When will the Constructor be released?

#81 It is simple there is to many projects been work on at the same time.

#82 I've sat back and watched these threads time and time again, all 2 million of them or however many there has been and it bothers me. We as game developers should know that release dates mean nothing. How many times was Burning Crusade pushed back? Or the mythical Duke Nukem Forever? You should never pay attention to release dates, actually they all should say the standard "when its done" I'd rather GG focus on getting it polished, fully functional, and awesome than worrying about meeting the "02/05/07" release date (and people that was not a release date, just hypothetical). it'll be worth it when it comes out. In the mean time use the other tools available to us. Also you shouldn't base your project's development cycle around an upcoming release.

@David:
priceless :)

#83 Why not say something like "In a few months we...", because I would be extra mad to find I just spent weeks on something GG already have nearly finished, in a much better way.

Its not the knowing about future "cool stuff" but NOT knowing when that future will arrive.
Take for example, i have made a large number of changes to the way my world editor works, but will not release it to the community because this "constructor" is far better then what i have hacked together. If i had known that constructor would not be available already, i would have released my world editor improvements months ago, but whats the point if it very soon becomes obsolete?

If it cames down to a situation like "yep, we thought about that 6 months ago ourselves, and the next release makes it forty-seven times quicker/easier/better"; I would have to ponder making it work "FOR NOW" or not bother with this aspect and wait for the 47X better solution. Of course this decision factors heavy on knowing WHEN that 'next release' is going to be, at least an estimation...

I already knew how to use QUARK. But for someone that do not know it, I can understand trying to figure out if they should waste many frustrating hours on something that is soon to be replaced.

Is it wrong to ask for some news about this exciting upcoming product?

#84 Everybody keep saying use the tools that is avaible to us. Well they dont work 100 percent. I have all the other tools you cannot convert a dif correctly when using a curve. The texture UV never convert correctly because it is convert with map2dif with each tool. So if I am working on racing game I have to wait. Unless someone have figure out how to do this. Or doing a game that require something like this. I know what going say you have the source well everyone is not outstanding at coding.

#85 You are definitely correct about the curves, and I do not believe that Bezier curves are implemented in Constructor either.

If you are making a loop-de-loop-esque racing game, then it would seem more natural to team up with a programmer to create a new 3D shape for your track segments that allows for curves and collision response.

#86 I am not making track but I am making building with the same curves. I have the collision working outstanding, it just there no way to get texture UV to come out right. I have try all the tools and they all give same result. I hoping Constructor have fix this problem. If not I guess back to draw board.

#87 GG would know better than I, they have TSE (or TGEA, as it's called now) as an example of how well it works to release an "Early Adopter's" version to their community. From my (outside-looking-in) perspective, it makes more sense to me to go with some type of EA program. Especially if this project is as large and takes as long as it has.

Would give teams like Sun Yu's the possibility to get a jump on the learning curve, as well as quelching some of the moans coming from the nay-sayers. Granted, it might generate more posts on "feature X...", but it must be possible to glean some useful information from user-feedback, even the whining. Not to mention generating revenue (perhaps, albeit, at a nominal discount) while rolling forward.

My 2 cents, echo'ing vashner and probably a raft of others. I just look forward to C'tor coming out when it does. I'm still in the "dreaming" stage, and this just makes it all a bit sweeter =)

#88 I agree - If GG wants to announce early rather than wait, and generate some revenue, I would be happy paying even the full amount if I knew I could get the final release as part of it - a discount would be icing. I don't see how an EA release could be any worse than the shortcomings in many of the editors out there already... even if it is, as long as there are regular updates (monthly) I could live with it. I've been patient with TGE as it has matured since 2001...

#89

Quote:There are 11 really freaking cool things (and I'm not talking "new particle system", I'm talking major systems and capabilities that simply don't exist today) that we are working on right now that we will not say a word about until most likely release day. I'm talking about things that will blow your mind.

Great. More hype and still no delivery or delivery date. You must be auditioning for a job with Electronic Arts or Bethesda (soil erosion!), arent you?n OMZ these 23,474 things are going to make you go crazy!! But we cant tell you because they r soopr sekret! Seriously. What kind of effect is that supposed to have?

Quote:I've sat back and watched these threads time and time again, all 2 million of them or however many there has been and it bothers me.

Im glad customers and the community expressing their frustration bothers you. That's a good sign. Ever think there's a reason why this thread comes up over and over? No, its not blockheadedness, its a gap between the expectations set by GG and what people feel they are getting.

