RPG Starter Kit?

#61 Torque Game Engine, Torque Game Builder, Torque Game Engine Advanced, iTorque, Torque Wii, Torque 360, TorqueX, Torque Network Library, art exporters and other pipeline tools (Showtool), tech and content packs, contributed code resources, community forums, documentation, and published books are supposed to make it easier to make games.

Hm, something is terribly wrong here.

#62 @Tony -

Quote:"I just wish there was a way I could explain my perspective a little better so you'd understand it."

Have you taken the time to consider that what is right for you may not be right for others? Your experience as a developer is noted and respected.

However, what you state is still just your opinion. I've read detailed criticisms from you in the past, so I can understand if you are a little tired of having to reiterate constantly...that could be an issue though. I've been to your site. I've read your blogs. I've studied what public designs you've made available. Cool stuff, but what does jumping on GG forums and spouting condescending and vitriolic remarks about the engines do for anyone?

Positive announcements and comparisons go a lot further than snide remarks and rude implications.

Your previous posts in this thread were related and conductive, even if it meant moving away from Torque Tech. However, your most recent post is insulting to the other posters here. "Youth is wasted on the young?" "Happy Torqueing... or whatever?" Would you like some dip for that chip on your shoulder?

#63 While I do agree that Tony may be using more "colorful metaphors" than required, I do agree with his basic point 110%.

I am an experienced programmer, database admin, and unix guy - doing these things professionally for 15+ years, although I admit I don't have as much C++ specific experience as Tony, who is a truly gifted software designer. I spent 10 months (pretty much full-time dedicated to the project as my "day job") last year working with TGE and TGEA as the basis for my MMORPG project. In light of my personal experiences, I feel that Torque is a poor basis for any game that's not very very similar to the pre-made demo examples.

What do we all want from a game engine? We want a software development kit (SDK) that makes it easier for us to translate our game ideas into the required millions of steps of programming implementation. SDKs don't need to make it trivial to make software applications (although, hey, it'd be great if they did, and some do better than others!). They just need to make it a little bit easier than doing it all from scratch.

Some SDKs are easy to use, and "get out of the way of your ideas". They provide an intuitive base on which to create your software masterpiece and get your main idea across with as little "software effort" as possible. The ideal SDK provides software shortcuts and abstractions while remaining flexible, extensible and transparent. This is the very basis of the design of IndieZen and the Zen Engine.

Other SDKs are difficult to use, inhibiting implementation of your ideas by providing you with hurdles and challenges that aren't necessary or relevant. For example, having the very daunting task of trying to rip out all the embedded physics code in TGE or TGEA before you can efficiently use an alternative library like PhysX or Newton or Bullet. These 3rd party libraries provide similar services to Torque's embedded physics implementation, but may be preferable to Torque's physics depending on your project. Should be an easy matter to remove the physics code from Torque, and bolt on the new library. Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer. Torque is not made to be modular. In order to do this you would literally need to sift through the entire Torque codebase (both C++ and Torque Script) and find the 100's (1000's?) of places where physics is referenced so you could abstract and extract them.

The problem stems from the fact that Torque was not originally designed to be an SDK. Torque is, in fact, a game engine example, turned into an "SDK" by virtue of having already implemented a few tools (GUI and World editors primarily, plus an embedded scripting language) that are, admittedly, very important to any 3D application. But these features alone don't mean that Torque will be useful for YOUR particular game. What difference does it make if you can create a hilly terrain using a drag/drop interface, but don't have the first idea how to implement a quest system?

SDKs based on examples can be quite useful if and only if:

1. You're doing something very similar to the example.
AND 2. You understand exactly how your code needs to differ from the example (usually requiring that you fully understand how the example code works, in detail).

If your project and your experience and your understanding of the details do not match up properly with this short list, then it's likely that you'd be better off starting with a General Purpose Game Engine SDK, like Zen Engine. At the very least, you won't have to rip anything out before building what you need for your game. ;)

Since I'm working on a MMORPG, I found that TGEA was not useful to me on both counts, and was getting in my way more than it was helping. I found Torque to be opaque and inflexible, and when I tried over and over again to remove bits of functionality to replace them with my own code, I found I was spending way more time than I would have spent if I'd developed the entire engine myself from individual 3rd party components like Ogre, PhysX, OpenAL, RakNet, and etc.

And that's why I've switched my project (www.arcanoria.com) over from TGEA to use the Zen Engine. Now that I see what a game engine SDK really should look like, I would never go back to Torque.

#64

Quote:
Now that I see what a game engine SDK really should look like, I would never go back to Torque.

So why even post here?? (aside from advertising another engine?)

This thread started out great. It was a request that has now, it seems, turned into just another flame of Torque. I'll never understand why people feel the need to flame GG just becouse they don't like the game engine. If this engine doesn't suit you, use another, but don't flame one just becouse it doesn't suit you.

Now, back to the topic....

There was an RPG starter kit started long ago. It was actually, a really good example.

