Torque 3d Question

#1 Joe, what's the confusion? If you own TGEA, you can apply the license fee you paid ($295) to the pre-order price of Torque 3D ($800). Total cost to you is only $505.

#2 The problem is most likely that its actually a bit confusing to get to the T3D Preorder page. Use this link

Then click in the "Pre-order" button and you should be able to go through the checkout process.

It is confusing because when you click on the Enignes page and choose the Torque 3d engine, the "Buy now" button on the page is actually for TGEA not T3D. If you click the "Buy Now" button on the page and already own liscense of TGEA you will get the "limited to only 1 license per account" error because you are trying to buy a 2nd copy of TGEA not the upgrade to T3D. You actually have to click on the "More Info" link on the Torque 3D page to get to the T3D pre-order page and order from there.

#3 tbh brett it does all seem to smell a bit.
i bought a tge license way back,nothing too serious,i also like to
mod games as well as "dream" of making a project myself and i chose torque.once you got into the slow lane,you realized there was this fast lane,namely the TSE (remember that?) wow i thought,hmm this was still in development and i thought hard,this is what i must have one day,because GG are hard selling it...and you did just that,hard sold prospective tse buyers with a come over to the future of game creation with the tse.
then...lo and behold,its now the TGEA,the front line of game creation,just for a measly $xxx early adopter,and i was bought,i paid and really am to blame for thinking i was getting the top notch range of game engine for development of my "dream" game,cause this is whats its about for i would think 80% of users.
TGEA was,and no longer is touted as the cutting edge,you gotta have it and we all bought into it and ive had it sitting there since 2006 along with hundreds of dollars worth of 3rd addons,but you see...TGEA wasn't the best top notch game dev engine was it? no.
T3d seems,looks like what tgea should have been developed into as the next logical step from tgea so hobbyists as well as serious devs finally got the engine they actually paid for and never got,but guess what,"Total cost to you is only $505." actually its $605 now brett.now thats a serious amount of money right there,SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS no wait,hell if i didnt have wasted my time by buying TGEA ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.
so now i moved from the slow lane TGE to the fast lane TGEA...oh wait,noooo,now my fast lane car is in the middle lane doh!

what was a whopping $495 off the retail $1000 is only good because you set the price so high in the first place.
so brett "what's the confusion?" T3d is TGEA only fixed up properly.

i thought i was driving my own car,but in fact was taken for a ride.guess im with joe on this one.

#4 Jojimbo, stop ranting, T3D is not the "proper" TGEA.

T3D is a graphical update on TGEA, like TGEA was to TGE, if you have so much of a problem with these prices, then go look at Unreal Engine 2, that will set you back a measily $350,000 and it gives you TGEA graphics.
Or if you like, build your own engine! Which will cost a hell of alot more than T3D.
T3D is offering you graphics comparable to CryEngine and Unreal Engine 3 for a minute fraction of the price.

T3D is so much more than you seem to think it is, TGEA was great for the time it was released, but over those 3years, things have changed alot!
Back then Geforce 7 and 8 were top of the range, now its Geforce 9, 100 and 200, are you going to whine over that too and hell graphics cards have gone up in price too, my old (broken) Geforce7950GX2 cost me around £300 back befor GF8 range, GTX295 range from £387 to £435 now, so its only fair.
When I bought my Geforce7950GX2 a week later I found out that the Geforce 8 range and DX10 was coming out very soon and I didn't go rant and I had much more reason to do so there compared to what your doing.

Also GarageGames needs to be PROFITABLE, they are a company, not a charity or some sweatshop! They don't work for free, they are highly skilled labour.
They are giving us a product that would cost a bomb if we were to hire people to do it ourselfs and lowering the price would make them unprofitable, why? Because unlike a game, a game engine is more of a niche market.

So seriously, please stop acting like a child and grow up and accept that life isn't an easy ride which you can slack in and that what their giving you is actualy a hell of a good deal if your failed logic will accept these variables and somehow finaly result in the right answer.

