New to torque should i get it

#1 That reakky depends on your definition of "Good", of course you alone will not be able to create the next Guild Wars or World Of Warcraft.
Torque is a nice Engine and for $100 there is nothing to loose really.
Torque comes with a lot of Documentations and the community is polite and helpful.
Blitz Basic is a game Engine without any visible parts, just a compiler as far as I know.
And Torque comes with a GUI Editor and a "Mission" or World Editor so it is easier and also more fun to construct levels and Interfaces.
Tons of exporters for various Software packages like 3DS Max, Blender etc. are available for free and There are books for Torque that I must recommend!

I say you should give it a try and my tipp, try to get a small introduction to C++ for the Engine comes with the entire sourcecode so you can customize the rendering algorythms and add more functionality to the Engine.
And TorqueScript is very similar to C# so it will make it even easier to learn TS once you have a feel for C# or C++!

#2 You don't have to buy it to play around with all the editors and the script language, so just look at the demo and see if you can understand any of whats there. Given you don't know what an SDK is, getting the full engine is probably not going to gain you much at this point. All that nets you is the C++ source, will probably be well over your head to start with. You may want to look into one of the various books written on Torque, which focus on the engine's basic capabilities and scripting language.

#3 Start out simple people, for the love of god I cannot stress this enough.

#4 If he never heard of SDK, He should not be even think about looking into the source code. Torque will be more complicated to you then Blitz Basic, Dark Basic, Conitec's Game Studio A6, etc. Torque is a much better engine in the long run, but you have to be up for the long run. If you want to spend a weekend studying and then write an online game Torque is not that engine.

#5 Ok thx.I think I will find some books.So far torque is the best game engine I have seen does anybody know of others that are similar to torque?

#6 Check out the Game Engine listing at Devmaster. They have an advanced search feature so you can find an engine with the specific features you want.

#7 Is it possible to add skills such as tree cutting,carving,mining,smithing in an online game with torque?

#8 Joe,

Again and again - this is a game engine, if you have to ask such questions then you're not going to make it. Can you run 2km without stopping to breath? It's all about your ability, not Torque.

#9 Joe

As Stefan points out, if you can code it Torque can do it. If you purchase you receive the full C++ source code, so what Torque can do is really only limited to what you can do.

There's no magic button called 'Make My Game" that you can press.

To reinforce what Mark says above, and this is very important...

Quote:
Start out simple people, for the love of god I cannot stress this enough.

If you have little to no experience, don't expect to be able to make a good online game (initially). Buy the engine and start small. Make a small, simple, single player puzzle game and build up from there.

Imagine if I walked into a Ferrari dealership and said "If I buy one of your cars, will that allow me to win the next Grand Prix?"

#10 Well some game engines are like that but some cant do that due to such lag.

#11 Actually, I don't know of a game engine that has a make game button that required no work on your part (from ClickTeam or GameMaker, etc). Even 3D game Maker, as limited as it is, requires some semblance of work on your part.

First you need to assess your abilities. Secondly, you need to assess where you want to go. If you've done a little programming in Blitz, why not continue down that road to get your programming experience up? A lot of great games have been done in BlitzBasic, Blitz3D, and BlitzMax. Of course, the rub there is that you have to program it from scratch. I would recommend making some small games in Blitz, getting your programming and logic chops about you, and then deciding on an engine to make your dream game with.

#12 I have made tons of games with blitz basic and gamemaker and gamemaker 3d but there programming capabalites are limited so I am looking for something more.

#13 Like I said. You can see a lot of how Torque works just by downloading the demo. It has all the script files that make it run included. If you think they make any kind of sense to you, try messing with them or looking for some basic tutorials. Torque doesn't have any limit to it's capabilities, but doing a lot of things is going to require a somewhat sound understanding of a complex professional level game engine.

#14 Great thx guys.You guys have been a big help if some mod or admin would like to lock this they can.

#15 Hey Joe,

I just wanted to add this bit.

I also have spent many years trying out other game engines, etc. I think we've all seen the long list of them on the web. I kept coming back to Torque though. Even though it took me 3yrs after I licensed it to realize what I really had.

Some of the others out there have an easier learning curve. That's what kept luring me to them. But in the end I realized that to do what I wanted to do, I would have to write code to add to them. Even basic things like decent multiplayer ability that I think should be standard these days. Torque already had what I would have to create for the others.

I finally sat down and start learning Torque. It felt difficult at first, but things start to sink in after a bit.

The biggest thing I like about using Torque isn't the fact that it can do pretty much whatever you want it to do (depending upon your abilities). It's the community here. This community is filled with people willing to help each other out with all kinds of things. If you run into hurdles, there's a post, resource, or someone here with an answer.

I also bought the TSE version. Wow....that's about all I can say to describe it. I still have a lot to learn to make it really shine, but again...the community here is helping me with that.

Since 1992, I've been developing games. I have yet to finish one due to my own laziness, but I've learned a lot about the tools out there. For the source code, playable/modible samples, excellent community and the content being created and shared, the price for Torque is really hard to beat.

And no, I'm not paid to say the above....but I do accept donations. ;-)

In any case, welcome to our home here and the best of luck on your projects. Just don't be like me and never finish one.

#16 Ok lol.I was wondering could I build a world where I could test in the demo?The new mission thing?

#17 I think you should decide what kind of game you want to make first and foremost, and then choose the best tools to make that game. Torque and Blitz3D are both excellent, and have their strengths and weaknesses over one another.

So I'd start off with looking at the game you have in mind, and figuring out which engine is going to prove the best.

As well as the game, think of who it is your game is targeting, what platform and what technology is vital to your games success, and which tools you favour, whether you want it to be modable, or use more complex tools that users are unlikely to have access to.

You should be able to come up with the engine by checking against your main criteria and seeing which one supports your needs the best.