TGEA Early Access price?

#1 From the IOTD:

Quote:The engine (formerly known as Torque Shader Engine) will be available to our Indie community for $295 and, as always, license holders will have access to the full C++ source code and never pay any royalties, ever. For larger developers, the Commercial license will be available for $1495 -- also with the source code included and without royalties.

Until the official release on February 15, GarageGames will continue to offer the Torque Game Engine Advanced under the Early Adopter license for $245.00 (ownership of Torque Game Engine is no longer required, but current TGE owners can continue to purchase Torque Game Engine Advanced at the reduced $150 price until February 15).

#2 I bought the TGE about a month before the final release of TGEA:


If I had known then what I know now I would have went straight for the TGEA: I was looking for realistic terrain importing, with a work pipeline via L3dt and Terragen, and the posts I made in the TGE forums looking for info were answered by other users/members along the lines of "Get TGEA - tge wont do what you are looking for.
Of ocurse waiting for posts takes a while...and I was waiting for a response from someone on the support team to my posts - and so missed the deadline by a day apparently :-)

I have sent a request for info regarding a continuation of the early adopter price..no response yet, but I understand you support guys are very busy.
I would still like to know what the upgrade price will be for the advanced engine..
It seems perfectly logical to me that there would be one right? I cant use TGE at all due to the limit on textures size and layers.. That info was a little obscure.


Its not that I mind putting money in: I dont mind an "upgrade" per say: but I cant help but feel that there wasnt enough info, prior to purchase, about the limitations of the TGE - just the same as there just isnt enough info about the possibilities of the TGEA compared to it.

I hope you guys can clarify this issue :-)


cheers,

M.

#3 Same boat as the guy above. Bought TGE with the intention of getting TGEA if i liked what i saw. Liked what i saw and low and behold i missed the Early Adopter plan by two days. There was no mention in any public area that i saw stating a release date or the release other than a few plans, heck i could still see the early adopter plan linked in most places. =\

#4 So that's it, there's no upgrade option? I just upgraded from TGE v1.4 to v1.5 assumming that I'd be able to upgrade to TGEA in the future.

#5 Well the engine was in "early adopter" for three years, so you had plenty of time to grab it at a discounted price.

#6 That's one way of looking at it I guess. Still, I don't see why there can't be an upgrade path. Seems a bit unkind to existing customers.

#7 What else were you expecting? Personalized email?

www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1383
www.garagegames.com/news/12259

#8 Here's an intersting one from March 2004:

www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=741

Interesting read that one.

#9 An email about the TGEA release would have been lovely actually. As far as I know I didn't get one despite owning a TGE license, and since I only decided to get back into working with Torque this weekend, I've been out of the loop and missed all those posts you linked to. But thanks for the nigh-hostility. : )

#10 "Member Since: Jan 13, 2007"

"Well the engine was in "early adopter" for three years, so you had plenty of time to grab it at a discounted price." - Time Heldna

Kindly check a persons join date before making stupid comments like that. I became a member and purchased TGE in Jan 2007 with the intention of upgrading to TGEA if I liked the engine which I did and I liked the fact there was then an upgrade path. The day i decided to purchase TGEA was Feb 17th, a whole month later most of which was spent learning the engine. Click the link, added to cart, went to purchase and the cart was empty! Then i found out there was no more EA, that's how poorly advertised it was.

Like i said, i feel i was screwed, quite rightfully so since all the information i saw in the short month pointed to the cheaper upgrade path continuing to exist just like the previous iterations of the engine.

If I had of known I would have just brought TGEA outright.

#11 @Danni et al that feel "screwed": Have you contacted Garage Games about this? They may be willing to work something out with you...

#12 If you're going to insult me the least you could do is spell my name correctly.

I don't see my comment as being stupid. As a consumer it's your responsibility to conduct research before investing time and money into a product.

Both TGE and TGEA have always had a FREE demo available for download, both of which are fully functional and unrestricted with the exception of source code exclusion.

There were several announcements that revealed the pricing structure of TGEA was going to change, all of which were posted before you purchased and after you become a member.