#5 @Jojimbo: If you think $605 (or $1000) is too much to spend, no offense, but you're probably not putting all that much time into game development, or you're not looking at it with appropriate perspective. When I was 16 I saved for a year to spend almost $2k on a mountain bike that was "obsolete" a couple years later. As much as I rode it and as much as I appreciated what it could do over bikes half it's price, in my mind it was money well spent.

Lots of people with similar or even lesser means than me at 16 spend FAR more on hobbies than any developer really could on Torque. Photography, snowboarding, golf, even playing video games...all are just as expensive if not more expensive than Torque. If you're a hobbyist photographer with a $1000 camera that's a couple years old, you'll have just a small glimpse at how quickly having access to cutting edge features can turn into wanting the next new thing. Is it really necessary? It's up to you. I kept plunking down $2-3k for a new bike every couple years until I was well into my college years. Again, with no regrets.

Bikes and cameras definitely depreciate fast, but the dont' really compare with game development software. What you see in Torque 3D now, many of these things weren't even being contemplated when TGEA (TSE) was in development. Either the hardware wasn't widespread enough to support certain graphics features, or the techniques just hadn't been effectively examined for real time rendering. Calling Torque 3D "what TGEA should have been" is really inappropriate. I understand that you may have been dissappointed in what was delivered originally or how long it took. Quite a few people were. However, I don't think anyone could reasonably look at TGEA 1.8.1 and say we didn't deliver on all past "promises" and then some. They may have came late, but we did the best we could and we did it all for no extra fee.

We don't want to be finished there. You're right, TGEA is no longer really "cutting edge." We want to keep pushing forward and pioneer some new stuff. Keeping what we're doing in the current price range is not easy, but it's something that everyone here believes in really firmly. If the jump is too much, you're still welcome here! I wouldn't want to see anyone feel like they have to stop making games with Torque because our high end stuff is just out of reach. There are more affordable options. I don't think there's anyone out there offering more value for $1000 / seat if you want to make games though.

With Torque 3D, you really are seeing a lot of techniques that are the next generation or "future" of game development. The same lighting model in Torque has been adopted by Rockstar Games (GTA4), Crytek, and Gamebryo. And Torque is cross platform (PC / Mac and WEB!) where those engines are not. All the improvements to editing and scene building are on par with, or probably only 6-12 months behind the very best stuff out there. Will it surpass all other engines out there in the future? Doubtful. We're aiming high and it's not like we won't give it a good go, but we simply don't have the size to reliably outpace Epic and Crytek on the technology front.

I do understand that keeping pace with the latest technology can be personally frustrating. At least with Torque, you know what our goals are and what we're committed to. We're going to keep chasing the very best technology options out there and we're going to deliver it affordably to as many developers who want to use it. You might say the current price isn't "affordable" but there are many thousands of developers out there, both professional and hobbyist, who'd disagree. If a Torque 3D license is out of reach, you probably need to ask yourself how realistic you're being either about the budget you've outlayed for your game, or the time and investment you want to make in your hobby.

#6 Oh hi, I'd like to have a CryEngine 2 license .. oh thats only $3.5 million.

Nah I'll skip that.. I'll have the Unreal Engine 3 license.. what? Only $4 million?

Yeah I'll take T3D any day..

Pff.. $505 ...

#7 I think the problem is that people keep thinking in terms of software rather than software development. Though a lot of software, like Autodesk products, are up there in the 3-5k range, and Visual Studio Team Suite is around 10k, in general $1000 is pretty expensive for a piece of software.

However, as a long career in software development has taught me, $1000 is fairly cheap in the context of software development.

Even forgetting about the brand premium for products like Unreal and Crytek, there are few commercial products in software development that are cheaper than T3D even without the source code access.

Go pick up a copy of Dr. Dobbs Journal and take a look at the ads, or go on over to Programmers Paradise, and take a look at some of the components that are for sale. Right now I'm looking at an ad for a .NET text editing control for $848.99 on sale, regular price $1,149.00. For a text editing control, on a single platform, in binary form with no source code.

Now compare that to all of the features you get in Torque3D, or even TGEA, WITH the source code.

#8 i honestly think that, the seemingly huge leap from $300 to $1000 is the 'flinch' issue.

