Your thoughts on recent Torque reviews

#1 Honestly, I think the biggest thing I disagree with in his review is the statement about community support. I have found the community to be an incredible resource.

Regarding outdated features - it's true, and that's why they are working on the TSE. I personally think an outdated engine that can target lower end machines is nice, though my current commercial endeavour is targetting the TSE.

I find that I agree with some of his points and disagree with others. The real issue I think I'd take with him is that his delivery is terrible... but that's what you get when you let anybody that wants to review it.

Now, I also wouldn't be surprised to find that a review that poorly written is coming from the perspective of someone with a personal gripe who's airing it out in a public forum.

#2 Torque's a good buy for the price. It's got lots of dated aspects, and to be honest, i've noticed the activitly level of the community on the decrease lately. Especially on the weekends.

But yeah, for the price torque is the best there is. So... yeah. There's plenty of other game engines that looks to blow torque away, but it's their pricetag that's killer.

#3 "I had this engine, and I'm a C++ Programmer and I thought it sucked."

i don't think very highly of this particular review.

#4 The Torque community has always been quiet at weekends. For a large chunk of the community that's the only time they have to work on their games. For those of us that do this as our day job, the weekend is one of the few times we can get away from the computer.

#5 Criticizing reviews isn't exactly going to win the hearts of potential licensee's now is it?

I think the key thing to do with these reviews is take them with a pinch of salt. Of course, thats not to say that they aren't truthful - i'd expect quite a few negative complaints, considering torque has been around for about 5 years now.

Regarding the comments about the community, i would disagree with it being dead. Rather, i'd say it has a much larger proportion of new and/or inexperienced users - i've noticed a lot that after only a day or two, i have excessive amounts of unread forum posts (in the 1000's), which tbh, i don't have the time to read, so i tend to just peck through the front page forum posts and so miss 99% of the new threads being posted, so it wouldn't really suprise me that people would think there is a lack of support (i.e., who's going to have the time read 99% of the new support-related forum threads being posted?).

#6 Here is another review that made me laugh (more like ... pissed me off). I highlighted the thing that made me laugh in bold. Ken Finney may not laugh at this one.

Quote:
Torque very good engine , except the documentation
Posted by: at Jul 3, 2006
I used in the past a lot of language/tools/engine in order to create a simple game.

My last test was with cristal space : may be a good engine , but no network support.
I can take like that all the engines one by one and found issues with all of them.

The main issue with TORQUE is the documentation : it is really a pity.
I know the answer : buy the book "3d game programming" .I got it ( illegal way) it is a pdf with 800 pages : same issues , a pity ... very very generalist, no enough detail on api.

If you are patient and try to understand the demo , you can use TORQUE in efficient way . On TDN ( wiki for torque owner) you can find sometime usefull documentation. But i repeat it is a pity : very poor documentation provided by garagegames.com.

Anyway Torque is very complete engine with all the functionnalities that i try to develop with other languages during 2 years.
Really the best choice today : you can use this tool NATIVELY to play to the same game with several players by network... It is the only one on the market at this period of time to provide this feature without specific development !

Maybe these people are giving bad reviews because of lack of effort on their part.

#7 What's the point with this thread? What is there to discuss?

The reviewers quoted are obviously not in a position to review an engine, and their respective reviews pretty much says who they are and how little they know about Torque.

A serious potential customer knows there are bad apples around and its not too hard to sort these guys out before even reading half of their non-constructive crap.

#8 Its nothing like the pro engines like the recent cryengine or anything like that, but its good to make simple games that arent meant to be sold all over the world and have people parading in the streets the day that the sequel comes out (reference to halo 2)

#9 @James: I guess I am criticizing the negative reviews. I just wonder why some of these people are giving such negative reviews. I also understand that not everyone will like Torque.

The documentation with Torque is really getting better, including TDN and with new books coming out.

Yes, there is a learning curve.

