Torque X Status Update (8-17-2010)

#21 @Pino - Thats what I have heard as well. Hopefully with all developers going through that channel though it will be easier for good games to cross the various boundaries. Right now I can't recall any titles from XBLIG that have been moved up to Xbox Live Arcade.

#22 @Derek: it happened to a couple of titles (I don't recall the names, I'll have a look). The issue to det to XBLA is the money involved: I personally know two devs who refused that path because of the money needed upfront... that would have eaten up a whole quarter of their XBLIG game and as students they really preferred to keep the money right away.

On WP7 there is almost the same money needed for XBLIG. The obly difference is that you only have a few slots then you have to buy more. The other difference is that one has to pay the certification ($99) so this might limit the shovelware but we are talking about small amount of money here so this marketplace will be full of students' groups and so on. Nothing to do with XBLA, Wii, PS3 and so on.

#23 The certification fee reminds me of developing on Brew for a number of devices, though $99 is extremely low in comparison.

#24 Yep, it's very low indeed, that's why I don't think I'll be an issue for students and hobbyists. That fee is once per title, so updates' certification process is free of charge.
I guess it's a fee put there just because it was not possible to go for peer review due to the application signing.

#25 I had been a bit slow on keeping up with the forums and developments with TX and having been cross referenced by another thread to this one I'm quite literally gob-smacked with the announcements regarding the "new" torque X 1.0 release plans and “WP7 only , no 360” support.
Primarily I would admit selfishly I feel a bit "stung" but mainly my amazement is the choice of direction for this move.
It's just my few cents, but this seems a real mystery move to me in terms of strategy. I’m no expert, but hear me out.<flame on, but I promise I won’t burn too much>
I understand the majority of TX users are potential XBLIG creators and hobbyists and as a profit model this won’t make substantial profit for IA / GarageGames; I suppose they make the majority of their big bucks on the Torque 3D engine, and the Torque 360 and wii dev packages for certified developers.
But for them to focus the next version of TX on primarily just Windows phone 7 is entering a fiercely competitive well established marketplace.
On one hand you have your AppStore and iPhone and that's by no means not showing any fast signs of disappearing, next there's Android which is gonna be the next biggest rival, for MS to go ahead and think that windows 7 phone is going to be a mighty wedge between the two well...can anyone say Zune ? or lest we forget Kin ?
As an ardent long time gamer, and now fledgling game developer with a long past in ketai (mobile phone) and SNS development here in Japan; looking at Windows 7 Phone, if I was presented with a "make a game for this" request by my superiors with Silverlight and Flash support both enabled on WP7 (although not at launch but both have been confirmed) I would immediately look to the massive volume of emerging and well established flash gaming libraries (papervision, pushbutton, particle effects libraries, physics engines, etc) for initial development .As would many other developers with existing game projects on the web or for mobile phone.
Sure XNA 4.0 will open more 3D and powerful gaming to WP7 but evidence on Appstore shows 3D or "full on" games just don't sell as well as the more simplistic 2D "novelty games" (Zombieville, Angry Birds, Plants Vs Zombies) Albeit there's been some very well crafted 3D games for Iphone (NOVA, Chaos Rings, Fallen, Zombie Infection)
Sure, it’s does look "neat" that I can play Halo Reach et all on WP7 and connect with my XBL profile on WP7, but again, bigger, 3D, and more immersive titles just don't get the audience or profits casual or SNS oriented games do.

#26 ..continued.....

Last project I was involved in over here was to take an well known existing facebook game and convert to ketai and iPhone for Japan market; it had minimal 3D elements and as the existing game was in flash we were lucky enough to export most of our resources over to a mobile version, but if I was presented with this task "once more" for WP7 would I choose the "new" Torque X ? Not likely and neither would many, they would simply utilise the existing well established technologies.
MS may see XNA 4.0 and WP7 as a rival to Appstore, Android, DS and PSP as an all in one phone and gaming device but I personally don't feel particularly optimistic. Anything smaller than a PSP screen for 3D or games with "depth" and I'm likely to skip it for something "casual".
If there was some kind of connectivity between your "game at home and game on phone" ie manage your game inventory on phone then get home and changes are reflected on your home version of the game that would be neat and is something I've been considering developing so I will be in line for the "new Torque X" but seems to me the most important issue to be addressed by game developers and indie game developers at the moment is scalability and cross platform development.
Just reading this month’s “GameDeveloper” and other periodicalsmagazines and rather than discussing age old shader techniques they're delving into how to scale games over to SNS sites and mobile devices as well as console versions, I know it's a tall order but if Torque were able to release Torque X with immediate capability for deployment to WP7 AND XBLA or XBLIG that's a win-win, but just having the option to release to WP7 ....?
If I was in this scenario and developing for mobile deployment I would have to confess to plumbing straight for Unity with its iPhone and Android support, least that way with one dev tool I’m hitting 2/3rds of the "majority" market and not just Microsoft’s latest iteration of Windows mobile (which If you've used from previous experience you’ll agree it was exceptionally poor).
I’m still sticking with Torque because the community is organised, cohesive, dynamic and fast thinking tho it’s such a shame the IA aren’t as flexible and organised. I little bit more of a heads up next time please <flame off>

