TorqueX equals an incomplete TGEA

#81 @James,

I am not going to post that. When I am ready to do so, I will do so, but that will not be now. If we put forth a list of what needs to be done, and then a list of what we are addressing, this would constitute a 'plan', and I am not going to promise that any plan will not change or that some item on the list will get accomplished.

I am not going to sign myself up for defending that I said, or someone felt that I implied, that any particular thing was going to be delivered by a certain time.

If your project is gated on a feature that you need that is not yet in, please do not wait for us to implement it if it is a gating factor in your plans and you have the capability to fix it. I am not going to promise that it will be done in a timeframe or a fashion that works for your project.

Note, I am not trying to 'offload' this or give the 'fix it yourself' line.. simply saying that I cannot make any decisions based on someone else's project being gated on the implementation of a certain feature or the functionality of such a feature, and I am saying that we may not be able to deliver that feature in a timeframe that is to your liking.

that being said, if you guys could aggregate a list of all the particular items that you feel are lacking into a concise and easy to parse list, it would be helpful.

I would love it if each of the complaints here ended up in a list that I could parse.


so, I am trying to get us back to the point where we can give you a lot of visibility into what is going on. The way we had it in the past was great for you guys, not so great for us. Here are some of the high points.


development HEAD shifted from being a true dev branch and became a de-facto release branch. Devs became reluctant to check in things that might 'break' HEAD as they would have to spend time telling everyone know.

Changes to HEAD would break resources, making it a support nightmare.

People not checking stuff in lead to a bunch of branches, and some of these 'branches' were not 'official' branches, but just people not checking stuff in until it was stable enough.

Bug reporting was inconsistent.. bugs in forums, bugs in trackers, many duplicates, bad repro scenarios, and the inclusion of resources into peoples builds made it hard to fix anything. It was difficult to ascertain what was a bug and what was a problem with a certain machine/resource/build configuration. This made for an almost infinite number of possible configuration scenarios that made it very hard to address issues.

rampant branching leads to merging nightmares and introduction of subtle bugs into the core.

the 'plan' right now is that we are changing that. First step, unfortunately, is to get out of the loop of putting out fires for one feature or another by concentrating on stabilization across all the engines and getting our testing process improved.

it is not sexy, it is hard work, it would not look impressive to anyone, and it does slow things down as we are working toward getting 'fixes' integrated across all engines and tested well.

We are not there yet, as even small changes could lead to an extensive regression test across all engine products.. therefore we are being careful and bundling changes and working toward a more sane testing plan and review of changes.

that is a very gross oversimplification of things, but we are tackling the problem.

when we are in position to communicate the changes and get stuff 'out there' in a way where we are properly setting expectations, we will do so.

so, please be understanding. We are not trying to be evasive.. what I am trying to do is not through out lists and then string people along with bullshit promises that I cannot keep.

We have a lot of work to do, and right now, the best service I can do for you guys is to focus my energies on the 'doing of it'. Communication and PR are certainly part of that 'doing it'.. and we are working on that as well.. but to me, it is first things first.. and please understand that there is a cost to visibility (for us) and that we are trying to reduce that cost in the interest of getting things done better faster so that we can make up for our slow deliveries.

The balance of communication of what is being done and actually getting it done is a balancing act, and right now we have swung the pendulum to the 'speed' side of the coin, and I am working toward getting the pendulum back toward the middle where we are having more visibility into the progress without incurring a slowdown.

I ask for a little bit more patience here, as this is a process that will not happen overnight, and rest assured that I am slowly working on making it better. Again, if this is unacceptable, then it is unacceptable to you.

ok, another day and I am off to fight the good fight.

#82

Quote:I am not going to post that. When I am ready to do so, I will do so, but that will not be now. If we put forth a list of what needs to be done, and then a list of what we are addressing, this would constitute a 'plan', and I am not going to promise that any plan will not change or that some item on the list will get accomplished.

I do not think it would constitute a plan. It would more reflect, a list of known issues acknowledged by GG as "OK, this list we know these things are broke/missing". The next list would only have those items on it that Have been addressed for the next release.. not planned to be addressed. How could anyone look at that and think GG has promised anything? Don't tell us what your planning, keep us informed of what you acknowledge as an issue, and a list of what HAS been addressed as they are addressed towards the next release. Keep your plans private, that way if something doesnt turn out as it should.. nobody is the wiser, since all we would see is what was successfully implemented.