Quote:We as game developers should know that release dates mean nothing.

Only if you decide they dont. In the real world when products dont ship on time to consumers, there's hell to pay. It's only because of the audience (majority adolescents) that game developers exist in this vortex of not having to live up to the expectations that they create in their consumers.

Quote:Or the mythical Duke Nukem Forever?

Yes, and that's why DMF is a laughing stock. If we applied your theory to all games, nothing would ever come out and self-deluded publishers would think nothing was wrong! LMFAO.

Quote:You should never pay attention to release dates, actually they all should say the standard "when its done" I'd rather GG focus on getting it polished, fully functional, and awesome than worrying about meeting the "02/05/07" release date (and people that was not a release date, just hypothetical). it'll be worth it when it comes out. In the mean time use the other tools available to us.

There's a difference in yielding to unreasonable pressure from people with unreal expectations and over announcing something so much and reaping the interest from consumers. The "its done when it's done" mantra is great for the first situation...but isnt and shouldnt be a cookie-cutter response or it loses its verve.

We're all going to love it when it comes out and it will be a feather in GG's cap.

#90 @Alfred: The purpose of my statement was to let you know that by group decision through posts like this and attitudes like yours, the community is missing out on things that quite frankly two years ago they would have known about and been able to plan for.

#91 Uhh that doesn't sound to great there Mr. Zepp. Someone ask for a drop of info on status of Contructor and the whole community gets punished for it. Sounds like a bad deal to me. :/

Can throw a steak(aka. pic's or blurb alittle bit of status) at us and say now be quiet no more question till next month or something.

#92 Just deleted a long, rambling effort. In short:

The $100 engine crowd doesn't want to buy 2 editors and doesn't mind a few bugs, we use Quark after all.

The "Coming soon!" sign in the store put everyone into high gear. It is easier to give it a date in the future "Coming 1st quarter, 2007" and then push that date back. "Coming soon" makes the release seem imminent, like you're in the packaging phase.

Anyhow, after some frustration, I'm working on some of the other hundreds of todo's that don't involve Ctor.

#93 The bottom line is that there is no way to satisfy everyone. Attempting to do so only risks one's sanity.

Take Silo 2 as an example. It's one of the coolest modeling apps I've ever used -- but it's still in beta. As such, the company releases a new time-limited version every month or so to registered owners (early adopters). That's pretty awesome.

Now you would think that everyone would be happy with that arrangement, but of course, they're not. There are still tons of gripes and complaints.

I would love to see and hear more about constructor, more often, but I don't blame the GG guys for trying to avoid the boatload of junk that accompanies every little statement and screenshot.

#94 Stephen, How exactly should we behave? What attutudes should the community have?
I really don't understand - you are talking in circles and we lose no matter what.
You tell us about a product to get us interested, then complain when we are.

Quote:
Why won't we talk about them, and let you plan for them? Because of threads like these, and how they pan out.

What, exactly is the correct response to an update? Just 500 posts that say "Cool! Can't wait!"? I know that asking for a release date is RIGHT OUT!

Quote:
Honestly, in some ways it actually is a detriment to the products or research--because there are vital and extremely capable members in the community that could help with R&D or tool creation that we may not be able to staff immediately, but this thread alone lets you know why it doesn't happen anymore.

How can the community "contribute" if you infrequently tell us what you are doing? Or is "Cool, Can't wait!" a valuable contribution? As for this thread - it is simply YOUR CUSTOMERS asking when a product YOU announced TWO YEARS AGO will ship - you never give estimates of ship dates, but instead keep saying "close" - which is not an answer. You tell us "Close" and a year goes by then yell at us for asking when "close" is! Close is not measured in years in most peoples' minds.

Quote:
Some of these things have been hinted at in the forums, and it kills me every time I see them because I want to say "don't worry about that, we've already got 2 man-years of development done on that topic". Sometimes, it's something like "yep, we thought about that 6 months ago ourselves, and the next release makes it forty-seven times quicker/easier/better".

So, if I understand, you aren't sharing this information because too many people are asking for this information.

Quote:
...through posts like this and attitudes like yours, the community is missing out on things that quite frankly two years ago they would have known about and been able to plan for.

What???? Plan for What? When?

