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Torque 3D Status - 9/11/2010

by Matt Fairfax · in Torque 3D Professional · 09/11/2010 (8:31 am) · 121 replies

Hey all,
I apologize that this update is a little late. I ended up taking off part of last week to show my cousin around Las Vegas (I could post a couple pictures if you guys are interested) and this week has been even crazier and busier than usual. I will do my best to be more punctual in the future.

I am sure many of you have noticed that we've really stepped up on keeping the bugs statuses updated with "LOGGED", "VERIFIED", and "RESOLVED" in the titles. In between these updates from me, that is going to be a really good way to track our progress towards the next release so keep an eye out for them.

So, I have some good news =)

We are planning to release Torque 3D 1.1 Beta 3 next week. I should be sending a release candidate build for Beta 3 into QA on Tuesday and we will release it as soon as they sign off on it (towards the end of the week). I will be sure to let you guys know on this thread if we run into any problems with getting that release out.

For Torque 3D 1.1 Beta 3, we have fixed or resolved close to 100 bugs. QA is busy verifying the bugs we've submitted to them to make sure the fixes are good but here is a preview of the ones that they have already approved:


Disclaimer: All timeframes in this thread are estimates and should not be considered final
Matt Fairfax's profile picture
Associate Matt Fairfax
PopCap

About the author

I am a Game Designer at PopCap who has worked on PvZ Adventures, PvZ2, Peggle Blast, and Bejeweled Skies. I am an ex-GarageGames employee who helped ship TGE, TGEA, Torque 3D, and Constructor.

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    Torque Owner TheGasMan
    G.A.S. [+others]
    #61
    03/20/2011 (5:15 pm)
    watch out Richard, I'm sure the unpaid guard dogs are gnarling and ready to pounce!

    They really hate the taste of reality!

    Torque 3D Owner Gerry "Hermetic" Smith
    #62
    03/20/2011 (5:45 pm)
    The sad thing is that this has to happen time and time again. It seems they haven't learned anything about keeping customers in the loop and avoiding so much anger and annoyance. It seems the new garagegames isn't all that much better than the old version in this regard.

    After saying it looks like a 1.1 release will most likely be out by the middle of March, at the latest ( which is what I remember reading ), how hard would it be to give a short little update* before that time comes and goes? Wouldn't that avoid a lot of bad feelings? Where is that humility; respect for the customer; belief in, and support for, the community?

    It is easy to put such principles into words... the part they don't seem to be too good at is actually putting such things into action.

    I am not saying this in anger, but it is frustrating to see this company fail so often with what I consider to be basic good business practices.

    *edit: and by "update" I am not talking about a software update but just a few words of explanation. Customers can be very forgiving if they are helped to an understanding of the situation and treated with simple respect.

    Torque Owner deepscratch
    DeepScratchStudios
    #63
    03/20/2011 (9:26 pm)
    oh,
    dont worry everyone,
    its the end of march 2011,
    we all know that "Torque3D 2009 1.1",
    thats the full title by the way,
    will be released in a "couple" of days,
    (I always thought that a couple was two, you know, like a couple?).


    Torque Owner Richard Ranft
    Roostertail Games
    #64
    03/20/2011 (9:29 pm)
    LOL eb - I wasn't even being very snarky....

    I'm in construction - programming is just a hobby for me that I hope will become a job one day - and when you miss a deadline in construction it's all about the Benjamins, baby. I was on a job with a $52,000 a DAY late penalty clause. We were months ahead of schedule, but when you break ground it's scary to think about.

    When I give an estimate of completion I usually do what Scotty does - take the longest time it could possibly take and double that. Then I take and double it again. So when I go "I'm done!" they go "What?!? You're five weeks early!" instead of "WTF?!? You're five seconds late!"

    Not to mention the Richard Principle - people are about as impressed for each week you are early as they are irritated for each minute you are late.

    Torque Owner Vincent BILLET
    Default Studio Name
    #65
    03/21/2011 (12:51 am)
    No more LOGGED - CONFIRMED - SOLVED in T3D Bug Forum...
    So we haven't any visibility, except few weeks, couple of days...

    That's quite frustrating.

    Associate David Montgomery-Blake
    David MontgomeryBlake
    #66
    03/21/2011 (6:21 am)
    @Vincent
    The bug submission/tracking issue on the forums is my fault. Sorry for the apparent lack of updates on that front. I have been waiting for the transition of our internal svn system to be complete and hooked directly into our studio tracking system before going through the usual process on the forum. Work is taking place behind the scenes, but I do apologize for that inconsistency since that is what the community sees. Now that the work is complete in that on the backend, I'll be going through those again and updating the statuses.

    Torque Owner Andy Rollins
    ZDay Game
    #67
    03/21/2011 (6:25 am)
    Looking at the last couple of months there's been a blog around the 20-25th of the month so hopefully there will be some more news shortly with an update on where they are at with 1.1



    Associate Steve Acaster
    [YorkshireRifles.com]
    #68
    03/21/2011 (8:40 am)
    Dave - if you're around -could I get some feedback just to check that this bug report didn't get lost in the changeover.

