TorqueX equals an incomplete TGEA

#61 If anyone here feels that they been robbed, and would like a refund, please email me and I will do my best to take care of it. GarageGames is not out to 'trick' anyone to get money. If you felt like you did not get what you paid for, I want to do what I can do to make it right.

I will try to post a little later today to this thread with more information. Criticism of the product being less than what was expected is being heard. Criticism that we are just after money is not being heard because it is not our intent. If you feel that you did not recieve the value you expected, we want to make it right.

I know that I am opening myself up to an email slam here, so be patient if you don't here back from me right away.

#62 Joe, I obviously cant speak for all but the majority of us are not after refunds, and are committed to using TGEA for our projects. All we really want to get things fixed and are getting frustrated at the very slow (from our point of view) service we feel we are receiving when it comes to fixing bugs, releasing fairly bug free updates, and getting missing features implemented.

To compound our frustration we have all these new GG projects sprouting up all over the place and talent being brought on board for other projects besides what we paid for. These projects serve no other purpose than to grow your consumer base which definitely is your right to do but in doing so you are neglecting and alienating your current consumers who have not gotten what was promised when we purchased the engine.

All we really want is for you guys to deliver what we purchased in its entirety. Even if that means pulling people from these "unannounced projects" for a few months to finish the engine off so we can get back to making our games. I know for our project at least, and I'm sure we are not alone, you guys are directly holding up our titles release. Keeping a 45+ person development team who has spent over two years on this title while dealing with this engine in its various milestones and releases from climbing the walls or getting frustrated and quitting; while simultaneously moving ahead and attempting to fix the mess ourselves and waiting for you guys to deliver to us what we purchased so we can put the finishing touches on things is extremely frustrating.

#63 I will send out a longer post later, but what it comes down to is, moving some of our newly hired QA people, project managers, marketing folks, or the accounting and sales people onto TGEA is not going to help get the code done faster.

I hear the concern, and I will try to find the time to write a longer post on this later today, but wanted to get this out there unless I get too busy dealing with the business of the day.

#64 Joe, I look forward to reading you post with an open mind. And that you for not ignoring us. I'm glad to see that at lest one person seems to be taking our situation seriously.

PS: you guys Get this stuff right and I promise I will be the biggest TGEA evangelist you have ever seen!
I believe in the product and I belive in your talent. That is not what is in question. It is the managment decisions being made that we feel are not in our "your customers" best intrests. Like the allocation of resources for instance.

Also I agree and none of us are saying that putting QA and marketing people to work on the engine is the solution. What we are saying is that if things are this far behind on the engine perhaps the company and most definatly the community would better be served by hireing more programmers rather than more marketing people. Becsaue if you don't have a good product all of the marketing people in the world are worthless.

BTW: no ill will against any of you new GG marketing people. I spent years in marketing myself.

#65

Quote:
map2dif does not compile because TGEA lib project is not 1.0.2 compliant

I just tried my clean build of TGEA 1.02 and it compiled just fine.

Did you install the 1.02 update "over top" of your 1.01 installation? This has caused other people problems in the past. I always keep one completely "clean" copy of TGEA for testing and comparison. Whenever I start a new "project" I make a copy of the engine for modification. When a new version of the engine is released I first archive the old version to a ZIP, then delete the folder and install the new version fresh. Give that a try and see if it resolves your compiling issue.

#66 @Marc - I would like to respond to what you wrote in your post here :

"On the QA part: I'm sorry to say so but right now I'm forced to ask myself what they actually did to the 1.0.2 release.

map2dif does not compile because TGEA lib project is not 1.0.2 compliant, which clearly shows that there is a massive difference between what we are told and what is internally done, at least right now.
No one can give me any usefull explanation why a simple "project - batch build - select all - build" error was not trackable, as even a beginner most likely must have struggled over that.


Its hard to believe and trust in a QA that spits out that kind of quality which is that error prone"


I'm sorry that you feel like you cannot trust or believe in GarageGames QA. I am not going to attempt to argue or otherwise be cranky with you, but I am going to attempt as best as I can to answer your question above - "...what they actually did to the 1.0.2 release" as well as give you some insight into the way that GarageGames QA is growing and will be able to provide better Quality across our products in the future.