#27 @Hoddie

I'm sure its hard to believe, but there is a plan behind what IA is doing with Windows Phone and Torque X. Its just not always possible to share that master plan until its close to being a reality.

If you believe the current rumors Windows Phone ships in a little more than a month... you can bet you'll hear alot from IA around that time.

#28 I must say I am beyond upset with the way that IA has dealt with Torque X. I purchased an engine to save myself development time and with over two years in production I have spent man months dealing with engine problems that would stop any product from shipping.

Game Video:
http://www.mhoesterey.com/demo/ChuDynasty_Gameplay.wmv
One of the Opening Story's:
http://www.mhoesterey.com/demo/ViotaleStart.wmv


By choosing not to support this engine you have told all your customers with products in development that their games are not worth your time. If it where not for Pino and others in the community I would be loosing month upon month porting my game over to another engine.

I understand announcing you will not be adding more features into Torque X. But dropping all support is unacceptable, unprofessional and not the right move. I am now forced to spend more time, money, and resources in order to update the engine for the new XNA version. I bought an engine so I didn't have to do that.

The fact that you are still selling Torque X speaks a lot. You should not be selling a product you are not willing to support. Stop selling Torque X and just make it open source.

#29 Hello..

If you believe that these new silly looking windows mobile phones will save their mobile platform.. Your Drunk.. or showing your age.. Seriously.. Their years late to a party thats already owned by iphone and android with blackberry owning the rest.. They continue to FOLLOW the trends.. They are NO LONGER setting trends..Dont get me wrong Microsoft does alot of things well.. pc, server, outlook, office, xbox ect.. But mobile phones is just something they arent good at.. And for Instant Action to spend hours and financial resources on a project that has ugly phones and most people already owning the phone they want is RIDICULOUS.. How many people are getting a WP7 phone? I dont know anyone.. Major studios are saying that they arent messing with the platform either..

They scrapped xblig because of poor game performance.. good point.. but the tools were poor.. There is NOT 1 professional dev engine for xna.. So what do you expect? Where are the working tutorials for torque x?

#30 @Tom
Yeah I'm sure there is a plan.A financial plan; end of the day all companies have to make money and at the moment XBLIG isn't making millionaires. I can see IA / MS wanting a slice of the mobile apps market, I mean who doesn't ? its making millions.Recent trend I've noticed here in Japan tho (and where else to note emerging game trends) that is a bit worrying; iPhone really only just "took off" January last year even tho it had been on market for a year.iPad's are being bought like crazy but at the same time there has been a HUGE resurgence in traditional mobile phone games for free by companies like www.mbga.jp and gree.jp and they are beginning to gain popularity over paid apps based on "virtual currency model", players get the games for free but there's always the option to pay real cash for upgrades, equipment, etc. I'm as keen as the next guy to have a tinker with WP7 and hell I will even shell out the bucks for the new TX, but even the security of paid game apps on android, iPhone, etc isn't 100% secure so I'm pretty perplexed by IA's approach to go "WP7 only", just seems so restrictive when its clear with Flash and Silverlight support established devs are just gonna put out their games in those technologies or just plum for the major platforms namely iPhone and Android.Anyhoo its really great of you to be helping out on the XNA 4.0 crossover, I really hope it goes through ok.