    Associate David Montgomery-Blake
    David MontgomeryBlake
    #69
    03/21/2011 (9:06 am)
    That one is listed as fixed in our database. :)

    Associate Steve Acaster
    [YorkshireRifles.com]
    #70
    03/21/2011 (9:07 am)
    Cool :D

    Associate Scott Burns
    GG Alumni
    #71
    03/21/2011 (9:40 am)
    Out of curiosity, how did some of you come to be under the impression that we were going to release 1.1 in March? We haven't committed publicly to a date that I'm aware of.

    Torque Owner Vincent BILLET
    Default Studio Name
    #72
    03/21/2011 (11:30 am)
    Yes ! Good Job David !

    Associate David Montgomery-Blake
    David MontgomeryBlake
    #73
    03/21/2011 (11:48 am)
    Dave Wyand and the Sickhead guys did the bulk of the work. I just updated the statuses to let people know what was happening!

    Torque 3D Owner Gerry "Hermetic" Smith
    #74
    03/21/2011 (2:45 pm)
    Quote:Out of curiosity, how did some of you come to be under the impression that we were going to release 1.1 in March?

    From Michael Perry re: 1.1 ETA?
    Quote:If you are looking for a date, we had a heavily padded date of mid-March. This included three sprints and three QA cycles, which was worst case scenario. Right now, looking at our charts, we are ahead of schedule...but development changes timelines.

    The point being, even if it isn't officially official, it is still a public statement, and if things have turned out that you are now no longer ahead of schedule and are in fact in a worse case scenario then the previous envisioned worst case scenario, and this wasn't clear to garagegames until mid march was already upon you... couldn't someone from garagegames had said something... anything... before being hounded for some word by the comments from confused, frustrated, etc., customers?

    It just seems to me that it would help everyone enormously, especially garagegames, if you could get out ahead of these things and manage expectations better, rather than trying to fix things after the fact.


    Torque 3D Owner Caylo Gypsyblood
    #75
    03/21/2011 (6:49 pm)
    All history considered; the last few months of T3D's life have been a most promising turn of events.

    New news is always good news, and it would be best for GarageGames to be much more active in the forums as a means of sharing all the New news. Once a [few] month updates are not sufficient to maintain healthy community morale.

    But to insinuate a lack of effort from GarageGames on the matter of T3D would be a 'Informal Fallacy' of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, there is much evidence that GarageGames is very focused on progression of T3D.

    Torque Owner TheGasMan
    G.A.S. [+others]
    #76
    03/21/2011 (7:14 pm)
    To add;
    Eric P. told me (which will be his 5th wrong guesstimate for release); Q1 2011. That was told to me by Eric P. in Nov. 2010 iirc.

    (please can the excuses..there has been too many excuses for too long.)

    Torque Owner Richard Ranft
    Roostertail Games
    #77
    03/21/2011 (7:19 pm)
    @Scott - we just made that March thing up to see if any of you would notice and correct us.

    I'm actually just patiently waiting for Eric to give us some awesome info in one of his Big Updates - that's when the Moving and Shaking seems to happen. I know you guys are working hard in Sin City (Howdy Neighbors!) to get things dialed in because I've watched some interesting and informative threads (and made some irreverent and irrelevant comments in them). With the current trend I'm sure that things will really begin to shape up soon.

    Once 1.1 is out, perhaps we can get rework on some of the really old systems (like what Rene is doing with Zones and Portals). Perhaps pick one thing and get it up to date for each "update" (1.1.1, 1.1.2 and so forth). Modularizing the engine would be cool so that we could, say, drop in a different scripting system, or a different networking system in the same way that we now have a choice of physics systems. I know that this would be TONS of work, just mentioning how cool it would be....

    Torque 3D Owner Ronny Bangsund
    Torque Cheerleaders
    #78
    03/21/2011 (7:23 pm)
    That's similar to what I'd like to see, too, Richard - focused revisions with one subsystem improved/added, and all known bugs fixed from the previous iteration (or as many critical bugs as possible, leaving only minor issues known).

    The third number is normally bug fix releases, so a new feature would be 1.2.0 etc. Although some rewrites can actually be considered a fix, if the subsystem is that bad ;)

    Associate Steve Acaster
    [YorkshireRifles.com]
    #79
    03/21/2011 (8:01 pm)
    Quote:
    Once 1.1 is out, perhaps we can get rework on some of the really old systems (like what Rene is doing with Zones and Portals).

    Hitting it with a big hammer whilst shouting abuse at it like a Teutonic warchief? ;)

    Associate Scott Burns
    GG Alumni
    #80
    03/21/2011 (8:07 pm)
    Ah yes, I forgot about that thread. During the beginning of GDC Mich and I mentioned in IRC that definitely wasn't going to happen, I didn't remember that being mentioned anywhere on the forums otherwise I would have pinged that thread.

    There was a multitude of logistical issues that would just take too long to get into here that had a hand in the slip. The biggest thing though was we were offered more time to polish it and iT2D up more, and this release will shine. So we took advantage of it.

    I know it's rough for you guys since there's been a lot of radio silence lately. Everyone's been 100% heads down focused getting this sucker ready for a release and the unfortunate side effect of that is a reduced community presence. Hang in there though, I think you'll all find it was worth it.

    @eb
    We were shutdown in November last year.
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