Firstly, I am aware that TGEA 1.02 is not some super-sexy update to the product. It is also not the product you feel it should be and it is not bug free by any stretch of the imagination. Understood and agreed with completely.

The 1.02 update is something that was meant to address a bunch of bugs. It was delayed considerably due to a lack of resources in several places. The main programmer of TGEA is currently in the process of living his own life doing his own thing in another city. This leaves a place to fill when it comes to having the resources it takes to get fixes and test cases written up for them for TGEA.

The update handed to me is a collection of fixes, with the changes written into a change-log, and handed off to me to test and confirm that the fixes in place do indeed work, and not break anything else.

GarageGames QA department up until the last month consisted of :

Me.

I am not a programmer but I am learning as I go to be able to spot simple errors in things such as compiling, etc. However, it is indeed quite possible for me to miss some code related change that others would spot easily.

I do test everything that comes across my desk with a set of clear test cases and plans. This is one of the areas that we are working on right now at GarageGames. Without test cases quality suffers and QA is not running optimally. This is a big one to tackle and much thought and work is going into it making it so.

We have hired in the last month or so (to JUST the QA department) : 2 tech/tools QA Analysts, 1 Web QA Analyst, 1 Web QA Manager, and we have an interview for another Analyst next week tuesday, as well as plans to hire a full-time, professional, automation engineer to add automated testing to our QA methodologies.

It most definitely takes time to bring new QA hires up to speed, help train them, implement build submission guidelines and processes, organize test cases, and grow a QA department - where before it was just myself, putting out fires, and trying to get ad-hoc testing done on updates so that they can go out to the community.

The 1.02 update was tested with little to no test cases and was done by myself, while training a new hire. That is the resources I had available to me and I did the best with them that I was able to. I am sorry that the level of quality of the final released update was not what you were expecting.

I guess that the point of what I have said above for those who like cliff notes is this :

-We know there are quality problems across our engines
-We know that the current level of QA is not where you or I would like it to be
-We are actively hard at work on making this situation better and are determined to commit whatever it takes in time and resources to doing so.

I guess that's all I really have to say no the subject. Hopefully by the time the next update rolls out, the QA department will be looking much better in terms of resources and ability to get more done, more accurately, and quicker.

#67

Quote:What we are saying is that if things are this far behind on the engine perhaps the company and most definatly the community would better be served by hireing more programmers rather than more marketing people

we are actively searching for more candidates. If you know of anyone who you think we could use, please let us know.

Day is getting away from me, so I might not get to post before days end, but I will try to makes some time to get this on my short term to-do list.

#68 GG guys,

It was never my intent to come across as just another complainer doing his best to put down GG. If that is how I have been coming across, I am sorry.

I, do not want a refund. I do not want my money back, and I do not regret my purchase. Nor, do I have any intention of spouting off how terrible GG products are, because to me that would be a lie. I have taken issue with some of GG's practices.. not it's products. I like TGEA very much, and see such great potential. But, I need some form of reference / guide as to what is currently being worked on, and what is "tentatively" planned for at least the next release or two. Without that, I am forced to assume that GG is doing nothing and then take a chance of wasting my time fixing the same thing when I could have been focusing on something else. That may not bother some, but for me, time is money.

Of course, it bothers me that specific things either don't work, aren't there, or a combination of the two. While I understand the numerous things that come into play, and which must be considered by GG, I do tend to anticipate releases sooner than every 6 + months, but this to me is a separate issue. The lack of communication / support for clients via a flow of information is unacceptable.

#69 Andrew, I think that is one of the best articulations of what we have been trying to say in this whole thread.

Kenneth: forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you. But are you saying that there is no head programmer on the TGEA project right now? Please tell me this is not the case. Please tell me that some of the people that are in R&D that have created this stuff in the first place have been pulled to fill this spot if even only temporarly.

Also if this is the case How come I don't see massive hire post in the blog you guys are pushing looking for replacements? all I see are:
QA Engineer (Web)
Marketing Director
Community Manager
MySQL Database Administrator
Web Engineering
Accounting Manager
HR Coordinator
Windows Applications Programmer

None of this is going to help TGEA.

TGE is finished surely people can be pulled from that and brought upto speed on TGEA no?

I hope that I'm just misunderstanding this and I'm completly wrong.