#65 I don't post here much any more because I've moved on from Torque. But I wanted to speak up in support of Tony.

I honestly didn't intend it to come out like a flame of Torque, but I guess there was no way to avoid that given my personal feelings on the subject.

Maybe you could get past taking offense to the inadvertent "flames" and try to address some of the actual points in my post, which I believe were laid out logically and without malice.

I also want to point out that I didn't say Torque sucks in my post (although other people have in this thread). I only explained my own choice and the reasoning behind it, since it seemed to be relevant to this discussion.

#66 Yes, I said Torque sucks... and yes, that was a flame and I shouldn't have said it that way....

My apologies to the GG employees for being a little harsh... my nickname isn't "SgtFlame" for nothing, ya know?

But I still stand by all of the other statements other than "Torque Sucks".... it doesn't suck as an engine... it's a fantastic engine. But the API needs a whole lot of help.

Am I still using Torque to make games and prototypes? Of course... but only if it's an FPS type game :P

This conversation went this way because we were discussing whether or not we should make an RPG Starter Kit that is specific to Torque or game engine agnostic.

We shouldn't use stock Torque because it is so difficult to make an RPG game with it in the first place.

Also, I would much rather have an RPG Starter Kit that would work with Torque and Zen Engine and the LeadWerks Game Engine, etc instead of targeting just one engine.

Making an RPG Starter Kit that works with only Torque simply makes absolutely zero sense to me.

Is it significantly harder to do it this way? Not really... it's harder with Torque, yes. Also, it's always a little harder to code anything in a generic manner... but that's our difficulty, not our users' difficulty. The way we're doing this it will be significantly easier for the game devs that use it.

I'm not wanting to start a flame war about which game engine or API is better or if I'm a better developer than Michael Perry or Pat Wilson... all I really want to do is to make an RPG Starter Kit that's useful for anyone and everyone that wants a leg up on making an RPG game no matter which game engine they've decided is right for their game.

If you're interested in this endeavor and you can get over your "Torque only" attitude then I'd love you to come join the fun and help us make some fantastic free open source starter kits.

#67 I think what the expierienced programmer are missing, is that Torque is great for the little guy, like myself, who is NOT a professional programmer, and who does NOT want to write yet another game engine.

Torque is great for the game "modder", who just wants to be able to build a game, not a game engine.

If you are a professional programmer with years of experience and lots of free time, I say GREAT! Build your own engine. That's what is best for you. But for those of us who can't, Torque was made for us.

No one ever said Torque was perfect for everyone, or even perfect itself. But I don't see the flaws, because don't even know where to look for them.

Back on subject:

Are there people who want to develop an RPG.Starter.Kit for Torque.

Cory is interested, Chip will help, I'll help, and I think Morrock is in.

Lets focus on Torque since this is a Torque forum.

If we can help IndieZen, we'll post on THEIR forum.

Time to split the factions.

This is in No Way meant to flame anyone. I have the highest respect for everyone's opinion.

my 2 cents
I3D

#68 Torque's strength lies in the indie developers like myself. Professionals, like Infinitum3D said, are better off using a different engine, such as Unreal, or constructing their own.

Setting aside all Torque attacks, let's move this thread back in its intended direction. All attackers can start their own threads.

I'm with Infinitum3D 100%. Let's move ahead and begin work on a starter kit for torque that will suit those interested in starting their own RPGs with a low-cost engine.

#69 @Tony - See, that's the kind of post I like to read, especially from a Torque critic. There's a bit more insight, toned down emotion, and yet you are able to adhere to your decision (which is respectable).

I've heard the "Torque Sucks" phrase before, and I've seen the hardships others have faced converting Torque into a brand new kind of engine. Definitely takes a lot of time, patience, and skill. My jumping in the thread in opposition was just in the way the point was made. The insults were directed at other posters too, even without intention.

I do wish you luck with the IndieZen and would like to read updates in the blog. Civility trumps egos any day =)

(Love the Locke and Demotheses approach, btw)

edit: Cory and I3D have the right thought; steer this thread back on track because the concept does have potential.

#70 What happened to this? It's been a year, and... nothing. Did everyone give up?

#71 I think that no one could agree on a format or a principle. Which is usually why community or other wise projects fail.

#72 There were two camps of thought... one was to make a Torque specific RPG Starter Kit, and another was to create a game engine agnostic RPG Starter Kit.

The Torque one never came to fruition, but the Zen frameworks one has made significant progress. While I invited everyone from the GG community to participate, none actually did, and so the T3D version is lagging a bit (any volunteers?) :P

Follow this post for details on the MMO portions, and you can see some details of the tools for the game editor here.

#73 "Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness" (both episodes) was made with TGE. I'd like to make a similar game with T3D.
Pretty much an RPG kit with all the features of Enterbrain's RPG Maker series would be awesome, but probably asking too much. I'm still in school, but maybe by the time I finish I can make such a kit myself.