The community is very helpful. You may have to wait a couple of days to get a response. As one review stated:

Quote:Well you can ask for help in the forums, but most of the time your post will go unanswered or you will be told you've asked in the wrong place.

I have seen alot of this. Myself, I have bypassed a few questions because it has been asked so many times. As for posting in the wrong forum, most of the time they get the answer to the question asked and are told the proper place to post.

The two reviews from the mac users say they can't compile Torque bothered me the most for some reason. I guess because I don't own a Mac. Do these individuals have a legitimate gripe, is there a problem there or are they doing something wrong when compiling Torque?

#10 I am new to this community, and I for one love GG and its products, is TGE dated?, yes it is, but for my current project it is PERFECT With the engine resources, which are in large numbers, you can make this engine look amazing. . . . period. You can even bring it upto a good current standard. I also purchsed TSE, so when the time comes for my next project, which will entail higher end graphics, I will have the power at an affordable price.

Regardless, the key to a good looking game are the art assets . . . mainly, ofcourse the power of the engine comes into play.

All in all I have seen some very promising projects from the people her at GG.

As for negitive reviews . . . . who cares. The way I look at it is, they are not dedicated enough or talented enough to bring up the visual standard of their game.

Moving on.......

Take care.

#11

Quote:Its nothing like the pro engines like the recent cryengine or anything like that, but its good to make simple games that arent meant to be sold all over the world and have people parading in the streets the day that the sequel comes out (reference to halo 2)

And what is your expertise to say this ?
Have you worked with said engines ? (we all know you haven't so rhetorical question)
TGE might not offer the latest features hyped by the industry, but in competent hands it can do as much as any other engines out there, some things being more easy, others might be harder, etc.
Small games only ? You do know what TGE was before, right ? Just in case : tribes 2, which doesn't qualify as a small game by any standard.
Don't take this too personally Bryce, but I'm tired of people who have no real clue about tech spouting off all emcompassing statements like you just did.
TGe is not perfect, but no piece of software is anyhow, and there is quite a bit more than following the hype in properly levaring middleware, or any sort of licensed technology.
But TGE can certainly be leveraged by a competent team to do ANY kind of game, including AAA titles.
Sheesh !!

#12 I think alot of the baseless bad reviews on decent engines are given by users trying to get people to use their engine, because they honestly care about you using theirs instead of Torque, or any other game engine for that matter. Reviews should tell you about the engine + your experience, not just your experience, or even worse, your opinion.

The "No Support" thing: I've posted questions on the forum had had them answered in a matter of minutes, only a couple of times days, which I feel is quite generouse seeing as everyone here spends their free time answering questions, etc. I'm a put-up-and-shut-up kinda guy, though. I've a couple of question\s unasnwered, but they were really unimportant questions.

#13 @Mark,

There are lots of reasons for bad reviews. The main ones that spring to mind are:

* Some people expect Torque to be something it isnt and then blame Torque for not being the thing they thought it was.
* Some people blame the engine/community/docs for their own shortcomings.
* Some people are just really, really, really stupid.

There are more, of course. As someone said, it's not really worth worrying about.

As for mac users ... CVS HEAD doesnt compile as a Universal binary, but if you download the Zip from My Account that will work as a universal binary. That isnt immediately clear and could be the reason for some people's problems. However, I have never had any problems building it on any supported OS. That said, I tend to just fix any niggles in the projects/code quickly and then forget about them so you might want to take that with a grain of salt.

T.

#14 I might have to disagree with you on one of your points Nicolas. To the average game consumer, the "latest features hyped by the industry" does matter. Weather of not these features provide any real advantage to the game is irrelevant. Every top selling game out right now has TSE quality graphics or better. I simply don't believe you could produce what would be considered by the industry a AAA title with TGEs tech. Thats not to say you couldn't produce a game that is better in terms of game play, but the tech really does matter for mainstream gaming.

#15

Quote:Every top selling game out right now has TSE quality graphics or better.