Feb 6
Torque Game Engine Advanced Release Date Announced

Feb 7
Torque Game Engine Advanced Release Date Announced

You knew TGEA was in an early adopter stage. The whole point of the early adopter system is that you receive a product at a limited discounted price to compensate for an unfinished product. Nowhere did Garage Games stipulate that TGEA would always be available at a discounted price to owners of TGE.

Failing all of that you always had the option of either emailing Garage Games directly or posting on these forums to enquire about the early adopter status of TGEA.

I see where you're coming from and feel it's unfortunate that you missed out on the discounted price however I don't see how anyone is to blame.

The information was out there.

#13 Hi there,

I fully understand the "buyer beware" mindframe, and will take my fair share of blame for not interpreting the early adopter thingy well enough.
Also I was not quick witted enough to discover the limitations of TGE on my own, after a month of use. Shame on me.


Having said that: I honestly feel that I shouldn't have had to trawl around waiting for information from users on the forums, simply because there was a lack of information/ communication from the company that sold me the product...

Can anyone from GG honestly come into this and say they gave enough advanced warning, ahead of time of the TGEA Early Adopter expiry?
I had less than a month from my date of purchase, and honestly was spending most of that time just trying to get my head around the application. I felt that i had the Early adopter option available to me: same as an option to upgrade my Windows, or my big mac :-)

So thats my problem then:
I, like others here, had assumed there was an upgrade to TGEA.

I can't help but feel that If someone from Garage had answered my previous RFI questions on the forum in a timely manner I would have went straight for the upgrade, as TGE doesn't fit my purpose (I didn't discover this in time- was literally 1 day late reading the user repsonse to my query that said: USE TGEA, TGE wont work for you) .

For info: My questions on the forum are STILL waiting for an official GPG input, which I think is rather unhelpful when the forum is pretty much the only form of realtime information we get about the products.

I don't mean to be testy. I want to enjoy this product, and 200 bucks is not a lot... but there is a weeny principle here, and I feel it strange that us noobs are being called out as ungrateful trouble makers on this issue :-)

#14 For info. i did send a mail, via support, the day after the expiry (thats how close I was to missing the upgrade :-P

No response :-)

#15 With no malice or hostility geared toward anyone:

As a general consumer of software products, both entertainment and development oriented, I feel that there was plenty of time to research the engines and plenty of notice for the release of TGEA. I saw the word "assume" (or a derivative of such) a lot in the previous posts, which is a bad word to use =). There are so many phrases based on the word "assume" that I will just summarize: Don't ever assume.

Any information about upgrade pricing was posted, and detailed what consumers can upgrade to and for how much. There was never a statement, that I can remember, saying we can upgrade from TGE to TGEA after the final release. I could be wrong and would happily invite someone to prove me wrong with a link or quote from a product page.

For those unlucky enough to get involved in, or come back to, the products within the past few months or so, I can understand the frustration of a short time frame to make a decision about two separate products. While inexpensive when compared to most other engines, anything above $100 is still quite a hit to my wallet. As they say, "Them's the breaks. . ."

I know this isn't the most empathetic statement to make, but that's just how it goes. This isn't my "inner GG fanboyz" speaking, these thoughts come from my background as a software consumer, and former retail associate. Every time I had to bite my tongue when someone tried to manipulate the system because they missed out on a sale, and felt they were wronged, I felt like I died a little inside because of my outspoken manner. I wouldn't doubt it if some members on this page do get special offers or treatment due to the bad timing and frustration, because GG is a company that tries to take care of its community.

Would I be so sincere...hell no....I lend my generosity to helping with code related question and posts, which is probably why I don't work in retail anymore =)

Good luck. . .

*EDIT* - Despite my earlier statement, I do not think anyone in this thread is trying to manipulate the system. I was referring strictly to my former customers when I worked in retail. I was just relating my experiences as an explanation for my motive.

#16 Good post Michael. As a newcomer I was a little worried about the vitriol I saw in this thread, but you're quite the diplomat.