Please allow me an illustration:
Did you know I am releasing a new game engine that TOTALLY BLOWS ALL THE OTHERS AWAY! I can't share the cost or release dates, but it will automatically generate any game you want, comes with every editor you need totally integrated, will likely cost less then fifty bucks, but not sure yet and it runs on any hardware and all operating systems, even solaris! It even runs 47 times faster than TGEA! I can't tell you when it will release, but it is close, and please don't bug me about it - it will take valuable development time away from the project. I assure you that I am not sitting on my butt, and yes, I announced it two years ago and did say 11 months ago it was "almost ready", but I think it is getting close this time, but really can't talk about it. In fact, I really wish you people would quit bugging me about it - it is really frustrating. In fact, I can't talk about it at all. You people really lose out because of your attitudes.

Now, how useful to us is that, really? And how are we to "contribute" to that kind of approach? How are we to even react? Uhm... Sorry we asked?

So - Stephen - what do you want or expect from us? If we show interest, it frustrates you, if we don't, we aren't contributing. You said a year ago the product was almost ready, do you really expect the community to just patiently wait YEARS for an answer? You give infrequent updates, and if we get a little impatient then that's our fault and we have bad attitudes.

The bottom line is here is that you announced a product that meets a highly desired need, to a community that desperately wants it, informed us that it is "close" long before you were ready to ship, then chastised us for asking for updates and then felt obligated to blame us for the whole problem. This is like ordering a steak at a restaurant, waiting an hour for it, then have the waitress tell you that they could get it to you faster if you quit asking about it - in fact, they aren't even going to tell you about the steak next time until it is already cooked because of your attitude.

Quite frankly, none of my customers gives a damn about why a product of mine is late/behind/broken/whatever. If a client calls 28 times a day to ask about status - I give 28 status reports, and smile with each one. I don't tell them to quit bugging me if they want it finished. I ask for their input whether it is helpful or not and don't chastise them if it isn't what I want to hear. You need to learn to smile, give updates, and meet deadlines. We HAVE been patient - but to be patient and then chastised, well, that has used my patience up. I don't care why C'Tor is late - it is late. You announced it - you have an obligation to deliver it in a timely fashion or communicate, regularly, to your customers. Based on the posts, that is what we want. Take the heat or get out of the kitchen. We are your customers. Welcome to the real world of doing business.

Joe's original update was enough for me - I understand delays - but the apparent blaming of the community is what gets under my skin. Sorry if this is upsetting, I appreciate the efforts of GG and the team, but please don't take frustrations out on the customers.

#95 Hey all,

please stop beating this dead horse. We learned our lesson, and we are taking the beating. I am working on getting things out as soon as I can. I am not going to announce a date until we are ready to do so.

I gave the status the best I can at this time. It is not done at this moment. When we are ready to set a date, we will.

I don't have the time to write an essay giving insight into the inner workings of the planning and release process here at GG, as Torque X and TGEA are both close, and are taking a good deal of my attention and the attention of testing.

I have said it before, but I will say it again. We sometimes re-allocate resources to projects that we see as opportunities to extend our distribution and pave the way for indie games on other platforms. This means we sometimes have to make hard decisions about who is working on what, and when they are working on it.

Constructor is important to us, but it is not the only thing that is important to us. When we have a firm date, we will announce it. Until then, I am not going to make any promises.

What we did is what we did. We did not meet expectations. I can only apologize. We are not going to make matters worse by setting a date and not hitting it.

One of the reasons I won't is that even if the devs are not responding here, this sort of noise is a distraction to development. They are reading this stuff, and it affects them. I am trying to get everyone focused on getting this stuff done, and deliver y'all what you want as fast as we can without compromising quality.

On the PR front.. yeah, we need to do better. We tried the EA approach, to let people in as early as possible, and with that, we get dinged for not keeping people updated on the roadmap and the plans, as well as dealing with issues that people are complaining about.. all of this while being in active dev on the product. it takes time to deal with that. On constructor, we have a beta, and people are on it. It takes time to manage the beta.

If anything, we underestimated the time to maintain the communication aspect of dealing with betas and EA releases. It takes more time than we anticipated, it is hard to schedule (as an 'on fire' thread can show up at any time). As a manager and planner, I can tell you that my approach is to limit things that are variable cost and unscheduled as much as possible. In the interest of getting things done sooner, we are focusing on the issues of getting software done, and less time talking about what that means.

