", "beta version -> main features implemented" definition of alpha / beta version.
As we all know, the first 90% take 100% of the time and the last 10% take the other 100% of the time if you're developing software.
It seems like they have spotted a problem that's looks simple, but's not that easy to fix. That's what usually leads to the "real soon now" statements.
The good news (for GG) is, that you have to buy the EA before you'll be even able to notice that - so
a) they already have your money
b) they don't have a deadline they need to make, esp. since
c) see a)
We'll see. Maybe they are really close to finish the thing, and it's just those finishing touches that take some time. *crossing fingers*
07/21/2005 (11:26 am)
See, there's a problem here.They released the EA way too early. Releasing an early alpha version as EA is going to cause some confusion.
Before it gets heated, I'm using the "alpha version -> not all main features implemented", "beta version -> main features implemented" definition of alpha / beta version.
As we all know, the first 90% take 100% of the time and the last 10% take the other 100% of the time if you're developing software.
It seems like they have spotted a problem that's looks simple, but's not that easy to fix. That's what usually leads to the "real soon now" statements.
The good news (for GG) is, that you have to buy the EA before you'll be even able to notice that - so
a) they already have your money
b) they don't have a deadline they need to make, esp. since
c) see a)
We'll see. Maybe they are really close to finish the thing, and it's just those finishing touches that take some time. *crossing fingers*
#15
Transparency comes in many forms, but many of the GG folks have said: writing up blog entries takes time and we'd rather spend that time fixing the code. Great -- but that's only one form of sharing. I understand that CVS was a PITA to support so GG moved to supported installers. That makes sense too... to a point.
My personal recommendation would be: open up access to the SVN archive with the disclaimer that "this is totally unsupported. GG is not going to help you if you have problems with this."
But, this would solve the following problems: (1) everyone could see what was being worked on, (2) everyone could see how "fast" progress is being made, (3) people can see if their pet features are being added, so if not, they can go work on that, and (4) a lot of whining would just go away as people would know what's going on without taking up any GG time.
If you really want to go the extra mile, create a new forum group for "Unsupported SVN Issues" where all of us cowboys can go and help each other as we want to play with the bleeding edge of the software.
07/21/2005 (11:44 am)
I hope my comments don't enflame this post more than it already is. I've seen the work going on on the next update (via the various blogs of Justin, Melv, and King Tut) and I'm as eager and excited as anyone to get going. But, I also understand the frustration of everyone in this thread because I feel it too. I don't think anyone is trying to say "work faster," we just want more transparency into the process.Transparency comes in many forms, but many of the GG folks have said: writing up blog entries takes time and we'd rather spend that time fixing the code. Great -- but that's only one form of sharing. I understand that CVS was a PITA to support so GG moved to supported installers. That makes sense too... to a point.
My personal recommendation would be: open up access to the SVN archive with the disclaimer that "this is totally unsupported. GG is not going to help you if you have problems with this."
But, this would solve the following problems: (1) everyone could see what was being worked on, (2) everyone could see how "fast" progress is being made, (3) people can see if their pet features are being added, so if not, they can go work on that, and (4) a lot of whining would just go away as people would know what's going on without taking up any GG time.
If you really want to go the extra mile, create a new forum group for "Unsupported SVN Issues" where all of us cowboys can go and help each other as we want to play with the bleeding edge of the software.
#16
This all comes down to being in EA though. Those that did research on T2D before hand, looked at all the comments, read all the details, should already know the comments from Melv and GG about T2D's development and the EA's release.
T2D development is going faster than I got the impression it would from what they said. I know its hard to get the "hurry up and wait" line but sometimes its the truth.
I also don't buy the conspiracy talk about GG tricking people into buying T2D. T2D has only been in EA a few months, thats hardly a long time for pre-release. Heck a lot of games are in Alpha + Beta for years before release.
and keep in mind Early Adopter is different than Alpha or Beta testing. Its during development... and right now they are developing.
I can understand where you all are coming from and all I can do is reassure you and suggest you focus on working on your games. Thats what I'm doing *shrug*.
07/21/2005 (11:44 am)
First of all would like to say I don't get a single penny from how much anyone spends on T2D. Which I'm basically meaning I'm not helping with "morale" because I get anything out of it... I'm not doing it for GG, doing it for all of you. Since we're all T2D developers in the Early Adopters. I respect most of you and figured you should at least get some reassurance. The plus is you should be able to trust me, your choice though. Since I don't get any monetary gain from you being pleased with T2D. The downfall is I'm not GG, its not my place to give details. I might've said too much as it is. I have to respect GG (and they definately deserve it).This all comes down to being in EA though. Those that did research on T2D before hand, looked at all the comments, read all the details, should already know the comments from Melv and GG about T2D's development and the EA's release.
