GG TGE Licensing

#1 I think the liscense is 'one tge per person'. You'll have to purchase one copy for every member.

#2 There is source that is viewable in the private forums, therefore only people with a lisence can go on them.

#3 I think Matt and Tom are correct. For a person to have access to the private forums, they personally have to have a license.

#4 Http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=1903

Please read the above from the GG TGE FAQ URL. It's not per person. it's per developer. The forums aren't developer specific. Some forums touch on artwork and other multimedia resources. Thanks for your input though.

#5 @Terry
You are correct! As it stands right now you have to personally own a license to access the private forums. But do you think that is right? According to the posted link above? It's almost contradicting to what is and what it should be as described in the FAQ. You know?

#6 It is not contradictory at all. But whether one thinks it "is right" is debating business practices rather than licensing issues. It is per programmer for a the indie license and per seat for the commercial license.

#7 @David Blake
It's contradictory in the sense that they restrict not only programmer side forums as well as artwork/multimedia forums but only require one license for indie programmers and the entire team. If they only require one license purchase for TGE per developer, not seat, then they should only be restricting acces for forums regarding programming PERIOD.

Private forums contain secrects regarding lighting, audio, missionloading, save/load.....all of these have nothing to do with changing the engine code (per programmer) yet require a license? If the guy working the artowrk isn't required to have a license why is he restricted from those forums?

GarageGames needs to be a little more clear on the subject. Suggestions on how to fix -

Allow the owner of the gaming company to purchase the license and list who and what titles will be given with specific roles and permissions. That way, the developer can have the programming access and the audio guy can have audio access, and the artwork guy can have artwork access, and so on so forth.

This post isn't for the understanding of how many licenses or which one. It's for the ability to access private forums for your entire team within the requirement of purchasing one license (indie license and we only have one developer).

I hope I am making this clear and not confusing. Surely I am not the first person to come accross this situation? Keep the comments coming because the more I know the better.

#8 The private forums are foremost for programmers. Issues such as how to deal with mission lighting, creating exporters, etc are often bridged there, but answered mostly from a programmatic context. Of course, having artists with licenses, many topics end up on the private forums that could be in the public ones (though some of the solutions would require them to be on the private forums, such as the particulars for creating a working exporter for XSI from the DTSplus SDK.

But there are areas for Audio and Artwork in the public forums. One of the problems with such a setup is the scattered management that most startups (or groups of people who have a dream) have. While your team may be highly organized and consistent, it would be the exception rather than the rule, unfortunately. The management overhead would be a nightmare as many starter groups are extremely fluid and do not know exactly what they want to need but are sure that whatever it is, it is not being provided. Or at least not in the manner they think that it should be. One look through the projects and you'll see the nightmare landscape of dead or dying masses.

Your thoughts on private forums are more commonly attached to TDN articles and resources, especially in terms of documentation. The private system is product based, which is part of the problem that you are seeing. Since it is tied to ownership of a specific product rather than the project (which falls into the nightmare scenario) through which there are differing levels of licensee access. Part of it comes down to the way the site was originally designed and the way it has grown.

I think it would be interesting to see a different organizational scheme, but it would take a massive overhaul not only to the structure of the site but the mentality behind it as well as a migration scheme.

#9 @Andrew:

Quote:
Private forums contain secrects regarding lighting, audio, missionloading, save/load.....all of these have nothing to do with changing the engine code (per programmer) yet require a license? If the guy working the artowrk isn't required to have a license why is he restricted from those forums?

I agree! Some of those threads have nothing to do with programming.

-So, what's the problem?

The problem was, and still is, that there's no way to force people to post in the correct section, just like you didn't post in the correct one (Torque Public).

Moderating and moving all these incorrectly posted threads is another full-time job.

#10 What are you talking about? Audio, art, and script (TGE Public area) all have forums avaliable to non-TGE owners, the only thing you don't have access to is the private forums which discuss engine topics. Are you sure you are viewing all the forums correctly? Did you try clicking the "View All Forum Areas" or "Edit Forum Subscriptions" to change what you can view?

It's true there is information posted in the private forums that would be totally usable and viewable by the public, but that's just something you have to deal with. If someone does have access to those forums, it's natural they will be inclinced to use them even if it's not required for them to post there.

#11 I don't understand what existing private forums you think non-programmers need access to. I can only see the following in the Torque SDK Private Forums section:-

Discussion
Engine
Getting Started
Linux
Mac
Terrain Discussions
Tools
Torque Documentation
Torque SDK Bugs

If the questions that need answering are not related to the C++ source code, then they can be asked in the public Torque forums.

#12 Fyi: The art and modeling forums are all public and the private forums are specifically for developers.

The link posted above is from 2001 and both the Indie and Commercial licenses have change significantly since then.

Regarding either license; if you have (for example) 5 people who need access to the source code or the private forums you need 5 licenses regardless of the user's title. The difference between the Indie and Commercial license is based on how much your organization makes, whether or not you want to show the GG splash screen, and if you'd like the company to retain ownership of the Torque license when an employee leaves (the Indie license is tied to the individual, the Commercial license is per-seat and tied to the purchaser).

#13 @ David Blake

Good job! That's pretty much what I thought.

@ Stephan

Shhhh......

@ Paul

Take this for instance.....I paid for both Tim Aste packs and needed to look at some forums regarding combo pack 2. I did a search and the topic that intrigued me was blocked by the necessity of having a tge license. That's not progrmattic...that's artistic. So why was it blocked? I don't know!

@Wysyrdry

No clue what's in the private forums. Don't have access. I am sure there are more helpful forums regarding what I want to do in private forums than what I could get out of the public forums.

@John
If the FAQ that is posted is old and out of date then GG should probably have it moved or updated.



The issue has been resolved between myself and GG. Thanks.

#14 @Andrew:

This applies to TGE vs TGB as well. There's some *really* useful information and resources in TGB that is not specific to the code there, that TGE licensees can use.

What I usually do when this happens is contacting the author and asking him to upload a TDN article or send me the code that is not TGB specific.

Glad you found a solution.