Torque X Status Update (8-17-2010)

#1 Sorry Derek, can I check I've interpreted your post correctly- are you saying that TorqueX is being discontinued to be later replaced with another product?

I'm a little frustrated, because TorqueX has just never been usable, the editor has always just crashed for the most random of reasons, and I've waited and waited and waited for fixes and feature updates that were promised but that never arrived and now it sounds like your attention is going to be diverted yet again to another XNA product.

I sincerely hope this isn't a repeat of the whole RTS Kit debacle which was simply never finished despite repeated promises, and where users were once again left with a largely useless product, because if you wanted to do anything with it you were almost starting from scratch anyway. I hope if this is the case, that GG does the right thing this time, but even then it does little to help the developers who shelled out their money for the product and gained no benefit from it because of it's faults.

So to clarify, can you clearly answer the following questions:

1) Are the promised features and fixes for Torque X 3D now never going to be developed?

2) Is this new codebase a new product which existing Torque X users will be expected to pay for separately?

#2 @Ian - Yes you read my post correctly. When looking at a engine/tool to support XNA 4.0 and Win Phone 7 we felt we could deliver a superior product in a shorter time frame with something new. I can understand your strife, I've seen us do similar things where the product starts getting to where it should have been all along and we drop it. All I can say to that is that with Eric on board the quality bar has been raised and we aim to deliver products that are good, not just different with a whole new set of problems. Obviously the proof will be in the pudding so to speak.

To answer your questions:

1) Unfortunately we don't have the resources to complete the features you mention and complete our XNA 4.0 product.

2) There has been a lot of debate about this internally. All I can tell you at this time is that we don't intend to leave the Torque X community behind and will do our best to deliver a product that meets your expectations at a price that is compelling for you to upgrade (which may or may not be $0 for TX users)

#3 This better will be free for exisiting TX users. Can't believe TX is being discontinued...but well, if the XNA 4.0 product includes the promised features for TX, then all is fine.
When are you going to inform a little bit clearer what the XNA 4.0 product really is? Will it still be component based? Will it have better 3d capabilities than TX? Will it be targeted to Windows Phone 7? or is the idea to have an engine that supports pc, 360 and phone7 equally well? Did you ever hink about integrating Sunburn Lighting?

#4 Thanks for the response Derek, I can understand the path you've taken, and I don't disagree with you that it's probably not a bad option considering the change of direction with the engine (i.e. integration of the T3D editors).

However, I share Andy's sentiment. I've just been messed around too many times by GarageGames to justify another upgrade because they gave up on yet another product, and will simply move to one of the many other offerings out there. If I'm honest I'm still a little peeved we got nothing back for the RTS kit, and the experience with TGEA originally being so slow on delivering as well as promised features at point of purchase being dropped made me weary about even bothering with Torque X, but looking around I figured GarageGames may well have changed, if the new product is sold for any price to existing Torque X licensees rather than being provided for free then it's simply the last time I could ever trust GG again, and quite frankly I'd be tempted to look at following a legal route to get my money back for Torque X if need be- as I say, the product for me (even on multiple systems with different configurations I've tried) has never really worked without crashing before you can do anything useful with it and many advertised features are now never going to show up.

I've stuck with GG a very long time, and licensed all your main engines, as well as having spent a lot on content and additional code packs and such too. I've been more than patient over the years with the annoyances, the broken promises, but this will simply be the last time for me. Particularly as it's hard to justify GG's products compared to a lot of the competition anyway.

I sincerely hope GG does the right thing this time, and ensures the product is released in good time, and that Torque X users are migrated over for free. GG absolutely must get out of this mindset of releasing half a product, cancelling it, and then releasing a new one that's also half finished but then charging for it again because it's going to have additional features, albeit ones that never actually arrive as the cycle repeats. Sorting out quality control is one thing, but customer service and product planning are part of the equation that are long overdue for improvements too.

#5 So TorqueX development is coming to a close, to be replaced by a new XNA engine? An engine that will support full Xbox 360 deployment via XNA?

If I've got the completely wrong idea, someone please correct me. The mention of Windows Phone 7 has got me a bit confused (just want to make sure this isn't a WinPhone7-only deal)

#6 I know that XNA 4.0 is a departure from the older XNA. Making a completely new TX would be great. I think there were too many mistakes/shortcuts in the old TX, it seems we are only fixing what is basically at times so deeply flawed that it makes sense to make a new engine.

I can say I look forward to a new TX to match XNA 4.0 made by a team of devs who care about the community. Some of the old XNA devs/MVPs were telling me the original TX devs were quite rude and condescending to the community. Sorry if you guys are still at Torque but that is the perception.

I also think we cannot expect this to be free. I know that using Adobe products etc I have my nearly yearly tax where i have to upgade.

#7 The difference is Henry, Adobe delivers what is promised and a working product in the first place. You don't have to upgrade simply to get a product that works properly.

#8 @Derek...I'm kind of surprised...and a bit intrigued, by this revelation. I'm going back in my mind to around GDC time, when Torque X had no in-house staff and was being developed by John Kalanakis.

It's barely more than 5 months later, and Torque Powered feels ready to wipe the slate clean and do a full XNA 4 engine with (presumably) Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 support from the ground up?

Now, we all know Microsoft is not one to stand pat on a platform for very long. XNA 3.0 quickly became 3.1 and 2 years later it's becoming 4.0. So the engine would have to be released within 6-10 months to be relevant (we all know 4.1 will be right around the corner).

It sounds like a tall order...and I can understand why some folks are pretty miffed about potentially having to shell out more coin for it. I'm a wait and see kind of guy myself...if the product comes out...I'll look at the improvements and the price and make a decision. Although, the decision is always easy when the price is $0. ;)

If you want to turn some of that frustration into excitement...a feature list and a release date would go a long way towards turning the tide.