@Matthew
Dude I feel for you I seriously do, I was looking at your site the other day and your game looks beautifully polished, sure to be a XBLIG hit and looks XBLA quality. (That's an ethos I've been aiming for in my own game, XBLA quality at an XBLIG price) I've only been developing since May and made fair enough progress; I've worked as a web / mobile dev for 10 years and sick to the back teeth of internet dev so I quit the whole scene to do what I always wanted to do, saved up 5 grand to get me by and I'm going XBLIG->XBLA->other platforms or BUST, so I have ALOT riding on my project. I was damned infuriated to hear the IA announcement, I had spent the prior year carefully selecting which toolset I would use, business planning, how I would go about "going independent",etc. Mebbe more fool me quitting a full time job to go full time "indie dev" but Torque seemed to be the fastest route as you said but now that I'm amidst using it I'm infuriated with the bugs and lack of support (except from the community) I'm still learning the ropes with c# and Torque after years of data untyped languages like PHP and would love to be of some assistance to Pino, its damned admirable what he's doing but I fear I would be more a hindrance. Good luck on Chu Dynasty !

#31 Ok. Warning first : I am beyond pissed. However, hopefully I can bring my point in a civil enough manner. Here I go.

First off, are you mad? Any of you ever read the book on how to be a good coder? Ever looked at Netscape example? I don't mean to be rude, but throwing out the entire code base to make a similar product is more than 90% time the wrong move. You think you won't have to do with all the mistakes and code complexity, but you forget how easy it is to make new mistakes and how much of that complexity is really bug-fixes and special cases. Fix the code, clean it, yes, especially with test units. Throw it all away? What are you, junior devs?

Second, as Matthew said, how dare you even sell the product right now? By the end of the development cycle of nearly any decent project, it'll be pass the deadline and won't be able to be put on XBox. Yet you advertise your product as allowing projects to be marketed there. That borders on false advertising and trust me, for having bought Torque X in mid-end spring, I'm mighty pissed already at the time left for us to develop it. Can the community project fix it? Possibly. But unless you support it officially, you have NO claim to its achievements and a new comer could bypass the forums entirely ( while maybe not the smartest thing to do, its well within its rights to expect the product to work out of the box. )

Thirdly, have you even marketed for the phones before? Yes, IPhone is a Titan amongst smartphones, however, it's nothing but one of the many players among phones with applications. And with the INCREDIBLE amount of noise on its markets, most developers don't recoup even developing costs the moment they paid for art, music or whatever. If I develop for J2ME, I can reach most of the phones out there INCLUDING Android, IPhone and Windows Mobile 7 with special steps. With Flash, I can once more reach most of those at the exception of Windows Mobile 7, at least at launch. And both of those options ALSO work on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Windows Mobile 7 is already being actively boycotted by some of the major players in the phone development industry. What could possibly make you think it will sell any better than an XBox platform? Which leads me to...

Fourthly, Xbox is currently the most sold console for the second quarter in a row. Their new products, whether good or not, are creating a buzz as well as the release of Halo Reach. We can expect those sales to go even higher as we reach the Holydays. Why oh why would you want to take a shotgun to your foot the moment the going gets good? The market is finally ripening, the new XNA is easier to develop with and the entire goal behind it was to allow code to easily be ported from Windows to XBox TO Windows Mobile 7. You are taking away the main use of this framework by chopping possibly the most healthy branch to leave room to the possibly already dying one.

Now, let me ask you once more, quite politely : Are you mad? Why in regard to all of this would you ever make that move. Yes this post can be seen as hostile. Yes you invested time and money in a new hope. Yes it's hard to publicly change your opinion once you stated your previous ones. But, please, awake the f*** up. This isn't play time here. It's the livelihood of people and possibly their entire savings you are toying with. How many customers do you expect to keep if you keep this up? What about your reputation?

As a final thought, while some company release new products every year, at least the old ones keep working on your target audience.

#32 Sorry, just added thoughts here:

XBox has currently a DEEP penetration of the market. Windows Mobile 7 has NONE.

If you were to support 4.0, Microsoft has pledged that it was the last major update in a while and that we could expect a good 3 years before functionalities were again deeply changed. From there on, it's only a matter of using the upgrade tool.

What about people who paid for the platform SDK ( or whatever there is for Torque X 3D ), how will their investment and trust carry on?

You are lucky to have a strong community supporting your engine, yet you barely use it. Deploy procedures, hire one person to manage it, DO SOMETHING WITH IT! You have a goose that gives golden eggs and your leaving it in a corner, to feed on what scraps it can find. Don't act all surprised if it dies someday.

And finally, please, unless you can meet EACH and EVERY point that was made by people, change course. It's not enough to be able to rebuke or put to rest a few points. If you can't answer them all, then you still have some digging to do.