T2D development is going faster than I got the impression it would from what they said. I know its hard to get the "hurry up and wait" line but sometimes its the truth.
I also don't buy the conspiracy talk about GG tricking people into buying T2D. T2D has only been in EA a few months, thats hardly a long time for pre-release. Heck a lot of games are in Alpha + Beta for years before release.
and keep in mind Early Adopter is different than Alpha or Beta testing. Its during development... and right now they are developing.
I can understand where you all are coming from and all I can do is reassure you and suggest you focus on working on your games. Thats what I'm doing *shrug*.
#17
07/21/2005 (11:45 am)
@Smaug: You even said you publicize it "internally"... yes you are making games so you do it to your game development team... the same goes with an engine... you don't publicize every little update to your consumers do you ?
#18
I was kind of hinting at something resembling your list in my post, but you layed it out rather well. I fear this isn't the case, but it very well could be.
07/21/2005 (12:04 pm)
@LennartI was kind of hinting at something resembling your list in my post, but you layed it out rather well. I fear this isn't the case, but it very well could be.
#19
You can come up with all the cynical views you like if that makes you sleep better at night but the truth is much simpler and certainly more innocent; over the last two months I've been fighting-time between my day job, my family, T2D development and some nasty sickness (back-ache and fatigue). Just let me put this into context; I spend 15-30 hours a week on T2D on-top of my 40 hour/week at work and what's left is given to my family. As you can imagine, I have a very understanding wife god bless her.
I recently took time off work just so I could get certain aspects done ready to catch-up with the next stage that GG is driving hard towards (this was my holiday for the year!). Also you can believe the following statement or not but I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't spend a single pound/dollar of money I get from T2D until we get out of early adopter with the exception of a trip to the IGC to meet fellow T2D'rs. Only then will I feel that I've really earned the money. I'm not trying to win any sympathy here as my point is simply that this product, from my point of view, is not about money but personal satisfaction. I'm working on this so I can see people make games with it. T2D is my life.
Anyway, to confirm; you'll be pleased to know that extra people have recently been drafted @ GG to help out with T2D so development has really picked-up pace. Sure, there are several things going on @ GG that have unfortunately had to take priority but to consider this as GG "looking after their own" is silly because it's stuff that will benefit the community at large.
To address the post above regarding source-control; I'm not sure how this relates to the discussion here. All our development ideas are discussed via email/chat (and in-person @ GG) and source-control is done via SVN with each check-in detailing the changes. Internal milestones involve a post to the pool of people involved. This rich information (but too technical) is condensed into the change-log document as part of the release. It is my job to make immediate documentation changes if any functionality changes that affects it. The reason I post this is because I felt the post was indicating we were not providing information because somehow we are not organised and don't plan correctly. Maybe I'm wrong here and if so, I apologise.
continued ...
07/21/2005 (12:19 pm)
Well...You can come up with all the cynical views you like if that makes you sleep better at night but the truth is much simpler and certainly more innocent; over the last two months I've been fighting-time between my day job, my family, T2D development and some nasty sickness (back-ache and fatigue). Just let me put this into context; I spend 15-30 hours a week on T2D on-top of my 40 hour/week at work and what's left is given to my family. As you can imagine, I have a very understanding wife god bless her.
I recently took time off work just so I could get certain aspects done ready to catch-up with the next stage that GG is driving hard towards (this was my holiday for the year!). Also you can believe the following statement or not but I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't spend a single pound/dollar of money I get from T2D until we get out of early adopter with the exception of a trip to the IGC to meet fellow T2D'rs. Only then will I feel that I've really earned the money. I'm not trying to win any sympathy here as my point is simply that this product, from my point of view, is not about money but personal satisfaction. I'm working on this so I can see people make games with it. T2D is my life.
Anyway, to confirm; you'll be pleased to know that extra people have recently been drafted @ GG to help out with T2D so development has really picked-up pace. Sure, there are several things going on @ GG that have unfortunately had to take priority but to consider this as GG "looking after their own" is silly because it's stuff that will benefit the community at large.