I do want to to the GG guys that have taken the time to talk with us today that we thank you very much. It is my hope that this can continue.

#70

Quote:forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you. But are you saying that there is no head programmer on the TGEA project right now?

still super busy, sorry for lame short response. The structure of the engine dev team is not set up that way. We don't treat any of our engine tech as a standalone product that exists in a vaccuum.

short answer is that all of our tech is in some way inter-related, with experts in each section of the code working on pieces of it and addressing issues in all the engines across the board.

Taking one coder from a game project and throwing them at some weird lighting issue is not going to make it go faster.. usual result is that the game coder starts bugging the guy who knows more about the issue(and is working on something else, thus slowing that guy down).. and the game coder is then not getting something else done.. well, it can lead to a descending spiral of everyone not getting anything done. It is more complex then that.. but that is the general picture. 'throwing a coder at it' is not a solution that is going to give you what you want.

During the last few months, we have also been attempting to grow QA, which has been painful as the race to get stuff out sooner to y'all has forced us to make some decisions that were less than ideal.

We are sort of slowing down to get the process better than it has been.. which will ultimately result in better releases.. but it causes things to slow down as we are trying to get better at test plans, regressing our bugs, and generally shooting for more quality.

as for not communicating.. if anyone is to blame, it is me. I pretty much gave all the devs the directive to:

1. don't make promises we don't intend to keep soon (as in, don't talk about code you have not written and is not in test)

2. don't blame the community, and don't flame people

3. get your heads down and get it done.. don't spend time in the forums trying to fight fires and getting frustrated. please just go write good code.


will try to write more later.. but basically, we have heard everyone, and we are trying to do our best to give quality.. and to do it with speed.. but everyone needs to understand that we cannot do both NOW. If you want stuff fast, we can do that.. if you want it less buggy, we can do that. If you want non-buggy stuff fast, it just ain't going to happen.

Quote:Also if this is the case How come I don't see massive hire post in the blog you guys are pushing looking for replacements?

there were a few blog posts here.. but we are also using other channels to find the people we need (re: recruiters). In fact, another round of job reqs is on my todo list.. and I need to get back to that very long to-do list so that we can focus on getting this stuff done.. again, more later, time allowing.

Quote:I hope that I'm just misunderstanding this and I'm completly wrong.

I don't know if I would call it misunderstanding.. what you are doing is mapping your concept of an ideal world onto our reality and trying to somehow blame us that the reality you want to exist is not the one we live in (although I myself would like to live in that reality).

I assure you that we are not out to screw anyone. We are working toward creating software that will help you to make your dreams a reality. We may not be batting 1000, but damn it, we are trying. more later, got more stuff to do before the veil of sleep pulls me down.

edit:

wanted to add, that in the jobs list, there is this req:

HR Coordinator

which is someone we need in order to effectively search for, pre-screen, and follow up on the recruting.

#71 @ Joe

We appreciate you trying to explain yourself in a professional manner. But this still does not help us resolve the base issue which is that TGEA needs completing.

It would be nice for you guys to at least put forth some type of schedule, timetable, or plan to brief the community of what you guys plan to do to get the engine complete in a timely manner. It doesn't have to be a firm commitment just an itinerary would do so we know whats on the board and what currently isn't as far as fixes and feature completion. Just something so we know you guys are serious about working on this engine. Also dropping us some info in this forum to update us when you get some new feature working or some bug that has been hounding people fixed would also go along way to help inform the community about the engines status. At least then we know that you guys are working on the engine. Right now their their are large gaps between when we hear anything which is extremely frustrating to us because we are waiting on some of these missing features and bug fixes and we cant release without them.

Also your right throwing unqualified individuals at the engine blindly doesn't help get it done faster. But my question is, why not hire more engine programmers instead of all these support roles? I would think hiring more people to produce the product would help us out much more than more marketing people at this point. It sounds like Ben(?) ran off on an "extended' vacation, which means you probably could use some more engine people to help fix things around their. Marketing people are all fine and dandy and usually are good honest folk. However, if your engine is not working properly then their isn't much to market. So why continue to hire unneeded people into support roles when one of your core products isn't even complete. The QC checkers will come in handy and I hope you get some with actual engine experience as without the ability to code and debug it makes it hard to really QC check updates and for that matter anything else.