I'm a developer whos straddling the line between hobbyist and indie developer, the indie developer in me recognises that T3D is a MUST HAVE item, the hobbyist knows he wants it but also knows the price is too high. I bit the bullet and borrowed to get the tool that i knew i needed and that i knew would in a relatively short space of time recoup (timewise) the money it cost vs doing things in TGEA.

i do have a very real concern however that TGEA will be dropped, ive already seen issues with things being broken from 1.7.1 to 1.8.1, ive seen reports that 1.8.2 may not even be released despite GG discussing it in private forums. Ive also seen people tell other not to bother much with TGEA and go for T3D which would be fine if it was even released yet, and ive also seen threads where people say that some things just work in T3D so no point doing it for TGEA. FRankly all that kind of talk scares me since my current project is a TGEA one.

Dont get me wrong, i love T3D and if the rest of my very amateur part time game making team could afford the annoyingly priced 'basic' version we'd probably move over in a shot, but... such is life i suppose

#9 @Bloodknight: Fixes that can be applied to TGEA 1.8.1 will be, but it's basically feature complete at this stage. Out of curiosity, why is Basic "annoyingly priced" ? I ask because that's come up internally a bit too...not just the price, but the feature set is still being discussed. For example, there's a vocal contingent for doing away with Basic and instead, having a $400 "Artist" version that is Pro without source. I think $400 might be too high of a starting point, but I also agree with some of the points about giving artists access to the same lighting model as Pro users have. I'm just speculating openly about other options here, but it never hurts to get more feedback.

#10 I think theres a leap too far..

From my perspective, i'm the lead in a couple of very slow moving projects, theres been a turnover issue in at least one of these, while this isnt an issue with TGE/A theres free versions with editors and whatnot, meaning they can do stuff and just send the mission files models and textures to me and i add them to the project, they leave afetr a few weeks and somebody else comes along and we repeat these processes. Theres nothing much more damaging to a development project like mine than sure you can join the team, but before you can do any work you need to buy this $250 piece of software.

Ive no objection to the extra cost of the core engine technology, but id far sooner be able to give out butchered version of T3D just to level builders or artists or whoever do work for a project, i mean if theres nothing they can use this version for to make money you are effectively charging people for using an editor, so in my case and i believe i'm not unique many projects will have to be done using the 'abandonware engines'.

The leap to far part.. the issue of indie and commercial is one thats always going to cause much debate, and personally i'd like to see some new boundaries set, i'd like to see a 'basic' version of basic thats a free indie version with a $250 'advanced' basic version for indies, with the increase in cost to $250ish and $500ish for commercial, which would in my opinion be much more in line with how GG has operated in the past.

Ive already got my T3D, i'm not optimistic about getting a team together to actually be able to use it, i'm not even talking about big team either, me and 1-2 others, ive already made a comment in another thread about giving the ability to pro owners of getting say..2? transfreable basic licenses too.

While i'm sure you guys at GG have done your homework i personally would ask this question of the guy who did your sales forcasts; Is the price of T3D basic going to effect the sales of T3D pro. i mean in theory basic should sell... what twice/three times what pro does 2 artists and a level designer per programmer (something discussed in classes about team makeups).

While i'm understandably the caliber of customer you expect to buy T3D, i do feel that theres more people like me out there, and i think GG itself was build and made by people like me who purchase your engines and your packs.

I hope i havent been too negative, thats certainly not my intention, but it appears that GG has changed from a company that supports hobbyists and commercial to just commercial by making T3D less indie friendly than past engines.

#11 Well you know, GG did get bought out. These guys are employees now, not the owner of the company. They can't just do whatever they want. I'm pretty sure that IAC (I think thats who bought GG) didn't do it for the love of gaming, they did it because they had a wild hunch that maybe they could make money...maybe even...A LOT of money!!! GG had to change. IAC isn't just going to dump money in GG forever, so it can support indie gamers...they want results! As I see it, the developers and people we see on these forums are on our side. They do love gaming, they are just in the difficult postion of having to please the "suits". They have to answer for everything they do. They have a fine line to walk, and I applaud them for doing the best they can for us. That being said, I think Bloodknight has pretty eloquently summed up the troubles facing the small, money strapped teams. It seems to me the basic edition is the real bone of contention. Keep thinking about it Brett, please. Certainly Pro without source but with everything else (and genre packs!) is the way to go. Maybe bundle an option to purchase one Basic edition at a discount with the purchase of every Pro version?