#33 Oliver.. You made the point that I said months earlier.. They WOULD HAVE HAD A GREAT ENGINE>. But they NEVER capitalized on it.. Never provided enough tutorials.. Never updated it.. Never fixed bugs.. Scrap it.. Well Im not sure what they should do with it now.. cause on the surface i know it sucks.. but im not sure how sound it is deep into the source code foundation.. But here is the thing they need to think about..

Making engines , games, tools , artwork.. whatever.. Is business first, second, third and fourth.. Games and fun last.. Take the hit.. spend the money .. And fix the engine.. I mean really fix it.. its easier.. and you will get the $$$ on the back end..

#34 I recently purchased TX3.1.5 for $200 in August 2010.

Let me get this straight. Are these correct assumptions?

Assumption #1: TorqueX(TX) 3.1.5 is going to be orphaned and discontinued, no longer supported by Instant Action (IA). Okay, that I can live with.

Assumption #2: TX4.0 is NOT going support deployment for the Xbox 360 as a target platform. Also, TX4.0 will NOT be backward compatible with TX3.1.5 projects, so anything a person created using TX3.1.5, including any custom component libraries a person may have made, will be broken and rendered unusable on TX4.0. Therefore, TX3.1.5 will be the final edition of Torque which supports Xbox 360 development. So, if you want to use Torque to develop for the 360, then you must use 3.1.5, because 4.0 will NOT support Xbox360 deployment.

Assumption #3: Microsoft is going to discontinue all XBLIG support for all XNA 3.1.5 tools, in the near future within a matter of weeks or months from now. This means that all projects created using Microsoft's 3.1 and prior version tools will soon be locked out from XBLIG distribution. This will therefore also include everything created with TX3.1.5. Within a matter of weeks or months, this will have rendered the entire TX3.1.5 game engine entirely useless for XBox 360 development and deployment, because even if you successfully compile a complete project with it, that project will be immediately be rejected and excluded by Microsoft's Game Creator's Club solely based on its version of tools used to create it.

Assumption 4: No free or minimally priced upgrade (from 3.1.5 to 4.0) will be available for recent (or any) purchasers of TorqueX 3.1.5, which Instant Action continues even as I write this thread entry to advertise and sell currently for $200 - $250.

If my assumptions are correct, then TX is a twice dead product, killed by both IA and MS. Please don't interpret the following BOLD words as yelling, it's just added for necessary emphasis: If Instant Action has announced that it is not going to support a particular product, then how can they POSSIBLY continue to SELL that product even AFTER such an announcement? That MAKES NO SENSE and worse, that is VERY UNFAIR AND OUTRIGHT MISLEADING to people who ACTUALLY BUY that particular product, isn't it? Isn't that like as though there were a car company continuing to sell a particular model of car despite knowing full well that it is going to be more than discontinued, and more than obsolete, but actually unable to function for its intended and ADVERTISED purpose within a few weeks or months? I.e. if the fuel that this car required was being taken off of the market within 60 days from now.

If that is the case, then IA should NOT be selling this product anymore or advertising it on their website, or at the ABSOLUTE VERY LEAST they should be clearly indicating on the product page / advertisement that it will be discontinued soon and furthermore also outdated for 360 deployment by Microsoft in the near future.

And furthermore, if IA is discontinuing Xbox360 support in TX4.0, then ABSOLUTELY IA also SHOULD be offering full refunds to anyone who has recently purchased TX3.1.5. That would be the ethical thing to do in this situation. But if my assumptions (1,2,3 and 4 above) are correct, then what IA is doing is both unethical and unfair to paying customers, whether or not also actually illegal.

Putting aside what appears to be misleading marketing and unknown upgrading issues for the moment, my main question is this:

************
Q: Will the future TX4.0 engine support or not support Xbox360 as a target platform?

If it will support Xbox360 deployment, then my second question is this: Will TX4.0 have the same functionality as TX3.1.5 even though it will not be backward compatible with TX3.1.5 code and editors?
************

As a customer who recently paid $200 for this product, I certainly deserve an answer from IA to those basic 1 or 2 questions, regardless of whether or not IA wants to reveal or make claims about upcoming TX4.0's feature set. Thank you. I await for a response from IA.

If I am mistaken on my assumptions (1-4 above), then please someone correct me / clarify. Thanks!

#35 @everyone
I can understand that some of you are upset catching up on the news that the xna 4 engine will not be backwards compatible. However, I do ask that everyone stays civil when posting. Hurling insults at the programmers will not be tolerated.

#36 @Oliver: Thank you for the empathy and kind words about our game.