As for your comment about quality VS Speed. We have yet to see either one really. Every update has had its share of bugs that prevent out of the box compiling so quality is out the window from the beginning. Coupled with the long wait times between when we hear any type of news about updates means speed must also not be up to par. So right now we don't seem to be getting either one. I do however dis-agree that Speed and Quality is an unobtainable goal though, and GG certainly can pull it off if they want. It boils down to better planning and internal goal setting as well as hiring on people that are needed or contracting work out if you cant afford people full time to help you meet internal deadlines which hopefully you guys are setting.

Another part of what your TGEA project mangement needs to do is really enforce deadlines. This is a huge, although somewhat unpleasant, part of management responsibility. Yes, you might not always be the good guy for doing it, but in order to get a product out the door and working you must set fairly firm but at the same time flexible deadlines and goals. This engine definitely has suffered from a lack of proper planning, resources, and management on GG's part but it is not to late to fix it. I hope you guys realize this and are putting steps into place to fix the issues in the engines production so it can get back on track as a lot of us are depending on this engine being fixed in a quick and timely manor.

Sorry for the mini lecture but sometimes you need an outsiders perspective to help rationalize what everyone internally is seeing. This post was in no way designed to flame your practices at GG but to try to give you another perspective on the situation.

#72 Pardon my rant:

Being one of the people who has actually seen how ridiculously hard the GG employees are working, I find those last two paragraphs incredibly insulting. Not to me, but to all the great guys I met at GG. Seriously, there's a huge disconnect between some people in this thread and the reality of the company (unless it's changed tremendously in the last year, which I doubt). Clearly, there are some growing pains and forced overcommitment, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the guys (yes, actual people - not some monolithic entity) are working their butts off to make a quality product. 1.0.2 came out a few days ago - obviously work is continuing.

And lets examine the future of TGEA for a moment. TGE has been around (and supported with only one paid update, afaik) for what, 7 years now? And you think GG isn't going to invest in the successor to that? Seriously? And that GG isn't going to make another game with that engine? It seems pretty obvious to me that TGEA is going to be the expanding engine - if not now, then soon.

I could say more, but I'm probably being too angry as it is :)

Edit: I should have just kept lurking and waited for Joe ;)

#73 editing this to say hi to Thomas (above) and ask everyone to send him an email suggesting he abandon school and please come back




Ok,

here is a little bit more info. There was no official 'gag order' or anything, but basically we have realized that we shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times (TSE and Constructor) and that we basically said too much too soon and did not deliver to expectations.

additionally, we were ambiguous with the line between what we 'planned' and 'promised', and we have had to deal with the issues of unintentional expectation setting. For multiple disparate reasons regarding all the particular features, we did nto get as much as we had hoped. What can I say.. it is obvious we kind of sucked at estimating the cost of implementation here.

Along we sucking at estimation, we appear to also suck at understanding the mismatch of our expectations were, what we presented, and what the expectations of all of you were and are now. We are trying to get better at this, and it is an active point of discussion here at GG. When we decide how we are going to address it for the future, you will here more from us (probably from me as I offer myself up for crucifiction).

For now, accept the fact that I admitting that we obviously did not deliver what people expected, and we are working on not doing that again.. first part is to not continue in the same vein and keep setting (and risk not delivering) on the expectations we set.

so, although I would like to tell you what we are planning, I am not going to at this point. I am not about to make a promise I do not intend to keep, and I am not going to do so and then not deliver for you, and I am going to do my best not to let anyone else do that either.

I understand that this may disappoint some of you and that you want more (or demand more), but I am not going to make matters worse by promising and then not delivering. When I am able to say with assurance what is next, I will do so, but now is not that time.

If this is an unacceptable arrangement, all I can say is that I apologize and that you contact me for a refund.

If you have a particular issue, please get it in front of either myself, Ken Holst, Stephen Zepp, or Matt Fairfax (preferably not me as it has the potential to get lost in my Inbox)

I will try to post more when I have some time.. but tonite I have a bit more to do before bedtime..

please try to keep this constructive, as we are listening.

#74

Quote:Another part of what your TGEA project mangement needs to do is really enforce deadlines. This is a huge, although somewhat unpleasant, part of management responsibility. Yes, you might not always be the good guy for doing it, but in order to get a product out the door and working you must set fairly firm but at the same time flexible deadlines and goals.