Watching intently...
--RB

#9 I hope the planned XNA 4 engine will support XBox360 because that is the cause I'm using it. Especially I'm curious about the feature list for the 3D part.

After reading this thread I searched around for other XNA engines out there and was surprised by the features and toolset that i.e visual3d.net offers. Digging deeper into this engine I realized that up to now they are not able to deploy games on the XBox 360 ;)

Nevertheless I like Torque Powered and the community here so I hope the new engine project will meet my expectations so that I can to "TorqueX Next Generation"

#10 Hey everyone, sorry for the slight lapse in any response. I'll do my best to answer some questions. I can't/won't talk about all the details right now. While a feature list would be great I won't be talking about any of the features until they are in the repo and working properly. I know that doesn't provide you guys with a lot of forward info but I've always felt uncomfortable with us talking about planned features as I've watched them be cut too many times and it affect you guys.

Also, I would never expect you guys to upgrade for any price (free or otherwise) unless I could prove that this is a better engine to meet your needs. I want to get out of the mindset that "everything will be alright in the next release", each release including 1.0 needs to be able to stand on its own and you guys shouldn't have to wait until 1.1 or 1.5 to get the engine you thought you purchased with 1.0.

Couple of things I can talk about:

1) The engine will be based around components but won't be backwards with current Torque X code. We strive to keep backwards compatibility in our engines but with this engine it really wasn't an option.

2) Xbox360 is not the goal for 1.0. We have decided to focus on the phone as the primary platform for 1.0.

3) The editor will no longer be integrated into the engine, it will be its own standalone application.

I also want to comment briefly on my second point as many of you mention the 360. While the 360 is important to us it hasn't proven itself as a solid platform for us or for indie game developers (based on released sales data). We took a look at things and with the amount of effort MS is pushing for the phone we thought it was the better opportunity. That doesn't mean we are abandoning the 360, just that we aren't focusing on it for 1.0.

Well, actions speak louder than words. I'll keep my eye on this forum in case other questions or comments come up.

#11 @Derek...thanks for the update. It's good to at least know what the focus is so that those of us making 360 games will know not to wait for this, but to continue to use and extend the current Torque X products.

One thing that might go a long way towards "helping" the current Torque X crowd would be the release of the Torque X Builder 2D & 3D source code for those of us that have Pro licenses.

Some features in TX are there and functional...but just not exposed to the build tools. If we could get that extra level of access...I think it would go a long way towards helping us squeeze some more life out of the TX platform.

If the Torque X product is "going away" anyway, what's the harm in releasing the editor source to its paying customers?

Thanks for the update!
--RB

#12 @Ron - We've been discussing that internally and will probably do something along those lines. 2D is rather easy. However in 3D, John introduced some libraries for the editor that require additional licensing. We looked at removing those dependencies but ultimately it required too much work. So while we could release it to everyone it would require anyone that wanted to work on the editors to license the same libraries.

That being said, we will figure out something so you guys aren't stuck and can't extend things.

#13 @Derek...thanks for the response...I guess it always has potential to get hairy once there's a legal implication.

It's good to know that IA is aware and considering options for this as it could be very helpful. Torque X has a cult following and gets some huge community support...I'm sure these guys could do great work with the editor source.

--RB

#14 Derek, thanks for the straight answers. Really appreciate it, even tough I think the new engine won't be for me, as xbox is not focused. Nice to have a clear answer now, but still their is some bad feeling as TX 3D actually will never be what I originally thought I paid for (except the community fixes it up).

#15 @Derek
I think it is a good way 'to get out of the mindset that "everything will be alright in the next release"' as you said.
For me the missing backwards compatibility and standalone editors is not dramatic. It makes me glad that the new engine will still be based on the component system.

What I would like to know about the support of the xbox 360 (lets assume this will come one day ;) ):
Will the 3D features of the engine be limited to the hardware of the Windows 7 Phones or are you planning that it will also be able to use the full 360 hardware capabilities?

Sorry if I get on your nerves with this subject :)

#16 Again I have to agree with Andy S.

Dropping support for the 360 until later on means that this new engine is effectively a different product to what I was originally sold, so not only will the project I was originally sold not have the capabilities that were promised, it's successor is not only some time away, but wont even have those capabilities either.

If I was going to move to phone development, I'd rather have an Android engine, than a Windows Phone 7 one. Ultimately though, it was still the XBox 360 I purchased this product for.

#17 @Thorsten - Whatever platforms we go to we will do our best to support their entire range of features. Porting just the Windows Phone 7 features to Xbox wouldn't really allow you to build that compelling of games for that platform.

#18 We can still use the engine we have. I can see how maybe XBLIG was not as profitable for you guys. Since we have what seems like a small group of guys actively developing using TX for XBLIG.

The mindset in the CC forums is pretty anti commercial engine, the MVPs want it because they understand it could bring in more professional devs. However most of the CC devs seems more like they are making student projects and really do not take it seriously.

I certainly hope the WP7 development is not so much the same mentality.

#19 @Henry - I don't think XBLIG has been very profitable for any anyone minus a couple of good games. I really don't think WP7 will have the same mentality because they want top tier studios producing games for the device. Whereas with Xbox, Arcade and disc games were produced with their C++ channel, not their XNA channel in almost all cases.

What I am hoping is that they take XNA 4.0 and beyond seriously on the Xbox as well and not just an add-on for some indies, hobbyists and students.

#20 @Derek: the WP7 development & reviewing thing is not far from XBLIG. There is the certification process because of the app signing but it's not a strict process, not stricter than XBLIG and not costy so... it'll be just like XBLIG soon and like the AppStore even sooner.