I call bullshit on this statement. World of Warcraft looks great (fantastic art direction) but is not what I would call cutting edge in the realm of graphics. I am really not trying to flame, but these sort of absolute statements really get to me as they keep getting stated over and over, and they really don't reflect reality.

All of Blizzards games are always great looking, always look like they are 4-5 years behind the times technology wise, run on most machines well, and always sell way more than everything else.

Now, I am not saying that great looking graphics are not important. I think they are. I also think it is great art direction that people respond to, not the latest and greatest shader effect... most people don't care about what sort of shader fx are in the game so long as it is looks good.

as for the bad reviews, it is end users with expectations of what they think TGE should be, and after purchase, the bad feeling they get when their expectations are not met. Whether or not their expectations are realisitic is a much longer discussion (one worth talking about), but it comes down to people not getting 'something' they think they should have gotten for their money.

#16 @Joe:

Quote:as for the bad reviews, it is end users with expectations of what they think TGE should be, and after purchase, the bad feeling they get when their expectations are not met. Whether or not their expectations are realistic is a much longer discussion (one worth talking about), but it comes down to people not getting 'something' they think they should have gotten for their money.

Do you think the end user with expectations you stated are mainly new to game development ? What causes them to have these expectations of what TGE should be? Just curious.

#17 @Mark:

I can suggest you several reasons of why some people do bad reviews for Torque Game Engine:

1. They are trying to sell another engine, or they have friends who are trying to sell another engine, so they write bad opinions about their competitors sometimes.

2. They thought that Torque should be very easy, and they was disappointed that its almost impossible to make a quality game in 2-3 days using it.

3. The Torque Game Engine is a bit unusual for C++ programmers (I know, I am the C++ programmer for many years), because it has different concept which is closer to Macromedia Flash (my IMHO) than to C-like languages. I must say that it was a problem for me for some time, but its just a matter of time and patience to learn it.

Well, if you are looking for the easy engine which you can learn in several days and start making games - I suggest you to take a look at Blitz Basic and derivates. But if you are looking for the powerful and flexible engine which you can change as much as you want and where you can use the advantages of in-built visual editors - Torque is the right choice. But it can takes several weeks to learn it

As for the API documentation. Well, I had some problems and I was required to make some changes in the engine. It takes about 20 minutes for me to find the place of code which I wanted to change a bit. For a good C++ programmer, Torque Game Engine is very easy to understand. For the second year student who just started to learn C++ it should be a pain :)

After buying the engine, I am currently have another problem - what kind of game to do :) And I am happy that Torque allows me to not care about the technical part too much, but to concentrate myself on the creation of the game world. It really makes my life easier :)

#18

Quote:I call bullshit on this statement. World of Warcraft looks great (fantastic art direction) but is not what I would call cutting edge in the realm of graphics.

I would say the graphics are definitely on par or superioir to TSE (hard to say if TSE will be better when its done). They do use shaders and when you up all the setting the quality is really evident. I didn't say the game had to have cutting edge graphics, but they need modern graphics to compete in the mainstream market. Take a look at gamespots top 10 games list. Every game on there has excellent graphics (except maybe for a few last-gen console games). Now of course this is a generization, but its definitely true for the majority of blockbuster games.

I should also clarify and say that: Every top selling game out will have TSE quality graphics or better. As time goes by, selling a TGE product to mainstream gamers will become more and more diffucult.

#19 So TGE becomes an engine for making niche and casual games. Hardware for the general computer using populus is JUST NOW catching up to being able to run something like TGE. Then if you want to appeal to a more hardcore audience you go with TSE. But really, no small indie teams are going to create massive art content filled mainstream products. The people that make those products can afford whatever engine they want or make their own, so it's not even a relevant point to compare Torque to mainstream. Heck if they were smart, they could licencse TSE and save a ton of money, I'd love to see what a full proffesional development team could do using Torque.

#20 Peter, you need to do more graphics work. There is an important distinction between content and code, and it is subtile until you understand it.

Also, you're totally wrong on most other points too.