@Scott: Personally I'm not upset with the coders. I understand you guys work for a company and are often not given the power to make decisions.


That being said if your company does not rectify this situation and at least support Torque X through this next upgrade I will not be able to continue to due business with you in the future.

I've been with GG for many years (look at all the products I own) and always respected them because they respected the little guy. The thing is I always thought that GG saw that the small developer could become the EA of the future. While I understand you may view Torque X as a Hobbiest tool what I think your forgetting is that the people using this tool now may in the future start a studio and be looking for an engine. By ruining your relationship with these people you are insuring that when they have real money to spend they go elsewhere.

I understand that Torque X was a rushed product that NEVER functioned properly on the Xbox until Pino and others fixed it. I understand the need for a new codebase. What I don't understand is how you can stop supporting a product without warning. Continuing to sell it just adds insult to the injury.

I really would like to continue doing business with IA, but I can't due business with a company I don't trust.

I hope IA rectifies this situation as I really do love this community and would like to stay a part of it.

#37 Re: post#35

Hi Scott, I have no intention of bringing insults to programmers or anyone else. Could you please clarify which post or posts contained insults toward programmers? Thanks.

#38 re: post#36

I very much agree with Matthew, and I think he makes some excellent points, even though unlike Matthew I am quite new to TX and this community.

IA's apparent decision to discontinue support for the 360 in its 4.0 engine is really quite disappointing, because the Torque engine seems to be a great product with great potential. This apparent decision in effect changes the product's actual definition from "Torque for Xbox360" to "Torque for Windows Mobile 7".

That is not what we paid for. When I made the decision to purchase the product, I was under the impression that I was paying for a game engine targeted for the 360, and if future updates or upgrades were to occur for this product, then the 360 would continue to be the or a supported target platform for this game engine. That's why I bought TorqueX specifically, and not iTorque for iPhone or Torque for Windows, etc..

Even so, however, I assume that IA does plan to support Xbox360 development as a target platform for TorqueX at some point in the future. I just fail to see why IA does not at the very least, in its next TX release (4.0), include at least minimal support for the 360 as a target platform. Or at least some patches or updates could be offered for TX3.1.5 to make it XNA 4.0 compliant, could it not? I don't think it's fair for paying customers.

#39 I do believe he was referring to my post. However, since most of said comments where conditional of a certain behavior, to feel even slightly insulted, it would mean that they agree with the condition [if(){}else{}, something any coder should understand.]

To be polite and civil is one thing, and like I said, I tried my best. However, DO NOT act as if your actions were not a spit in the face of many of your clients. It is, if not worse. We (as a community of people in various company) invested time and money in your product. Some bought the product quite recently, most likely past the point when you knew what you were going to do. In fact, people might still buy it as there are still NO sign about this ANYWHERE on either the front page or the product page at the exception of a small blog entry that could be interpreted as nothing more than a routine update by an inattentive client.

Furthermore, as many mentioned and me as well, the only reason a lot of us code with TorqueX and/or C# is to target the XBox. Dropping this is telling your user-base that they are wrong and don't know what they want. Well, sorry, I did my market research, I've worked on many platform and I've made a business plan in consideration of such. And it does NOT include Windows Phone 7 in any foreseeable future.

Now, I'd very much appreciate the points to be addressed rather than seeing a dismissive gesture towards them all because you disagree with either one of them or the tone of them. Reality and truth don't go away because you don't like them and while red has many name, in the end, it is red.

#40 Hey guys,

I don't have time to jump in here and answer all questions but I will do my best to provide some answers with a follow up soon to follow.

@Olivier:

Point 1 - No we are not mad. We understand the risks in building from the ground up and pulled as much as we could in both knowledge and code from the Torque X codebase. Did we want to rewrite everything? Of course not, however I don't believe we could hit the level of quality we wanted in the timeframe we wanted on the current codebase.

Point 2 - This is a very good point. I've talked with Eric about it and until we figure out our official stance on XNA 4.0 we will be putting up a disclaimer when people go to purchase TX to let them know that there may not be XNA 4.0 support. I don't want to prevent people from purchasing the engine as long as the fully understand what they are getting into.

Point 3 - Without going into a lot of detail, I disagree with you.

Point 4 - While Xbox has been selling a lot of consoles lately it has yet to be proven how well they will support XNA on the Xbox. It's no secret that Torque X has not been a huge success for us. Has the quality of it played a role in that? Sure it has, but its not clear that a deeper investment in the current Torque X would turn it around.