Why is Torque 3D completely ignored?
by William McDonald · in General Discussion · 08/18/2012 (7:33 pm) · 51 replies
Everyone I'm friends with seems to getting on the Unity band wagon. I of course mention Torque 3D and usually I get blank stares as a response. Basicly it's kind of like developing for the Windows 7 Phone. Most people don't even know it exists (to the point where my bank's app says, "Supports all smart phones" yet they only have Android, iPhone and Blackberry) and there isn't a lot of 3rd party action going on. Yes there are some amazing artist producing content for T3D, but compared to the sheer volume available to Unity it's not exactly a level playing field.
I've also noticed the sheer volume of Kickstarters using or supporting Unity. WasteLand 2, among many other games that could easily be done in Torque... I think it's basically coming down to Android support. Everyone seems to be on that open/multi platform band wagon and Torque is quickly becoming irrelevant.
Ouya is an amazing opertunity for new game companies to get their game on an open platform, but Torque doesn't support Android like Unity does.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console?ref=live
Why is Oculus supporting five other engines off the bat, including unity, but not Torque?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game?ref=discover_pop
I just get this feeling that Torque 3d is getting buried by Unity. I'm still developing with it and I'm generally happy with it (except for some minor builder bugs and getting some of the 3rd party plug ins to work nicely together). But it's getting to the point where people don't want to work on a project unless it's Unity based. Is there a way for Torque to gain some kind spotlight again?
I should also add that I had a curious experience with some potential investors recently. I had been working with a startup accelerator for a few months and everything was going well, they liked our game for the most part (some thought it was "too hard") and we were talking some serious money (for me anyway ~100-200k), but then one of them asked if we could export it for Flash and Android. I had to explain that that we couldn't do that without redoing it in an alternative engine. They couldn't understand the fact that it was built in Torque X and couldn't just be ported over to Android, iPhone or Flash with a click of the button like Unity can. I mentioned that with the money they were offering we could hire additional programmers and port it over, but basically they wanted a Flash version to test the waters with the product before investing heavy coin. Which we weren't expecting, considering they played the game, liked the game and we provided them with statistical data and the actual feedback we got from various testers. Then they brought up Kickstarter. We told them we had already done Kickstarter (which they should know considering the data was in our original proposal) and it pulled in $5400 to which they responded with, "is that all" and so I went about showing them the stats of the other games that were on there back when we did it (This was BEFORE DOUBLE FINE made KickStarter the place to poop gold) and the fact was we pulled in twice the amount of most games on there at the time. With that kind of turn out, that should have shown there was interest in our type of game, we also did public testing events at a couple of colleges and got a lot of good/positive feedback, but suddenly they weren't impressed with our game anymore. It's very frustrating.
I guess this is a bitch blog more than a forum post, sorry, but I'm curious if anyone else has had these kind of experiences and what they think the future of Torque 3d is going to be. We have T3D as well as TX and our next game will be in T3D, but I'm afraid of a similar event when we try to get money.
I've also noticed the sheer volume of Kickstarters using or supporting Unity. WasteLand 2, among many other games that could easily be done in Torque... I think it's basically coming down to Android support. Everyone seems to be on that open/multi platform band wagon and Torque is quickly becoming irrelevant.
Ouya is an amazing opertunity for new game companies to get their game on an open platform, but Torque doesn't support Android like Unity does.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console?ref=live
Why is Oculus supporting five other engines off the bat, including unity, but not Torque?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game?ref=discover_pop
I just get this feeling that Torque 3d is getting buried by Unity. I'm still developing with it and I'm generally happy with it (except for some minor builder bugs and getting some of the 3rd party plug ins to work nicely together). But it's getting to the point where people don't want to work on a project unless it's Unity based. Is there a way for Torque to gain some kind spotlight again?
I should also add that I had a curious experience with some potential investors recently. I had been working with a startup accelerator for a few months and everything was going well, they liked our game for the most part (some thought it was "too hard") and we were talking some serious money (for me anyway ~100-200k), but then one of them asked if we could export it for Flash and Android. I had to explain that that we couldn't do that without redoing it in an alternative engine. They couldn't understand the fact that it was built in Torque X and couldn't just be ported over to Android, iPhone or Flash with a click of the button like Unity can. I mentioned that with the money they were offering we could hire additional programmers and port it over, but basically they wanted a Flash version to test the waters with the product before investing heavy coin. Which we weren't expecting, considering they played the game, liked the game and we provided them with statistical data and the actual feedback we got from various testers. Then they brought up Kickstarter. We told them we had already done Kickstarter (which they should know considering the data was in our original proposal) and it pulled in $5400 to which they responded with, "is that all" and so I went about showing them the stats of the other games that were on there back when we did it (This was BEFORE DOUBLE FINE made KickStarter the place to poop gold) and the fact was we pulled in twice the amount of most games on there at the time. With that kind of turn out, that should have shown there was interest in our type of game, we also did public testing events at a couple of colleges and got a lot of good/positive feedback, but suddenly they weren't impressed with our game anymore. It's very frustrating.