Another suggestion.. lets clean up the bug reporting section and have people check previously reported bugs as to not duplicate posts. Pre 1.0.2 and after 1.0.2 to keep things organized. dunno.. just trying to think of some things to help out.

#83

Quote:
Andrew Brady said:
I do not think it would constitute a plan.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that they published milestone lists in the past and they took a lot of heat for it when they couldn't meet these lists. Instead of trying to push these lists out, they now announce features when they know they are ready to do so.

#84 One thing that I am curious about is that I keep hearing "feature complete" thrown around in these threads and no one seems to want to say what features they think should be complete. GL support was announced before ATLAS terrain was announced. Does that mean that OS X support is part of this "feature complete" phrase that is thrown around. Some scream yes, some don't care. The one thing that I've seen in here and other threads that makes sense in terms of "feature complete"-ness is shadows on ATLAS terrain.

That's why I liked Joe's request to create a featurelist. I'm curious as well since I often hear the words "promises" and "feature complete" thrown around, but no real indication of what they were. This thread was a little clearer than others before it in that regard, but not by much.

#85

Quote:That's not what he's saying. He's saying that they published milestone lists in the past and they took a lot of heat for it when they couldn't meet these lists. Instead of trying to push these lists out, they now announce features when they know they are ready to do so.

In my last post, I did not suggest a milestone list of planned features. That's like saying I cant request a fan because they couldnt fix the air conditioner. And advising features the day they are released, isnt an announcement (which at least was very nicely given to us by Andy for 1.0.2.. though we still have not received anything for contructor 1.0.3)

And it probably doesn't help that there are two separate issues being discussed here at this point.

I do like Joe's idea for the featurelist.. as long as peoples don't try and turn it into their xmas list.





edited- I put the wrong staff's name

#86 Yeah for me currently the shadow issue is the biggest one there is. But that is just me personally

#87

Quote:
Andrew Brady said:
And advising features the day they are released, isnt an announcement

Announcing features when they know they are ready to do so is hardly the same as announcing them when they are released, please calm down.

Quote:
Andrew Brady said:
I do like Joe's idea for the featurelist.. as long as peoples don't try and turn it into their xmas list.

This is the point I was trying to get across earlier. It doesn't matter what we think, there will always be people who think these lists are set in stone, and they buy the product based on that. The milstone list had a little disclaimer on the bottom which said "Subject to change" but that didn't prevent anyone from starting threads that got into the 100's of replies, complaining about a certain dropped feature.

That's a mistake they don't want to repeat. I do agree a wish-list from the community would be cool, but it won't be anything more than that and they can't obviously comment on what in that list is being worked on.

#88

Quote:Announcing features when they know they are ready to do so is hardly the same as announcing them when they are released, please calm down.

How is this different than what I asked for, other than what I stated is more structured? My point was, I have not seen them do this; only after the fact (in recent times). I'm not looking for flashy announcements making headlines like..um.. "We will be implementing Stencil shadows for everything!!" I was more suggesting somthing like this:

List 1: Known issues that GG is currently aware of

1) .......
2) ....... etc

List 2: Items that have been fixed towards the next release

1) .....
2) .....


Nowhere in there is a promise.. nowhere in there is a potential issue to falsely raise expectations.







Thanks for your concern, but I was never agitated. :)

#89 Andrew,

I see what you are saying. But it doesn't change the fact that some people do think they are promises. Some people do get their hopes up. Some people even change their own development schedules in expectation of issues getting resolved based on a published list like that.

History has shown us that there are a lot of these people. Just because you don't think it's a list of promises. Just because you won't falsely raise your expectations doesn't make it reality for other people.

Even when we repeatedly say to not schedule / task your game around these lists people do it anyway. And then complain when their deadline has passed and we don't have anything for them yet.

#90 Robert,

lol.. I don't really know what to say to that. People need to understand that plans.. are just that, plans.. nothing more. If a team takes it upon themselves to bet their project on a feature that is NOT in their hands, then thats a risk they decide to take. There has got to be a way... I'll wait patiently and see what you guys come up with.