To address the post above regarding source-control; I'm not sure how this relates to the discussion here. All our development ideas are discussed via email/chat (and in-person @ GG) and source-control is done via SVN with each check-in detailing the changes. Internal milestones involve a post to the pool of people involved. This rich information (but too technical) is condensed into the change-log document as part of the release. It is my job to make immediate documentation changes if any functionality changes that affects it. The reason I post this is because I felt the post was indicating we were not providing information because somehow we are not organised and don't plan correctly. Maybe I'm wrong here and if so, I apologise.
continued ...
#20
Everyone at GG are working very hard (you try 16-20 hour days) and we had the hope that we had provided enough to developers to allow them to create games and just plain enjoy the early look/see. In-fact, like it or not, Tik Games proved that with very little modification, you can releases games even with the v1.0.0 release so we were hoping others would follow suit.
I'm sorry if there are features that you don't have or bugs that you think are stopping you developing your applications but even with this release, there will be things that you probably still want so you may want to wait for the release after that or the next one or maybe the next one etc! Most if not all of the bugs have been resolved (apart from ones that come with a TGE v1.4 merge) as I've personally addressed each and every one that I've seen posted including nearly a hundred observations/suggestions/bug submissions that I've had in my email. As I'm sure you're aware, this takes an extraordinary amount of time during which we're trying to further develop the features we promised. Not an easy task and although three-months sounds a long time, it really isn't. If this means that perhaps we released T2D too early then so be it but then we wouldn't be having this discussion I guess.
In the end though, I'm not here to fight with anyone! I understand you wanting to see new features/bug-fixes/information and it will come but with regards to publically announcing features and estimate dates, GG will have to comment on that as I'm here to spend nearly all my free-time in a dark computer room. What I guess I should apologise for is the lack of plans from myself. In the time it took me to write this, I guess I could've partially written at least a simple textual account of the work so far. The only excuse is time but I really should make more effort to make them as I know GG are more than happy to discuss current developments in plans and actively encourage it. Josh and myself were due to post a detailed plan the previous weekend on the T2D development so far but both of us got distracted with other things unfortunately. I'm going to try to put together a good plan with plenty of 'meat' in it including lots of nice pictures though so please watch-out for that.
Sorry if this post ruffles any feathers! Be nice. :)
- Melv.
07/21/2005 (12:20 pm)
... continued ...Everyone at GG are working very hard (you try 16-20 hour days) and we had the hope that we had provided enough to developers to allow them to create games and just plain enjoy the early look/see. In-fact, like it or not, Tik Games proved that with very little modification, you can releases games even with the v1.0.0 release so we were hoping others would follow suit.
I'm sorry if there are features that you don't have or bugs that you think are stopping you developing your applications but even with this release, there will be things that you probably still want so you may want to wait for the release after that or the next one or maybe the next one etc! Most if not all of the bugs have been resolved (apart from ones that come with a TGE v1.4 merge) as I've personally addressed each and every one that I've seen posted including nearly a hundred observations/suggestions/bug submissions that I've had in my email. As I'm sure you're aware, this takes an extraordinary amount of time during which we're trying to further develop the features we promised. Not an easy task and although three-months sounds a long time, it really isn't. If this means that perhaps we released T2D too early then so be it but then we wouldn't be having this discussion I guess.
In the end though, I'm not here to fight with anyone! I understand you wanting to see new features/bug-fixes/information and it will come but with regards to publically announcing features and estimate dates, GG will have to comment on that as I'm here to spend nearly all my free-time in a dark computer room. What I guess I should apologise for is the lack of plans from myself. In the time it took me to write this, I guess I could've partially written at least a simple textual account of the work so far. The only excuse is time but I really should make more effort to make them as I know GG are more than happy to discuss current developments in plans and actively encourage it. Josh and myself were due to post a detailed plan the previous weekend on the T2D development so far but both of us got distracted with other things unfortunately. I'm going to try to put together a good plan with plenty of 'meat' in it including lots of nice pictures though so please watch-out for that.
Sorry if this post ruffles any feathers! Be nice. :)
- Melv.
Torque Owner Michael Cordner
While I am concerned with the when, I am more concerned with the things that are likely to change when it is released. For instance, at the moment I have no idea what the impact of upgrading the technology to the next version of T2D is likely to have on the entire project. Will it mean a total rewrite of everything that will have been written to that date? Will art assets have to be regenerated?
I understand that this is an early release (and it was a conscious decision to use T2D for this project, with a complete awareness or the release situation). However, it would still be nice to have some information that can be used for rough planning purposes.