I guess this is a bitch blog more than a forum post, sorry, but I'm curious if anyone else has had these kind of experiences and what they think the future of Torque 3d is going to be. We have T3D as well as TX and our next game will be in T3D, but I'm afraid of a similar event when we try to get money.
About the author
I am the grand bureaucrat of SuckerFree Games. I now have one game in distribution, "Kobold's Quest" and another is soon to be published, "Dungeons the Eye of Draconus". My day job is as a Videographer.
#42
As for the gratitudes to John Carmack:
HL became popular because of the counter-strike mod and not to the main game. This is where the money came from for HL2 and The Source engine.
If there wasnt counter-strike mod you'd have never heard of Steam and HL in the first place.
Your arguments are as weak as your personal grudge against Carmack and people like him who make their own game engines, I can expand that list to
Markus Persson, Timothy Sweeney, Richard Garriott, Ken Silverman etc.
08/21/2012 (9:40 am)
@Frank As for the gratitudes to John Carmack:
HL became popular because of the counter-strike mod and not to the main game. This is where the money came from for HL2 and The Source engine.
If there wasnt counter-strike mod you'd have never heard of Steam and HL in the first place.
Your arguments are as weak as your personal grudge against Carmack and people like him who make their own game engines, I can expand that list to
Markus Persson, Timothy Sweeney, Richard Garriott, Ken Silverman etc.
#43
You should read up on the Source engine. It still has original comments and source code from the Quake engine. Source may be a rewrite, but it certainly gained from the expertise inside of the Quake engine.
Guess what? I have written my own game engines. I have written a tile based engine in the 90s for my own games. I have written GUI wrappers around the MW2 Mercenaries sim. I wrote my own DOS based windowing system in the 90s. I have written a 3D engine partially, but scrapped the idea because I would be old and grey by the time I finished. So I started working with TGE and later T3D.
So, I see you are an artist. How many 3D editing programs have you written? I mean a real artist would write their own tools right? Do you build your own paint brushes from scratch? Seems kind of silly doesn't it? A game engine is just a toolbox. It contains pre-built constructs. Kind of like when importing a mesh, or using a cube or sphere inside a 3D editing tool.
08/21/2012 (12:36 pm)
Quote:Your arguments are as weak as your personal grudge against Carmack and people like him who make their own game enginesHahahahaha! That is hilarious. How did you get that out of my post?
You should read up on the Source engine. It still has original comments and source code from the Quake engine. Source may be a rewrite, but it certainly gained from the expertise inside of the Quake engine.
Guess what? I have written my own game engines. I have written a tile based engine in the 90s for my own games. I have written GUI wrappers around the MW2 Mercenaries sim. I wrote my own DOS based windowing system in the 90s. I have written a 3D engine partially, but scrapped the idea because I would be old and grey by the time I finished. So I started working with TGE and later T3D.
So, I see you are an artist. How many 3D editing programs have you written? I mean a real artist would write their own tools right? Do you build your own paint brushes from scratch? Seems kind of silly doesn't it? A game engine is just a toolbox. It contains pre-built constructs. Kind of like when importing a mesh, or using a cube or sphere inside a 3D editing tool.
#45
Again wrong arguments.
You can not compare:
Programmer creating a program and an artist creating a program.
Perhaps you would want me to create a car too along with the tools for making cars? I'm a good driver. I also have a pilot license.
As for the brushers, I do not create them there is enough of them already. If there was not I would certainly make some.
But I would not make something to work with like Photoshop, I'm an artist not a programmer. Besides there is no need of creating something like that, since it is not evolving as games, where it is important to have a better performing game engine with new shaders etc.
So totally wrong to compare an artist making a program to work with and a programmer making a program to work with.
As for "The Source maybe a rewrite", maybe this, maybe that, maybe there is life on the Moon. Speculating on this doesn't prove it to be the truth, perhaps in your head you want it to be the truth but the facts tell us different.
The end line is: - HL2 the Source engine was not made on Quake engine. Go ahead email to the Steam ask them about it.
I don't remember me forcing you into building your own AAA engine.
I'm happy for you making your own engines , which is nice to see you try it.
Where you fail others succeed read up on the people I mentioned they all made their engines thus fortunes while some were still in the universities or schools, with no budget.
I can include to that a bunch of other engines but I don't know the people or individuals behind them. Nevertheless they all made AAA hits.
Lots of people still make their own engines. And so it will stay.
08/21/2012 (2:01 pm)
I see you are mad after all and getting personal.Again wrong arguments.
You can not compare:
Programmer creating a program and an artist creating a program.