#91 There's a difference between adding new features and fixing existing problems. I think you should really make promises about fixing problems, that's how it usually works.
If you dont want to advertise new features until they're ready, that's fine. But please try to understand that people who buy your engine really expect to buy an usable, finished product, which more or less resembles what you advertise on your website.
If they buy it, then they find out that it doesnt have some of the features they expected (and that should be there... expecting shadows on terrain is not that unreasonable, is it), they're gonna be frustrated and their projects will have to be stopped.
Ok, we could maybe write some code for those shadows and fix them ourselves, but not everybody can do that. People buy an engine to make a game, not to write an engine. I think it should be one of your highest priority to say "sorry guys, these features you expected are missing but we promise they will be ready by day X". Provided that expectations are reasonable.
If you cant do that because your company isn't big enough, or your coders are not reliable enough, or whatever, then be completely honest when you advertise your products. In the page that compares TGEA vs TGE for instance, write in bold capital letters: warning, no shadows on terrain, no terrain editor, etc.
And maybe dont delete negative reviews ( like mine, that got deleted twice :) ) that highlight the fact that some features are missing.

#92 Not to change the subject but I was thinking about how the "Code of Silence" got started. It was really during Constructor development. When a developer said yeah constructor will be ready at GDC or something to that effect. Then when it didn't materialize there nothing from GG for 6 months to a year.

That is when the Mob turned ugly. It was not that it was a promise that you didn't keep or that it was even consirdered a promise. As soon as GG knoew that the release date was going to be blown "and it was by almost 2 years I think" someone prolly matt himself should have gone in to the forums and said hey we have huge problems here and we are not going to be able it. It is going to take a lot more time.

I think if someone would have faced the music in the begining. Things would be alot different now. I think people would have accepted it and taken it stride. It was not the broken promise that caused the complaining it was the no explanation or communication of any kind afterwards. If you noticed here in this thread there is a definate differnce in tone once the communication starts becoming two way.

Without information, people speculate. That is most often not going to be in your favor. Please try to remember this an lets keep up the communication. It is what is best for GG as well what is best for the community as a whole.

It is my hope that the progress made in this thread continues.

#93 Constructor may have started the ire, or at least fanned the flames of it greatly, but people's most vocal complaints about TGEA are often in what they considered promises or their view of feature complete-ness.

#94 I would be happy with a list of acknowledged issues or things that are intentionally "not there." Often times when I run into a problem I don't know if its my issue or an engine issue. If I could cross-reference with a list of known issues then I'd know where to look (at least). Then I could pick the issues that are the biggest inhibitors to our project and fix them. At that point I'd be glad to share that fix.

#95

Quote:
David Blake:
Constructor may have started the ire, or at least fanned the flames of it greatly, but people's most vocal complaints about TGEA are often in what they considered promises or their view of feature complete-ness.

It was for the most part things that were on the milstone list that never made it in. Dynamic lighting/shadows, New Waterblocks, Atlas Editors, Audio Support, OpenGL support, Vehicle support, Optimizations (Batcher) and more I can't remember.

Edit: Of those mentioned, 2 (and a half - lighting/shadows on Atlas) didn't make it.

#96 Yeah the shadows thing is the only one that has realy effected me alot

#97 @Joe:

I sent you a mail with some information that can benefit you and GG.

#98 Wow you GG guys are in a hard place, as professional developers we have all been in this situation and i feel for you. It does end in the end you know, eventually your problems will start to move.

I appreciate the honesty though and it helps me understand what is happening. We are about a year behind on our project though but then again it is only a hobby.

#99 I've tried really hard this past year or so to avoid reading posts such as this, but every now and then someone asks me to check one over. Ranters and whiners, with or without a valid point just aren't much fun.
TGEA is an advanced engine. If you bought it, one would assume you were an advanced coder. I bought it almost the day it was available, and yes a lot was promised. I knew some of this would not come to fruition, some would but in a lesser form, and a few things never mentioned would probably wind up included. I've had plenty of my own frustrations with various TGEA projects, but never would I consider GG negligent in it's duties to me. The people you're giving grief to with accusations of such, fully do not deserve it. One of the employees in this thread used to (and may still) drop everything they were doing to personally help someone in need. If he wasn't able to immediately, he would apologize of all things!
Point is; if you have a particular problem(s) with your advanced engine that stops further progress, fix it, add it, write it! If you don't know how, learn. Promised or not by GG, you still need to know how it's done. That's your job as the coder of your project :P

#100 No disrespect intended Erik, for I mainly agree with your points.. to a degree. But, calling people ranters and whiners while touting the old ism of "it an't broke if you fix it" doesn't much help. That's like buying a new car with no transmission and being told.. thats your problem. even a seasoned mechanic wouldn't go for that lol.