If you want to vent, vent on me directly. Send me an email with your complaints. I will read them, and time permitting, I will reply.

so, the point has been made. Expectations were not met. There is hell to pay and we are paying it. Right now, I am asking everyone, I can spend my time in meetings with the devil going over the payment plans, or I could be trying to do my part of helping get these products to the finish line. Your choice. If you want to beat up on us more, please email me privately about it and I will respond when I have time. If you want to see constructor sooner, please become part of the process of helping that to happen by letting us focus on getting it done.

so it is clear,

- we have a plan for getting it done in a reasonable timeframe
- I am not going to share that plan
- we realize expectations were not met, and there is nothing we can do about the past
- I am not going to make the same mistake by resetting the expectations
- the best we can do is focus on getting it done as soon as we can
- threads like this are not helping us get it done faster, and are, in fact, a distraction that will cause delays


this thread has outlived it's useful life. We get it. We are not going to work on 'spin control', we are focusing on getting it done. At this point, this is the best we can do for you guys.

Joe

#96

Quote:what do you want or expect from us?

I will respond to this one.

What I would hope is that everyone understand that the message has been received loud and clear. We got it. We are working on it as hard as we can. We have TGEA and Torque X nearing release. A great deal of our marketing, coordination, and communication resource is focused on preparations for them.

Give me 3 weeks to deal with what is on deck, and then bug me about this again if you feel it is necessary or if we have not publicly said anything regarding constructor.

in the meantime, please realize that the point about expectations not being met has been heard, and that repeating it is not going to make it any more clear.

#97 Sounds fair. Looks like this thread has served its purpose. Look forward to seeing Constructor in action :P

#98 @John Stamets - Nice one mate :)

@Joe Maruschak - Even better one :)

#99 "We have TGEA and Torque X nearing release"
I worry that for a small company GG might have spread themselves out to thinly over too many products... What GG needs now are more employees... Im available for cheep hire!

#100 Although I too am one of the fan boys for GG I do have to whip that dead horse just a little.

I have no problem with no ship dates (im from the industry so i can relate) I have no problems with expectations, my only expectation is getting it done in a reasonable time frame, I already trust you guys that it will rock).

My complaint would be one of priorities. Sure its great to try and get your foot in the door with torque X, builder, etc, etc, yadda yadda. But it most likely means you have way more to support and probably need more people to support it to the level it needs(so more distractions are likely to occur). and two it means lots of other things took a backseat in the meantime.

thats all good and understood. but from a developer standpoint the biggest piece that really contributes to the success of any project is the tools. A streamline art content pipeline is paramount to successfully managing time, schedules, and budgets.

now sure you can point to this or that other relatively unsupported product like Quark, but thats not a good answer. If it were up to artists they would do everything in max anyway. but as for world builders they like to have integrated tools(artists do as well most of the time) so that they can quickly and easily drop in new content and see exactly how it will look without having to hop in and out of different tools.

sure you can do it without it, but its a pain and slows down development. so like I said, from a development perspective I would push hard for more tools, better tools, and integrated tools.

needless to say that should not hold anyone up, but I can tell you as a HUGE fan of Torque and GG I have lost many an argument to use Torque because the tools were not there(sure there are tools but its a mixed bag of stuff from here and there).

who do I see Torque losing too time and time again? That spaghetti coded nightmare called unreal (2 and 3)
why? do you ask. cause the fully integrated Tools seals the deal every frick'n time. Executives love it, world builders drool over it, and artists are like "hell yeah"
(but when the programmers get it its like omg wth is this).

so I cant stress enough (now im beating the dead horse) how freakn important tools are to your potential users.

now my case is probably very different then others because my push for Torque was not with small independent studios but with many of the industries big players.

now it may not be GG's goal to be part of those big players, maybe there focus will always be the small independent developers but why limit yourselves?

great engine, great framework, great bunch of guys (meet them all personally) but the mishmash of third party tools to get anything done goes over like a lead balloon especially once the artists and world builders get something to say about it.

so for me things like constructor are somewhat of a disappointment, years in development(or so it appears), no info or updates (not looking for dates just updates)nothing available but quark(oh god) and some other fairly crappy tools that no hardened industry artists want to use.

but im a business guy too so I understand the reasoning behind your decisions and im glad you guys put a lot of thought into the decisions you made that caused construtor to get delayed.

you guys work very hard and get an amazing amount of stuff done and you really have to focus where you think it does the most good.

so even though im bummed that its taken so long, I understand, and hope that eventually it comes out and I can once again begin my quest to beat out unreal at least once in my lifetime. lol

peace.