Hi. My name is Joe. I am now GG's unpleasant bad guy. Please send hate mail to me. I am the guy who is telling the devs to stop posting in the forums and write code and get things done. Point taken.. it is in the works.

Quote:I would think hiring more people to produce the product would help us out much more than more marketing people at this point.

duh.

Are you qualified for this job? Do you know anyone who is? If so, please have them contact me directly. For those who are not already aware, low level engine coders don't grow on trees, and recruiting them is part of my job that I need to get back to.

I am not being a wise ass, I am being deadly serious.

I appreciate the lecture on project management. If you would like to come out and help me manage this, please send me your resume and qualifications and I will consider it.

#75 Joe I never said you were a bad guy in fact I respect everyone at GG yourself included for what you have done and what you continue to do for this community. I do apologize if what I posted came off as a personal attack on you, that was not my intent.

As for helping out fix the engine itself. We have offered GG our help in the past and continue to have this offer on the table for us to work with your coders to help fix your engine for free. However, most of the time we are completely ignored despite repeated emails and phone calls to your offices. At one point we had a mutual NDA signed (Garage Games) and RenWerX Studios and arrangements were made. But then things did not materialize on your guys end. After months of trying to contact our old contacts at GG with no luck, I recently (last week actually) was put in contact with Rick Overman about this and he basically told us it would be a conflict of interest and things would be to "Complex" on your guy's part to have us help fix the engine due to similarities between our project and unannounced projects you guys were working on for IGC.

So in short. We have offered numerous times to help GG fix this engine over the last year. Every time we have been blown off or ignored despite us fixing quite a few things on our own and having a very good working relationship between or head engine coders and Ben Garney. We have extended the olive branch numerous times and every time it has been taken and smacked in our faces. What more would you like us to do? We are seriously at our wits end with you guys in regards to this issue.

#76 This email you refer to is sitting in my inbox (was forwarded to me) and I am pondering it. Truth be told, I am waiting for Clark Fagot to get back from gamefest so we can talk about this (and many other similar) issues and requests. Please email me directly here, and we can talk in detail. Right now, the concern is the possible overhead of the management of an external party working on this.. in this, there are several related issues that I would need to consider.

It is not out of the question, but I would need to consider it in a more detailed fashion (as in, what are the particulars of the arrangement) so that I can determine if the time spend is worth the result.

I assure you that there was no intent to ignore.. what it really comes down to is that everyone is working really hard, is really tasked out, and these sorts of requests come as curveballs that often sit in someones inbox. the last forward was the first time it landed in my inbox, and I seriously ave just not gotten around to addressing it.

I get a LOT of email and I can't address it all.. and answering questions here on the forums is keeping me from it. So, email me directly, and please don't take it as being ignored if I don't reply back immediately.. I just have a shit ton of work to do.

#77 I understand that bud and will send you an email. I do understand the rigors or Project Management and can relate to the overwhelming feeling it can leave in ones stomach. One can only do so much in a day :)

#78 Joe,

I appreciate the the openness of your posts, and can understand the numerous factors that must be taken into account by yourself, and GG as a whole.

I hope that a system can be found that can in your eyes keep "unintentional expectation setting" within reason, while still providing us with basic information that would allow us to focus more accurately.

#79 Thank you Joe for the answer and the openness of your posting.
I do not want any refund as the engine clearly has potential. I'm, as written above (before I got really unprofessional and overtaken by frustration again), more frustrated that the things that should work and are advertised are not even given any timeframe by when we can hope to see them.
But the mentioned job situation explains that ...


@Mark:
Yes it was stock TGEA 1.0.2
I always keep a clean version for tools compilation to prevent interfers with our own modifications.
I needed to add the triRayCast cpp and h to get it compiled (still warnings), but it did not help, the plus compiler justs bombs TGEA with its DIF as more deeply explained by another community member.
the legacy TGEA exporter of constructor works (so the situation on the constructor end is exactly vice versa to before 1.0.2 ...)

#80 Thank you Joe. I think what we are wanting is not to set time tables but more of a complete list of what needs to be dones and then a list of what is currently being done so work is not duplicated.