#12

Quote: [...] which would in my opinion be much more in line with how GG has operated in the past.

Which would just relegate T3D to TGEA's level. TGEA is a great product, but it took 4 years for it to get there because they were operating on a shoestring budget with a handful of developers in order to offer these silly low prices.

The community complained and complained about the long road to redemption that came from that. They listened. But it can't be both ways. Either they put out a technologically advanced engine, or they cater to hobbyists with no money, but doing both is much easier said than done.

#13 @Gerald and Steve - +1

#14

Quote:Well you know, GG did get bought out.

Clarification: IAC did purchase a majority equity stake in the company, but many GG employees also hold equity in the company.

Quote:I'm pretty sure that IAC (I think thats who bought GG) didn't do it for the love of gaming, they did it because they had a wild hunch that maybe they could make money...maybe even...A LOT of money!!!

This is true on both sides. We (GG) had big things we wanted to do that we knew would be difficult, if not impossible to do without funding. The chance to take a real swing at this opportunity was well worth giving up a majority equity stake to IAC. From IAC's perspective, we were a company with a proven track record in games, a unique technology for creating web games, and a unique plan for building a business around them.

GG was never about charity work. We were about disruption and democratization. There's no longer really any disrupting to be done with the TGE / TGEA business model and technology and I think we took democratization past the point of usefulness. The employees here were, and still are about empowering game developers, but it's a balance. As you say, we're not doing it as charity. We're doing it because it's often rewarding in non-monetary ways and because we can make a living at it. Done exceptionally well, it's possible some of us might make a lot of money doing this and that's a motivator too, but there not a person here who thinks we can do that without delivering an exception value with Torque. We think we're doing that.

Quote:GG had to change. IAC isn't just going to dump money in GG forever, so it can support indie gamers...they want results!

Nor would we want to continue operating a business that would stagnate without change. That's no fun =) It's also a recipe for failure.

Quote:As I see it, the developers and people we see on these forums are on our side. They do love gaming, they are just in the difficult postion of having to please the "suits".

Hmm...I guess that makes me the suit : / I do love gaming, but as Gerald says, we want to do big things. Those big things will benefit developers up and down the industry food chain, but particularly game developers who are serious enough to invest in their skill set / software. We could have laid off all the Torque developers here, slashed prices on TGE / TGEA / TGB, and called that "doing right by Indies." I don't think any of you would have liked being stuck left with Torque abandonware. That's the other side of the coin.

Every penny of profit is being reinvested in the product. That's as much as you can ask from any company. Profits go down, so does reinvestment. Profits go down more, engineers get laid off. Profits keep going down, you get a 404 after clicking on your GG bookmark.

None of those things are going to happen. We've already sold more *pre-order* licenses that I expected we would all year. This is good. Really good. It means we're getting close to some of the goals I originally laid out early in 2008. I want to get everyone working on the same Torque code base, creating resources that are applicable universally. I want to take Torque 3D leaps and bounds ahead of it's predecessors and continue pushing productivity and performance past where we thought possible. I want to empower the most talented, most dedicated people in this community with the ability to create wildly successful games and applications, no matter what the platform. Torque 3D is a big step, but it's just a first step.

Quote:I think Bloodknight has pretty eloquently summed up the troubles facing the small, money strapped teams. It seems to me the basic edition is the real bone of contention. Keep thinking about it Brett, please. Certainly Pro without source but with everything else (and genre packs!) is the way to go. Maybe bundle an option to purchase one Basic edition at a discount with the purchase of every Pro version?

You're right, and we're listening. We do sympathize with being financially constrained. We can't sympathize ourselves all the way to supporting the lowest common financial denominator, but I think we can provide something that's within everyone's determined reach.

#15 LOL I had a long answer typed up that was probably a bit unfair on lots of people.

My biggest project is too interwoven into TGEA to upgrade anyway and its taken over a year to get the few people I do work with to learn TGE/A so my issues with T3D are future projects.