Perhaps you would want me to create a car too along with the tools for making cars? I'm a good driver. I also have a pilot license.
As for the brushers, I do not create them there is enough of them already. If there was not I would certainly make some.
But I would not make something to work with like Photoshop, I'm an artist not a programmer. Besides there is no need of creating something like that, since it is not evolving as games, where it is important to have a better performing game engine with new shaders etc.
So totally wrong to compare an artist making a program to work with and a programmer making a program to work with.
As for "The Source maybe a rewrite", maybe this, maybe that, maybe there is life on the Moon. Speculating on this doesn't prove it to be the truth, perhaps in your head you want it to be the truth but the facts tell us different.
The end line is: - HL2 the Source engine was not made on Quake engine. Go ahead email to the Steam ask them about it.
I don't remember me forcing you into building your own AAA engine.
I'm happy for you making your own engines , which is nice to see you try it.
Where you fail others succeed read up on the people I mentioned they all made their engines thus fortunes while some were still in the universities or schools, with no budget.
I can include to that a bunch of other engines but I don't know the people or individuals behind them. Nevertheless they all made AAA hits.
Lots of people still make their own engines. And so it will stay.
#46
08/21/2012 (2:32 pm)
Let's keep it civil.
#47
That you need to make as many tutorials as possible.
2-3 people constantly making new tutorials. On every genre on anything.
Since the community does not do it for you as you were probaly expecting it.
So the newbies could spread the word how they made a game with no skills whatsoever using Torque.
As of this moment you are lucky people even mention T3D in comparing it with Unity.
As soon as Unity starts giving away their source with the license things might really go sourer for you.
08/21/2012 (2:45 pm)
David all I wanted to say to you guys.That you need to make as many tutorials as possible.
2-3 people constantly making new tutorials. On every genre on anything.
Since the community does not do it for you as you were probaly expecting it.
So the newbies could spread the word how they made a game with no skills whatsoever using Torque.
As of this moment you are lucky people even mention T3D in comparing it with Unity.
As soon as Unity starts giving away their source with the license things might really go sourer for you.
#48
My thoughts, no harm aimed at anyone, GarageGames or Torque.
08/21/2012 (2:46 pm)
My 2 cents...Quote:Why is Torque 3D completely ignored?
- UDK is a free download (However, it is not Torque 3D's equal)
- Other Engines have free upgrades (I've been looking at the C4 Engine)
- I feel like the whole Instant Action deal with GG really hurt Torque and made people steer clear.
My thoughts, no harm aimed at anyone, GarageGames or Torque.
#49
I definitely get your point and appreciate your perspective. The FPS tutorial was an experiment in that direction. It took a long time to create at that level, but I enjoyed working on it with Janet, Chris, Richard, and Geoff.
08/21/2012 (2:57 pm)
My comment to keep things civil was directed at everyone in this thread, Vlad. Not just you. I don't want you to think I singled you out because I happened to post after you.I definitely get your point and appreciate your perspective. The FPS tutorial was an experiment in that direction. It took a long time to create at that level, but I enjoyed working on it with Janet, Chris, Richard, and Geoff.
#50
Sorry about that. I was kind of having fun. Probably for the wrong reasons.
@Vlad,
If I got too personal I apologize. I was hoping to find common ground in which to frame the conversation. Apparently I did not succeed. Take care, and I hope you find what you are looking for.
@All,
Yeah, I got off topic. So what were we talking about? Oh yeah.
T3D is not permanently sidelined. It has some of the best networking and a host of other features.
The things that I think hurt it is the past: fragmented community (when TGEA separated from TGE), possibly instant action (never really understand what that was for), and general confusion. The one thing that has always made GG strong is the community and the willingness of people to share ideas, code, and resources. That is a major draw for me.
08/21/2012 (4:56 pm)
@David,Sorry about that. I was kind of having fun. Probably for the wrong reasons.
@Vlad,
If I got too personal I apologize. I was hoping to find common ground in which to frame the conversation. Apparently I did not succeed. Take care, and I hope you find what you are looking for.
@All,
Yeah, I got off topic. So what were we talking about? Oh yeah.
T3D is not permanently sidelined. It has some of the best networking and a host of other features.
The things that I think hurt it is the past: fragmented community (when TGEA separated from TGE), possibly instant action (never really understand what that was for), and general confusion. The one thing that has always made GG strong is the community and the willingness of people to share ideas, code, and resources. That is a major draw for me.
#51
I just checked your website. Can I catch you on linkedin? I can do that tonight.
08/21/2012 (4:58 pm)
@Mindwedge,I just checked your website. Can I catch you on linkedin? I can do that tonight.
Vlad I
Default Studio Name
I never said that Steam made HL 1 on their own engine, because I know it was based on Quake. I said HL2 , read it carefully.