Ive also heard that T3D owners have to pay yearly to upgrade to the latest version, does that also apply to basic? I'm probably going to have to pay for 2 upgrades before i start a real project with T3D.

Ive also said in another thread that the current pricing of basic will essentially force some development teams to distribute a 'basic' version of the game to team members regardless.

Ive already spoken to people who have downloaded freely all the products i have plus some extras besides, while i disagree with the industry experts who say piracy kills companies, it still galls me that people use stuff freely that i paid for i'm a card carrying milkshape and psp owner, and i half own a copy of Max 9 :p

Anyway, i'm rambling again, my main assertaition is that the pricing of basic is and will be damaging not only to a fairly big portion of the GG clientelle, but to GG also in lost custom.

I'm clutching at straws, but i really do hope you could spare the time to re-asses your position and pricing on basic.

#16

Quote:
My biggest project is too interwoven into TGEA to upgrade anyway and its taken over a year to get the few people I do work with to learn TGE/A so my issues with T3D are future projects.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. At this point trying to move everything that I've worked on over to T3D would be painful, primarily because I wouldn't be satisfied using all of the same constructs and would feel the need to change everything to take advantage of the new advanced lighting features. My willpower is questionable in that regard :p Which is why I've been waiting to get a license.

I'm satisfied with TGEA at this point though and am not worried about whether they continue to support it or not. Even if they published a new update I probably wouldn't use it.

Quote:
Ive also said in another thread that the current pricing of basic will essentially force some development teams to distribute a 'basic' version of the game to team members regardless.

Probably. But for the most part these are the people that are going to do that regardless of what the price is.

Piracy is a fact of life, but lowering the price is one way that has proven that is entirely, 100% inconsequential as a deterrent to piracy. I saw an article fairly recently about a game that sold for around $10, where upwards of 80% of the users didn't pay for it (based on the fact that there were 5 times as many users as there were sales). Around the price of a movie ticket, and 80% of the users still felt the need to steal it.

#17 I originally bought TGEA as a hobbyist. I've been involved in games for a long time, but typically not of this nature. So I picked it up to begin messing around with having my hands on something to use as a tool to build my ideas. I'd worked with free engines in the past, and done mods for other games, but none of them really gave me the feeling that working with TGEA did.

I planned some projects but never really got them off the ground, that's the benefit of using it to explore. You only have to commit as deeply as you want to feel rewarded.

When T3D was announced, I worked out my budget and bought it as a pre-order. I do not intend to release any games, and if I do, they will likely be free. I plan to use it as a tool for my own enjoyment, to explore development and improve my skills.

While I admit it took me longer to be willing to click that button and make that investment. In the end I know I've bought myself years of continuing to do what I enjoy doing in my free time, and it's worth the investment.

I hope others can find this balance and the budget to continue doing what they enjoy. Whether it be biking, climbing, coding, or whatever it is you do.

Oh, and I also support the discount Artist version with no source! We need more artists familiar with the Torque pipeline :)

#18 $505 was a steal for t3d. Its getting the rest of what you need.. a second copy of full t3d...$900 now, or maybe the artist version (or 2)...which is of dubious value as it stand now...for $250 each, so it adds up fast for small teams. The one man bands, it's not so bad for.

@Brett, meh..I'm basically a suit too..lol. Someone has to count the beans. No offense taken, I hope. I'm glad some of you there have equity stakes, that just makes it better for everyone.

#19 @Brett,
edited,
ok the spin worked a treat and to be totally honest with you,
yes indeed you do need cash obviously to develop the engine etc,
all this came at a time which didnt suit my financial situation.
I do still think the price is high,but however the discount for us
tgea owners should be fixed @ $495 because already i am being priced out even more.
However having whined and dined,
I love the idea of a new basic with extra features,this would be great for hobbyists like me.because you gotta have the advanced lighting,hence the absolute need for professional and all the costs gripe.
Add the advance lighting to basic,thats more my range and price,even if
you up the price to something like the $400.I can live without the source,and the road and river tool,why not have that as an added upgrade at cost?

#20 @Jojimbo: